#Japanese hiking trails

[sergioguymanproust]

There are places in the deep woods of the Japanese mountains where time stopped and stayed,where the gods and goddesses order the Buddhist monks to build their abode,and so they did .Knowing that many of these ancient places were frequented by dark and malevolent spirits that tried so desperately to destroy such temples of peace and harmony,places of worship away from the mayhem caused by feudal lords seeking land , revenge,concubines to house their harems,and build their armies and control the rice paddies. Many of these places are abandoned today because of the many earthquakes that afflict these islands sitting on faults that crisscross them. Causing land slides,also during the rainy season floods are quite common,not an easy topography to build anything,but the resilience of the monks and perseverance has made the impossible possible. Those who are sensitive to the energies of such places will automatically understand of what I’m talking about.Gates painted in red often lead to such places indicating the abode of the gods and goddesses.The color red symbolizing protection against dark and evil entities. Well,more to come in future postings.Words by Sergio Guyman Proust.

白龍園・京都

[mylifeinpixels]

walk with me

[kdphotos]

Lower path to Oyama-dera Temple, Mt. Oyama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan

©️KevinjDixon

[cyeria]

sika deer

[esichime]

Favorite trail in South Florida?

[pabel10]

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[after-witch]

When You Looked at Me, I Should Have Run [Mahito x Reader]

Title: When You Looked at Me, I Should Have Run [Mahito x Reader]

Synopsis: Your trip to Japan doesn’t go as planned, thanks to a monster in the forest.

Word count: 7400ish

notes: Yandere(ish); body horror, violence, vore and implied digestion, reader is transmasc

If there was one thing you could appreciate about getting lost in Japan, it was the fact that people were very willing to give you directions. So when the realization hit you--you have been unfortunately walking the wrong way for some time now--there is none of that stomach-churning dread that occurs back home, when asking someone for directions typically ends with someone telling you to “fucking looking it up on your phone.”

And sure, you didn’t exactly speak Japanese, but that’s what your secondhand “301 Phrases You’ll Need in Japan!” book was for! You’d also found that you could ask in English, and people didn’t seem to mind. Or at least, they didn’t say they minded, and that was what counted. 

Sighing, you grab the book out of your tote bag and begin to flip through. A few people veer to the side from behind you after the sudden stop, but you pay them no mind, instead focusing on finding just the right phrase you need. When you do, you repeat it out loud what feels like a million times before tucking the book away.

The map comes out next, and you unfold it haphazardly, searching for the hiking trail you’ve been searching for all morning. It was supposed to be really scenic, but a little off the beaten path. Perfect for photos, plus you could tell your friends back home that you weren’t on one of the annoying overcrowded tourist paths, which was always a bonus. 

Now, to find someone to help and--ah! 

A young man leaning up against the alley wall of a charming little storefront would do. He’s dressed unusually, wearing a flowing shirt with a striped pattern, and he was maybe in an accident of some kind, with stitches on his face. But you don’t stare (well, maybe for a second); because that would be exceptionally rude, Japan or otherwise. 

You smile, bowing (maybe too low, maybe too dramatically, but it was hard to get the angles right) and hold up your map. In very accented Japanese, you ask, “Can you help me find the…” And the word you had memorized from the book vanishes, so you tap the map, shaking the paper. “Mountain trail?” You complete in English. 

The man blinks at you, saying nothing, which is a bit strange. A bit rude, you might say. Maybe you pronounced the words completely wrong. You fumble for the book, finding the page again, and hold it up for him to see. “Mountain trail?” You ask again, still in English.

The man blinks again. 

You sigh, and point at the page where the phrase sits, not wanting to attempt a pronunciation in Japanese at the moment. 

He leans in closer, too close, really, and his silver hair ghosts your shoulder. Mismatched eyes--contact lenses? He was really trendy!--scan up and down before he moves backward, staring at you again.

Then--

The man grins.

Widely. Unusually so, among the people you’ve met. But perhaps since he was younger, he was breaking social norms a bit. I mean, he already was, with his outfit--with his hair, long and impossibly silver. And those contacts! 

His eyes roam over you--and you feel suddenly self-conscious of yourself, wearing a simple touristy t-shirt and trousers with hiking boots--and his finger finds the map even as his eyes never leave your face. 

The finger slithers down the paper, and you force yourself to follow it (geez, why was he staring so rudely?) as it lands on a particular sidestreet marked with a hiking trail symbol. It’s not too far off, thankfully, and you could probably cut across a few streets to get there sooner. 

He says something in Japanese, but you don’t know what. When you stare at him blankly, he grins again.

“Forest,” he says, in English. His grin gets even wider, somehow, and you swear one of his stitches twitches. “Fun.” 

“Thank… you very much,” you murmur, in your accented Japanese, before giving the strange young man another exaggerated bow. You wave--a habit--and don’t bother folding the map before you leave, walking quicker than you might have, to avoid wasting anymore time on this trip.

The wave seems to amuse him, and he waves back, beaming. 

A strange young man, sure. But just as helpful as anyone else you’ve met on your trip so far. And his hair was really pretty; it was a wonder nobody was so much as staring at him.

--

There is something in the forest.

There is something in the forest, wild and large.

There is something in the forest, wild and large--and it is following you.

You’re not sure exactly when it started; you weren’t paying much attention to the forest itself until it became too loud and obvious to ignore. There weren’t enough service bars on your phone to look it up, but it had to be some kind of bear, right? Japan did have bears--you think. 

Maybe it was a deer. But deer would be too skittish, wouldn’t they? To follow you around in the woods, despite all the noise you were making. Unless it was one of those deer that was used to being fed by people, though if that was the case, wouldn’t it have made itself known by now? Begging for an apple and bowing, like the videos you saw online.

Probably not a deer. Maybe a bear. Or a fox or something else large and rumbly and, you think, eyeing you as a potential snack. 

Whatever it was, it was staying hidden. In the brush and trees, with the occasional rustle and snapping branch to give away its position. 

What do you do? Your mind tries to trace back to those Saturday evenings spent watching the occasional “When Animals Attack” documentary with your family. There were episodes on bees and mountain lions and sharks and bears, too, you’re sure… should you play dead? Make more noise? Run like hell? 

How can you get help, in the middle of the woods?

There’s on one else on the trail. Your phone isn’t working. And you’re not entirely sure if you should retrace your steps or keep going on ahead, to make it lose interest. The choices are all too confusing, with the adrenaline steadily growing inside your body, and your heart beginning to beat altogether too fast.

A decision can’t be made, not like this, heart and brain buzzing too quick and too loud to be steady enough for a proper thought process. 

In the end, though–

It doesn’t matter.

Your choice is made for you, when the animal retreats from the camouflage of the brush and steps right onto the trail. Its body takes up the entire trail, and it’s a wonder it was able to hide amongst the leaves and branches at all. 

And–

And it’s not a bear, or a deer, or anything you’ve ever seen before.

The creature that has been following you for oh-so-many steps is deformed. A monster. Something you’ve never seen in your entire life and so entirely wrong in its construction that your brain doesn’t register it as being real for a few awful, agonizing moments.

What is it–

It--whatever it is--has too many limbs. That’s what stands out at first, because it’s the most bearable thing to look at--the limbs. There are at least 6, skin-colored arms sprouting from the torso on downward. Claws or… hands? Fuck, they look like hands; hands are at the end of each arm, fingers wiggling like worms.

The creature doesn’t just have too many limbs. There are too many mouths, all open and red, with white human-like teeth showing in the center. Opening and closing and there’s a sound being made, but you can’t register if it’s human speech. It couldn’t be, because this thing was not a human. The sight of it was making you crazy, that’s all, and that craziness traveled from your retinas to your ears.

The worst sight of all, and it’s the sight of this that finally unfreezes your legs, is the rippling underneath the skin. A solid mass worming its way around the body. Like there was something else underneath the flesh, waiting to burst out, slithering along like a gorged snake.

You couldn’t let it come closer. You wouldn’t let it. 

So when your legs feel like they can move, when your breath gets sucked in with a terrible gasping that nearly chokes you, you bolt.

The creature comes after you. Of course it does. You ran like prey, and you feel like prey; you are prey, here, in the woods. You hear the creature now in full force, no longer meandering in the brush of the woods, but chasing you. The sound of too many feet hitting the ground, the sound of the air whipping by its many arms, and its breathing. Steady, loud, increasing as it gets closer. 

