#edgar norfolk

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Hotel Splendide (1932) Michael Powell

March 16th 2024

[whencyclopedia]

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American author and poet, often credited as the father of the short story, a pioneer of science fiction, the inventor of the detective story, and the master of the horror genre. He is best known for his poems The Raven, Annabel Lee, and Helen, the short stories The Fall of the House of Usher, The Cask of Amontillado, and The Masque of Red Death; and the detective story The Purloined Letter.

Poe was one of the most influential writers in his own time as well as generations later. Robert Mead in his Literature of the American Nation wrote that Poe's stories, poems and essays, "convey the conviction of intensity felt experience, the authority of extraordinary intelligence. That was Poe's genius" (71). One of his best themes is the difficulty of establishing a discrete limit between the living and the dead, the exploration of the border between things that one may wish to remain separate: life from death, the human from the animal, and the real from the imaginary.

Although Poe was a brilliant writer, his life was one of poverty and misery, and his short stories and poems reflect the deep sense of loss Poe experienced throughout his life. Charlotte Montagne in her book on Poe called him a giant of American literature "but his life was a disaster, a tale of unremitting misery, constant poverty and repented frustration and disappointment" (Intro). He was the first American writer to try to support his family through his writing. Unfortunately, he failed. While he may have lived in poverty, he changed American literature forever. Despite his tragic death at the age of 40, he left behind over 70 macabre stories, poems, and one novel "filled with suspense and brilliantly twisted plots." (Montagne, Intro)

Early Life

Edgar Allan Poe was born on 19 January 1809 in a boarding house near the Boston Commons in Boston, Massachusetts. Mead wrote that, from the beginning, his life seemed destined for destruction. Both of his parents were actors, not a respectable occupation at the time. His father, David Poe, Jr. (1784-1811) was a member of the Boston Thespian Group. He proved to be a major disappointment to his parents, who wanted him to become a lawyer. He and Elizabeth (Eliza) Arnold Hopkins, an expatriate English actress, met in Norfolk, Virginia, and were soon married. She was a widow. Her husband Charles Hopkins had died six months earlier. Poe's brother William Henry was born nine months later in 1807; he would die in 1831 of tuberculosis.

David and Eliza traveled the theater circuit up and down the East Coast leaving young Poe and his sister Rosalie (1810-1874) with David's parents David Sr. and Elizabeth in Baltimore. By 1811, David had abandoned his family. Never getting any respect for his acting ability, his stage career had stalled owing to his heavy drinking. He died in December of 1811 in Norfolk. Considered a talented actress by most reviewers, Eliza became ill with tuberculosis and died at the age of 24 on 8 December 1811. The young couple died within three days of each other.

Although he was only two years old, with little memory of his father, many believe Poe inherited his father's character and bad habits. Since his grandparents were financially unable to care for Poe and his little sister, Rosalie was adopted by the Richmond merchant William Mackenzie. Although never formally adopted, Poe was taken in by John Allan, a tobacco merchant and his wife Frances. Poe was given Allan as his middle name. John was said to be impulsive and quick-tempered, but Poe wanted for nothing. He was encouraged and given opportunities to indulge in his literary pursuits. He had the unique ability at a young age to memorize and recite long passages of poetry.

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[forasecondtherewedwon]

seven degrees east - chapter one

Fandom: Masters of the Air Pairings: Gale x Bucky; Nash x Helen; more tbd Rating: T (may change) Chapter: 1 / ? Word Count: 3798

Summary: It's 1996. Soundgarden's on the radio, Charles and Diana are headed for divorce, and seven American PhD candidates are studying literature at the University of Thorpe Abbotts in Norfolk, England. Between taking Prof. Harding's summer class and obsessing over their favourite authors, the boys will kick asses when they must, and fall in love if they can.

Spring was about to fall headlong into summer and Bubbles had decided Princess Di was the woman for him. They were all in love with her. Tabloid magazine photos of Diana in black and lavender—torn with care along the crease—decorated the walls of their dorms, overlapping posters for Superunknown and Crimson Tide, pieces they’d had published in the literary journal, and mundane scraps of paper elevated by their status as vessels for the phone numbers of girls they’d met at parties. Naturally, their Princess took supremacy, especially as they expected imminent, official news of her divorce from Charles. Lucky Bubbles.

It was mid-June 1996. They spent their days horny and sunburnt from laying out on the school’s big English lawn. These long stretches of apparent leisure were punctuated by the summer course in which they were all enrolled: “Thoreau’s Walden,” taught by Professor Harding. He was transparently attempting to instill in them a sense of self-reliance alongside an understanding of transcendentalist thought. The class wasn’t mandatory—the rest of their cohort would rejoin them in September—but their small group comprised a brotherhood of dedicated scholars. (Dedicated to having fewer courses to take come fall semester.)

Bubbles was their Great American Novel man, obsessed with Faulkner’s long sentences and Steinbeck’s long books. Crosby envied and lionized his best friend’s focus, but had come to accept that he was irresistibly drawn to the lower-brow, femme-fatale charm of Chandler and Hammett’s hard-boiled novels. Robert “Rosie” Rosenthal was their resident 19th-centuryist, plotting the spread of both his dissertation and his mustache on the fertile—if possibly cursed—intellectual ground of Edgar Allan Poe. Herbert Nash was Rosie’s chronological compatriot. Though he’d begun the doctoral program with a proposed focus on the works of Mark Twain, he had a literary wandering eye for anything that struck him as romantic. In the face of Nash’s flakiness, Curt fought (sometimes physically) for the pure pleasure of reading, but then he was often under the hedonistic, lunar-like sway of Oscar Wilde—a deviation (guided, he claimed, by his Irish heritage) from the later, hedonistic influence of his preferred poison: the Beat Generation.

If their ragtag band of chronic dogear-ers had a leader, it should’ve been Jack Kidd. Kidd was an upper year student, nearly finished with his PhD (unless his PhD finished with him first). He was secretive, perpetually put-upon, and capable of delivering heart-shattering criticism in a tone that made it sound like mercy. In short, he was everything they longed to be. When asked about the subject of his dissertation, he would drop his face into his hands with all the enthusiasm and surrender to gravity of a bridge suicide. In lieu of possessing the middle-aged-divorcé jadedness that seemed to come naturally to Kidd despite his being only 29, the seven younger candidates had taken up smoking the preceding November.

Because they did need a leader to make sure they did things like readings and laundry and correcting their posture after hours spent curled over, under, and around the library’s long oak tables, they had Bucky. And they had Buck, because it was smart to have a backup. “Bucky” was really John, and “Buck” was Gale, and when any of the other five called them out on being pretentious fucks, they would both grin and offer no correction. While John directed his furrowed brow at Lost Generation titans like Hemingway, Stein, and Fitzgerald, Gale was dreamily engrossed in a fin-de-siècle love affair with Henry James. At any given time, at least three of them (including John) were waiting for the pair to realize that who they were actually head over heels for was each other.

They were all students at Thorpe Abbotts—the Norfolk satellite campus of the Connecticut university. They knew people studying Goethe and Voltaire, Tolstoy and Shakespeare and García Márquez, seriously, they did. They just happened to be a collection of Americans reading Americans. In England. For one reason and another, they’d decided to study overseas, intrigued by the allure of matched tuition fees, rainy reading weather, and the proximity to older and fancier universities, which were fun to visit if they were looking to instigate a winnable fight against other easily-provoked academics.

That particular evening, they descended upon a bar favoured by students from the University of East Anglia. John and Rosie had both offered to drive. To decide who’d had to go with John (concealed as who’d wanted to go with John), Crosby had flipped a coin—well, a double-sided Batman pog he’d produced with minor embarrassment after fishing around in his pocket for a coin. As a result, Gale and Curt tumbled from John’s Wrangler (Gale from the passenger’s seat, Curt from the bench in the rear) looking half-drunk already from John’s weaving, lead-footed panache behind the wheel. Rosie pulled up smoothly, with no complaints from Bubbles, who might not have complained even if they’d slid into the parking lot on their roof, Crosby, whose motion sickness had not been triggered, or Nash, who’d ironed a shirt for this outing in hopes of meeting a nice girl. The rest had openly teased him, then tried not to feel self-conscious about their own attire.

“You look like Hugh Grant,” John leveled at Nash when he saw him sweeping his hair back as they made for the bar.

“Thanks.”

“Wasn’t a compliment.”

Fortunately for Nash, he was impervious to most insults. John knew this and took it as licence to tease him all the more.

“Ladies love Hugh Grant,” Nash reasoned.

“Don’t say ladies,” Curt whined. “Fuck’s wrong with you?”

“The thing Hugh Grant has going for him is he’s British,” John explained.

“And he’s a movie star,” Gale offered, nonpartisan.

“Stellar addition, Buck: and he’s a movie star.” He turned back to Nash. “You’re non-movie-star, American Hugh Grant. Capisce?”

“Don’t say capisce.” Curt took out his frustration on the loose chunk of asphalt he booted across the parking lot.

“Ah, don’t listen to him, Nash,” Rosie instructed, slinging an arm around Nash’s neck and hauling him close so his steps stuttered and skipped.

“You look good, Nash,” Gale said.

“Like a real gentleman.”

“Too bad he’s just Nash disguised as a gentleman,” John lamented with a grin.

Nash cracked a telling smile.

“Whaddaya think, Croz?” John demanded. He looked around and found Crosby and Bubbles trailing them, laughing about something that was part of their own conversation. “Croz! Nash in disguise! This some kinda hard-boiled, sleazy villain shit?”

Crosby shrugged.

“Nash is Nash.”

