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#fungi february
ketrinadrawsalot · 3 months
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Fungi February (bonus): Happy Year of the Wood Dragon!
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spiralballoonshop · 3 months
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(via "Feeling Mushy Gushy" Sticker for Sale by SpiralBalloon)
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aroaessidhe · 4 months
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my bestie got me this book nook kit for my bday.... obsessed
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greencheekconure27 · 1 year
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inga-don-studio · 1 year
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Anyone know of a good horror/monster themed art challenge for February?
I’m planning on attempting @alldayeveryday-candycandycandy’s FNAFuary prompt list from 2019 that I never completed (reblogged below), but I was thinking it might be fun to add a second layer to the challenge.
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mysunfreckle · 1 year
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I miss autumn 🍄
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heavenknowsffs · 1 year
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Mutuals do this
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It's SO CUTE i wish i knew how to draw lol
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Funguary 2024 is upon us!!
I’ve probably said this before, but I’ll say it again: it’s been a hot minute since I posted on here! Starting tomorrow, though, I’ll be posting artwork based on the 2023 Funguary prompts (similar to how I did the 2022 prompts last year). Stay tuned…!
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afeelgoodblog · 4 months
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The Best News of Last Year - 2023 Edition
Welcome to our special edition newsletter recapping the best news from the past year. I've picked one highlight from each month to give you a snapshot of 2023. No frills, just straightforward news that mattered. Let's relive the good stuff that made our year shine.
January - London: Girl with incurable cancer recovers after pioneering treatment
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A girl’s incurable cancer has been cleared from her body after what scientists have described as the most sophisticated cell engineering to date.
2. February - Utah legislature unanimously passes ban on LGBTQ conversion therapy
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The Utah State Legislature has unanimously approved a bill that enshrines into law a ban on LGBTQ conversion therapy.
3. March - First vaccine for honeybees could save billions
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The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has approved the world’s first-ever vaccine intended to address the global decline of honeybees. It will help protect honeybees from American foulbrood, a contagious bacterial disease which can destroy entire colonies.
4. April - Fungi discovered that can eat plastic in just 140 days
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Australian scientists have successfully used backyard mould to break down one of the world's most stubborn plastics — a discovery they hope could ease the burden of the global recycling crisis within years. 
5. May - Ocean Cleanup removes 200,000th kilogram of plastic from the Pacific Ocean
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The Dutch offshore restoration project, Ocean Cleanup, says it has reached a milestone. The organization's plastic catching efforts have now fished more than 200,000 kilograms of plastic out of the Pacific Ocean, Ocean Cleanup said on Twitter.
6. June - U.S. judge blocks Florida ban on care for trans minors in narrow ruling, says ‘gender identity is real’
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A federal judge temporarily blocked portions of a new Florida law that bans transgender minors from receiving puberty blockers, ruling Tuesday that the state has no rational basis for denying patients treatment.
7. July - World’s largest Phosphate deposit discovered in Norway
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A massive underground deposit of high-grade phosphate rock in Norway, pitched as the world’s largest, is big enough to satisfy world demand for fertilisers, solar panels and electric car batteries over the next 50 years, according to the company exploiting the resource.
8. August - Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99
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If the claim by Sukbae Lee and Ji-Hoon Kim of South Korea’s Quantum Energy Research Centre holds up, the material could usher in all sorts of technological marvels, such as levitating vehicles and perfectly efficient electrical grids.
9. September - World’s 1st drug to regrow teeth enters clinical trials
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The ability to regrow your own teeth could be just around the corner. A team of scientists, led by a Japanese pharmaceutical startup, are getting set to start human trials on a new drug that has successfully grown new teeth in animal test subjects.
10. October - Nobel Prize goes to scientists behind mRNA Covid vaccines
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The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to a pair of scientists who developed the technology that led to the mRNA Covid vaccines. Professors Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman will share the prize.
11. November - No cases of cancer caused by HPV in Norwegian 25-year olds, the first cohort to be mass vaccinated for HPV.
Last year there were zero cases of cervical cancer in the group that was vaccinated in 2009 against the HPV virus, which can cause the cancer in women.
12. December - President Biden announces he’s pardoning all convictions of federal marijuana possession
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President Joe Biden announced Friday he's issuing a federal pardon to every American who has used marijuana in the past, including those who were never arrested or prosecuted.
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And there you have it – a year's worth of uplifting news! I hope these positive stories brought a bit of joy to your inbox. As I wrap up this special edition, I want to thank all my supporters!