Your own breath comes out ragged, desperate, wheezing. You weren’t made to run like this–or perhaps you were, and that’s the crux of this whole damn trip–but this creature was clearly meant to chase. 

Regret on ever coming to the woods courses through you every time your feet pound against the ground, but regret wasn’t going to save you. Thoughts whir together--don’t let it catch me, how do I get out of here, will anyone be able to help me?--as you rush down the winding paths of the forest trail.

But there’s no one in sight, and there surely wouldn’t be anyone to help you if you went deeper into the woods. The only chance for salvation, if there was a chance at all, would be to head back towards the city. Monsters didn’t live in cities, didn’t thrive there. There’s an almost prickling fantasy that blurs through your mind: cross the threshold of the trail and it will stop instantly, like a fairy tale creature unable to cross a magic bridge. 

You will be safe, if you can get back there. 

But how to get there, with a beast at your back? 

You’ve got to turn around, somehow. If you can turn around, you can go back the way you came, and get back to human civilization. If you get back to human civilization, where monsters are dreams and movie magic, you will live. 

If you keep going into the woods, you’ll only get lost, you’ll be so deep that no one will hear you scream. If you even had the lung capacity to scream, after all this running. Would the lungs the monster tears through with its claws, its teeth, have anything left in them? 

You can’t turn around the proper way. Your brain, frantic though it is, is steady enough to understand that fact. You’ll lose momentum if you try to pivot and go back the way you came, and who is to say if you’ll be fast enough to evade the monster at all? 

But you want to live. 

So you do what the signs at the beginning of the trail forbade you to do, and veer off the trail, pushing into the thicket of the forest. The branches snag on your clothes, and you’re glad you decided against wearing the fanny pack after all. You’re able to pull the fabric of your shirt and trousers free from the branches as they snap and rustle around you; a fanny pack would have been a death sentence.

And when you make your desperate foray into the thicket of the woods, something happens. Something that makes your blood run cold, despite the heat of your pumping muscles and the sweat beginning to drip down your back.

The creature stops running. Oh, just for a moment.  You hear the racket of its limbs, of its power and size, cease. And you hear a little sound, a bit like a chuckle. That can’t be right, though. It must be catching its breath. Even monstrous creatures get tired. 

It must have been a wheeze, that’s all. The alternative is far worse.

It doesn’t stay still for long. You hear its body pushing through the canopy of trees now, too. 

It’s faster than you. And stronger than you.

But you keep running. Desperate, human, wanting to avoid the horrible fate at the end of its teeth and claws.

Your thighs and lungs and chest burn awfully as you hop over branches, run through canopies of leaves that slap your face as you go through them, the sting of micro-scratches registering as if you’re experiencing them as a third party.

What does a few scratches mean, if you get attacked by some--thing? No one will ever find your body, probably. Or it will be so unrecognizable that they’ll never identify you.

If you trip now, you’re done for. If you trip now, that thing will be on you, with its many mouths and many hands and many teeth.

If you trip now, that is.

Somehow, sheer dumb luck or some otherworldly being guiding your burning legs, you don’t trip until you reach the very edge of the woods, when the beautiful sight of the trail’s entrance is within arm’s reach. 

“Fuck!” 

You shout out, hands catching you before you hit the ground proper and hurting awfully in the process. Your palms sting, you’re sure there will be blood and scrapes. Like when you used to trip on the sidewalk as a kid and you wound up with gravel in your palms for the trouble.

That doesn’t matter though. What matters is that you can feel the weight of the creature behind you, can imagine it rearing up, can smell something--its breath, its body?--and you know you’re about to die.

This is it. A lifetime, all ended with–

Ding-ding-ding!

The ring of a bicycle bell turns out to be your saving grace. Someone pulling up to hike or maybe they heard your distress or who fucking cares, really, because at the sight of the bell, you hear the monster retreat back into the woods.

The person on the bike seems appropriately concerned at the state of you, sweat plasteirng your hair and clothes to your skin, your face red with exertion. They offer a hand and you don’t know what they’re saying because the thought of getting your translation book out right now is the furthest thing from your mind.

They murmur in concern at the scrapes on your hands. Those scrapes are nothing, compared to what was behind you; what should have happened, when you tripped. Child’s play, in more ways than one.

You let this stranger–your savior, really–guide you on jelly-like legs that carry you away from the forest, back towards the little town and what must be safety. Safety in numbers, safety in humanity, safety in the knowledge that the streets are filled with buildings, bikes, cars; the smell of automobile smoke and food stalls. The chatter of people, car horns, all of it a far cry from the wild woods and the wild creature behind you.

As you walk away on unsteady legs, you swear you hear another sound from the forest. you swear–but no, no, the rational part of your mind bubbles you safely away from it; oh, it can’t be real it can’t be real it can’t be real.

Because--

It sounds like laughter.

--

You don’t tell the police about the arms, and mouths, or the laughter. Only that you were chased by some kind of animal--you don’t know what--that was following you on the trail. 

The police smile at your story, told to them in shakily typed app-translated Japanese, and one of them types into his own translation app that they will search the forest, but that it was probably an aggressive bear. 

It was not a bear. You know this. You know this, and you let them placate you with assurances that they will put up signs, and send out a forest warden. Despite the awful knowledge that nests in your stomach like a rotten egg: this was not a goddamn bear. 

It was a monster in those woods. 

But who would believe you, if you tried to tell the truth?

–

The stranger with the silver hair and mismatched eyes spots you that afternoon, sitting at a local cafe with what must be a shaken, sullen expression. You’ve hardly touched the food you ordered, instead keeping your hands wrapped around your warm drink, focusing on the way it spreads through your fingers. 

Not that he seems to mind your look or the clear tension surrounding you like miasma. In fact, he plops right into the chair across from you without even asking, all grins, and swipes one of the mini sandwiches you ordered for lunch.

The audacity. The over-familiarity. Honestly? You can’t help but find it refreshing, in this moment, your mind and body still shaken from the ordeal. It was better than the awkward distance between you and everyone else; it was like the monster in the forest had laid its scent on you, and everyone knew to keep a step back.

“Trail?” He asks, eyes glancing over your hair, cropped short and still sticking a little to your forehead from sweat. He smiles a little–at you, maybe. Or maybe he just likes to smile. “Fun?”

The word hits, but not too hard. Not as hard as it would have, if anyone else had asked it.

It’s not like he knew what happened. And maybe… maybe he would know something more? A local who knew the trail, who lived around here, might take you more seriously than the police. Especially since he was a little strange himself, he might be used to the idea of not being believed. 

So you shake your head and offer up your phone to this perfect stranger, with the translated story from the police station still typed in. An animal, but you didn’t know what kind; a chase through the woods. 

��Ah,” he says, after a while of staring unblinking at the screen. “No fun.” He smiles, when he shouldn’t. “Scared.”

“Yeah,” you admit, breathily, almost smiling yourself. A lighthearted confirmation for a terrifying experience. Something about this stranger makes you want to open up. Makes you want to trust him. It’s like he gets you, and considering the fact that you stuck out like a sore thumb in this small foreign town, you latched right onto it. 

Then, leaning forward, you type the eager words into your app before asking them out loud: “Have you ever heard of there being a monster in that forest?”

You’re not sure if he knows enough English to register what you’ve said before reading the phone screen, but your words make his eyes widen. 

So you continue, almost babbling a bit, describing it in more detail. You’re not sure how much he understands, how much he’s getting. Your fingers type frantically into the app, repeating a choppy version of what comes bubbling out of your lips, hoping it makes enough sense. App translators weren’t exactly known for their accuracy. 

But you want to tell him, need to tell him, all about the way it moved, the odd breathy sounds that almost sounded like speech, and the rippling under the skin. The primal feeling of being prey in the woods, the same as any rabbit, any deer. 

People are glancing over as you speak, as you show this stranger your phone and go on about the horrors of the forest; and you’re not entirely sure if it’s because he committed an awful social faux pas in plopping down at your table to casually or because of you. Your words, your clothes, the way you’re getting increasingly frantic as he actually listens to what you say and doesn’t tell you that you’re some crazy American tourist who might consider going back to your hotel and taking a nap.

He gets you, he gets this, you’re sure of it even before you’re finished with your story.

When you’re done, you can feel new beads of sweat dripping down the back of your neck. During the course of your conversation, his wide-eyed expression has gone somber. Seriously. Like he knows exactly what you mean and it makes your chest clench in sick hope. 

“Yes,” he says, finally; low, leaning forward. His voice is soft and earnest and you latch onto it in a sea of unfamiliarity. “I know about a monster.” He glances around, apparently now keenly aware of the stares, although they only make him grin. “I tell you… not here. At home.” 