“Nash is Nash,” Bubbles agreed, and then they were all saying it, speaking over one another, until their voices dropped into sync and it turned into a chant as they shoved into the warmth of the bar.

They fell into a booth together, then forced Crosby and Bubbles back out to get the first round since neither of them had driven and even if you tried to send one without the other, they’d both go anyway, as though attached by a tether. They returned with pitchers.

“Croz got carded,” Bubbles gleefully announced, handing out glasses from the stack in his hand.

Everyone awwwed. Crosby erupted in a flaming blush.

“Don’t worry about it, Croz,” Gale told him. Crosby nodded gratefully, but then Gale tacked on, “When I was your age—”

Crosby’s protestation that they were the same age had Rosie laughing until he had tears in his eyes. He tilted sideways into Nash, who did his best to scoot away.

“I love you Rosie, but I will slash your fucking tires if you wrinkle my shirt.”

This just made Rosie laugh harder.

“You alright to drive back?” John checked with Gale, leaning in to speak quietly below the hilarity.

“I gotcha, man.”

John nudged Crosby out of the booth a second time and came back with a pitcher of water for Gale, who’d smoke weed and cigarettes with the rest of them but drew the line at carbonation. Crosby’s hand hesitated between the pitchers of beer and water.

“I’ll drive,” Rosie assured him, brushing away Crosby’s wordless offer with a wave of his hand.

Crosby looked relieved to be let off the hook. He poured himself a beer.

John pointed at Rosie.

“You’re too damn self-sacrificing.”

“Maybe you’re too sac-selfrificing,” Curt countered, making John twist to face him with an expression of extreme indignation.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“You wanna take this outside?” John squared his shoulders. Even though it was all in play, Gale held out his hand, palm down, suggesting they chill out a little. They’d been bounced from this bar before.

“Might as well stay put,” Curt said. “If I knock you on your ass while you’re already sittin’ down, you got less far to fall.”

John smacked the brim of Curt’s ballcap down over his eyes and they broke into a scuffle in the booth, legs scrabbling beneath the table, Curt giggling wildly as he jerked away from John’s hands while protesting that he couldn’t see. Crosby, sitting on Curt’s other side, attempted to right his hat, but ended up having to dodge Curt’s elbow instead.

“Bets?” Rosie asked.

“What’s on the table?” Bubbles wondered. Somebody’s knee slammed the actual table from underneath and Bubbles’ hand shot out to steady his glass. “Figuratively.”

“Losers have to format the winners’ essay citations.”

“That’s not ba—”

Crosby saw Gale whack the back of his hand into Bubbles’ chest to shut him up, but it was too late. Rosie was grinning.

“And type up their essay.”

They groaned. Bubbles, Nash, and Crosby shook their heads, bowing out, but Gale stuck out his hand for Rosie to shake.

“You’re on,” he said.

“Who’s your money on?” Rosie asked.

“Who d’you think?” Nash cut in.

It really was silly to ask; Gale took John’s side in everything, always. Crosby was going to point that out, begin recalling supporting evidence, but John started fighting really dirty—his hands dove to Curt’s sides, tickling hard, and Curt hopped back. Crosby bailed out of the booth and stood.

“Maybe they should take it outside,” Bubbles observed, reading Crosby’s concern on his face before he could voice it.

Just then, there was a scoff: “Typical.”

John ceased his attack on Curt as they turned to look with the others. Curt fixed his hat. There were three guys standing there, just past Crosby, who took a step towards the table to show his allegiance. Like most people they encountered off the Thorpe Abbotts campus, the trio were British. They looked about their age, maybe a little younger, and enough sheets to the wind not to mind that there were fewer of them than members of the group they’d accosted.

The pause after that single word seemed to go on and on. None of the seven had a doubt in their mind that it was a criticism of their behaviour—their Americanness. The Brits would expect them to get angry, to fly from their booth and jab their impolite American fingers in their faces, wet American spittle spraying from their mouths as they shouted rude American words. They didn’t know that this was what these particular Americans did for fun. That even now, in the pause, they were just deciding how they wanted this one to go.

“Can we help you?” Gale asked calmly, while his compatriots wordlessly downed their drinks.

“We’re just fine,” one of them replied. “Try helping yourselves.”

Gale glanced around at his friends as though confused.

“Did one of you need help with something?” he asked.

Curt had just poured himself a second beer. He held up a finger, signally for everyone to wait as he took a long swallow. He sighed in satisfaction.

“I actually do need help,” he said, looking not at Gale but at the Brits.

“Want us to teach you to tie your shoes?” a different one taunted.

“Nah,” Curt said, tone dangerously placid to the ears of his friends. “Nah, got that one figured out. I actually got a question for you: loserssaywhat?”

The first one frowned, head cocking slightly.

“What?”

Rosie guffawed, prompting the change in the trio’s expressions: superior to insulted. Angry. But Curt was beaming. He took another swallow of beer before slowly enunciating, “Losers. Say. What.”

And then he burped so loudly that Crosby, recounting the story to Kidd later that night, would swear it shook the walls.

“That wasn’t part of the question,” Curt clarified.

The strangers surged towards the booth and Crosby got in their way, Bubbles and Gale jumping up too to put a wall between them and Curt.

Gale said one word to them, and he said it like an order: “Outside.”

“Fucking right, outside,” was thrown back at him.

The three on their feet watched the Brits out the door, then turned back to the group.

“Who’s holding down the fort?” John asked.

“Not me,” Curt said. He clambered from the booth and started shadow boxing. As he ducked and wove, eyes fixed on an invisible opponent, John spun his hat around, brim at the back.

“Let’s all go,” Nash said from his spot against the wall. “Nobody’s gonna…”

He trailed off as his gaze landed on something beyond their prizefighting trickster, beyond the inseparable Bubbles and Crosby, beyond the deep-running still waters of Gale. There was a girl. A beautiful girl. Thick, dark hair, talking with another girl Nash barely noticed. As he watched, she laughed. She was even more beautiful when she laughed.

“Actually, I’ll stay,” he amended distractedly. He tilted his head to see around Curt as Curt decided to add footwork to his routine. “The rest of you can fuck off.”

Rosie looked where Nash was looking and smirked.

“Ah, no way, buddy. Wouldn’t leave you here all alone!”

“No more than three of us can go,” John declared. “It’s not…”

“Sportsmanlike,” Gale supplied.

John snapped his fingers and agreed, “Sportsmanlike.”

“I guess it’s you three then,” Bubbles deduced glumly, glancing between John, Gale, and Curt.

“Sure is,” John said, considerably more gleeful. He rose and clapped Bubbles on the shoulder. “Hang tight.”

“But—”

“If you go, Croz’ll come too, and we can’t go five-against-three; they’ll think we’re chickenshits.”

“Who cares about their opinion?” Crosby wanted to know.

“Me,” Curt said. He stuck out his lower lip in a pout. “They hurt my feelings.”

Crosby rolled his eyes.

“Get the fuck outta here.”

“Yeah, and do us proud!” Rosie shouted at their backs as Gale, Curt, and John trekked towards the exit. John pumped his fist into the air.

When they’d gone, Rosie smiled slyly at Nash.

“So. Are we calling her over here?”

“What?”

“YO!” Rosie yelped at the top of his lungs.

The girl, her friend, and a dozen other people in the crowded bar turned their heads, searching for the source of the sound.

“What the hell?!” Nash blurted.

Rosie frowned at him.

“You think she’s pretty, right?”

“Duh. Look at her—”

“MY FRIEND THINKS YOU’RE PRETTY! YEAH, YOU! BLUE SHIRT!”

“If I wanted her to think I was a total jackass—” Nash began.

“You’ll get your chance. I just got you started. Wave her over.”

“You ever think there’s a reason you don’t have a girlfriend?”

Nash slid along the seat until he was free of them all, though Crosby did offer an encouraging thumbs-up.

“Watch and learn,” he called over his shoulder. He locked eyes with the girl—the beautiful girl, who was miraculously staring back at him with an expression of amusement rather than scorn—as he headed her way.

—

Outside, the tension was thickening. The Brits should’ve gotten some kind of points for holding their ground, John thought, because they looked nervous now that he, Gale, and Curt were all on their feet, not folded up in that booth. He lifted his chin and squared his shoulders to make himself as big as possible. And he smiled, not as massive as Curt though. That seemed to be pissing them off, maybe making them stay: that Curt was full-on grinning.

“Thorpe Abbott?” the mouthiest of the three asked, like an accusation.

“Abbotts, numb nuts,” Curt corrected.

“What do they grade you with there? Scratch-and-sniff stickers?”

“I wish!” John said. There was a threatening gleam in his eyes.

“You know it doesn’t mean anything when they give you all hundreds right? Your degrees don’t mean shit.”

“It actually does mean something,” Curt said. He suddenly sounded so serious that his friends looked at him from the corner of their eyes. “We go in this special room, ’k? Maybe not so fancy as the rooms at wherever you boys go—”

“East Anglia,” was offered.

Curt nodded.

“Yep, Easy Anglia, whatever. But we go in this room and then—true story—this woman shows up. Like, our dean calls her up to let her know another one of us special boys—”

“Us special American boys,” Gale emphasized.

“—got himself another fuckin’ hundred. Takes her maybe half an hour to show up. And then, guess what, you guys?” Curt looked at the befuddled Brits eagerly. “She blows us.”

Their reaction was a blend of highly skeptical and stunned by the turn Curt’s story had taken. Shit’s sake, Curt, John was thinking. This is gonna be a hell of a fight.

“And, you know, she did mention she had a son,” Curt said measuredly, homing in on the mouthy guy now, “but, damn, you’re her spittin’ fuckin’ image.”