Buy me a coffee ❤️
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
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feefal · 3 months
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FUNGUARY IS HAPPENING AGAIN!!! February is right around the corner, which means it’s soon time for Funguary 2024! the drawing event where we draw a bunch of mushroom based characters during the month of feb. This will be our third year of Funguary, and this time it’s a leap year!
Here’s how it works: Each week of the month will have a theme with seven different prompts, draw a mushroom character within that theme in order to join. The themes are Celestial, Demonic, Edible and Cryptic. Each week of February is a new theme. You don’t have to complete all the prompts, just one mushroom per theme/week is plenty!
If you’re hardcore you can definitely try and finish all the prompts though ;). The challenge intensity is adjustable to what suits you. This is a chill event where the goal is to just have fun and vibe, and honor the fungi kingdom with some really cool art🍄
I invite you all to come draw mushrooms with me! Use the hashtag #Funguary and #funguary2024 when posting your creations. I’ll be posting some of the creations here, and I’ll also be hanging out in the hashtag and comment sections! Really hope y’all join and draw fungi with me🥰🍄🌿 See you all on the first of February, LETS GOOOO!!
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ketrinadrawsalot · 2 months
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Fungi February: The candy cap's unique aroma makes it one of the few mushrooms that are just as good in desserts as in entrees. As a little brown mushroom, there are numerous lookalikes, some of which are toxic.
Disclaimer: Don’t rely on pictures of cute mushrooms with eyes to accurately identify edible mushrooms. At best the wrong one will taste bad, at worst it’ll be deadly!
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It's nearly funguary again- courtesy of feefal- and I intend to do all of the prompts this year :)
I think I only completed one last year and posted it but I still think about these two sketches/ideas sometimes and even though they may never be worked on again, digitized, and colored, I still wanted to share because I think they're kinda fun:
The top one was the inky cap and I kinda was going for b&w/goth jester for some reason. I have no clue what's up with the little spider-octopus dude she's chilling with but it's there
The bottom was the mycena chlorophos and I wanted her to look like she was chilling in a glow-bowling alley, absolutely covered in glow-stick hoops (she actually did make it to the digital world but I just never finished her :') oh well, maybe someday)
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pytheon · 2 years
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fatehbaz · 1 year
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Scientists in Japan have rediscovered an extremely rare species of parasitic "fairy lantern" that was presumed to be extinct.
The mysterious plant, Thismia kobensis, belongs to a rarely seen, fungus-sapping genus. The plants grow underground without photosynthesis yet send translucent flowers to sprout like ghostly lanterns from the forest floor.
First documented in 1992 in Kobe, Japan, the plant was presumed extinct when its habitat was destroyed by the building of an industrial complex. Now, three decades later, on a forest trail about 19 miles (30 kilometers) from Kobe, scientists have found the waxy, fang-shaped petals of the rare plant once more. They described the discovery Feb. 27 in the journal Phytotaxa [...].
Fairy lanterns (Thismia) are ethereal, subterranean plants whose only brief eruptions from the earth come in the form of intricately petaled flowers. Without chlorophyll to photosynthesize energy, the plants instead use a process called mycoheterotrophy to steal the nutrients from the fungi that entwine themselves around their roots.
Thismia's preferred habitats, which tend to be tropical rainforests, are facing global decline. Little is known about the elusive plants, and a significant number of the roughly 90 identified species have been lost, some for decades, after their initial discoveries.
"Because most mycoheterotrophic plants obtain their carbon indirectly from photosynthetic plants via shared mycorrhizal [fungal and plant] networks, they are highly dependent on the activities of both the fungi and trees that sustain them," the researchers wrote in the study. "Consequently, they are particularly sensitive to environmental disturbances, often rendering them both rare and endangered."
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Headline, image, caption, and text published by: Ben Turner. “Otherworldly ‘fairy lantern’ plant, presumed extinct, emerges from forest floor in Japan.” Live Science. 28 February 2023.
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greencheekconure27 · 1 year
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forever-once-gone · 3 months
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Day 2: Seokjin - How he had once claimed you as his <3
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Part of the Love, Amour, Aur Pyaar drabble series for February!
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Word count: 6.3k (obviously, I am once again failing the task of keeping these short lol)
Content and Warnings: yandere au, supernatural au, love, murder, child neglect, fighting parents, child abandonment, reader has a disdain for her fellow humans, reader's father is a deadbeat, reader's mother disappears, Jin is a man (?) obsessed, possessiveness, illusions to future inter-clan wars, vows of commitment, death, starvation, kissing.
