#Nineteenth Hole

[vintage-tigre]

[play-my-game]

[lanfykins]

Me: I’ll just have a quick look at the Library of Congress newspaper archives to see if there are any useful articles I can blatantly plagiarise for my fic.

Me, ten minutes later: There was a guy in New Orleans doing WHAT to Turkey Buzzards?!?

[etheralisi]

If you had the ability to go back in time and add something (writing, an object, etc.) to any location in any time for future archaeologists to find and be bewildered by, when and where and what would you add?

Ahaha! Now this is my kind of ask! Sorry for taking a while I wanted to give this sufficient thought.

I want these archaeologists baffled. I want them scratching their heads and coming up with such convoluted ways to explain its existence that conspiracy theorists sound like the sane ones by saying time travel.

So, naturally, to bamboozle them in the ways of religion I’ll leave behind this statue:

It speaks for itself.

As for where and when, a peat bog as far back as possible. Gotta keep it preserved, but have it authentically old. Just for that confusion.

Thanks for the ask!

[astralnymphh]

Omg can I request Ellie and reader on halloween night exploring an abandoned house that’s known to be haunted. Ellie and reader are both huge fans of horror and ghosts, often exploring abandoned places and even using those apps that you can talk to ghosts with. So, you both go, but terrifying things begin to happen and you’re both freaking the fuck out equally. Bonus points if Ellie gets protective <3

ok so yeah i had to do a bit of a drabble for this one! nothing too extreme though, but i love this idea. instead of them using apps, because ellie is such a nerd, i think she would have the genuine gear for it. girl heard the words "ghost hunting" and decked out immediately in all the utilities. ellie image @/angel-gbc

“Can you tell us your name?”

This house is a chamber of disembodied sounds. Ellie discovered it on her usual walk from work, dead and moth-eaten as ever, and all she wanted to do was explore it through and through. She loves horror, and you follow her on that sentiment. The Victorian face of the house has remained gently intact—a debris-ridden ghost of its preceding self—save for a few holes, shattered windows, spots of soot from fire, and the eternal state of squalor. Eternal life of loneliness, unwantedness. Quite a big, blotchy stain on a lovely modern neighborhood full of copy and paste houses, huh?

Wrong!

Gentry used to live there, and now the gentry want it torn up. Like a sketch you feel disgust looking at.

But you admit this plainly. Watching your nerdy girlfriend psych herself to come here with every gimmick and gadget pushing on the seams of her backpack really is cute. Noticing her lip curl when there's even a second of static feedback on the spirit box, really is the cherry on top of a long weekend; you regret nothing.

For now.

She is kneeling, you are crouching. “You can use the—um, spirit box,” Ellie swallows her throat clear, adjusting the placement of the equipment. ”To talk to us.” Ridiculous excursion or not, you both felt a bit on edge. Hairs raise in anticipation.

Your pores felt susceptible. Open to the change in the air, responsive to the uncomfortable sounds of clothes and limbs shifting. Maybe your mind had made up an individual now: a pompous and rich woman. Tight in the waist from the boning of a corset, and rather busty because of it. She is the woman of this household, you believe, and she circles you with broad shoulders and steel curiosity. Not too creative for a nineteenth-century ghost.

You could feel her stare crawling all over you. Or your imagination. Shivers run up your spine regardless.

“Hey, maybe we should ask what happened to her,” you bleat, not conscious of how disomforted you look palming the back of your neck, or your words. The air has gone cold.

Ellie scales a brow at you. “Her? Shit, have you gone psychic now?” Her questioning tone drips of mock and shock, somehow simultaneously. But one widens her expression when static crackles inside the receiver, and lets a low sound through. She props up on her knees. “Could you tell us what happened to you?”

The feedback ends.

Ellie huffs a sigh of disappointment, lowering herself again. So much for going psychic. “Good job, though. Seem to 've said somethin' right,” she reveres you softly, pricking a knee up to set her fist on. Her leather jacket shines low with your flashlight.

The event left you paranoid, but all you can do is wonder if she feels the same, but stomachs a facade over it. God, does she think she needs to impress you?

Apparently so. Behind the silence, came a violent clatter of wood, or a door, none can be sure. You were the first instantiation; something between a shirek and a gasp calls your hand to cocoon at your chest, and you scatter aimlessly onto your bottom. It felt like an injection of fear. It made your blood drain. Made your breath run thick.

Fucking ghosts.

Ellie repined in a yelling whisper. “Jesus!” Her silhouette much more composed and still upright, but with a hand on her heart. Faint sounds of her scooting over, however, spurn your sight from the suspected room of activity, her acorn-brown brows pulled to a worried low. “You good?”

The gentleness of the question soothes. “Sure.” Somewhat.

Her lips quirk, and she hesitates a laugh. “Ha—yeah. No clue what the fuck that was,” she rasps as she slides up next to you, the warmth of her hand eroding the stifle in your back. She encourages you to ease into it with rubbing motions. “Way scarier than horror movies make it out to be, huh?”

You over-ease, “Definitely,” the word falling out so heavy. The charm of her actions make you forget this place even surrounds you. Material disappears. “God, my heart is racing.” You lean into your knees.

Ellie noses at your neck, tip smushing. “I got you.”

She does. You cannot see her from your cocooned vantage, but you can feel her breath, and sweet lips forming into kisses. The little noises created let you imagine instead: she is probably donning a dorky smile, and has wispy, brown, shut eyes. You picture her hand coming up to clasp your shoulder, right when it actually does.