Home? His home? Maybe you shouldn’t--lord, stranger danger--but the stares only seem to intensify when he stands up, and you follow suit on instinct. It makes you feel naked, judged. Frayed-nerves don’t do anything but amplify the sensation. 

This is stupid. You read enough travel articles before coming to know that you shouldn’t go to places with a stranger. Hell, you knew that before you searched “Japan travel tips” on your phone for the first time–how many times did your mother tell you to never be alone with a stranger, back when you were small and so very different? 

But you were an adult now. More sure of yourself, in more ways than one. And this stranger, this strange young man, might be able to help you. If someone else knew about the monster, well; it might mean you weren’t out of your mind. It might mean you could leave Japan with this part of yourself intact. 

It’s something of a relief when the stranger grabs your wrists and pulls you away from the cafe. 

Your stomach flutters equally with that relief–and uncertainty. 

--

His home, he explains in his own accented English, is at the edge of the forest. It’s enough to make you nearly trip over your own shoes, when he tells you. The stranger turns around, smiles, but he doesn’t stop walking. He doesn’t let go of your wrist, either, holding it with a gentle firmness that makes you want to avoid pulling away.

“Scared?” His smile is small and almost private. Whether it’s just for you, or him, you’re not sure.

You swallow. And nod. A knot of fear tightens in your stomach, but you try to remember that there is strength in numbers. 

He looks you up and down, and tugs you closer, so that you’re walking nearly side by side as he holds you close. The closeness is, you think, a comfort. 

“The monster lives anywhere,” he says. There’s a blend of solemnity and humor to his tone that you can’t quite place. It might just be his accent, you tell yourself.

You tell yourself a lot of things. Like that he sidepasses the forest trail and takes you through a shortcut in the woods because it’s quicker, and safer.

Branches and leaves snap underfoot, and the dead silence of anything but the noise the pair of you make as you walk is all too familiar. The quiet is unusual, in a forest like this. There should be the sound of animals, the sound of scurrying, the steady hum of insects.

Silence in a forest means something is wrong. 

You shouldn’t be here, your body tells you. Your heart begins to pound again, and you tug a little on your wrist--you should tell him that you don’t want to go to his home, after all. You’re fine with not knowing the truth about the monster.

You’re fine with not following this stranger into the woods, in a foreign country, after having just been chased by something mere hours ago. 

If he notices your tug, your apprehension, then he says nothing. He only maintains his steady grip, his steady smile. 

“The monster eats people,” he says again, with that awful casualness. There’s a thought in your mind--you, tripping, the monster over you, tearing you apart with its teeth. Nobody finding your body, or whatever was left of it.

Without warning, the stranger stops. His grip on your wrist loosens and you slowly pull it towards you, heart thudding in your chest.

He stopped, yes, but why? There’s no house here. Only the woods around you, without the comfort of the manmade trail as a guide. Not that the trail kept you safe the first time. And are you really at the edge of the forest? If anything, you walked deep into it, away from the trails, from the markers, from the tourist spots marked on the maps.

Oh. 

Something is wrong, something is wrong, something is–

“How do you know so much about the monster?” You ask, quietly. There’s only so much room for proper thoughts in your brain, and the only one that worms its way to the top is a sensible, naive question. “Have you seen it before?”

He doesn’t answer. Not in words, English or otherwise. You wish he did. You wish he kept talking, and you kept talking, and you found yourself at some run-down shack where he lived off the grid.

That doesn’t happen.

Instead, he tilts his head up, long hair almost slithering across his shoulders with the movement. As he does, he grins, the profile of it broad and then wide and then wider and then--

Then it’s so wide that it splits his face into two, revealing a mass of dark red colored flesh and teeth sharp enough to tear through your muscles. And oh, my, grandmother, what big teeth you have.

There are undoubtedly words within you, words that might express the primal shock and horror at what you're seeing. But all that comes out of your mouth is a squeak, a wheezing little sound that has him turning.

You wish he didn't turn. You wish all you saw was the profile of his split face, because as he turns it is no longer possible to recognize him as the young man from before. Except for that beautiful silver hair, cascading over his shoulders, beautiful and grotesque.

His body expands as he turns, and muscles beneath the skin rise as his height gets too tall, his arms grow too numerous, and you can't believe mere moments ago he was simply a quirky good looking stranger who was going to help you solve this traumatic tourist mystery.

It’s not enough that he has too many arms. It's not enough that he has too many teeth, and they are so sharp that you know without thinking that they are going to tear through your flesh and rip it like well-braised beef.

There is something underneath his skin. It was there before, and it’s there now, only you’re closer–and still–and its presence is not some shock to the system but a confirmation of an earlier, terrible scene.

Oh, yes, there is something under his skin, and it does not stay still. You can see it moving, like a worm or an alien. Only instead of bursting out of his chest it simply moves, rippling the flesh underneath. Is it separate from him? One and the same? Is this some solitary mass, or are there more–to go with the creature's many arms and many teeth? 

How can this creature be anything but a monster, something other? 

Unless--unless you're looking in his eyes. 

(His, or its? You don’t know, and you never want to find out.)

But those eyes, those eyes are just as pretty and human as they were before.

His human eyes are staring right at you. Your mouth is agape, and you wish you had something other than domesticated teeth designed for chewing and not ripping apart. Because there's nothing you can do in the face of this but run.

You are prey, after all. The rabbit. The deer. The thing that scurries and squeaks. 

So you do run. For the second time in so many hours, you run for your life.

Only now the sun is starting to set, and you are in a completely unfamiliar part of the forest, and you know the monster is real and that it wants you and that it played with you like a cat plays with its food.

Your breath comes out in sharp, short pants. There's something tingling in the adrenaline that courses through your veins, pumping straight from your brain to every extremity, making even the tips of your fingers feel numb and floating. 

It’s like you're high from the fear. 

"Why run?"

The monster calls after you, even as it gives chase. It doesn’t sound as winded now.

And fuck, his voice sounds exactly the same. Why couldn't he sound like a monster? Why couldn't he sound like some guttural beast with no connection to humanity?

Why does he sound like the helpful, if a bit strange, young man who sat with you in the café? Who cheerfully pointed out the spot on the map you ought to go? Who seemed kind, if odd, an unusual character you would surely tell everyone at home about once you got off the plane? 

But the resemblance ends at his voice, at these little things. It ends at the glimmer of silver hair and the too-human eyes that you can no longer see as you try desperately to lose it in the forest. Swerving here and there, stumbling and half-leaping over obstacles, whipping through tree branches that claw at you in the dimming light.

You’re bleeding, you know it. You think the monster knows it, too.

"I like you," the voice says, light and breezy, from behind you. He says it in English and you wish he didn't, because it means he wants you to understand. 

It’s better when you don’t understand the monsters that chase you. 

Your foot trips on something, a branch or a log or the bone of a dead animal, and for the second time today, your body goes sailing through the air. This time, you land on the ground with a thump, half-crumpled. 

You could lie down here. You could lie down and die; let it rip through your throat and hopefully it would kill you quick before consuming your flesh.

But you don't want to. You don't want to die and it's not fair and you're just supposed to be on a nice trip, the end result of an entire year's worth of paid time off accrual. But instead, you're panting and bleeding and being chased by something in the forest that wants to eat you and likes you in what may be equal measure.

So you force your exhausted arms to push up from the ground and you stumble into a run. Pitiful as it is. Pointless as it is. 

Behind you, the creature laughs. Or the young man laughs. You're not sure which is which, or if they were different to begin with.

"I like you," it says again. There's something lighter in its tone now. Or maybe you're imagining it, high on adrenaline and lack of oxygen from all the panting. The tingling in your body hasn’t stopped, even as you stumble forward. 

"I'll keep you," it--he? You don't know, fuck--says. "Always."

The silliest of thoughts worms its way through your fear-addled brain.  Did he learn English just to communicate with you? Did all monsters speak different languages? Or did he shove his face into a tourist phrasebook in between chasing you and finding you in the cafe?

It's this silly thought that sticks in your ear as you go sailing to the ground again. Pushed, maybe. Or maybe you tripped on the bones of a dead fox, its flesh long eaten away by predators then maggots, in that order.

Palms stinging, knees burning. Blood bubbling through a tear in your trousers--cut on a sharp branch, you think. 

Your thigh aches.

Your lungs ache. 

Your chest aches.