The Brits lunged at them.

—

Nash wanted to ask her to dance, to hold her by the hips and sway along to whatever rhythm she chose. He didn’t care if it didn’t match the beat of the music. He didn’t care that no one else was dancing, or that this wasn’t really a place where people did that. “Helen,” she’d said her name was.

“You read much?” he asked stupidly, but he wanted her to like him more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. More than anyone in the history of humankind had ever even dreamed their descendants could want. The only thing he could think to talk about was books. Talking about books, he could start to sound smart again, reassemble his brain in the background while most of him got lost in Helen’s eyes.

“Yes.”

Nash loved how she said yes. His heart, thumping happily in his chest loved it. The rush of blood to his groin loved it. The sound of “yes” in her mouth. She was American. He tried not to think how easy it would be, the two of them moving back home after school. Or staying here, a pair of expats. Whatever she’d prefer.

“I’m actually studying creative writing.”

“Where?” he asked, starry-eyed.

Her eyes darted to her friend before returning to his face. The reaction said he was being sort of stupid now, but then her expression shifted to something like guilt. She’d felt bad for thinking it. for writing him off so quickly.

“At the University of East Anglia.”

“Oh. So, like, right nearby.”

“Right nearby,” she confirmed. “Hence…” She glanced around. Hence this bar. Hence. Totally. Nash gave her a smile, weak with adoration.

“Why there?” he asked.

“Kazuo Ishiguro studied there. I admire his work.”

“I loved The Remains of the Day.”

Helen smiled at him. The clouds parted. Probably.

“Me too,” she said. “Are you in the arts as well?”

“English,” he told her. “Thorpe Abbotts. Working on my PhD.”

She was sufficiently engaged now that her friend moved off, giving them space.

“What’s your field?”

“American,” he admitted, and she got it, and she laughed. An American studying Americans in England. He shrugged, embracing her reaction.

“Who do you like?”

You. But she’d meant which authors.

“Twain,” Nash said, “and Hawthorne.”

Helen’s eyes lit up.

“Yes! My greatest influences are second-wave. You know, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem’s exposé on the Playboy Club, obviously…”

“Well, sure,” Nash said, just keeping up as she spoke in an impassioned rush.

“But I love the early feminists too. Hawthorne and Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Alcott.”

“Little Women!”

“It’s probably still my favourite novel of all time.”

For the first time, Nash took a careful, calculated pause, and he gave her a look. A Nash look. It was a look that usually communicated let’s get out of here, but this time, he wanted more. He’d worn the shirt.

“I’ve never met anybody who was as much of a Jo as you are,” he said, meaning it.

It was noisy, but he heard Helen’s pleased gasp. That she was actually an Amy was something Helen had not yet admitted to herself, and so Nash’s compliment hit its target with full effect. He watched as her lips parted—to thank him? to kiss him? to say some other unforeseen thing that would change his life even further? make him feel the earth move under his feet? did she like Carole King?—but there was a hard tug on his elbow.

Nash turned to find Bubbles standing there. He was the one person Nash wouldn’t snap at for interrupting, and the others knew that. He’d been sent.

“I am so sorry,” Bubbles said, addressing Helen. He was beginning to slur his S’s. “I gotta steal him back for a minute.”

“I swear my friends don’t speak for me,” Nash said as Bubbles physically dragged him away from the conversation. “I know it’s happened twice now, but they don’t!”

Was it worth it, to be removed from Helen’s side and brought back to the booth? Nash was surprised to feel that it almost was—almost—when his eyes landed on their smiling trio of champions. Gale had a cut on his cheek where a fist must’ve connected, or at least glanced off; John had the dark promise of a bruise below one eye; and Curt didn’t have a scratch on him. Nash laughed, shaking his head.

“What was he tryin’ to say though?” John was asking.

“Mumbling some shit about our hundreds,” Gale replied. “Our ‘bloody hundreds.’”

“Yeah,” Curt said. “But it was after I’d clocked him square in the mouth. That’s why he was lispin’. ‘Bloody hundredth,’ it sounded like.” He chuckled. “Bloody hundredth.”

“To the Bloody Hundredth,” Crosby proposed, raising his beer.

Rosie passed Nash his refilled glass, then lifted his own for the toast.

“Bloody Hundredth,” the rest of them intoned.

“And to Princess Diana,” Bubbles’ voice rang out when the rest of them had a glass to their lips. “Wherever she may be tonight.”

Crosby adopted an expression of deep solemnity, but Rosie ruined it by snorting into his water.

“Alright, men,” John addressed them. “Back into the booth. We got some fuckin’ drinking to do.”

“Spoken like a true Hemingway scholar,” Gale observed.

John gave him an affectionate smile.

“I try.”

[hellofanidea]

Dealers choice 43 and 47 on the clothes prompt list 👀

A bloodstained uniform + Rolled up shirtsleeves, Arthur Foster (MOTA AU)

The second raid over Bremen kills Blue Moon's navigator.

All it takes is some well placed flak and George Hatch is knocked out of his seat and onto his ass, screaming about the holes in him. His blood gets all over the maps, and it's nothing short of a miracle that they actually make it back to Thorpe Abbotts.

His blood also gets all over Arthur, who spends the last half of their mission trying to hold his insides together. It doesn't work. Hatch is dead before Blue Moon lowers her landing gear.

They have to peel him out of Arthur’s arms.

He doesn't move after, just stays staring at the spot where he was, the holes in the side of the fort where the killing blow entered. Morse has to come back in and bodily drag him out by his harness. He slides out like a newborn foal, gets a face full of tarmac when his knees don't work, and feels himself get scruffed into the truck waiting to take them to interrogation like a disobedient dog.

Their co-pilot is being taken away in an ambulance with a fucked up leg, along with their waist gunner and radioman. None of the others can look at him. Arthur can’t blame them. He’s stained red from chin to knee. His nose had crunched when he’d fallen out of the fort, and now he can feel the blood from that slowly trickling down his face to join Hatch’s.

The Clubmobile girls, usually so unflappable, blanche when they see him. Doc Stover grabs for him, but Arthur waves him off, wiping at his nose with his sleeve despite the blinding pain it brings.

“S not mine. ‘S not mine. ‘S Georgie’s.”

Stover lets him go, but Tatty pulls him aside by the elbow, forces a glass of whiskey into his hands, and doesn’t let go until he’s knocked it back. It mixes poorly with the metallic taste in the back of his mouth, but the burn is comforting.

“Thanks,” he murmurs to her, and hopes she knows how much he means it.

Hatch's logs are, understandably, incomplete. Arthur reads out what he can of them. Stutters, and stumbles, and the pity in Red's face as he listens is worse than any frustration at his incompetence. He wants somebody to yell at him, shake him, tell him to get a grip on himself. He needs somebody to come rip him out of the hazy, distant, place he's been sunk into since Hatch had wheezed his last into his neck.

Jimmy Douglass would have done it. Would have rattled him by the shoulders until some sense had been knocked back into his fellow bombardier, and then dragged him along to the O Club to take his mind off of things. Would have cracked a shitty joke and nudged him to dance with a Red Cross girl until the pain was back to its usual dull ache.

Douglass isn’t here though, like the rest of the crew of Just-a-Snappin’, like the crew of Our Baby, like the six other forts that went down. Eighty men. Eighty one including Lieutenant George Edgar Hatch, navigator and son and husband and father.

He’d never even held Abigail. She’d been born after they shipped to England, six pounds and seven ounces and with a head full of hair, and they had drunk Norfolk dry toasting her.

Arthur doesn’t hear the dismissal, but Morse’s hand is more gentle this time when she guides him by his collar.

“C’mon,” she says. “Let's get you cleaned up.”

She leads him out of the hut, and he’s barely cognizant of his surroundings until he hears a hissed ‘Jesus Christ!’ from the group of men huddled by one of the doors. Veal and Bubbles are staring at him with open horror, Crank’s crew not looking much happier even though they’d already seen him in interrogation.

“‘S not mine,” Arthur mutters again, sniffing and swallowing a blood clot he really should have spit onto the grass.

“You feeling alright?” Crank asks cautiously.

“Peachy.” This time when he sniffs he does spit, turning away and shooting the vivid red glob between his teeth. “Fuckin’ aces, Charlie.”

“I got him, he’s fine,” Morse says firmly, taking him by the elbow and marching them away.

He needs a shower. Some more whiskey. A nap. His father to rise from the dead and be in England so he can pet his hair and tell him how to live through a man dying in his arms.

The irony of that last one isn’t lost on Arthur. Thomas Foster didn’t live through that either, it just took him a while to die.

Getting a shower at least is feasible. One bonus of walking around the base looking like something out of a nightmare is that when he steps into their block it very quickly empties out, and Morse stands a vicious guard at the door whilst he scrubs off the now dried blood and changes into his uniform. It helps him feel a little more human, even with the blossoming bruise on his nose and the black eyes that will rise any time soon.

His flight gear is pretty much ruined, especially the sheepskin, which has gone a muddy pink and looks distressingly like rotting meat. Smells it, too, and Arthur abandons it all after emptying the pockets. There’s blood on his pack of smokes, and he considers tossing them out of spite, but the craving wins out so he lights one as he waits outside for Morse to clean herself up. With his face tilted up towards the sky the last dregs of blood and mucus slip down his throat. He chainsmokes away the taste until Morse emerges, hair still damp but neatly combed. Unflappable as ever, his pilot.

“I’m gonna go to the hospital, check on the boys. You comin’?” She asks.

Normally Arthur would say yes without hesitation, but this time he actually thinks about it. Then he shakes his head.