“Good thing we aren't in an actual horror movie, though,” Ellie presses the joke into your humid neck, slowly creeping behind your ear. “That would suck.”

You bring your forehead up, smiling tauntingly. “You would probably die first since you're so distracted.”

Her mouth clicks. “Shut up.” But resumes the delicate act of pinching at your skin without shame. That, for her, is the reason the other-worldly, torturing atmosphere around you turns to something of a soothing bliss. Funnily enough, it happens during said movies. Distractions on your neck and a greedy girl hungry to eat them whole and proudly.

Though, when she finally comes to her senses, she plays knight in converse and band-shirt armor and scopes the area of interest. Nothing was there except an old broom and a rat nest. Made for a whole lot of embarrassment later on in bed, that is for damn sure. Little comments of “I'm such an idiot,” rolling off your tongue while Ellie complimented you on your sudden intuition; the house did indeed belong to a woman of affluent status. How sexy is intuition? Ellie would know.

But Ellie loves being your ghost-hunting bodyguard—and nerd—either way. Something inherent inside her says she might be made for it.

a/n: wrote this in one go so i hope it suffices enough! click here for my autumntime masterlist!

[vintagehomecollection]

The hall, with its rich 'Bahama coral' walls and early nineteenth-century pine dresser, is warm and welcoming. The large papier-mache cockerel, nestling in an Irish handwoven basket, is by Mai Watts. The holes, however, were added later by a Whitechurch mouse.

In an Irish House, 1988

[dawndelion-winery]

Just Like That

Guiding their starry-eyed junior (can be viewed as platonic or romantic)

Ft. Alhaitham, Cyno, Dottore, Kaveh, Tighnari

Alhaitham:

Haravatat was...well it had the lowest enrollment rate for a reason

And having enrolled yourself, you were starting to see why

But you wouldn't let that deter you!!

You'd heard of the exemplary senior in your darshan by the name of Alhaitham and decided to seek him out for assistance

Which in itself, you felt, should have earned you an award of sorts given how hard he was to find

He excelled at making himself scarce, perhaps even more than he did at his work

Worse still was convincing him to tutor you

As passionate as you were to learn, he wasn't the type to be moved by devotion, and teaching you seemed like more trouble than he cared to deal with

Worst of all was the roundabout, cryptic ways he'd phrase his rejection: never a direct no, it always had to be in another language in some sort of riddle

Until you realised his stupidly annoying phrasings were his way of teaching you subtly

You should be more annoyed with him (enough to never speak to him again) but for whatever reason, him opting to help you, however ridiculously, was touching enough for you to hang around him even more

Cyno:

You'd looked forward to the day you enrolled in Spantamad

After all you'd heard of incredible alchemists like Albedo from Mondstadt and Rhinedottir from an ancient civilisation

But of course, Rhinedottir's work wasn't something you could freely research

And the ley lines!

You'd found a bunch of ley lines that, very strangely, spawned in a foggy orb which when walked into, spawned monsters

You concluded soon enough that the yellow ones gave you mora while the blue ones gave you old academic texts

Now, Cyno first approached you because of interest in Rhinedottir's alchemy

It was mainly to warn you to remember the sins and how you ought to be careful

And then he followed you on one of your ley line trips because it was suspicious how you kept finding notes from adventurers who went missing

Sometimes even the occasional weatherworn documents on research not documented in the Akademiya library

And you were fighting random monsters for this? With no way of knowing what would come out? What if there are rift hounds or something worse?

Absolutely not on your own. He's coming with you from now on

Trust in your reliable senior to beat up anything the ley lines spawn with ease

Dottore:

You must have thought you were real smart getting into Ksharewar

Until you found every Kshahrewar student is brilliant and you're not all that special

The very first time you found a puzzle you couldn't solve, you holed yourself up in the library for endless trial and error

Which only ended when some disgruntled senior came by and solved it for you because you were taking up his usual spot

With his fluffy, electric blue hair and startling ruby eyes, he was an eccentric sort of handsome

And so you scooted to the side for him to sit with you

And he only stared at you wondering why you hadn't left yet

Not that you would now that he's sat beside you

Looking over his solution, he was no doubt the brightest of the brilliant fellows in your darshan, and you'd be damned if you didn't get him to teach you his ways

Against his better judgement, he did finally cave to taking you under his wing

Begrudgingly. Though he wouldn't necessarily get rid of you at the first chance he got

Kaveh:

You had the opportunity to attend the Akademiya while the Light of Ksharewar did, what an honour

His work ethic was really something else

It was... inspirational to see, but frustrating to work with

Can you imagine being on your nineteenth draft because the professor squinted a little too hard at your submission which clearly implied they weren't fully satisfied with it?

Yeah well there's no need to imagine, (read in salesman voice) because with Kaveh, that becomes a reality!

For the low low price of your happiness and sanity, you too could be as much of a perfectionist as Kaveh

Of course he isn't that hard on you

He offers to redo the drafts himself since he's the one who thinks there should be modifications

But for one, you weren't about to waste an opportunity to learn from him

And second, you'd feel bad if he slaved away at it himself

So you often ended up in the House of Daena at ungodly hours with him

Which in turn sparks gossip because of how tired you seem and your peers knowing you're often with your very pretty senior

Tighnari:

Congrats on getting into the most popular darshan, Amurta

I sure hope bio is your strong suit bc it isn't mine

The potential projects you can pick from is so broad that it's impossible to have nothing to do and it's doing wonders for your mental state

Until it's not and you find yourself burnt out

Professors who once praised your drive and dedication now look at you in disappointment and disapproval

It's heartbreaking, really, until they ask Tighnari to guide you, thinking you've had a change of heart about your passions

Tighnari called bullshit on this, of course

He knew what the actual situation was once your change in behaviour was described to him

So when you'd nervously ask him how he was gonna get you back on the work grind, he scoffed and took you out for some relaxing field work

You were wondering what the point of it was, but didn't think it wise to question your well respected senior

At least until his sass got to you and you started quipping back

To which he finally laughed as though he'd succeeded in something

"There you go, you depressing lummox. About time you started loosening up. Stop losing your mind over what you can't do, or you'll start spiralling even more."