Behind you, there is only the forest-noise of the monster chasing you. Arms and legs and the presence of it, pushing through branches and bushes like nothing. It could kill you like nothing, too. Maybe there are claws at the end of those hands, too many hands and too many fingers, and the world makes no more sense than it did a few hours ago.

Still, you don't want to die. Not here, not like this. So you push up with your burning, aching arms, and force yourself into a wobbling, weak standing position. 

It halts when you stand. You don't turn to see, you don’t even register the cessation of the rush of brush and bramble--you just know. 

One step forward, on wobbling legs. Legs that can’t run anymore, no matter what is chasing you.

“Oh,” says the monster. A soft, sweet sound.

Another step forward, and your knees buckle underneath you. Down you go. 

“Oh,” it says again. You do register the lack of sound, now. Nothing but distant insects (you wish they were closer) and your own breathing, and a sort of rustling as the monster approaches you from behind. 

”Cute,” it says. And oh, now, you can imagine its wide mouth, all those teeth, cradling the word like soft candy. 

You stare, barely able to support your body on your arms, at the ground underneath you. This will be the last thing you see, you think. At least it’s kind of pretty--nature. Green and brown and there’s life here, some insects meandering along underneath you, uncaring as to whatever is going on up above. 

Maybe they’ll get to eat what’s left of your body, when he’s finished. The circle of life, and all that. 

But it won’t be the last thing you see. Because you’re turning--no, you’re being turned, four or five or six arms on you, cradling you in a sickeningly gentle way even as your weakened muscles strain against their hold.

Your lungs strain and your breath comes out in short, terrible pants. The soft, sad acceptance is a lot harder to keep up when you’re facing death head-on. 

The last thing you’ll see will be this monster, above you, silver hair almost shimmering in the dimmed light of the forest. His mouth too wide, his limbs and teeth and scars too many, his human eyes boring into you with a glinting fascination. A sickly sweet sort of affection. 

That something is still underneath the skin, too. Rippling. Like a tick burrowed underneath the flesh, straining, wanting to get out but being unable to do so. 

His stretched mouth opens and there are so many fangs--you imagine the pain--imagine the teeth boring down into your chest or your neck, the tearing of your flesh. 

But that isn’t how you die; that isn’t how he eats you.

Instead--instead--his mouth opens wide and you hear the grinding of flesh as he teeth retract further into his mouth, leaving only a gaping dark hole staring down at you. Above it, his nose, distorted; above that, those eyes, still human, still searching your gaze as he leans forward and your body is gently cradled into the open mouth and pushed down into the tight cavern of his throat.

He swallows you down, and pushes you forward into his throat, down his gullet, onward and onward. There are brief glimpses of the world outside just before you enter his mouth, and then everything goes dark.

But not because you’re dead. Oh, if only you were dead. Instead, you are alive–you are inside.

It’s wet, inside. Wet and warm, like an inside should be. But there’s a wrongness to it all. You were never meant to be pushed down a gullet, to be surrounded by this pulsating warm darkness that slickened your skin even as your mind began to constrict along with your lungs.

Too tight. Too warm. Too many limbs--and despite all those teeth, they did nothing to ease your passing, to tear through your arteries and let you bleed out before you were swallowed up. 

You were swallowed whole, instead. Like Jonah and the whale. Like Pinnochio. Like other characters in other stories, and you can’t think of them now, with the buzz in your brain getting both louder and weaker all at the same time.

You don’t want to die–and not like this; the buzz in your brain constricts, something primal, telling you to GET.OUT.

And you try. You really do try, through pure instinct alone. An instinct you didn’t know you had until you were in this forest, inside of this beast. That animal instinct to free yourself from the jaws, the very stomach, of death.

Your arms, pressed up against your side by the pressure of the moist muscles around you, begin to flail. Your legs, too, constricted by the space you’re in–but moving. Squirming and kicking, trying to get some sort of purchase inside your living prison.

Strange, dim thoughts come as your body begins to squirm. They are the only thing keeping you human, separating you from the mouse clawing from inside a snake.

The thoughts–Being in here is like the time you wrapped yourself up in a sleeping bag and got stuck; being in here is like the first time you went down the tube slide at the playground as an adult, drunk at midnight, and almost got stuck.

Being in here is like all those times you thought you were going to suffocate inside something tight and warm and wrong–only this time, there is no triumphant roll as the sleeping bag unwraps, no sigh of relief as you wiggle your body back up the slide to freedom

There is only the wetness and warmness and the feeling of the monster around you. He hums–oh God, you can feel him humming, feel the way his body rumbles. He says something, too, you think. Something with a cadence that you’re so glad you can’t understand.

You have to get out. You have to get out, damn it. 

There’s a sick sort of rhythm to it, and while your mind recoils from the slick feeling against your skin as you begin to trash, it also gives you hope. This is how you get out, how you get free. Somehow, squirming inside the beast that’s swallowed you–you’ll survive. 

If only you could move more. If you could raise your arms and claw at the warm, wet interior, it might hurt enough to let you go. Throw you up or spit you out or maybe you could burrow your fingers so deep it rips the beast’s flesh open, like a bear gutting a salmon.

A salmon is perhaps what you most resemble now as your thrashing becomes a spasm, reflexive, increasingly jerky as the oxygen in your lungs begins to dwindle. 

Get-out-get-out-get-out, your mind screams.

Your body does its best. Your breath comes shallow now, panting loud inside the tight space and its moving, living walls. It’s all too moist, too hot, too wrong.

Warm, damp limbs jerk and kick and get nowhere in particular for their troubles. The moving walls against you constrict and release, slowly, and you find your thrashing only helps move you down further.

Further into the body of the beast. Further away from the world outside, further away from everything that made you a living breathing tourist just looking for a pretty mountain trail to explore and winding up eaten alive for their troubles. 

It was just an hour or so ago, wasn’t it, that you were sitting in the cafe? It seems like a lifetime, a distant memory, a dream. You cry out, the sound all warbled and wrong inside the tight cavern of his body. 

You want out–you want to go home–but there’s nothing you can do but trash again, soft, bleating sounds pushing out of your increasingly constricted lungs. 

“Oh.”

The monster speaks again, and the rumbling against you is softer, somehow. Cooing and low. And oh, Jesus–you feel him now. Feel his hands on the outside of what must be his belly, where you’ve wormed your way towards with every thrash.

The press of his hands against his skin from the outside is nearly unbearable, sending the wet-hot interior of the inside pressing against your cheek, smearing something slick against your skin, against your eye.

It stings against your lashes and you can’t see, can’t move your hands up enough to properly wipe it away. It makes you jerk again, makes your breath come in tighter, faster, less thoughtful and closer and closer to pure instinct.

Thoughts don’t come as easily. There’s only that desire to get out, to break free, to get away from the wet heat that surrounds you. There’s more slickness now, and a strange sort of acrid scent. A bitter, acidic scent in the air that stings your nostrils. 

He presses against his belly again and you wail, and he coos, and there’s hardly any space left for you to thrash but you try as best you can.

One.

Two.

Three more times.

And then the world gets too woozy, too hazy. You can’t breathe in here. You can’t move, really, aside from the way your limbs still twitch on instinct. You can’t see, and the sounds are only the strange rushing, the warbled noises from the beast that are hard to distinguish. 

The last thing you can sense with any sort of human distinctness is another side, slick and slithering, the sound of something inside the beast with you–oh God, you are not alone in here–and this last thought is when you stop being a person. When the thoughts cease to come as distinct lines from your brain and turn into a low, humming, dying thing.

The twitches that send your body spasming are not that of a person trying to escape, but of prey, finally subdued. 

Undoubtedly, you were once a human being. A person who grew up and imagined a future, some distant thing you couldn’t conceive as a child but which grew more concrete with every passing year. Someone who wanted a girlfriend or boyfriend, and eventually got one. Someone who thought, yeah, maybe kids, some day, if you adopted. 

Who imagined going to school and getting a job that paid decently enough; who did just that, working your ass off, spending all nighters drinking shitty dorm coffee before examples. All to get a degree to get an internship to get a desk job, so you could take nice vacations like this one, where you saved for a year and submitted your time-off request 6 months in advance and everyone at work told you to have fun and take plenty of pictures.

You were a person with hopes and dreams, with a family, with a past, with memories both clear and fuzzy. Sitting on the beach as a child and getting pinched by a crab you tried to place on top of your sand castle. Pushing another kid off the swing when he refused to give you a turn. Coming out to your parents and your dad making a joke about father-son fishing trips and your mom laughing too loud because she didn’t know what to say about having a daughter and now having a son.