“Naw. Give ‘em my love, though. Think I’m gonna sack out for a while.”

Morse gives him a long, searching, look, then nods.

“Course. Get some rest. I’ll swing by our racks later, make sure you get some dinner.”

Arthur isn’t sure he can stomach anything, but thanks her anyway. She splits off to medical, and Arthur makes his way back to the barracks. There's a mostly full flask slid down the side of his locker he should be able to get away with drinking until he knocks out. Maybe that way he'll be too out of it when she comes around.

Marta's already sitting on his bunk when he gets there. Not a hair out of place as usual, except for how her jacket is off and her sleeves are rolled above her elbows, even in the chill of an English October. There’s a sketchpad and pencil in her lap, with a figure Arthur can’t make out yet.

For a brief, fierce, moment he hates her. Hates her for being here, for seeing him, knowing him. Hates her even temper and pragmatism and the sad way she looks at him from behind her glasses.

“Not sure you're meant to be here,” he tells her dryly, staying by the door like that will save him from whatever conversation she might want to have.

“Not sure you're the person to make that argument,” Marta shoots back, just as flatly. Then her mouth twists uncomfortably. “Saw you get back. Heard about your navigator. Wanted to see how you are.”

“I'm fine. You can tell Esther that, too.”

“Tell her yourself. I ain't got the time to talk about you in my letters.”

That makes Arthur snort. Some of the tension he hadn't known he was carrying leaches from his shoulders.

“I ain't been good at keeping up with her recently,” he admits. Not since before Regensburg, at least. He’s found it harder and harder to carry a conversation with her, to share jokes and stories and pretend that it’s all still just a game. Frowning, he adds, “I need to write Georgie's family.”

“Thought that was Kidd's job?”

“Yeah, but…” Arthur shakes his head. “I was with him, Marta. I was… I held him. When he went. That’s… I owe him that.”

Marta doesn’t say anything, but she shuffles up his bunk a little, and he gives into the aches in his body that tell him to sit down beside her. Hatch’s rack is the one beside his, and he stares long and hard at the blanket. His footlocker is gone already, swept away to the orderly hut to be shipped back to his folks in Queens. Arthur doesn’t know everything in it, but there aren’t enough trinkets and letters in the world to make a whole picture of George Hatch, to replace him at his mother’s table and in his wife’s bed and in his little girl’s life.

They sit. Arthur smokes. Marta carries on with her sketch. Outside, the sun fades. 

Eventually, Marta breaks the silence.

“They're talking about sending you to the Flak House.”

“What? Who?”

“Major Bowman was talking to Smokey about it. Said you didn't look good in interrogation.”

Yeah, no shit. I still had my friend’s blood on my hands.

Maybe a trip to the Flak House wouldn’t be the worst thing. It was treasonous to admit it outloud, but he had been able to feel himself fraying at the edges since Algeria, since it became abundantly clear that Escape Kit wasn’t making its way over the horizon or back to base. Some time not sitting behind a bombsight might be good for him.

Then he remembers how many forts they just lost, how many crews. Their names and faces overwhelm him momentarily, one above the rest despite the way Arthur’s been steadfastly refusing to think about him between Hatch dying in his arms and hearing that Just-a-Snappin’ had bailed.

He’s not dead. Can’t be. Arthur doesn’t have that same roiling dread in the pit of his stomach that he did over Curt’s absence, and he’s willing to trust that superstition just to keep himself level. His name will appear on the next list of POWs, or he’ll vanish for weeks and then reappear after finding his way through France. Those are the only options Arthur can contemplate without clawing his own face off.

The thought of being trapped with those two scenarios (and their unspeakable third) for an unspecified time at Coombe House, where he is certain to have far too much time to dwell on them - and every other terrible thing to happen in his cursed fucking life - is completely unbearable. He’d rather shake apart here, in private, and keep himself up in the air in the meantime. They were going to have to drag him out of that fort feet first, just like Hatch.

“They won’t,” Arthur tells Marta. “Too few crews as it is, nobody will be going anywhere until the next batch of replacements make it in.”

“Yeah, well, once they do I’d say you're high on the list for sending out. Just thought I’d let you know.”

His earlier flash of hatred for her smolders shamefully in his guts. Sweet, perfect, Marta, who knows him too well. Knows his ways of running and hiding like a sick animal and lets him get away with it, like she lets him get away with so much else. He nudges her knee with his own in thanks, and she kicks him in the calf in return. For a brief moment he feels like a child again, and the bittersweetness of the sensation makes his eyes burn.

Some time later he is being shaken awake. He rolls over to knock Morse's hand off of his shoulder and buries his face more in the pillow with a groan. Marta had left him to his letter writing with a quick press of her head to his, and he had swiftly started on emptying his flask, a task only left unfinished by his falling asleep.

“C'mon, sleepyhead, I don't get a welcome back?”

It takes a moment for the voice to penetrate. Then Arthur is springing up, nearly tripping over the mattress and his own legs in his haste to get upright. Wild eyed, he fixes on Blakely, standing smiling by his rack like he hasn't just materialized from the ether.

Gagged by sleep and whiskey and confusion, Arthur surges forward to wrap his arms around him. Real. Warm. Holding him back. Arthur barely checks there's nobody around before pulling back to land a desperate, smacking, kiss against his mouth.

“Fuck, oh fuck,” he breathes. “Jesus, Ev, what the fuck-”

“Easy, there,” Ev is laughing, gentling him with a hand down his side. “I'm alright. We made it back.”

“Fuck,” Arthur spits one last time. Then he turns them and pushes him onto his bed by his shoulders. “Sit down, sit down, Jesus, are you insane? Have you been to medical?”

Without letting him answer, he kneels in front of him, starts really checking him over. Miraculously it seems like Ev’s in one piece, aside from the usual scratches and bruises they all come back with. Arthur runs his thumb over the largest graze visible, the one that has smeared a thick line of red over his nose.

Having sat patiently through the hurried examination, Ev reaches out to brush at Arthur's own face. It’s an effort to not flinch away, the puffy soreness of the skin around his eyes having settled in properly by now.

“What happened here?” Asks Ev.

“Fell outta my fort when we landed,” Arthur admits sheepishly. “Broke my nose on the runway.”

Ev tries valiantly not to laugh, but fails, and Arthur can't help but join him, dropping his forehead onto his knees. He's still in his flight suit. It smells of smoke, and sweat, and comfort. Arthur breathes deep, tries to calm his racing heart and spinning mind, tries to bottle up the screaming cocktail of feelings that wants him to pin Ev down and tell him in great, emotive, detail how deeply fucked he thought he was going to be without him. They clog his throat, jostle for dominance, pinwheel him between joy and fury and grief until a kind of numbness wins.

“Hatch is dead,” Arthur says hollowly, not raising his head.

The laughter above him stops, and a hand touches the back of his head.

“So's Saunders.”

Neither says anything for a long moment.

“I'm glad you're not,” Arthur finally adds. If he says anything else it’ll all come spilling out, and that can’t happen, not ever. For both of their sakes.

The fingers in his hair curl, then release.

“Me too.”

[oliverwolfboy]

Poe backstory headcanons, and other shit. BSD

* David Poe, Jr. And Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe, were not the best of parents. David had never really cared about being a parent. No he spent most of his time at local bars. Drowning his sorrows in alcohol, and avoiding thinking about his failing acting career, by starting bar fights and making advances on the women there. When David finally did get home, he would be a drunken mess. So irritable that if one just made the slightest miss step, he would all over them screaming and yelling till one's ears bleed. Sometimes even bottles were thrown. Elizabeth was a traveling stage actress, and a very good one at that. But Elizabeth was what people call a narcissist. To her, her children was an extension of herself, and they had to be perfect. Elizabeth would often start fights with her husband due to his drinking, these fights would rarely end well. But despite their fights Elizabeth would always pretend as if everything was fine in her family to keep up the image of a perfect family, bruises from her last fight with David? Make up. Edgar got caught sneaking into the police station? Oh why officer thank you for catching him. He is truly a troublemaker, I will make sure to punish him accordingly. Her opinion of her children depended on how good they were, and how much they complied to her wishes. Henry was the golden child. The one that did what she said and did well in school. Edgar was a troublemaker however. Never home. Always outside at the library, or god forbid a crime scene. Edgar was her least favorite child, and by extent the least favorite child. To her Rosalie was just there.

* William Henry Leonard Poe was born in january on the 30th in the year 1985, in Boston Massachusetts. Henry was the golden child, always obedient never stepping out of line, he did good in school, always number one in every activity. Henry always helped his mother with everything she asked, helping her put on her make up after David got aggresive, or cooking. Henry was the perfect son. Henry was almost always at odds with his brother, arguing with him about never being home, his hobby of finding and analysing crime scenes, and his lack of respect for their mother even though she does so much for them. After Elizabeth got tuberculosis Henry was sent to live with his grandparents, David Poe, Sr. And Elizabeth Cairnes Poe.

* Rosalie Mackenzie Poe was born on the 8th of december 1988, in Norfolk, Virginia. Rosalie was always a quiet child. She stayed in the background and just did what was asked of her. Never directing any attention to herself. She followed her mothers instructions, and hid whenever there was a fight. She didn't really have a close relationship with either of her brothers. Henry was always busy doing homework, studying, and helping mom with whatever, and Edgar was never really home, and when he was he would mostly lock himself in a closet, and write and draw whatever crime scene he found, or new a idea he had, that or he was getting yelled at. She doesn't really think she wants to hang out with him anyway, he was cool and all, but too morbid. When their father disappeared she wasn't that sad, she did grive but it was more of the idea of a father she was sad about losing, not really the man himself. And when their mother died of tuberculosis on her birthday, she was sad for the lose of the hope of her mother becoming better. She was eventually taken in by the Mackenzies. They were a lot better then her original family, her new parents actually care for her. She also lived in the same city as Edgar, though she still didn't see him much.