Taglist: @ryuryuryuyurboat @yinyinggie @mx-kamisato @chaosinanutshell @haliyamori @irethepotato @boundedbyfate @favonius-captain @aqui-soba @tiredsleep

[forthegothicheroine]

The sinful implication of such ["yellow"] books had come from France, where, from the mid-nineteenth century, sensationalist literature had been not-so-chastely pressed between vivid yellow covers. Publishers adopted this as a useful marketing tool, and soon yellow-backed books could be bought cheaply at every railway station. As early as 1846 the American author Edgar Allan Poe was scornfully writing of the "eternal insignificance of yellow-backed pamphleteering. For others, the sunny covers were symbols of modernity and the aesthetic and decadent movements. Yellow books show up in two of Vincent Van Gogh's paintings from the 1880s... Traditionalists were less impressed. These yellow books gave off a strong whiff of transgression, and the avant-garde did little to calm their fears (for them the transgression was half the point.) In Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, published in 1890, it is down the moral rabbit hole of such a novel that the eponymous antihero disappears, never to return. Just as the narrator reaches his defining ethical crossroads, a friend gives him a yellow-bound book, which opens his eyes to "the sins of the world", corrupting and ultimately destroying him. Capitalizing on the association, the scandalous, avant-garde periodical The Yellow Book was launched in 1894. Holbrook Jackson, a contemporary journalist, wrote that it "was newness in excelsis; novelty naked and unashamed...yellow became the color of the hour."...The magazine's art director and illustrator, Aubrey Beardsley, had barred Wilde after an argument- he responded by calling the periodical "dull" and "not yellow at all."

Kassia St. Clair, The Secret Lives of Color

[bestnoncannonship]

There are normal people.

Then there are people who take those bullet hole decals that gun people put on their trucks and use them to make gay nineteenth century literature references on their living room walls.

We are the latter.

[gofishygo]

[PRIDE MONTH- WEEK FOUR] : through green hydrangeas (my heart lies) price x ftm reader (part 2/2) - UNFINISHED

(i will complete this once i am unsuicidal and motivated)

[PART ONE] | notes: medical settings, description of injury, should have a good ending but like rn its not necessarily very bonita for either of them

The next time you and Johnathan price meet each other is indeed, in Burningham.

The doctors treating you had come with a prognosis- a puncture to the intestine. Through the whole eight hours of the surgery, the whole two weeks of an induced coma, he’d shadowed it behind a glass window. His now practically immune to the scent of disinfectants, the lemon-stained chemicals burning at his nose until the chemoreceptors in them saw nothing, felt nothing. He compares it to a black hole, how his sensory limbs have dulled since his career; his ears are now half drowned, all noose shallow and diasporic, left behind at a botched mission in 2002 Moscow. The keenness of his nose now snuffed by a recent disaster with chemicals. His body is trying and failing, pulling the weight of the world on its shoulders and inside the gaping voids of his chest, always consuming, killing, but never truly settled. Never truly sated.

And now his eyes have resulted in you being eaten, now his ears have resulted in you being ripped at your core. His body has chewed you and, and was left to spit out your body, just like Johnny-

He is scared of looking into closed eyes-they remind price too much about him. So, he leaves the living pearls alone, refuses to peel the skin back to see your colours. He never wants to chew again, not after this.

In every other world be should have stayed attentive, should have yelled at you to not mount the doorframe. But now you are here, bandage wrapped vice-tight below your own scars under your chest and blanketing part of your tattoo, and guilt and pity and some dark festering emotion he couldn’t pinpoint layer and boil like bile in his kidneys. Threatens to spill over into his throat and all over the bed when he is finally allowed to take the compression off. It reveals the shooting star of a wound, crusted tail stretching and expanding into arms that seem to try reach across your skin, to take more of the body it had infested. And he fears you will meet the fate of Johnny- that the wound had claimed your soul instead of your life. And it was an early death too, for the man he had met, for the private who’d body he thought he’d fully memorised a decade ago. The short-lived life of the man who smiled with his whole face for the woman who couldn’t. He knows you have changed, have grown up and out of your past life.

But he can only hope that now; you are strong enough to live through it.

On the nineteenth day of your bedrest, John seems to notice that the slow trickle of bouquets and cards of condolence had been wrung dry, petals brown and crusting on the small bundle of roses that Gaz had left on the bedside since the beginning of your stay in the hospital. The colour of the wilt now matched his increasingly darkening eyebags, crow’s feet near buried, shallow dents in the corner of his peripherals. Pads of his fingers rest atop your forehead- and he knows no matter how dysregulated your internal temperature was since the mission, the number of degrees in your body would always be more than the amount of “get well soon’s” you were given. Some stone of pity seems to snowball at the tip of his tongue and lodge in his throat at the lack of a similar last name on any of the unopened cards left to collect dust on the table. Perhaps, since you’d dropped your original name, the people who’d carried your last refused to see you. And maybe, the idea that the number of degrees your body temperature was also outmatched the number of times you’d seen your relatives since your transition. And maybe, you had been alone for that stretch of years, without familiar flesh to grip onto or a face to share your ashtray and lighter with.