Author's Note: I have no self control. This is again much longer than it should be. At this point it would be considered a whole fic, not a drabble. Also, this is dedicated to @rosquilleta, @/teacakess on Ao3, and the anon who sent me a kind ask ONLY 😤. Thank you dears for commenting 🥰🥰🥰 You guys gave me motivation to write!
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You pulled your clothes off, letting them pool at your feet. The day had been rough, foraging through the woods all day took quite a load out of you. You had to go into the forest that surrounded your small town to gather some herbs and other plants and fungi to sell in your little shop. It was hard to maintain the quickly depleting stocks in your shop since you were the only person left who dared to venture into the accursed forest.
You once had a mother who cared for you dearly. She had been warm and loving, and had done everything she could do to raise you after your father had refused to stand up and divulge the fact that he—despite being the village leader’s son—was the secret lover of your mother when she had gotten pregnant. He would often sneak into your house by the outskirts of town when you were a child to try and convince your mother that he had had no choice.
“I’m sorry, dear, you know my father would never accept our relationship. A child out of wedlock? With an orphaned woman, especially from your lineage? It would never work. We’d no doubt be thrown out into the accursed forest, and where would that leave us? Leave Y/n?”
Your mother would never meet his eyes, she never had since the day he’d refused to claim you and your mother at the town meeting. Instead, she’d just make it clear that he had no place in her or your life any more. “I don’t know why you’re here, your highness.”
“Don’t call me that,” he’d beg. “I’m not a prince, I’m not anything like that. We are one, my love. Stop mocking me with those words. We’re equal here.”
“You may not be a prince, nor have any royal blood, but your words make it clear that you think you’re high above me. My lineage? What do you mean by that? You know as well as anyone that there is nothing about me that is cursed. Just because my family was the only one brave enough to enter into the forest, doesn’t mean that we’re cursed! You surely didn’t think I was cursed before I became with child!”
“Do not twist my words, my love. You know I do not think of you like that, but you must admit it is strange how every member of your family had disappeared in those woods for centuries. You cannot ignore how implicating that is, my dear.” He had raised his hands in an almost pleading manner, trying to play to your mother’s emotions.
But your mother had little to no feelings left for the one who had been her biggest betrayer.  “My family may have all disappeared into the woods, but that is only because we’re the only ones who actually dare to enter it! And you cannot ignore the fact that anyone else who was not in my family line who had entered the forest, did not ever return, even though it was all of their first time entering the woods. The fact that my family has, for generations, been able to enter and leave the forest for years, before we finally disappear. Compared to everyone who disappears the first time they enter,I think we may be the blessed ones, not cursed. Besides, nobody seems to think we’re cursed when they want the herbs, vegetables, and fruits we bring back from the forest.” Your mother saw you peeking out from the bedroom.
“Y/n, go back inside, dear. You do not have to hear this.” She began to walk towards the door, shooing you further into the room. “Go to sleep.” She softly clicked the door closed after giving you a reassuring smile.
You walked back into bed, pulling the various knit blankets over you as you heard your mother telling your father that he had overstayed his welcome once again.
Spending nights hearing your parents arguing in the next room over, was not new to you. As far back as you can remember, your father would covertly enter your house to try and get your mother to forgive him, to let him be a father to you. He would bring you clothes, sometimes toys, other times blankets to try and win you over. You would politely take the objects before your mother would usher you back into your room. 
But you knew better than to think that he actually meant to make it up to your mother. He’d always ask for forgiveness, but never ask to accept her and reveal to the village that you were his child. Your mother had questioned him the night of your ninth birthday—the last birthday you had with her—of what his true intentions were of coming here, night after night. He’d been a bumbling mess, too embarrassed to say in front of your mother that he really had no intentions of revealing anything. He really just wanted to relieve himself of his guilt, or at least, that’s what it had seemed like to you.
If he really cared, he would stand by your mother and yourself.
But then again, he never married following his parting from your mother.
You would wait to hear the front door shut behind your father. You would hear silence as your mother sat at the dining table for, usually, ten to twenty minutes after he’d left before she’d slink back into the room with you. She’d get into bed, and pull you against her chest. Her hand would smooth over your head, and sometimes she’d whisper apologises to you, thinking you were asleep.
She had been the only one who took care of you in your life, the only true one to care for you.
When your mother had disappeared in the forest only a few weeks before your tenth birthday, you had been beyond distraught. 