* Edgar Allan Poe was born on the 19th of january 1987 in Boston Massachusetts. If you had asked the people who had interacted or been around Edgar what they thought of him, they would have probably said they thought that he was creepy, macabre, morbid, dubious, grimy, sketchy, some of folk might even have used the terms retarded, or psycho. Not all of them are wrong of course. Edgar is a creepy kid, and he had always been very morbid. That being said however he was also very smart, while his classmates were just learning to read and write, Edgar had already learned to do so at the age of four and a half, with some help from a nice librarian. Since then he has read many books, mostly one's on psychology, engineering, criminology and everything that included, and of course mystery and horror novels. You see Edgar loved the macabre, he adored the mysterious and the stange, whether that be the paranormal, the existential, that of the mind, or simply people, he loved the macabre and all it's flavors. He also liked guessing why people would do the things they did, why they feared the things they did, especially when it came to criminals, there were just so many reasons, to him it was all just so fascinating. In short Edgar loved to study fear psychology. Edgar wasn't really home a lot, he’d rather spend his time in a library reading books, or breaking into a police station or crime scene to find more cases to solve, and motives to figure out, then be home and getting yelled at. To Edgar solving cases and the like came naturally, in his head sorting though the evidence and possible motives was as easy as breathing. It was also very easy for him to find these crime scenes because of his engineering hobby, when ever they moved to a new city Edgar would simply steal a radio off one of the police officers and modify it to pick up on any and all signals coming from the station, not just signals directed at it and emergencies, he never got caught. Edgar would also find cases (and info he needed) from breaking into the police station, he only got caught once, never again. When Edgar wasn't reading or solving cases he was writing. Edgar would write short stories and poems about mystery and horror, he would sketch out crime scenes and monster ideas, and he would write stories and plots, most of which were either in the horror genre or mystery genre, he did do some lighter genres but not a lot of the time. Edgar would often go into a closet or small room to write in when he was home, it just made him more comfortable. Most of the time when Edgar wrote it would be at night, when most of the other people were asleep. Edgar was a very lonely kid, due to his hobbies noone really wanted to hang out with him, and his family doesn't really like him either, not to mention he is so above everyone his age in intelligence, but well he didn't really like crowds anyway. After his father went missing Edgar didn't really Care much, he had never liked his father anyway. After the death of Elizabeth Edgar was in the foster system for sometime before being taken in by the Allans in March of 1995 on the 13th.

* there are very few people that know what happened to David Poe Jr. some others suspect it, but they can't be sure. On june 15th 1994 David Poe Jr. Had come home really late in the night. Noone in the entire house was awake except one person. As David Poe walked though the hall to the bedroom he heard scribbling coming from a little side room in the hallway. The noise irritated the middle aged man. He slamed the door open, and in that little room was a little boy scribbling away in a notepad. David yanked the notepad out of the little boys hands. He looked down at the notepad, and he without thinking read a word. Edgar in a panic subconsciously pulled him into his ability, and then he was gone. Dispite the ruckus that night everyone slept like a rock, except for Edgar. As Edgar climbed into his bed, his lips were tucked in a small smile. David Poe Jr. Died on June 15th 1994, in a poam with no name. The page the poam was on was later burned on June 15th 2007, on Mt. Taurus. Edgar doesn't really feel gulity.

* America needed more ability users. America had plenty of people, and by extension plenty of soldiers. What they didn't have plenty of were ability users. Yes they did have some, and some of those ability users were soldiers, but a lot of them also weren't. Some of those ability users abilities simply weren't that useful, or they would be to great of a cost to use, like that kid from St. Paul, Minnesota, he had a very useful gift, however that gift traded money for strenght, and at this time of war, the usa simply couldn't risk losing that much on what was just one soldier. At this point in time the government and military really didn't care if the ability user was an adult or child, as long as the ability was useful. John Allan would be the one to bring them a useful ability user.

* John Allan was a smart man, I mean he somehow dealt with drugs right under the militaries nose, so that should count for something right? The military had ordered all officers to be on the look out for potential ability users. For while they did have a system to keep track of them, there could be a lot that aren't in the system. John had his eyes on his new foster son, Edgar Poe. The kid was quiet, and flinched whenever he got yelled at, not to mention the fact that he obviously didn't trust them. Whenever he was in the house, he would always seek out a small dark room or closet. John had seen some of the things he wrote and drew, and the kid was morbid. That however wasn't John's priority, no his priority was that the kid was smart, a genius if John said so himself. The kid turned 8 years old just about Four month's ago, give or take maybe a few weeks or days, yet he could already read, understand and apply, advanced psychology, engineering, architecture, sociology, and criminology. John was going to take the kid in, no matter what, he however had to check if the kid was an ability user. at the end of april John took Edgar to the new military base stationed in richmond. The government had, had new military bases stationed in every city. They were used to identify abilities and ability users, as well as test the limits of said abilities. As it turned ok Edgar did have an ability, and a very powerful and useful one at that. After Edgar admitted to having an ability, the officers at the station were quick to get it tested, and it was perfect, an ability that could suck anyone into a fabricated reality, created though a piece of text, it didn't matter on what or where it was written, all it had to be was a somewhat coherent piece of text and it would work, it didn't matter if it was written as a book or poem. There didn't necessarily have to be a way out either, of course you could create one or two if you'd like but it wasn't a condition. You could choose rather if the person died in the story they would also die in real life or not. The conditions of the world was completely up to the user. The best part was it didn't have to be the user that was Holding or useing it, it could be used by anyone, as long as the owner of the ability allowed it.

* Frances Allan adored Edgar, sure he was quiet and if she was being honest quite morbid, but that didn't matter to her, no all that mattered was that Edgar finally met her husbands standards, so of course she would try her hardest to get to know him. So from the 13th of march to the 30th of april, Frances did all she could to get to know the boy, she would ask him if she could see some of what he wrote and drew, though his works were quite scary and macabre, and sent a chill down her spine, they were also quite good and she tried her best to encourge him to continue his passions. She would purchase him all kinds of books, she took note that Edgars favorites seem to be (to no one's surprise) the horror and mystery novels she got him, and to her surprise he also seemed to favor some of the sci-fi, fantasy, and comedy books. Of the educational books he favored those about psychology, criminology, sociology, engineering, and architecture, she had brought him some more advanced books on these subjects because Edgar was far above most when it came to Intelligence. She gleefully took note of which subjects and genre's Edgar seemed to like and dislike, it was worth every penny spent to see that gleeful look on his face and shine in his eyes, as he read. When Frances noticed Edgar take an interest in her piano she was delighted, this was an activity they could do together, a chance to get closer to her soon-to-be son. And so Frances sat Edgar down and began teaching him how to play piano, and oh did Edgar love it, he looked so gleeful as he sat there, hands sliding over the over the keys of the piano, clumsily at first but over time he began getting the hang of it. Frances almost cried when her sweet little Edgar first hugged her. Oh but then John came with the terrible news that Edgar was to be drafted and trained to go to war, she protested, of course but they said his ability was to good to just let go.

* Frances had always wanted children, but she was unfortunately infertile, this however didn't stop her from wanting kids. So they had become a foster family so she could adopt one of the kids, they had, had two before Edgar, but they didn't meet his standard, if he had to have a kid it at least had to be smart. John didn't care about kids outside of getting an heir, however being a foster parent also, allowed him to scout out the children, for possible ability users. When Edgar was sent to be trained Frances did the best she could to make sure he was comfortable, she sent him letters every other day, she also made sure to send him books, notepads, and pencils, to make sure he could still read, draw, and write, she even visited him.

* and so on May 1st Edgar was sent out to train for the military. They started with basic combat and strenght training, but it quickly got harder after that. He was taught how to assemble and disassemble a sniper in under half a minute, he was taught where to hit a target depending on the situation, he was taught how to walk around without making a sound, he was taught everything he needed to go to war. Edgar was to be assigned a special forces unit. Edgar had already went though the basic training, now it was time for special forces training. On the 19th of January 1996 Edgar officially became a part of the special forces.

* his favorite weapons were guns and knives, he even started a knife collection which he still has to this day. He never goes outside without a knife, sometimes even a gun.

* After the great war finished Edgar was about 13 to 15 years old. while Edgar was still a part of the special forces after the war, he was a lot more focused on his education. It was very easy to catch up and go beyond people his age, mostly because he was already far above people his age when he was 8 years old. Edgar of course went to a military highschool where he might have been a bit of a troublemaker, okay who am i kidding he had no respect for authority. Other students would pay for him to do their homework. If someone annoyed him it was very likely that he would pull some kind of prank on them, the worst part is he always got away with it. Edgar has anxiety, but one thing he takes pride in is his intelligence. When Edgar becomes comfortable with a group he can become kind of unhinged, he also has people pleaser tendencies when he really cares about someone, he is just very afraid of losing them.

* Edgar left the military to become a detective in June 2007, which would make him a college drop out because he was attending West Point at the time. Edgar did very well as a detective, he was the departements best. Then Ranpo came along, when Ranpo solved that case the answer was on the tip of Edgar's tongue, but Ranpo was faster in his deduction. Edgar left the police and became a part of the guild, he needed to beat Ranpo, he couldn't just torture him with a horror book or something like that, no he needed to outsmart him. Found Karl along the way.