(When long-abandoned lawns are left unattended, they seem to flourish. Rainwater fills the cracks of pavement, toadstool and wildflowers sprouting between the roots of household weeds. In miracle, you had thrived in your isolation.) With one of your eyes slightly peeled open and fixed towards him, and voice barely gathering into the creak of a tree deforested, you ask what is wrong. Price swallows: and he replies with silence.

But even in your quarter-dead state, the captain can’t seem to stomp out the embers of your stubbornness. You’d always cared for him, affection growing teeth and latching onto him with a grip near impossible to pry. In warmth, it held him, in cold, it smothered him. “Put a lid on it, private,” its some form of rumbled warning, a predecessor to earthquakes that would split continents open. “Laswell called. All six targets got taken down, thanks to the work of you and the ULF. Another mission cleared, another day of living.” The dynamics of your exhale sound oddly like a rendition of price’s puff of a cigar. He can faintly recognise the lethargy, energy seeped out of your injuries, clearly exasperated by the way he slams shut at your prying. “You don’t need to worry about me,” But you’re attentive, even in your indigence, and notice how his eyes are not focused on the explosion of scab across your torso, but on the scars that adorned the underside of your chest. “Or is there something else on your mind?”

Price- he truly does hope that you register his stifled grunt and the widening of his eyes as shock instead of horror. Your words catch him off guard, a bear trap that ensnares his tongue instead of his legs, and he is left thrashing in desperation for new words. “no, it’s not- its not that you’re transgender. I don’t care for that. Why didn’t you contact me? What made you think that I would despise you, just because you changed? Just because you were happier?” did you think I could ever hate you for that? “no, its not your fault kid. m’ mistake.”

Silence from the only person who’d dared to raise their words to match all his own, isolation from the man whose touch anchored you down to the ground of the earth and the heat of his skin- it’s smothering him still, a phantom weight that chained the both of you to the bones in your knees and the cuffs of your necks. (If love Is liberation, maybe you two could have been set free-)

[ltwilliammowett]

The wooden shipwreck of Qoroq,Iran, 19th century

The wreck is located 5 kilometres east of Talesh in the province of Gilan, near the village of Qoroq on the south-western corner of the Caspian Sea. The wreck was discovered by locals in 2005. It is still not known who it is or where it came from.

The research team has outlined several possible scenarios for the ship's grounding on the coast of Qoroq: a large hole in the northern hull of the ship, complete damage to the southern half of the ship and, according to some historical accounts, the ship may have been hit by gunballs during the Iranian-Russian wars in the early nineteenth century.

Another possible scenario for the decommissioning of the ship could be related to the 1904 law that stated that wooden ships should be replaced by steamships in Russia. However, the most likely scenario is that the ship sank due to sea storms.

[coimbrabertone]

Formula One Was Good Actually?

Yes.

I can't believe it either, but I did actually enjoy the F1 race this weekend.

Okay, so, just going to get the elephant out of the room now - the fact that Lando Norris won instead of Max Verstappen is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, but it's not just because of that - and now that I've said that, I'm going to talk about why I enjoyed F1 yesterday at the 2024 Miami Grand Prix.

Full disclosure, I didn't watch the sprint and it doesn't sound like I missed much.

In the race, however, something interesting happened...Max didn't break the field right away. He pulled a bit of a gap on Leclerc, yes, but Piastri in third was quick, and he managed to overtake Leclerc for second pretty early on, even started gaining.

Once Max pit, it was Piastri in the lead by a pretty comfortable margin, then Sainz, then Norris. I tuned into the race around this point since NASCAR at Kansas - also a banger of a race, I might get into that later actually - was in a rain delay. Piastri and Sainz made their pitstops, Lando was actually going quick - IIRC he had the fastest lap at this point - but still, it looked to me like Max had a clear path to the lead for the umpteenth time.

Kevin Magnussen, attempting to overtake hometown driver Logan Sargeant, hit the Williams and sent him into the barrier gearbox first. Logan was out on the spot, Kevin continued, and the safety car came out.

Now, maybe Bernd Maylander was just used to slotting in ahead of Max Verstappen - and can you blame him after these last three years? - but the safety car picked up Max in second, while Lando was free to run to the delta. Everyone knew he was going to make a free pitstop at this point, but with the rest of the field stuck behind the safety car, the question became...is Lando going to put a hole lap on the field?

Well, fortunately or unfortunately, race control waved the field by the safety car before any shenanigans could occur, so when Lando made his stop and came out on fresh hards, he caught the safety car with the rest of the field directly behind.

This is where things got fun.

On the restart, full disclosure, I thought Lando blew it and let Max Verstappen get too close...only for the Red Bull to fail to get the pass done on the start-finish straight. Lando kept the lead...and pulled away for the rest of the race.

Meanwhile, Verstappen spent the first part of the post-SC portion of the race breaking out of Leclerc's DRS range, while behind, Piastri and Sainz where showing that DRS wasn't a free pass this time out. And that's really what I liked about this race - the fact that, lap after lap, Sainz would get DRS on Piastri and would try and pass going into turn eleven...and it wouldn't be enough.

Unfortunately, Sainz eventually just decided to barge his way through and sent Piastri into the pits for a new front wing and fresh tyres, but the idea was there. DRS was an overtaking assist, but it wasn't a free overtake - and that's how I believe it should be.