All of that, and so much more besides--all of that and everything you ever were, everything you are, everything you will now never ever be, is lost inside a warm void of a body, a slithering, living cavity.

There’s no buzz in your brain now, no lungs to draw in desperate sucks of air. Nothing to register the monster sprawling out on the forest floor, satiated, thinking of how pretty you looked when you ran and the warm, full with the feeling of you inside him now.

He’ll rest here, dappled sunlight warming his skin, letting you digest; breaking you down with acid, absorbing your nutrients into his own body. 

And you? 

You’re dead and gone and there’s no comfort in knowing that Mahito will think of you for a long while, even after you’ve been digested. You were such nice prey, after all. 

[bunniandhoney]

I’ll Miss You

What happens when Jacob has to go.

She’d gotten used to having him home.

When he’d finally wrapped up the movie Jacob was determined to spend every last moment with his wife. He did not waste a single second of the three month break before promo began for the film. They’d visited the new Japanese bakery down the street, hiked their favorite trail and the most important task; tried to make a baby.

2 1/2 years of marital bliss was more than enough for them, they wanted to be parents. Jacob wanted 7 girls and YN wanted nothing more than to give them to him. This lead to around the clock fucking, literally every single day. So when Jacob was packing his bags to start a two week promo tour for his film YN was already feeling withdrawals and he hadn’t even zipped up his suitcase.

YN had a tendency to become a bit standoffish whenever she was feeling frustrated, not wanting to bring anyone’s else’s mood down, so Jacob had to search for her that night. He finds her curled up on their loveseat reading, yet another, Danielle Steele romance.

“Hey Bug, what’re you doing down here. I need your help.” He says while climbing over her, hoping to squeeze in between her and the seat. But she moves just out of his reach, standing up and moving towards the stairs.

“Come on, I’ll help” she says walking away without looking back at him.

All Jacob could do was smile at his adorably grumpy wife because he knew exactly what was happening, YN couldn’t help how she felt so she did this every time he had to leave her behind.

He hears her stomping around before she appears walking out of the closet with several of his shirts in her hands and moving to lay them in his luggage on the bed. Jacob walks up behind her, pulling her into his hold. “J, I need to fold these shirts!” she complains half heartedly.

Wrapping his arms tighter around her, YN relaxes into his hold, letting Jacob rock them side to side.

“I’m gonna miss you so much baby, wish you could come with me.” Jacob whispers, sealing the statement with a kiss to the side of her neck.

YN’s eyes are closed, hoping to save this moment into her memory forever. She absolutely hates when he leaves, it feels like a part of her is lost. Jacob can feel it, feel her missing him even when she’s in his arms. So for a moment he keeps her in his arms, swaying, his lips pressed to her hair in an infinite kiss.

Pausing their rocking Jacob reaches around YN to pull his barely-packed suitcase onto the floor; clothes spilling to the floor.

“What on earth are you doing, we are still working on that?!” YN says in a panicky voice, slightly annoyed from being roused from their trance.

Turning her around Jacob walks her to the edge of the bed, letting the back of knees feel the soft sheets. “Need you to just lay with me for a second.” He says laying her down softly.

Hovering over her, their eyes dance across each other’s face, trying to memorize every last thing before it’s gone. But the second their eyes finally meet Jacob smashes his lips to YN’s, she opens her mouth hoping to give any piece of herself to him.

YN reaches up to hold the back of Jacob’s neck, pulling him in deeper. “Gonna miss you so much, fuck baby I’m gonna miss this,” she moans into his mouth.

“Yeah?” He says pulling away.

And when she can do nothing but stare at her beautiful husband doe-eyed and nodding, Jacob knows what he has to do next. So with a light smirk he looks down at his wife to say,

“Well I think we can at least fit in a couple more baby-making sessions before I leave.”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

husband!jacob scipio has been weighing heavily

on my mental, so here we go!

Im not one to gossip, but i did hear that there this is probably gonna be a part 2 for this (a fulfilled anon request perhaps 👀). possibly a part 2 from yesterday’s as well. 😁

speaking of requests, KEEP THEM COMING! Y’all are actually cooking in my messages! Quite a few of these are inspiring like full on imagines for me so be on the lookout!

finally thank you again for all the love on these. i’m just starting out but i can already feel myself becoming a better writer, thanks to y’all!

xoxo,

Bunni

[denial-permanente]

This question is for Tom. I may have missed discussions of whether you are in 24/7/365 chastity so thank you for considering my questions. Does the cage interfere with sports or workout activities? For instance, could you play golf or ride a bike? Can you go to a health club to exercise? Does your Goddess ever let you out of the cage to engage in activities or health exams where a cage might be a problem? Also, do involuntary nocturnal erections cause a problem? Thanks.

🔒 Tom here. I have answered this before, but the limitations of Tumblr mean I can't set up a decent way to search for such things. That and this blog was "flagged" a few months back as being "mature", so the Tumblr search function is severely hobbled.

Yes, since 2018, I have been locked 24/7/365. @mrs--edge does not unlock me for any sexual reason. I am unlocked for medical visits, for travel (I know it's legal, but we don't want the aggro), and for occasional hygiene checks. Also, if she thinks I'm about to do something particularly dangerous, like cleaning snow off the roof. That is less often now because she forgets that I'm caged.

I don't do sports, but I'm active outdoors. Golf is no problem (except for my left hook 😒), I lift weights (I have a squat cage and free weights in my basement), and in warmer weather I take long walks and short hikes in the local hills.

The only iffy spot is cycling. I have several road bikes: one of them a classic 1980s Cannondale which I restored and slightly modernized. It has a hard Italian leather saddle, and I have to remove the cage when I take it out.

I also have a classic 1980s steel Japanese bike. That one has been totally rebuilt and modernized, and has a split saddle. I take it when some of my friends go on short 10 mile rides on the local bike trail (stopping at the brew pubs along the way). The split saddle allows me to ride caged, and my friends are barely doing 10 mph.

However, when I'm in season, my wife allows me to unlock, don my lycra gear, and take my serious road bike out on the New England back roads. These are generally 20 to 50 mile haunts and there is no concern that I'm going to duck into the woods for a quick wank. When I get home, I hop into the shower, and replace the cage.

I have been locked for a good part of the past twenty five years. The 2 am woodies rarely wake me up anymore, and when I'm aware of them, it's more of a comforting sexual pressure.

[thistransient]

"quiet places you can get to without a private vehicle" sounds like a perfect idea for Taipei recs! Do you have any tips for a tourist navigating their way from Taipei towards the south without speaking any Chinese, armed only with a smile and a desire for tasty foods? (I am hoping for some easy hikes while based in Chiayi & Miaoli, weather permitting - never know if I packed proper clothing, aaahhh~) (anon #1 here, thank you once again, have a great day ^^)

Some years ago I hitchhiked around the south of Taiwan with pretty beginner Mandarin, didn't know that "你吃了嗎 / have you eaten?" was an alternate form of greeting, and found myself taken out to lunch by an old guy who spoke zero English when I said no! If you look like a friendly foreigner, you will get around just fine (a European friend of mine in a similar condition visited last year and managed to eat plenty of things by just pointing, which I have also found to be a successful tactic while abroad). In addition to being the place where hand gestures work well, many night markets have multilingual signage (as do a lot of restaurants in Taipei). Just remember to bring cash, a lot of places still don't take card. Fruit and veg shops are a fun place to explore. Buffets (自助餐) are popular in Taiwan, and a good way to try a lot of different things without having to read a menu. Sometimes they're pay by weight, sometimes the cashier eyeballs your tray and makes up a price.

I've only been to Fenqihu (奮起湖) near Chiayi but there were indeed some sedate and beautiful forest trails there. Miaoli- another unexplored territory (along with Yunlin County) for me, I wish you best of luck. "Proper clothing" depends on what season you're going, but it's good to have rain gear, and layers are always practical (sometimes one must decide if the heat or the bugs are a greater evil).

As for Taipei quiet place recs:

Waziwei Nature Reserve (挖子尾自然生態保留區) - I have never seen a lot of people out here. Someone told me once it used to be a popular place to dump bodies, I've only ever seen fish bones. There's a cool mangrove swamp and a bike trail (might be a bit long to walk all the way out). I usually stop and get some food at Bali Old Street (crowded on the weekends, tolerable on a weekday afternoon).