* dates. William Henry Leonard Poe was born on the 30th of january in 1985. Edgar Allan Poe was born on the 19th of january in 1987. Rosalie Mackenzie Poe was born on the 8th of december 1988. Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe died of tuberculosis on the 8th of december 1994. David Poe, Jr. Was declared missing on the 22nd of June 1994 by some bar buddies. David Poe, Jr. Died on the 15th of June 1994. Edgar Allan Poe was taken in by the Allans in March 13th 1995, and was taken to the military to check if he was an ability user on the 30th of April 1995. Edgar Allan Poe began military training on the 1st of May 1995. Edgar began in the millitary on the 19th of January 1996. Edgar Allan Poe left the millitary to work as a detective on the 1st of June in 2007. Edgar Allan Poe burned the poam his father died in, on the 15th of June 2007.

* Edgar's opinion on other members of the guild: F. Scott Fitzgerald: as long as he doesn't stick his nose in his business then he's fine. Doesn't like how uncaring he is towards the poor, but does like how attentive he is towards his wife. Herman Melville: he likes him. He respects his devotion to his ship and the guild, as well as his competence. H. P. Lovecraft: he likes him. He thinks he is great inspiration for writing, and has followed him around a few times. If Edgar wasn't focused on other things, then maybe he would have tried to make friends with him. Overall he finds him very fascinating, as he does most things macabre. James L: doesn't really care. John Steinbeck: He likes him. He respects his devotion to his family and cunning. He likes how easygoing he is, it makes him easier to be in a room with. Lucy M. Montgomery: he likes her well enough. He doesn't pity her out of respect. Lousia May Alcott: as a fellow wallflower he likes her. He hasn't really talked with her a lot, since she mostly only talks to fitzgerald, but if he hadn't been busy planning revenge he would have probably tried to befriend her. Margaret Mitchell: he knows she has a softer side, yet he still doesn't really care for her all that much, mostly finding her irritating for how often and how often she underestimates her opponents(I personally like Margaret btw, she is awesome). Mark twain: he actually really likes him, he finds him cheerful and appreciates his effort into trying to befriend him, maybe if he hadn't been so focused on revenge he would have agreed. Thinks his marksmanship is very good. Once showed him his knife and gun collection. Nathaniel Hawthorne: he finds him obnoxious.

* Edgars mansion has a bunch of different hidden passege ways, rooms, and mechanisms where he hides all kinds of stuff, most notably his knife and gun collections.

* Edgar has some mental illnesses here is a list: anxiety, depression, PTSD, Autism. He May or May not have BDP or Bipolar, seriously i don't know if he does, and if he does which one.

* Edgar is actually really hard to scare, outside of his social anxiety and slight fear of abandoment and judgement, and trust issues… and heights, it is really hard to scare him, like you could put on the scariest horror movie or book and he will only find it fascinating. He loves horror and all, but he is really hard to scare, and he is so fucking macabre. He is also really hard to disgust, like he has watched the entire disturbing movie iceberg and more, this man can watch slow torture puck chamber and all it's sequels with a straight face, he HAS watch the entire franchise with a straight face.

* He pranks people that annoy him, and people that he dislikes. Hawthorne has been the victem of so many pranks by now(it is a non-confrontational way of getting revenge, and this man holds grudges)

* He is a beast online, i mean what introverted person isn't?

* He is actually really good at psycho analysing people

* He doesn't trust his own judgement when it comes to Ranpo, he knows he is smart but Ranpo beat him and he doesn't want to face that judgement again.

* Edgar is not oblivious, he can see Ranpo's feelings for him crystal clear. He just doesn't know how to feel about it, he's just afraid of vulnerability, especially to a guy he hates(d?), plus he himself has some very conflicting feelings about him.

* Edgar has been practising piano because of his adoptive mother.

* Frances is dead

* Edgar is jealous of Ranpo, no it was not love, now he is jealous of Ranpo but also inlove with him and he doesn't know what to do or how to feel.

* Edgar can see when Ranpo is trying to hide his emotions, he knows Ranpo is afraid, he doesn't bring attention to it however, but he knows, and he will help in whatever way he can

*Edgar doesn't just have a lot of IQ, he also has a lot of EQ.

*Edgar doesn’t have a lot of connections in his life so he is very attached to Ranpo, to the point it is unhealthy. When he hated him his anger and spite was what got him through the day. He still uses some of that anger and spite to get through the day.

*how Edgar looked though out his life. When he still lived with his biological parents he mostly wore oversized sweaters, and worn shorts or jeans, plus his og hairstyle. When he began living with his adoptive parents he wore more casual formal clothes, plus his og hairstyle, however Frances would sometimes try to get at least one side of it behind his ears. When he was in the military he wore more tactical clothing, and he had a military haircut. When he got out of the military he grew his hair back out and started wearing lighter clothes.

Feel free to use. This isn't theory this is headcanon, just to make that clear.

[maaikeatthefullmoon]

The Holiday Diaries - Day Three

Continuing for my darling friend @tismrot and hopefully being a bit more entertaining today.

Wow! It turns out that, whilst I’m in Norfolk, he’s in bloody Egypt! Paddling in the Nile. Deep in it. 🤦🏻‍♀️

So, while I’m mentally adding golden beads and bells to Nelly’s tabard (I’ve named The Elephant In The Room, she said it was ok), he’s completely ignorant. Nelly is obviously so magical only I can see her.

Meanwhile I’m also realising I’m still a hopeless romantic and touch starved who lives in a small town…and will probably still be exactly that in 12 months’ time…24 months’ time…48 months’ time etc etc etc. How the hell would I even meet anyone?

Anyway!

Magpies are finally flying around in pairs! It’s my only small superstition. I always recite the rhyme ‘one for sorrow, two for joy...’ when I see them. In fact, my ‘I finished trauma therapy’ tattoo is going to be based on this rhyme. Booked it last year (when I still had money), it’s in September. It’ll be a chest piece of two magpies with some treasure & some more macabre animal skulls. Currently managing to put away £10/month and secreting away the occasional extra bit. Will need a lot more by September as it won’t be cheap but trauma therapy was HELL and the tattoo commemorating it was something the therapist & I actually discussed at length. She encouraged it. Along with my writing. Seeing the magpie pairs today made me think about it.

Went to a massive charity shop today because he needed jeans. I’ve lost 30kg in the last year (not in a healthy way, I won’t share my method) and nothing fits anymore. Managed to pick up one black fem top and one grungy neutral top and a great pair of formal/suit trousers from the ‘mens’’ for super cheap.

Even more excitingly is a collection of Edgar Allan Poe stories

I checked the records for a copy of Everyday but all I found was this monstrosity *argh*

We went to a cat cafe. It was lush. They had grumpy sphinx cats. Yes - Grumpy. Sphinx. Cats. And retro 80s & early 90s stuff like carebears, rainbow brite and mlp. And loads of old console games. It was mad and I loved it.

Then there was beaching. I REFUSED.

There is one beach in the UK that I like: Calgary Beach in Mull. Other than that, I do NOT like beaches. I can’t actually think of any beaches in other countries that I like. And I used to live in the tropics. And went down the Gold Coast (Australia) for a month on holiday as a teenager. So this is the closest I got to the beach today:

My feet did not touch the sand.

Did a mini rave when we got back. Which segued into a rock party.

I can’t listen to the normal radio. What’s with the country revival? What’s going on? Help!!!

Still can’t write. I still suck. Been researching for the proper book. But nothing I write is any good. What if I never am again?

I’m out at the entertainment again now. Can’t afford nice drinks, but never mind. Must be his paddle in denial using up the budget. @tismrot, dollface, hope my insane-yet-inane life amuses you 😂

[judgemark45]

NORFOLK, Va. (February 21, 2019) The aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush transits the Elizabeth River in Virginia. GHWB is at Norfolk Naval Shipyard undergoing a Docking Planned Incremental Availability (DPIA). (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Steven Edgar)

[brookston]

Holidays 11.29

Holidays

Andrzejki (Poland)

Avascular Necrosis/Osteonecrosis Awareness Day

Chadwick Boseman Day

Chia Pet Day

Customer is Wrong Day

Dita e Çlirimit (Liberation Day; Albania)

Don Cheadle Day

Electronic Greetings Day

Feast of Great Expectations

Get Rid of Clutter Day

Global MRKH Awareness Day (Australia)

Insotrancevia Day

International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People (UN)

International Day of the Bible [also 11.24]

International Jaguar Day

Invisible Ink Day

Isdal Woman Day

Juniper Day (French Republic)

London Bridge Stabbing Anniversary Day

National Electronic Greetings Day

National Evan Day

National Square Dance Day [also 1.24]

National Tuxedo Cat Day

National Unity Day (Vanuatu)

Newspaper Day

Pay A Blogger Day

Republic Day (Yugoslavia)

Rolling Stones Day (Colorado)

Schrödinger's Cat Day

Tori No Ichi (Rooster Day #3; Japan)

Unity Day (Vanuatu)

Westland Day (New Zealand)

William V.S. Tubman Day (Liberia)

World Anteater Day

World Movement Disorders Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Gnocchi Day (Argentina)

Good Meat Day (Ii Niku no Hi; Japan)

National Chocolates Day

National Lemon Cream Pie Day

National Rice Cake Day

Pop-Tarts Day

5th & Last Wednesday in November

National Package Protection Day [Wednesday after Thanksgiving]

Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting [Wednesday after Thanksgiving]

Thanksgiving (Norfolk Island, Canada) [Last Wednesday]

Women Wednesday (a.k.a. Women Wow or Choose Women Wednesday) [Wednesday after Thanksgiving]

Independence Days

Paravia (Declared; 2014) [unrecognized]

Feast Days

Abibos of Nekresi (Christian; Saint)

Alexander Brullov (Artology)

Ashi Vanguhi (Ancient Persian/Zoroastrian) [2 Days after Full Moon]

Bernardo de Hoyos (Christian; Blessed)

Brendan of Birr (Christian; Saint)

Clement IV, Pope (Christian; Saint)

Cuthbert Mayne (Christian; Martyr)

Cutlass Sharpening Day (Pastafarian)

Feast of All Saints of the Seraphic Order

Festival of Saturnia (for the Sons of Saturn)

Francis Fasani (Christian; Saint)

The Hobos (Muppetism)

Illuminata (Christian; Saint)

James Rosenquist (Artology)

Jefferson (Positivist; Saint)

Our Lady of Beauraing (Christian; Saint)

Radboud of Utrecht (Roman Catholic; Saint)

Sadiron (Christian; Saint)

Saturnin (a.k.a. Saturnius of Toulouse; Christian; Saint)

Sekhmet’s Day (Pagan)

Ummm Bacon Day (Church of the SubGenius)

Vegetarian Remission Day (Church of the SubGenius)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Tomobiki (友引 Japan) [Good luck all day, except at noon.]