That being said, as Piastri showed once he was on fresh tyres, a faster car could get by, so he charged through the likes of Albon and Ricciardo, taking fastest lap and eventually finishing thirteenth after having come out of the pits nineteenth. Sainz would get a five second penalty post race.

We had a new winner in Lando Norris, the winner started from fifth on the grid, it was a Grand Prix in the United States at a pleasant afternoon timeslot for me, and for the first time, it felt like it lived up to the hype of Miami.

Now there was also another thing, and it's so divisive that I'm not even sure if I should talk about it in this blog, but it's that Donald Trump was in attendance. He was a guest of Muhammad Ben Sulayem and Liberty Media, they took him through the McLaren garage, he posed with Zak Brown outside the garages, and he took a photo with Ben Sulayem and Lando Norris post-race. Not only that, but David Croft, in his race winning call went "On a weekend where McLaren has welcomed an ex-President into their garage, it's Norris who trumps Verstappen!"

So...in the eyes of some people, Norris' first win is forever going to be associated with a divisive ex-President who is one: subject to various legal proceedings in a number of states, and two: is running for office yet again. I hate that for Norris.

I'm not getting into the politics, I'm not making a judgment either way, please don't use this as a place to rant about your particular political views, I'm just saying it sucks that, a day after this guy's first win, I'm still seeing people talk about a guy who was a guest in the paddock rather than the guy who actually won the race.

It must suck for your first win to be at the center of people's political and moral arguments one way or another. I wish it wasn't a topic of conversation coming out of this race.

So yeah, I got to watch an F1 race I enjoyed for the first time in awhile, I even watched some of the post-race content, and by the time that was wrapping up, it was time for NASCAR.

I really like 1.5 mile triovals and Kansas is one of the best ones. We had moments of three, four, and even five wide in that race, and at the end of it all, we got the closest winning margin in NASCAR history. 0.001 seconds for Kyle Larson in the #5 HendrickCars Chevrolet over Chris Buescher in the #17 Castrol Edge Ford Mustang. I was rooting for Buescher, I desperately wanted Ford to get their first win of the season, but seeing that, I just had to throw my hands up and say it was a good race.

So, while there wasn't any MotoGP or Indycar this weekend, F1 and NASCAR managed to give me a pretty good Sunday of racing. I'm pleasantly surprised and I'm glad I can say that.

I hope McLaren can keep the forward momentum going and actually challenge Red Bull somewhat consistently, and I hope Ford can snap their winless streak in NASCAR sometime soon.

[moocha-muses]

Here's another one! This prompt was from my own personal brain, it's a poem about sirens.

So when I was twelve the scariest thing I had ever seen, was this episode of Ducktales - No, don't laugh, listen - it was the where the do the whole Odyssey in twenty-two minutes (which is a lot better than Odysseus' time) and when they get to the siren it's not, not mermaids, or even bird women with human heads, it's this awful thing - some wretched nightmare half flesh and half coral, writhing on the rocks, purple with decay, and three beautiful heads on top of the undulating polyps, hoarse and tumultuous and kind of a little bit sexy, too, which made it worse. And then it turned out to be some kind of anglerfish deal the head were just bait, waving around on something with lots of teeth, and- and, look. Of course I had nightmares. I had such vivid nightmares, for so many weeks, I thought I was still dreaming when the thing popped up in our neighborhood. The house appeared overnight, like a mushroom, or the shell of some creature that had wandered over (which is what is was) and no one else noticed. No one else noticed that the 'three sisters' who lived there never stood even a foot even an inch apart from each other, or that they all shared the same giant housecoat, with the empty sleeves dangling at the sides, or that they had voices that rasped like a carrot peeler and ravished like a nineteenth century duke, or that they never stepped off the front lawn, and how they didn't so much walk across it as undulate, with a hill of grass pushing up from behind, or how every dog they so much as glanced at ended up disappearing. No one else could see it, but I saw it. And I'd spent months dreaming about this thing every night, Months spending every day thinking about how I'd kill it. And, since I was in a suburban neighborhood and not, like, at sea, I had a lot of options. So one night I went around to every single unlocked garage and gardening shed I could find, with my dad's wheelbarrow, siphoning weed killer, kerosene, anything with a 'keep away from children' warning printed on it.

You know.

I put on my dad's fumigation mask and I stirred that shit up like it was a cauldron full of newt eyes, and then I went over to my new neighbors' place. I mean my neighbor's. The sirens were sitting together, but they couldn't do anything to me, not with all the wax from my mom's best candles stuff in my ears. I waved to them as I walked towards them across the lawn, with the wheelbarrow at an angle behind me, draining poison. I left the wax in until they stopped convulsing, but I was still inside to hear the last death gurgles of the thing beneath the grass when I pressed my ear against the manicured lawn. The three heads were still whimpering on their stalks, but not for long. I had my dad's saw, too. And, even though it took a lot of work, and gave me blisters even through my gloves, I cut away the prettiest head, the redhead, and I took it home. And it lived! I kept it in a basin of saltwater, and spoon fed it stuff from the bait shop, and not only did the head live, but it started regenerating. It regrew really slowly and the surface really was sort of rough and coral-textured, but if you picked at it like a scab there was soft flesh underneath. i could wiggle a finger in and poke at the softness of it, and then I could poke other things in, too, later, and it had that beautiful face, and that was soft inside and out. I had my dad's tools, so I could sculpt it as it regenerated, giving it a shape that was a lot more pleasing than a tapering tube, with holes in the right places, and it took years, but finally I had material even down to a pair of neat little feet. It never stops growing from the neck down, as long as I feed it and give it its daily soak, but I have to trim and recarve every couple of weeks to keep it from growing out of its clothes. But I don't mind that, even when the screams blow the window out. Anyway, long story short, that's how I met my wife! You?