You had cried in the town square all morning and afternoon, when you had woken up and realized that your mother had not returned in the night. You had begged for someone to help you, to look in the forest for you, to find her. Everyone had walked right past all of you, ignoring your little crying form, clothes soiled from the dirt that you had collapsed in when the village leader had turned you away. 
Your father had seemed like he wanted to say something, hesitating when he had found you in the square on his way back to his home. But, in the end, he had walked away from you, leaving you to cry until you lost consciousness.
When you had finally come to, it was the middle of the night. No one was around. The air was cold. And your fingertips had lost all feeling, stiff as you tried to wiggle them around. You had sat up, hoping that you’d see your mother emerging from the forest at the edge of your vision, but you saw no such thing. No such blessing.
You had to pick yourself up from that cold dirt floor, and trudge your way back to your house by the edge of the glade. You had, again, hoped that you’d open the door to find your mother, tending to the fire in the fireplace. Perhaps, stirring a pot that she had hung in it, as she smiled at you, letting you know dinner was almost ready.
But life was not that kind to you.
The few weeks had been tough. You had to learn how to care for yourself all by yourself. You used up all the stored food that your mother would have sold if she had not disappeared. People had not come to your house expecting to buy anything, like they used to when your mother was still around. You had used those supplies and what you had to feed yourself, but when they had come to an end (other than a few jars of preserves, your mother had jarred only a few days before she disappeared that you did not have the heart to open yet), you realized you had to do something to find food.
You had properly dressed up for the first time since your mother’s disappearance. You had ventured out to the river that passed through the glade and bathed. You had scrubbed every last ounce of built up oil from your hair. You had put on your best clothes. You had picked up your basket from the shelf where you used to keep all the items your mother used to sell. And threw on the cloak your mother had sewed for you.
And you did what your family had always done when there was nothing left for them in the village.
You entered the woods.
Your mother had brought you into the woods intermittently from when you were young. You supposed she once had to take you every time when she ventured into the woods when you were a newborn, as there was no one else to take care of you. But by the time you had become old enough not to die of starvation or neglect if left alone for a few hours (about 2 and a half years old), she had begun to cut your trips to the woods. She would leave you alone at home with a snack and some water, promising to return soon.
Following that, she had rarely brought you into the forest. Only a few times in the year. And that was only because she had told you: “One day, I’m sure the forest will take me just like it did my father. Before then, I need you to learn how to navigate the forest, because it will become your only source of trading power with the other villagers, you understand me? It will be tough to be on your own—it was for me too—but I want you to be better prepared for the woods than I was when my father disappeared. I just don’t want you to starve like I did when it happened to me.” Her eyes had darkened. “Not one of those villagers will come to help you, Y/n. Not one.”
You repeated those words to yourself the first time you had entered the forest alone, following the routes that your mom would go through. You foraged for the berries she had shown you, the root vegetables that she had taught you to identify from the stalks that were visible above the dirt, and you checked the traps that your mother had left for small game.
Fortunately, each of the traps had worked and caught a small prey. But unfortunately, all of the animals had started to rot from not being collected all these weeks later. Some had even been scavenged, leaving mangled messes of flesh. You just released the traps, and pushed the corpses away with a stick before re-preparing the traps.
You unconsciously looked around, fearing that you may end up stumbling across your mother’s corpse in a similar stage as the animals you had scraped off the traps. For better or for worse, you had not.
Before the sun could get even close to setting, you returned home. And when you entered the house, a sense of heaviness pushed down on you. A heaviness that came with the realization that this was your new life. You were alone, left to fend for yourself in the forest if you hoped to survive. Left alone to mourn your mother. Mourn her, until you also, just like all your ancestors before you, also disappeared out in the forest.
At least, then, the ghosts of your ancestors could sigh in relief that there would be no more orphaned descendents/children fighting to survive in the glade anymore after you.
You took off the cloak you were wearing and stepped out of your muddied shoes. Only when you sat down at the dining table did you realize something had changed from the way it had been before you had left that morning.
There was a package wrapped up in a sheet on your table. Your breath stopped for a second; could this be from your mother? Was she still alive?
You carefully pulled off the sheet from the contents within, only to find some clothes, a bag of flour, and some goat’s milk along with a note.
I’m so sorry, dear Y/n.
I cannot be the father you deserve, but I will try to provide for you when I can.
Happy birthday, sweet child.
Regrettably,
Your inadequate father.
P.S. I know you will not believe me, but I also miss your mother as much as you do.