Unlucky Day (Grafton’s Manual of 1565) [54 of 60]

Premieres

Astral Weeks, by Van Morrison (Album; 1968)

The Bank Dick (Film; 1940)

Boulevard of Broken Dreams, by Green Day (Song; 2004)

Bullwinkle’s Ride or Goodbye, Dollink (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S1, Ep. 2; 1959)

Calling All Cars (Radio Series; 1933)

The Gay Divorce, by Cole Porter (Broadway Musical; 1932)

Double Fantasy, by John Lennon (Album; 1980)

Hawaiian War Chant, recorded by Tommy Dorsey (Song; 1938)

It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie (TV Movie; 2002)

I Want to Hold Your Hand, by The Beatles (Song; 1963)

Jet Fuel Formula, Episode One (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S1, Ep. 1; 1959)

Lavender Haze, by Taylor Swift (Song; 2022)

Like a Hurricane, recorded by Neil Young (Song; 1975)

The Lost Weekend (Film; 1945)

Mirai (Anime Film; 2018)

My Life, by Mary J. Blige (Album; 1994)

9 to 5 (Film; 1980)

9 to 5, by Dolly Parton (Song; 1980)

Pong (Video Game; 1972)

Rolling in the Deep, by Adele (Song; 2010)

Terrier Stricken (WB MM Cartoon; 1952)

Today’s Name Days

Christine, Friederike, Friedrich (Austria)

Iluminata, Saturnin, Svjetlana, Vlasta (Croatia)

Zina (Czech Republic)

Saturnius (Denmark)

Edgar, Egert (Estonia)

Aimo (Finland)

Saturnin (France)

Berta, Friedrich, Friederike (Germany)

Fedra, Fedros, Filoumeni, Filoumenos (Greece)

Taksony (Hungary)

Saturnino (Italy)

Ignats, Ojars, Veseta (Latvia)

Butvydė, Daujotas, Saturninas (Lithuania)

Sofie, Sonja (Norway)

Błażej, Bolemysł, Fryderyk, Przemysł, Saturnin, Saturnina, Walter (Poland)

Filumen, Paramon, Valerian (Romania)

Vratko (Slovakia)

Iluminada, Saturnino (Spain)

Sune (Sweden)

Philemona (Ukraine)

Dahlia, Dalia, Daphne (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 333 of 2024; 32 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 3 of week 48 of 2023

Celtic Tree Calendar: Ruis (Elder) [Day 2 of 28]

Chinese: Month 10 (Gui-Hai), Day 17 (Xin-Mao)

Chinese Year of the: Rabbit 4721 (until February 10, 2024)

Hebrew: 16 Kislev 5784

Islamic: 16 Jumada I 1445

J Cal: 3 Zima; Threesday [3 of 30]

Julian: 16 November 2023

Moon: 94%: Waning Gibbous

Positivist: 25 Frederic (12th Month) [Jefferson]

Runic Half Month: Is (Stasis) [Day 4 of 15]

Season: Autumn (Day 67 of 89)

Zodiac: Sagittarius (Day 8 of 30)

[brookstonalmanac]

Holidays 11.29

Holidays

Andrzejki (Poland)

Avascular Necrosis/Osteonecrosis Awareness Day

Chadwick Boseman Day

Chia Pet Day

Customer is Wrong Day

Dita e Çlirimit (Liberation Day; Albania)

Don Cheadle Day

Electronic Greetings Day

Feast of Great Expectations

Get Rid of Clutter Day

Global MRKH Awareness Day (Australia)

Insotrancevia Day

International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People (UN)

International Day of the Bible [also 11.24]

International Jaguar Day

Invisible Ink Day

Isdal Woman Day

Juniper Day (French Republic)

London Bridge Stabbing Anniversary Day

National Electronic Greetings Day

National Evan Day

National Square Dance Day [also 1.24]

National Tuxedo Cat Day

National Unity Day (Vanuatu)

Newspaper Day

Pay A Blogger Day

Republic Day (Yugoslavia)

Rolling Stones Day (Colorado)

Schrödinger's Cat Day

Tori No Ichi (Rooster Day #3; Japan)

Unity Day (Vanuatu)

Westland Day (New Zealand)

William V.S. Tubman Day (Liberia)

World Anteater Day

World Movement Disorders Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Gnocchi Day (Argentina)

Good Meat Day (Ii Niku no Hi; Japan)

National Chocolates Day

National Lemon Cream Pie Day

National Rice Cake Day

Pop-Tarts Day

5th & Last Wednesday in November

National Package Protection Day [Wednesday after Thanksgiving]

Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting [Wednesday after Thanksgiving]

Thanksgiving (Norfolk Island, Canada) [Last Wednesday]

Women Wednesday (a.k.a. Women Wow or Choose Women Wednesday) [Wednesday after Thanksgiving]

Independence Days

Paravia (Declared; 2014) [unrecognized]

Feast Days

Abibos of Nekresi (Christian; Saint)

Alexander Brullov (Artology)

Ashi Vanguhi (Ancient Persian/Zoroastrian) [2 Days after Full Moon]

Bernardo de Hoyos (Christian; Blessed)

Brendan of Birr (Christian; Saint)

Clement IV, Pope (Christian; Saint)

Cuthbert Mayne (Christian; Martyr)

Cutlass Sharpening Day (Pastafarian)

Feast of All Saints of the Seraphic Order

Festival of Saturnia (for the Sons of Saturn)

Francis Fasani (Christian; Saint)

The Hobos (Muppetism)

Illuminata (Christian; Saint)

James Rosenquist (Artology)

Jefferson (Positivist; Saint)

Our Lady of Beauraing (Christian; Saint)

Radboud of Utrecht (Roman Catholic; Saint)

Sadiron (Christian; Saint)

Saturnin (a.k.a. Saturnius of Toulouse; Christian; Saint)

Sekhmet’s Day (Pagan)

Ummm Bacon Day (Church of the SubGenius)

Vegetarian Remission Day (Church of the SubGenius)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Tomobiki (友引 Japan) [Good luck all day, except at noon.]

Unlucky Day (Grafton’s Manual of 1565) [54 of 60]

Premieres

Astral Weeks, by Van Morrison (Album; 1968)

The Bank Dick (Film; 1940)

Boulevard of Broken Dreams, by Green Day (Song; 2004)

Bullwinkle’s Ride or Goodbye, Dollink (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S1, Ep. 2; 1959)

Calling All Cars (Radio Series; 1933)

The Gay Divorce, by Cole Porter (Broadway Musical; 1932)

Double Fantasy, by John Lennon (Album; 1980)

Hawaiian War Chant, recorded by Tommy Dorsey (Song; 1938)

It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie (TV Movie; 2002)

I Want to Hold Your Hand, by The Beatles (Song; 1963)

Jet Fuel Formula, Episode One (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S1, Ep. 1; 1959)

Lavender Haze, by Taylor Swift (Song; 2022)

Like a Hurricane, recorded by Neil Young (Song; 1975)

The Lost Weekend (Film; 1945)

Mirai (Anime Film; 2018)

My Life, by Mary J. Blige (Album; 1994)

9 to 5 (Film; 1980)

9 to 5, by Dolly Parton (Song; 1980)

Pong (Video Game; 1972)

Rolling in the Deep, by Adele (Song; 2010)

Terrier Stricken (WB MM Cartoon; 1952)

Today’s Name Days

Christine, Friederike, Friedrich (Austria)

Iluminata, Saturnin, Svjetlana, Vlasta (Croatia)

Zina (Czech Republic)

Saturnius (Denmark)

Edgar, Egert (Estonia)

Aimo (Finland)

Saturnin (France)

Berta, Friedrich, Friederike (Germany)

Fedra, Fedros, Filoumeni, Filoumenos (Greece)

Taksony (Hungary)

Saturnino (Italy)

Ignats, Ojars, Veseta (Latvia)

Butvydė, Daujotas, Saturninas (Lithuania)

Sofie, Sonja (Norway)

Błażej, Bolemysł, Fryderyk, Przemysł, Saturnin, Saturnina, Walter (Poland)

Filumen, Paramon, Valerian (Romania)

Vratko (Slovakia)

Iluminada, Saturnino (Spain)

Sune (Sweden)

Philemona (Ukraine)

Dahlia, Dalia, Daphne (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 333 of 2024; 32 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 3 of week 48 of 2023