[rumbelleshowdown]

-

Author: pomegranate seed

Group: B

Prompts: Theft, rose, “how long?!” Pillowfort. Turn the tables.

-

Priceless

Mr Gold peered across the cramped floor of his shop with a crooked smirk on his face. Lacey French was in the process of pocketing a piece of jewelry that had been dangling from the rack–a necklace with a locket pendant, featuring an enamel face emblazoned with a deep red rose.

The same color red as the lipstick she was always wearing, he reckoned. 

The necklace was a piece of decent quality–but it lacked the sort of provenance that might render it worthy of a spot in the glass case he was standing behind. In truth, he ought to have melted the thing down for scrap. Jewelry simply didn't move in a pawn shop–plenty of sellers, rarely any buyers. But he'd found it a charming thing, and hung it up front in the hope that someone might be willing to part with some of their hard-earned cash in exchange for it. 

Evidently not. 

Lacey was making a display of pretending to admire a few of the other pieces on the rack–costume jewelry mostly. Picking them up, turning them this way and that in the dim, incandescent light, and humming before putting them back. 

Mr Gold cleared his throat. “Miss French.”

She froze for a beat, seemed to catch herself, then looked up at him with a friendly smile. “Yeah? Mr Gold?”

He scoffed. That smile didn't suit her. After all, Lacey French didn't have a friendly bone in her body.

“Will you be paying for that?” He asked.

She furrowed her brows and pouted her lips, feigning innocence as she looked around the shop. “Uh… paying for what?”

He supposed he had to admire her effort. “It's a lovely little thing, isn't it?” He said, grabbing his cane and hitching out from around the counter. “Late nineteenth century. Timeless motif, the rose. Gold plated. There's some imperfections in the wiring of the cloisonné–but that only adds to its charm, I think.”

She swallowed, knowing she'd been caught, but not prepared to admit it just yet. 

He held out his hand with his palm up. “Miss French.”

She glanced desperately around the shop again as if looking for her escape, but there was none. With a resigned sigh, she reached into her bag and dug out the necklace. “How long have you been watching me?” She grumbled as she dropped it into his palm–the delicate gold chain falling in a soft cascade around the pendant.

The corner of Mr Gold's mouth curved into a smile. “Why–since the moment you walked in, dearie,” he said, closing his fist around the necklace and dropping it into his jacket pocket. 

She folded her arms tightly across her chest and shifted on her feet–those deep red lips set in a defiant, pillowy pout. “You know, you really shouldn't admit shit like that,” she snorted. “Makes you sound like a bit of a creep.”

He swept his eyes over her, his grin widening. Storybrook was a dreadfully provincial little town–and Lacey French was one of its few treasures. Behind that vulgar mask of hers, was a woman who was as bold and clever as she was stubborn. 

“...So says the thief,” he said. 

“I didn't do anything,” she said, without an ounce of shame. “Maybe it fell in.”

“Leapt off of the rack and straight into that knockoff bag of yours?” he scoffed, tossing a pointed glance at the cracked and peeling finish on the edges he'd spotted from a mile away.

Her nostrils flared at that, and he felt a small trill of satisfaction course through him.

“...Better a bartender with a knockoff bag than a fucking landlord,” she snorted.

Mr Gold gave a light chuckle of amusement. A decisive blow, but an expected one. “You know, it was a pity to hear about what happened to our good friend Leroy Herzberg last month,” he sighed, looking down at his hand where it rested on the handle of his cane and flexing his fingers as if to check his nails for cleanliness. “As I understand it, he was on his way home from the Rabbit Hole. Had a few too many to drink.”

At this he looked back up, tossing his hair out of his face and waiting to see what retort she'd make next. But she only clenched her jaw tightly, her eyes hard as stones.

“...Last I heard he was well on his way to a full recovery though,” he added. “I'm sure that must come as a great relief to you.”

Lacey drew a deep, steadying breath. “You really are a fucking asshole, you know that?”

He chuckled and bobbed his head, reaching back into his jacket pocket and pulling out the necklace. He tossed it gently in his palm, letting the chain unfurl and slip through his fingers. “It's not a terribly valuable piece,” he said, smiling down at the pendant cradled in his palm. “At least not to me. But the woman who sold it to me seemed quite attached to it.”

He staggered back over towards the counter, only to pause halfway and turn around. “You know, it's funny–” he said, “you seem her spitting image.”

He spun on his heels and continued to the counter, setting the necklace down and beginning to unlock the case. Perhaps it deserved a place inside after all. 

“Fine,” Lacey said. “How much do you want for it?”

Mr Gold paused, his lips curling into a grin. “What's your best offer?”

She rolled her eyes. “I'm not stupid, Gold. How much did you pay for it?”

He wet his lips like a dog awaiting a meal. “...A price that your mother found fair enough, I can assure you.”

Lacey huffed and stormed up to the counter. “Cut the shit and name a price, asshole.”

Mr Gold's heart thumped pleasantly in his chest. Colette French had been a lovely woman of many charms–but her wayward daughter possessed a far rarer kind of beauty. 

“Something you learn in my line of work, Miss French–” he began, “is that the value of goods changes over time. What was considered junk a decade ago might be highly-sought treasure now…” he mused. “Supply and demand and all that,” he finished with a shrug. “I'm sure you understand.”

Lacey rolled her eyes. “So then what is the value of it now?”