Guandu Rice Fields (the linkable google maps location is actually 關渡平原大排步道) - Beautiful rice fields when they're green, or when flooded and you get the reflection of the sky and mountains. I also bike here, but I think you can reasonably walk from Beitou Station if it's not too hot.

Shezi Daotou Park 社子島 島頭公園 - Another place to bike to, although I think there's a bus. You get a lovely view of the mountains from the east side, there's a bird watching wetland area if you're into that. If you keep going on the west you'll get, well, all the way down to Xindian before the trail ends.

Guandu Temple 關渡宮 - the temple is not quiet on the holidays, but I like Guandu as an area in general, you can take a bus up to the Taipei National University of the Arts campus and look around (there's a museum, wasn't open last time I went), there's the Guandu Nature Park, more beautiful riverside trails, you can even bike all the way to Tamsui (淡水) if you feel so inclined (also not quiet on the weekends, but the beach can be tolerable), or back down to the city (and all the way to Nangang and beyond if you're industrious).

Not Just Library 不只是圖書館 - if you've had enough of the mozzies outdoors, this specially designed library in an old Japanese era bathhouse is pretty cool, located in the Songshan Creative Park. There's a fee to get in but I think unlimited time after that

Air Force Martyrs Cemetery 空軍烈士公墓 - this is not exactly what I'm recommending but it's got a google maps location, and if you look carefully at the map there's a sort of unnamed cemetery around it which I've enjoyed exploring. You can walk from Xindian Station, Bitan 碧潭 is also a hectic place on the weekend but I've noticed Taiwanese people tend to be superstitious about cemeteries and don't go in there without formal business.

Fu De Keng Public Cemetery (富德公墓辦公室) is also a neat cemetery, but more difficult to get to. Even walking a couple kilometers up Chongde Street 崇德街 from Liuzhangli Station can be fun tho, you can see the location from the movie A Sun (陽光普照).

Yuanshan Archaeological Site 圓山文化遺跡 - I don't know why this place is always empty (except when I went on a walking tour lecture with a bunch of senior citizens the other day, and finally learned it used to be a zoo), there are a lot of cool abandoned traditional buildings (locked up, if you're really industrious you could probably sneak in but even from the outside it's very picturesque). You can walk from Yuanshan Station.

Lin An Tai Historical House and Museum 林安泰古厝 - less abandoned, quiet factor depends on the day of the week but I wouldn't say I've ever seen it truly packed. Beautiful traditional estate grounds and garden you can walk around in, free entry. Also across the street from Xinsheng Park, the rose garden, and indoor botanical gardens. Ten minute walk from the Yuanshan Archaeological Site.

I was going to wrap it up here lest I go on indefinitely but I feel like I should throw in one more indoor place for mosquito-escape:

Beitou Refuse Incineration Plant Observation Deck 北投焚���爐景觀台- I've been here once and it was empty except for one other guy, I'm not sure if it's normally like that but I'm assuming it's not the MOST popular place ever. It's easiest to bike there, just go along the river, go up the flood wall ramp, and there's a Youbike kiosk on the other side. Free entry! Cool views! Silence! (There's a revolving restaurant on the floor above but outrageously expensive.)

[cozyjae]

traveling with nct 127 🏝

dream version

going to madrid with taeil...let’s you take the lead on where to go, will vibe anywhere, loves learning bits of spanish, lets you wear his leather jacket, carries around any of your shopping bags for you, keeps track of your passport and all of your tickets and important documents, somehow always knows where he’s going, holds your hand while he navigates through crowds, planned dates where he plays off the amount of effort he put into them, candle lit dinners, takes a lot of sunset pictures, always very cheesy but you love it.

going to athens with johnny... his camera is always around his neck, pausing you too many times to take a picture (and the occasionally sneaky candid), both of you wearing matching ‘i love greece’ tourist shirts that he insisted on buying at the airport gift shop and then begged you to wear, taking outfit of the day pictures, renting bikes to ride around town, afternoon picnicking, his arm around your shoulder as you walk the illuminated streets at night, asking an older tourist couple to take a photo of you at the parthenon, both of you smile widely as they take one and johnny asks for one more, quickly pressing his lips softly against your cheek.

going to paris with taeyong... his newfound determination to speak french, practicing french phrases on his phone in the morning in a low raspy voice, munching on expensive macaroons, visiting all the typical touristy places like the louvre & versailles, having 1,000 new photos on your camera roll, taeyong deleting pictures to take more of you, hotel balconies, warm baths together in the fancy hotel bathroom, fancy new perfumes, giggles in fancy restaurants, giggles everywhere, walking together to see the effile tower at night.

going to tokyo with yuta.. hiking until you complain but the reward for reaching the top of the mountain is kisses, feeding and petting wild deer, spending a lot of time outdoors, happiness while speaking japanese, watching old anime reruns at the hotel and staying up too late, going to a cat cafe and staying too long there playing with the kitties, buying too many souvenirs considering it’s his home country, going to local markets, buying street vendor onigiri and dango, visiting niche earring shops, he’s just always laughing.

going to london with doyoung... him making you take aesthetic photos of him, being really prepared, always checks the weather before he leaves the hotel, cheeks flush and he gets very red from one beer, leaning against your shoulder and cuddling you in the taxi home, wants to buy every single person he knows a souvenir, watching the buskers at night, likes keeping your hand in his always, gets stressed easily and then you relax him with kisses, will sing in the shower, will sing you to sleep if you ask nicely, quietly will request to be the little spoon. 

going to sicily with jaehyun... wine tasting, sun dresses, golden rings, making pasta at a small local restaruant together, he of course makes it a competition of who’s pasta is better, taking a ferry tour and making you do the titanic pose in front of other tourists, buys way too much gelato, touring museums and always taking cliche tourist photos, blazers, firm grips around your waist, you trying to pay attention to the tour guides but you’re too distracted by his gaze that’s only focused on you.

going to hawaii with jungwoo.. confident english, wearing lais, hiking waterfall trails to exercise but then going directly back to the resort and drinking a lot of smoothies, being obsessed with room service, a lot of playing around in the ocean, drinking from coconuts, he’s amazed at the smallest things, especially all the wildlife, peaceful and relaxing, gets shy when you look at him for too long, his face is slightly burnt, follows you around happily, buys a lot of hawaiian shirts, wants you to wear one, you probably will  do just to make him giggle.

going to vancouver with mark... giving you the personal mark lee childhood tour (your favorite) of vancouver, loud laughs along the streets at night, making him laugh too hard as he folds his body into yours, wide eyes paying attention to you always, thumb rubbing over your hand asking where you want to go, freaking out when it hits him he’s actually at his childhood home with you, taking you to all the places he used to eat at, letting you decide what you want to do, is always down for anything, he breaks out into laughter randomly, his excuse is just that he’s so happy, you roll your eyes but you secretly love it, will keep a hand on your thigh when sitting anywhere, his hands are always warm and always find their way to you, buys too much maple syrup to bring back for your friends. 

going to nyc with donghyuck... going to times square and making you take pictures with the pikachu and hello kitty mascots in the streets, wanting to try on the funniest and weirdest outfits you pick for each other in vintage stores, embarrassing you in public and him not caring that you’re embarrassed and will absolutely continue, makes weird faces at you from across a store, buys too much street vender food and candy, museum dates, gets very excited over fossils, you have a full blown photoshoot on a roof top bar with your fancy mixed drinks, is always excited, swings your interlocked hands back and forth and hums, he never gets tired and just wants to spend time with you always. 

[doumadono]

Hey. I’d been putting off making an emergency rq in the hopes that things would get better, but unfortunately they have not. I’m feeling very unhappy and bored, like I’m not going anywhere. I’m content and restless at the same time and it’s incredibly frustrating. I also require large amounts of stimulation to not feel bored which I am having difficulty finding.I hate it and idk what to do so yea. Also not helping is the fact that my skin condition gets worse in summer (it causes my feet to get v sore from walking, standing, and overall doing stuff and causes difficulty walking without a limp).

With this in mind, I’d like to ask for some headcanons of douma doing something stimulating (rock climbing, ice skating, etc) with reader bc they’ve been unhappy and bored for a couple weeks. Thank you <3

Douma & bored s/o - headcanons

A/N: Hi, darling, I'm really sorry to hear that things have been tough lately. It sounds like you're dealing with a lot, and I can understand how frustrating and challenging it must be. Finding ways to cope with boredom and restlessness can be a real struggle, especially when facing other physical challenges too. If you're open to it, exploring new activities or hobbies that align with your interests might help alleviate some of the boredom! ♥

MASTERLIST

When Douma notices your unhappiness, he decides to surprise you with a magical ice skating experience. Using his Blood Demon Art, he creates a private ice rink in a serene, moonlit clearing. Hand in hand, you glide across the ice. He takes extra care to ensure you feel safe and supported as you twirl and laugh together. "You're doing great, darling!"