Celtic Tree Calendar: Ruis (Elder) [Day 2 of 28]

Chinese: Month 10 (Gui-Hai), Day 17 (Xin-Mao)

Chinese Year of the: Rabbit 4721 (until February 10, 2024)

Hebrew: 16 Kislev 5784

Islamic: 16 Jumada I 1445

J Cal: 3 Zima; Threesday [3 of 30]

Julian: 16 November 2023

Moon: 94%: Waning Gibbous

Positivist: 25 Frederic (12th Month) [Jefferson]

Runic Half Month: Is (Stasis) [Day 4 of 15]

Season: Autumn (Day 67 of 89)

Zodiac: Sagittarius (Day 8 of 30)

[twittercomfrnklin2001-blog]

The Tomb of Ligeia

The last of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe adaptations is almost the best until they screw it on the dismount. Robert Towne’s script for THE TOMB OF LIGEIA (1964, The Criterion Channel) has more psychological horror than the previous entries and for the most part approaches its haunted house plot with an ambiguity and subtlety reminiscent of the best Val Lewton films. It opens with the burial of Verden Fell’s (Vincent Price) wife, Ligeia (Elizabeth Shepherd), who has sworn that her will can surmount death. It’s an unusual horror scene, shot in daylight, yet still manages to shock when the dead woman’s eyes suddenly open after her black cat leaps on the coffin. Months later, Price meets the decidedly healthier and pluckier Lady Rowena (Shepherd again), who becomes fascinated with him. He’s not moved when she takes the initiative, but when he rescues her after she follows the cat into a treacherous bell tower, they marry. They return to his home, a decaying abbey, long enough to sell it, only to have indications of Ligeia’s presence haunt them both. Corman sustains the mood beautifully up to the climax, with a moving camera and the occasional off-balance angle to generate suspense. The film looks terrific, featuring the only extensive use of exteriors in the series and a great location at a decaying priory in Norfolk. Hammer regular Arthur Grant did the Eastmancolor cinematography, while Kenneth V. Jones supplied the symphonic score. And Shepherd is quite marvelous in her dual roles, easily the feistiest of Corman’s Poe heroines. No matter how terrorized she is, she keeps looking for answers. Price isn’t quite as effective. He’s too old for the part (AIP forced Corman to cast him rather than first choice Richard Chamberlain) and his efforts at restraint lead to some hollow line readings. But the film’s overall effect makes up for it until the picture reaches a perfectly satisfactory conclusion and then keeps going. It’s as if Corman had to fall back on the endings of his pervious Poe films, only in this case that means going over the top in the wrong way. At least Shepherd has one effectively ambiguous moment at the end. But to get there you have to sit through more shots of that damned barn Corman burnt down to make HOUSE OF USHER (1960). They haunt the Poe series like the ghost of the biggest bore you ever met.

[maddyaddy]

Matt Walsh talking about 'Anglo-Saxon culture' being the foundation of America or whatever, as if that still existed into the 1600s-1620s, is proof of his room temperature IQ.

Here's the historical facts: The last dying breath of armed Anglo-Saxon resistance to their Norman conquerors was with Edgar the Ætheling and the Earls of Norfolk and Hereford, in the 11th century. William crushed those revolts. Old English, the language spoken by those people, died out in the 13th in the West Midlands. It took until the 14th for English to become the language of government again. The Anglo-Saxons were thoroughly dead and buried as a culture by the 1600s. But really, Matt Walsh - the openly racist, transphobic, reactionary lout that he is - isn't referring to the same thing as me when he talks about the Anglo-Saxons. He means 'white' people. He fears and hates non-whites, and projects his racial antagonism on them.

[annarellix]

The Last Remains by Elly Griffiths (Ruth Galloway #15)

When builders renovating a café in King’s Lynn find a human skeleton behind a wall, they call for DCI Harry Nelson and Dr Ruth Galloway, Head of Archaeology at the nearby University of North Norfolk. Ruth is preoccupied with the threatened closure of her department and by her ever-complicated relationship with Nelson. However, she agrees to look at the case. Ruth sees at once that the bones are modern. They are identified as the remains of Emily Pickering, a young archaeology student who went missing in the 1990s. Emily attended a course run by her Cambridge tutor. Suspicion falls on him and also on another course member – Ruth’s friend Cathbad, who is still frail following his near death from Covid. As they investigate, Nelson and his team uncover a tangled web of relationships within the student group and the adults leading them. What was the link between the group and the King’s Lynn café where Emily’s bones were found? Then, just when the team seem to be making progress, Cathbad disappears. Was it guilt that led him to flee? The trail leads Ruth and Nelson to the Neolithic flint mines in Grimes Graves which are as spooky as their name. The race is on, first to find Cathbad and then to exonerate him, but will Ruth and Nelson uncover the truth in time to save their friend?

Book Page: https://www.quercusbooks.co.uk/titles/elly-griffiths/the-last-remains/9781529409710/

My Review: It build up slowly and creates the different subplots. And then BANG, it's the last part and I couldn't read it fast enough. I cried my goodbye because these characters were sort of book friends after 15 books. It can be the last one or there could be other, I would be happy to read one more because I think that the funniest part could be starting now. Good bye Ruth, Nelson, Judy, Cathbad, Thing, Flint, Kate and all the others. I had a weird relationship with this book: I wanted to read it and didn't want to read it because I hate to say goodbye to characters. It good have been just like Pratchett's The Shepherd's Crown: I know there's still a Pratchett book i can read. Then I thought that Elly Griffith is still alive and there could be more. So go and read it.

The Author: Elly Griffiths is the bestselling author of the Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries and the Brighton Mysteries. She has won the CWA Dagger in the Library, has been shortlisted five times for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger for The Lantern Men. Her new series featuring Detective Harbinder Kaur began with The Stranger Diaries, which was a Richard and Judy book club pick and won the Edgar Award for Best Novel in the USA. It was followed by The Postscript Murders, shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger and Bleeding Heart Yard. Elly has two grown-up children and lives near Brighton with her archaeologist husband.

Website: http://www.ellygriffiths.co.uk/crossingplaces.htm https://twitter.com/ellygriffiths https://www.instagram.com/ellygriffiths17/

[corvuscoraxblog]

Our brunch wedding in Norfolk, Virginia 10.05.2021

[museoweb]

Edgar Degas - Danzatrice con bouquet mentre saluta - 1895

[thebutcher-5]

La tomba di Ligeia

La tomba di Ligeia

Benvenuti o bentornati sul nostro blog. Nello scorso articolo abbiamo continuato il nostro viaggio nel mondo animato Disney e siamo arrivati al 18° classico animato, La spada nella roccia. Un film d’animazione che considero molto importante per il messaggio che trasmette e fatto bene tecnicamente, nonostante il budget basso che aveva (infatti alcune scene vennero ripetute) e dei tratti sporchi…

[art-h]

Vincent. Van. Gogh.

Since being let down by Paul Gauguin in my Post-Impressionist research, in terms of inspiration, I came back for a more in depth look at possibly my favourite artist. What can be said about Van Gogh that hasn't been said before? His very name is synonymous with the word artist, along with being used as a brand name to a plethora of different art materials. He is the archetypal "tortured artist" and arguably the most popular great painter of all time. For my part, having struggled with low self esteem and self confidence issues for the majority of my adult life, I empathised deeply and sincerely with his life story, as I am sure countless others have as well. I find his work resonates an indescribable feeling within me, it speaks of the unseen beauty of our world that so many people seem to ignore because it is so commonplace. His canon of paintings creates a bridge between the liminal and subliminal One of my all time favourites is "Wheat Field with Crows".

The subject is a simple wheat field in Auvers-sur-Oise under what appears to be a dark, foreboding sky. I have never seen such an image in reality save for a similar effect visiting the marshes of Norfolk under an autumn dramatically dark sky. Even though it might seem really depressing, with the presence of the crows fleeing the safety of the wheat itself, it brings a sense of comfort to me. Technically, I had always wondered what the name of the effect was that Van Gogh used in creating his signature marks. In reading Van Gogh. The Complete Paintings (Rainer Metzger, Ingo E Walther, TASCHEN ISBN 978-3-8365-5715-3), I discovered the name of the style Van Gogh employed in his oil paintings: Impasto. Now, I have never used oil paints and strongly feel that in the time I have on this module, I cannot create meaningful pieces in the respond week in this medium.

I particularly love this self portrait by Vincent as particular inspiration, you can clearly see how impasto mark marking is used to great effect in this. The use of colours that wouldn't be present in real life to draw the viewer in to question what the purpose of those colours might be. The whites on Vincent's coat for example are used to show how light is falling on him, similarly with his face and hat. Their use is astonishing as a technique but unfortunately were considered ugly at the time. I have looked into the prospect of using impasto in different mediums and I found one that I have experience in, oil pastels. I looked up artists who used oil pastels in the impasto technique; one stood out, Edgar Degas, as his work in the impressionist movement inspired Van Gogh's own work. While Degas' work with impasto was primarily in oil paints, he did use pastels for some of his work and while I wasn't overly inspired by these works, I then looked into Childe Hassam.

I found his "September Clouds" particularly appealing in terms of his technique.

While I am not looking to make any landscapes for this module, I was amazed at how Hassam used oil pastels with such simple marks to create texture on the trees and clouds without having sacrifice colour. A viewer can clearly see how he has layered lighter colours over darker tones on the nearest tree in the foreground; such a simple technique, but amazingly effective to me.

From the research I have done, I intend to create a diptych in oil pastels in response to my inspiration by Van Gogh. Watch this space.