He picked the necklace back up and pretended to study it anew for a moment. In truth, he'd expect it to go for no more than forty dollars on the market. But to Lacey French, it was worth far more than that. 

He ambled back around the counter and gestured for her to turn around. “If I may?”

She narrowed her eyes at him skeptically, but indulged him nonetheless.

And what an indulgence it was, as he strung the thing around her neck. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, and her chest rose and fell shakily with each anxious breath. His own fingers trembled too, as he fastened the small clasp.

“There we are,” he murmured, his lips close to her ear.

She spun around quickly, her cheeks colored by a blush that hadn't been there before–and my, was she beautiful. Exquisite. Blue eyes, fair skin. Red lips, red rose.

And thorns. Lacey French had thorns.

Mr Gold reached for a hand mirror that he kept on the counter for such occasions as this, and handed it to her.

She shot him another wary look as she accepted it, turning her back to him again as if she needed a bit of privacy.

“...I'd say it's quite priceless,” he said once enough time had passed. “Wouldn't you? Miss French?”

-

[illumiera]

9 and 23 for miss ellie for the ‘firsts’ tag game :33

thank you for the asks, Jules!! 💖

✨ ask game! ✨

9. first time living away from home

Elentari has a "technically..." and "true" answer, I feel! so, technically, her first time living away from home came at the age of eighteen after her murder by the Dark Brotherhood and resurrection by Mara, when she fled her family home in Daggerfall and boarded the first ship she came across. it took her to Anvil in Cyrodiil, where she spent several months (her nineteenth birthday included) holed up in an inn, deep in a state of grief and shock. at that point, she only really left her room to pray for her family's souls at the Chapel of Dibella. however! after this overwhelming despair lifted (she specifically remembers feeling the urge to stand and open the window, then being swept by the warmest, kindest breeze she'd ever felt), she packed her bags and headed to the Arcane University in the Imperial City, where she stayed for about two years. she'd count this as her first proper living away from home experience, I'd think, late nights studying and falling asleep on textbooks and drinking ill-advised stamina potions in lieu of a good rest included.

23. first display of their powers or abilities

call it a leftover gift from Akatosh, but once she begins to study and become even marginally stronger than the novice mage she was back in Daggerfall, Elentari finds Destruction magic very, very easy—just like how Mara's touch blessed her abilities with Restoration. of course, having gotten through Helgen without raising a spell or weapon thanks to Ralof defending the scared, skinny little noblewoman at his side, she doesn't actually realise this until she's tasked with going to Bleak Falls Barrow, runs into some bandits, and intends to strike out with a fire spell to warn them off, being totally out of her depth as she is. what actually happens is that Akatosh's little gift and innate dragon soul self-preservation kicks in, and that's the first time she ever takes someone's life. it's clear there's no saving these bandits from their injuries, but she tries and fails anyway. as for the true extent of her prowess with Restoration, coupled with that dragon soul... we see that a few years after the bandit incident in i fear no fate, when she outright refuses to accept Miraak's death, reverses time itself to bring his soul back, and heals his body almost completely!

[banned-for-horny]

One of the Good Ones

Mason gets in trouble.

(cw including but not limited to bratty reader, leighton being leighton, and mason getting the humiliation/corruption he deserves)

Mason should have just ignored you. You'd come in, made all kinds of rude and lewd remarks, and really, he should have known something was up when he was able to drag you to office without a fight. You're one of the best swimmers in the class, and you had a reputation as a delinquent for a reason.

A loud thwack! startles the swim coach, but it's your strangled moan in his ear that really drags him back to attention. Your entire body jolts from the blow, chest rubbing against Mason's whistle, thighs twitching and knocking his own together. Somehow, the only part of him that isn't being set ablaze by your touch is his crotch, where his cock strains painfully against his shorts. He can't tell if it's a blessing or a curse.

"Ahem."

Blessing, Mason decides quickly. "Nine."

Behind you with a leering smile stands Headmaster Leighton. "Good." He raises the paddle. "I was worried you lost count. We would've had to start all over again, and we wouldn't want that, right?"

"No, sir," Mason forces out.

You squeeze Mason's neck in a hug and sway your hips, drawling, "No, sir."

Headmaster Leighton brings the paddle down with a fierce swing. Mason's hips jolt up...at the noise. He'd been startled. Right. Just startled. "Ten."

Really, Mason doesn't understand how he got here. He'd expected you to be punished, sure, but then Headmaster Leighton had said something about being responsible for their students in the classroom, and that he should know how to control his students and not rely on the Headmaster for everything and-

Another swing. Another breathy moan. This time, Mason can see your toes curling and throws his head back, desperate for air. "Eleven."

-and now he's here.

Mason isn't stupid. He knows this town is-is sick. Fucked up. And it isn't like he's innocent, either - his little sessions in the lake are saved for rainy days on purpose. But he keeps his hands to himself for a reason, always makes direct eye contact and NEVER goes below the neckline.

But this is also his job. He'd gotten lucky getting a position at the academy, and if he got fired, he would have to resort to some...unsavory work until he finds something more stable.

Thwack!

"Twelve," Mason gasps over your moaning. His hips are twitching, either to grind into your crotch or wriggle away from it. The count is fifteen. Headmaster Leighton wanted him to prove he's capable of controlling himself by not touching you. It's not that hard.

He thinks as much until rough, weathered skin squeezes his knee. Mason's breath hitches in his throat, jaw tight as Headmaster Leighton leans over to eye the little gap between the swim coach and the delinquent.