To help lift your spirits, Douma suggests you engage in ice sculpting. He provides you with tools that make shaping the ice easier and guides you through the process. As you work side by side, he listens attentively to your thoughts and shares stories about his past experiences, fostering a deeper connection between you.

He suggests an outdoor activity to clear your mind. He takes you on a hiking trail through a picturesque forest, the moonlight filtering through the trees in dappled patterns.

To lift you spirits, Douma arranges a dance workshop in a secluded room within his quarters. He leads you through various dance styles, from traditional to modern, encouraging you to let loose and have fun. "Life is full of surprises, my dear. Let the music guide your movements, Y/N!"

Observing your desire for something new, Douma suggests an intriguing skill to master: Tessenjutsu, the art of using the Japanese war fan in combat. "It's a graceful yet formidable art."

Despite his lack of personal experience with human food (he ate it hundreds of years ago), Douma decides to embark on a culinary adventure by offering to teach you how to cook. "Cooking? I'm excited to learn, but aren't you a demon?" You remark. "Indeed, but I have observed many human activities over the years. Let's explore the realm of flavors together!"

Inspired by a desire to share a piece of artistic world, Douma introduces you to a biwa, a traditional Japanese musical instrument. Douma provides you with a beautifully crafted biwa and patiently explains its strings, frets, and techniques.

[kdphotos]

Steps to Oyama-dera Temple, Mt. Oyama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.

©️KevinjDixon

[zipstick-writes]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The X-Files Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully Characters: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, Original Characters Additional Tags: Animal Transformation, Case Fic, Season/Series 05, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, probably (i havent figured out the whole plot yet. so), putting the fox in fox mulder, (im turning him into a fox. for silly reasons), Other Additional Tags to Be Added Summary: “Five people gone and not a single witness testimony, nor a shred of evidence, that suggests where they might be, who or what might have taken them, or if they were even taken at all. Any theories, Scully?” - Five people in a small rural town in Colorado have gone missing under mysterious circumstances within a week of each other. The local PD suspects a serial kidnapper, but Mulder believes that something more supernatural is at play. Mulder and Scully fly out to investigate, but it's not long before one of them befalls the same fate.

damn im posting a fanfic for the first time in ummmmmm like 4 years? hahaha anyway hi x files fandom

tagging @today-in-fic

“Animal transformations.” 

This is the phrase that greets Dr Dana Scully the second she walks through the door of the glorified storage closet in the basement of the Hoover Building that is the X-Files division of the FBI, on what would otherwise be an unassuming mid-June Monday morning.

“Run that by me again?”

“Animal transformations, Scully.” Says Mulder from beside the projector, and Scully knows from the excited look on his face and the dimmed lights in the room that she is in for one of his world-famous slideshow presentations. “Stories of humans turning into animals exist throughout history and transcend cultural borders. Dozens of stories in Greek myth of gods turning humans into animals, the Norse god Loki becoming wolves, horses, birds, the selkies of Celtic mythology which shed their seal-skins and become human. There’s also the Japanese Kitsune, powerful shapeshifting spirits which take the form of foxes! Not to mention the classic vampires turning into bats and men that become wolves in the light of the full moon.”

“Of course. Werewolves. How could I forget.”

“Precisely, Scully. Werewolves.” Mulder has a self-satisfied grin on his face, and he continues: “The phenomenon also appears in literature. I take it you’re familiar with the works of Shakespeare?”

“In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, when Bottom is turned into a donkey?”

“Right. And in Kafka’s Metamorphosis,” Mulder continues, flipping to a slide of an illustration depicting a giant insect lying on its back in a tiny bedroom, “when Gregor Samsa becomes a beetle because of the overwhelming stress from the demands of his employer and his family. Humanity is obsessed with shapeshifting, has been for millenia.”

“While it is endlessly enlightening to learn about the common threads that unite our species’ storytellers throughout time, Mulder,” Scully says in a flat voice with an exaggerated sigh, “what exactly is the point of all this?”

“The point, Scully,” He replies immediately, drawing out his pause for several moments for dramatic effect, “Is that tales of human-to-animal transformations exist all across the world, and have existed for just about as long as humans have. And these stories have to have started somewhere.”

Oh boy, here we go, Scully thinks. Couldn’t he have waited until I’d had some coffee? It’s barely 8 o’clock in the morning.

“Oh, Mulder, please, don’t tell me you’re suggesting-”

“Lightalley, Colorado is a small mountain town about two hours west of Denver by car. It’s known for picturesque views of the landscape, popular hiking trails, and, most recently,” he says, and flips one slide further to a missing persons poster, then another, and then three more, “several disappearances under mysterious circumstances.

“Freya Pennington, 33, was last seen eight days ago, on the 14th, in the backyard of her own home. Her fiancé, George, says she was there one moment and gone the next, and he reports hearing no sound to indicate that she was in distress even though he was in the kitchen facing the yard when she disappeared. Harley Williams, 27, is a recently qualified medical doctor. He lives alone, and his disappearance was only reported to the Lightalley Police Department when he didn’t show up to work at the local hospital on Tuesday. Edward Irwin, 49, and his daughter Ellie, 17, are tourists from New York who were last seen on Thursday leaving their hotel and heading in the direction of a hiking trail. Sydney McIntosh, 21, works at a bar and was last seen by her boss, Daniel Meyers, leaving her work at 1 o’clock on Friday morning at the end of her shift. Crime scene technicians have examined the locations of their last known sightings thoroughly and turned up nothing. No blood, no weapons, no DNA samples, not even the victims’ possessions. None of the victims have connections to one another, and none of the disappearances happened within two miles of each other.

“Five people gone and not a single witness testimony, nor a shred of evidence, that suggests where they might be, who or what might have taken them, or if they were even taken at all. Any theories, Scully?”

“Well, it could be that they left of their own volition, however this many people disappearing in this short a timespan makes that rather unlikely. Perhaps there is a serial kidnapper at work here, but given that the first victim’s partner was at the scene and didn’t see or hear anything, that could be discounted as well, or in the case of a kidnapper the first disappearance may be unrelated to the rest. I really couldn’t tell one way or the other without speaking to the local PD. But I’m guessing you had your own theory ready before I even walked in the door, didn’t you?”

“You know me, Scully, always prepared.” He replies, smiling. “While it is true that Lightalley PD’s forensics team didn’t find anything that suggested a struggle, indicating that kidnappings were unlikely, that doesn’t mean they didn’t find anything. At each location, there have been footprints leading away.”

“Footprints belonging to who?”

“Not who, Scully, what. Animal tracks, in every case leading away from the crime scene, but not towards it. As if they simply came into being right then and there.”

“Animal tracks.”

“Absolutely, Scully. Victim #1, a rabbit. Victim #2, an elk. Victims #3 and #4, coyotes, two sets of tracks alongside each other. And victim #5, some sort of large bird, perhaps a raven, which end a few yards away from the bar, implying takeoff.”

“Mulder, please don’t tell me you believe these people were somehow transformed into animals.” She says, halfheartedly glaring at him. When he responds with a shrug of his shoulders and a mischievous grin, she just lets out a resigned sigh. “Alright, what time do we leave?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” is Mulder’s reply as he hands her a plane ticket. “We leave at seven tonight. See you there, Scully.”

Scully’s just glad the packing means she gets the rest of the day off.

[tokidokitokyo]

群馬県

Japanese Prefectures: Kantō - Gunma

都道府県 (とどうふけん) - Prefectures of Japan

Learning the kanji and a little bit about each of Japan’s 47 prefectures!

Kanji・漢字

群　む(れる)、むら、グン　flock, group, crowd, herd, swarm, cluster

馬　うま、ま、バ　horse

県　ケン　prefecture

関東　かんとう　Kanto, region consisting of Tokyo and surrounding prefectures

Prefectural Capital (県庁所在地) : Maebashi (前橋市)

The ancient province of Gunma was a center of horse breeding and trading activities, and thus the character for horse is one of the kanji in the prefecture's name. The horse came to Japan along with the arrival of a large migration of people from the mainland of Asia, and from then on the horse became a vital part of the Japanese military and displaced the older Yayoi tradition of fighting on foot.