"You're doing good, Mason," the headmaster hums, squeezing Mason's burning skin as he smiles. "I expected no less from someone like you. As for you..." He rises with a quiet grunt, then wrenches your head back by the roots. Your lips part in another breathy gasp, eyes fluttering. "This is a punishment, you know."

The corner of your lips curl dangerously. "Then maybe you should stop hitting like an old man already and actually punish me."

Headmaster Leighton's own smile drills a hole right through Mason's stomach. The paddle strikes your bare end once, twice, three times in quick succession. Even when Mason practically shouts "Fifteen!", the older man doesn't stop. You cry out at the sixteenth, bury your face into Mason's neck at the nineteenth. At twenty, your lips ghost over his skin, nails sinking into his roots and jerking his head back. A moan catches in his throat at the sight of the headmaster's flushed face.

"Still enjoying yourself?" Headmaster Leighton sneers.

For a moment, Mason prays he's talking to you, but when he realizes the headmaster is watching him, his tongue shrivels in his mouth. "N-No, sir. Never-"

It's at that perfect, horrible moment that you finally decide to sit up. Your hips drag up Mason's thighs and hike up his shorts, and the throbbing warmth of your ass finally grinds against his length and draws a deep, pained groan from his chest. His hands untangle from behind the chair, digging his fingers deep into your hips to-to push you off. Right. It also keeps the weight of your body directly on his clothed cock, burning and twitching with the desire to rut into you until he cums, and he can't have that. Mason's supposed to be one of the good ones.

"Oh?"

Sobriety crashes into Mason like he dove headfirst into the lake in the middle of winter. His eyes fly to the headmaster and his nonchalant lean against the desk behind him, paddle still in hand, eyes brimming with cruel amusement.

"Mason," he sighs, "I'm disappointed in you. You were supposed to keep your hands to yourself until I was done."

Mason's jaw drops in protest, ripping his hands away from your skin. "Y-You said to fifteen-"

The paddle cracks against the polished wood. "I said, 'let's start with fifteen'," Headmaster Leighton sneers. "Not 'only' fifteen. I know I hired you for your...physical fitness, but it's simple English, really." His sneer melts into a sadistic grin. "Or were you just that eager to join in on the punishment? What do you think?"

Whatever else Mason tries to say disappears in another groan when you lean back, pressing even harder into his erection. Despite the pained tears brimming in your eyes, you smirk. "I think," you hum, "he really wants to join in, sir."

And Mason desperately wants to say no, wants to shove you off his lap and bolt out of the headmaster's office, but he can already imagine it now: Local swim coach teacher physically assaults student, claims it was in self-defense. Headmaster Leighton would have his name slandered, credibility destroyed. Who would ever want to hire some no-named stranger that got caught red-handed by the police?

"I-" Mason chokes out, "I-I should be punished."

Your smirk only grows. Through the haze of his own panic and arousal, he swears he sees the pointed tail of a devil curling behind you. "For?"

"For..." Mason swallows when Headmaster Leighton circles behind him. "For not being able tO-" His voice hiccups when those same, calloused hands palm his shoulders. With each gentle squeeze, he finds the tension in his muscles soften against his will. "For not being able to control myself..."

You pout. That tail he swears isn't there droops. "Control myself against..."

"Against you," he finishes.

The victorious little smile you flash ignites every nerve under his skin. You sit back fully this time, practically crushing his erection and ignoring his moan to say, "See, old man? Told you he'd break."

"As if anyone could hold out against someone like you," Headmaster Leighton scoffs. He gives Mason one final shove before returning to his desk, retrieving the paddle and giving his palm a firm smack. "Now, what to do..." They could let him go, Mason wants to say, but under the haze in his mind, he already knows they won't let him. Whatever little game they have planned, he'd be stuck between them.

"Why don't we start with some strokes?" Headmaster Leighton pats the top of his desk. You smile and slip out of Mason's lap, practically throwing the swimmer into position. He barely gets his hands on the surface when you yank his shorts down, exposing his ass and-

"H-Hey!" Mason squeaks when you grab his shaft. He isn't exactly big, but when your fist closes around his cock, the head barely peeks out of your fingers.

"That's...smaller than I was hoping," you whine. A few hard tugs nearly has Mason at the brink of orgasm and yet you aren't even paying attention, pouting at the headmaster instead. "You said he was a winner!"

"I said he would be 'entertaining'," Headmaster Leighton scolds. "Seems Mason isn't the only one here flunking out of English, hm? Perhaps I should have Doren come in to provide some remedial lessons. Or should I have Sirris come in to check your ears?"

"No!" Mason manages to shout, voice trembling as you continue to stroke his shaft. You're barely moving your wrist, almost bored, and under all the arousal and embarrasment, he can't help but grit his teeth with frustration. "Can we just start already?"

"At least you're eager," you huff, finally releasing his cock. Mason risks glancing over his shoulder and finds you sidled up to Headmaster Leighton's side, tapping a jaunty little tune against the paddle with your nails. "Now hurry up, sir. I'm bored!"

Headmaster Leighton only smiles and traces the edge of the paddle up your throat, chin tilted back to meet his eye. It's sensual, intimate, and Mason feels like he's intruding on something when the headmaster leans down and whispers in your ear. Whatever he says, it draws the corners of your mouth into a wicked smile. You peck a kiss against Headmaster Leighton's cheek. In the same breath, you pluck the paddle from his hand and point it at Mason.

"Let's start with...fifteen," you taunt, voice dripping with glee. "Ready?"

Mason feels like he might faint. He's supposed to be one of the good ones. "...ready."