One of only eight land-locked prefectures in Japan, Gunma is also very mountainous. Snowy mountains that are prime for winter sports give way to excellent hiking trails in the summer. Gunma has some of the nation's best hot springs and is famous for its daruma dolls, which are good luck charms. Other sports to do in Gunma include canyoning, waterfall sliding, rafting, and bungee jumping.

Recommended Tourist Spot・おすすめ観光スポット Sainokawara Park - 西の河原公園

Sainokawara Park at night

Sainokawara Park is in a valley just outside of the hot spring and ski resort town center of Kusatsu, where several hot spring sources and a large outdoor bath are located. There are walking trails around the upper part of the park that lead through the magnificent natural landscapes. This is the most active hot spring area in Japan, with an output of hot spring water of 1,070 litres per minute. Hot spring water can be seen bubbling to the surface in certain places, where they collect into hot water pools and run down the valley in warm streams before joining the central mountain stream. There is also a hot water waterfall with a free foot bath at the base. The park area is accessible free of charge.

Due to the high temperature of the hot spring waters that flow here, very little can grow in the areas where it collects. It was believed that the spirits of children who died before their parents would be sent to these barren pools. You may come across small stone statues called jizo, that are made in the image of the guardian deity of children and travelers, Jizo Bosatsu. These statues often are wearing red hats and bibs, and are meant to protect the spirits of the children from demons.

The natural pools in the park are not for bathing, but the park also houses the Sainokawara Rotenburo, a large open-air public bath with two gender-separated outdoor hot springs, with a capacity of 100 bathers each. The outdoor bath also offers an evening of mixed bathing every Friday, when the bath is open to everyone, including couples and families.

Yubatake, or Hot Water Field, in Kusatsu

A 10-minute walk from Sainokawara Park is the Yubatake (or "Hot Water Field"). Here in the center of Kusatsu is a field of pumps that removes 32,300 litres of hot water every minute, cools it a few degrees, then sends it off to various local hot springs. The healing waters of the Kusatsu Onsen (hot springs) vary from milky to clear, and sulfurous to acidic, and are said to soothe most of your troubles, except a broken heart.

Regional Cuisine - 郷土料理 Yakimanju - 焼きまんじゅう

Yakimanju (source)

Yakimanju is a popular snack in Gunma Prefecture, but is not well known outside of the prefecture. Yakimanju is a grilled sweet bun. Manju are sweet buns made of rice or wheat flour and commonly are steamed. Yakimanju is grilled after being steamed, giving the outside a crunchy texture rather than the usual fluffy texture. The outside is coated with a sweet mixture of brown sugar, syrup, and miso paste. Unlike manju, which usually has a filling of red bean or other sweet paste, yakimanju typically has no filling.

Yakimanju was invented at the end of the Edo period, about 150 years ago. Wheat was commonly grown in agricultural Gunma, and thus wheat flour was originally used to make the predecessor of yakimanju, called sakamanju. Sakamanju hardened quickly after being made, and so to make it easier to eat, people would grill it and season it with miso paste. And thus yakimanju was developed.

Gunma Dialect・Gunma-ben・群馬弁

1. あーね　aa-ne　oh really?, I see, etc. (aizuchi*)

「あーね」 (aa-ne)

Standard Japanese: 「そうなんだ」 (sou nan da)

English: "Oh, really?"

Note: If you use it too much, the other person will get irritated

*aizuchi (相槌): backchanneling, interjections during conversations that show you are paying attention

2. ～がね、～がん　～ga ne, ～gan　isn't it, don't you think, right (ends a sentence)

「宿題やるって言ったがね！」 (shukudai yaru tte itta ga ne!)

Standard Japanese: 「宿題やるって言ったじゃん！」 (shukudai yaru tte itta jan!)

English: "I said do you do your homework didn't I!"

3. じゅーく　juu-ku　impertinent

「じゅーくこくな！」 (juu-ku koku na!)

Standard Japanese: 「生意気なことを言うな！」 (namaiki na koto o iu na!)

English: "Don't be cheeky!"

4. 世話ねえ　sewa nee　"no problem" or "too much of a bother"

「世話ねえ」 (sewa nee)

Standard Japanese: 「問題ない」　(mondai nai) OR　「手に負えない」　(te ni oenai)

English: "No problem" OR "That's too much of a bother"

5. ～だんべえ　～danbee　right, isn't it, etc. (sentence ending)

A: 「焼きまんじゅうって美味しいね。」 (yakimanju tte oishii ne) B: 「そうだんべえ。」 (sou danbee)

Standard Japanese: A: 「焼きまんじゅうって美味しいね。」　 (yakimanju tte oishii ne) B: 「そうだろ。」　 (sou daro)

English: A: "Yakimanju is delicious, isn't it?" B: "That's right"

6. てんで　tende　very

うちの孫は、てんでかわいいよ～ (uchi no mago wa, tende kawaii yo～)

Standard Japanese: うちの孫、とてもかわいいよ～ (uchi no mago, totemo kawaii yo～)

English: Our grandson is so cute!

More Gunma dialect here (Japanese page)

[therealnightcity]

[Subject Interview: Ares]

NICKNAME: Ares is a nickname, actually. My full name is Arisa, but it's only ever that when I'm in trouble for something.

GENDER: Female

STAR SIGN: I'm a Tarus. (Bet you thought I was going to say Aries huh?) It says I'm dependable, and logical but also stubborn and set in my ways. I hope I'm the first, but I don't think I'm that stubborn, unless it's something that matters a lot. And that I'm attracted to people who make me feel safe and comfortable. I don't know who wrote this, but 'safe' isn't exactly in plentiful supply in Night City, or the Badlands.

HEIGHT: 6'3, (or 191cm for those of you across the pond)

ORIENTATION: Women please, not that I have anything again men. They're just not for me, thanks.

NATIONALITY/ETHNICITY: I was born in the Badlands, but my mom was from Brazil, and my dad was Japanese. I never met him, he ran off before I was born. I never met him and yeah I wonder what he was like, but if he was a nice person, he'd have stuck around. I have two amazing mom's though, and I can't complain.

FAVE FRUIT: I love cantaloupe! Dakota grows these melons that are the best thing I've ever tasted. Watermelon too! Or cactus fruit (but its's even better as liquor, at least till the next morning.)

FAVE SEASON: Spring is my favorite--when it starts to get a little warmer, and the flowers start peeking out again. Everyone makes the Badlands sound like it's devoid of life, but they've never been to the places where the wildflowers have been growing back.

FAVE FLOWER: I've always liked California Fuchsia. It has these little red flowers, and soft green leaves, that look like they're brushed with frost. I try to take a sprig home with me when I find it.

FAVE SCENT: It'd have to be campfire smoke. Always reminds me of summer nights, and the smell of something good roasting over the coals. I also love the smell of oil--I'm sure it's not good for me, but it's familiar, and there's comfort in that.

COFFEE, TEA, HOT CHOCOLATE: Coffee for me, no milk or sugar, and preferably over a campfire.

AVERAGE HOURS OF SLEEP: I try to get at least 8, but let's be honest, that's a goal and not a given.

DOG OR CAT PERSON: Dogs for me! Not that I don't like cats, but I've always grown up with dogs. I have two, Luna and Jiji (who's the size of a cat anyway, so I think he counts.)

DREAM TRIP: I'd love to go back to Colorado. We traveled through the area when I was younger, and I've always wanted to stay longer. Or further up the coast would be nice too. Anywhere with nature, or open spaces. The cities have always been a little too much.

FAVE FICTIONAL CHARACTER POET: I can't pick a single character (there's too many I like) so you get my favorite poet instad. I love Jack Kerouac--there's this passage--

“As I was hiking down the mountain with my pack I turned and knelt on the trail and said ‘Thank you, shack.’ Then I added ‘Blah,’ with a little grin, because I knew that shack and that mountain would understand what that meant, and turned and went on down the trail back to this world.”

I don't know what his world was like, but I wish I could have seen it. One with "beautiful blue sunshine sky" or "hundreds of miles of pure snow-covered rocks and virgin lakes and high timber".

NUMBER OF BLANKETS THEY SLEEP WITH: I sleep with one, if the dogs don't steal it in the middle of the night.

RANDOM FACT: I know how to fly a plane! Not a big one, but my mom taught me. She's...a little weird about it when you ask her where she learned, but people have their secrets, I guess.

---

Happy to talk again, if you ever feel like it. Sure you don't want a drink? I think I have a couple beers if you've got a while.