Your disdain had grown for him tenfold that night.
Nobody bought from you the first few days after you ventured into the forest. You liked to think it was due to them feeling guilt for how they practically left you to die when your mother disappeared. But you knew the truth, it was much more likely they were worried that you were still unstable and could lash out on them. But after a week of you putting up the open sign by your front door, two mothers had come to you unabashedly, asking for the one of the types of root vegetables your mother used to get from the forest in exchange for a couple eggs.
When the two women had been able to leave your house unharmed, the others slowly made their way back to making their visits to your little house, offering trades and money for the goodies that only grew in the accursed forest. And with that, you had set a routine. A routine involving spending half your time in the woods and half your time in the glade.
And with this routine, you were able to brave your way through the days, then the weeks, the months, and even the years.
And before you knew it, you were twenty-five. Had spent much more time on your own than the time you had spent with your mother. Over fifteen years since she had disappeared without a trace. 
It had also been fifteen years since you had truly felt cared for.
Sure, your father still left you gifts here and there. But that didn’t make any warmth spread through your body. It didn’t help the fact that you hadn’t had anyone to laugh with in all these years. No one to talk to about anything beyond types of vegetables and game. The only time when you had a conversation longer than a couple of words was when one of the men from the village would try and haggle with you for a rabbit that you had brought back in from the forest that morning.
Your father was not much comfort either.
He still wrote you short messages when he would leave packages on your doorstep, but they were as worthless as all those visits he made to see your mother when she was still around. His reassurances were hollow, and you didn’t care to give him the time of day.
You’d become just like your mother, in that even when you saw him around, you’d always turn the other way. In a way, he brought you a bit closer to your mother, since your hatred for him made you understand her cold-shoulder towards him.
You never felt more alone than when you were in the glade with the other villagers, father be damned.
That is why, other than to sleep and to sell your goods, you tended to stay in the accursed forest as much as you could. Even though it made the villagers whisper how you must be more dangerous than your mother since she didn't spend nearly as much time in the forest as you did. To that, all you could think was that you didn’t have a child waiting at home for you to raise, unlike your mother. You were certain she would have done the same as you if she didn’t have to care for you back then.
Despite how there was not one other person in the first besides you, just being away from the village made you feel more at peace. You felt more connected with your mother, when you walked her routes, set her traps, and used all the tips and tricks she had taught you when you were young.
Your favorite spot, however, was the small lake in the forest. It was in the middle of a river—its offshoot didn’t cross into the glade, and the running water was always fresh. It was cold in the summer, and warm in the winter; how it exactly managed that, you had no idea. But you had fond memories of it. It was the place where your mother had taught you how to swim. This was the only place where you would see her just sit down and relax, unworried and free.
It had been her spot.
And now, it was yours.
You sat down in the cool water, feeling it wash off the sweat you had accumulated on the voyage through the woods. You were still near the shallow enough edge where you could sit on the floor and the water would only reach up to your armpits. It was nice to let go for a bit.
You sat in the water for a good ten minutes before you wadded deeper into the lake, figuring it was time for you to forage for the underwater plants that people liked to buy off of you to put into soups. You would swim down into the lake, and swim through the thick plant filled bottom of the lake that curled up into the water like bushes. You would push around the rock covered floor to loosen the roots of the plants to get them to release. The leaves would float up to the surface, where you’d collect them later on when you felt you had collected enough.
This time, as you pushed around the large rocks among the dense plants, you felt something warm. You pulled your arm back, expecting to see a fish shoot out of the thicket from your disturbance, but instead, nothing. You were taken aback. You reached out your hand again to see if you would find some freshly dead animal laying in the plants, but when you pushed the plants aside to see, you instead found a large, warm stone.
But it was strange, it was in the shape of a human head.
You felt your eyes bulge out of your head, as you broke through the carpet of plants you had released into the water, immediately kicking to the surface of the lake. You tried to gulp down as much air as you could before you dove straight back into the lake, kicking back to the stone head. You immediately started to check if it looked like your mother, but it did not. It instead looked like a man. 
Was this some sort of preserved human? 
No, it couldn’t be. It was very much stone.
You circled around the head, pulling away more plants to uncover more stones if you could. You didn’t find any more human head-shaped stones, but you did realize that the stone head was much more than just a head. It was attached to a rock body. It was an entire statue that had been shoved into the lake.
You continued to try and uncover more of the statue between taking breaks where you swam up to the surface for more oxygen. And after about ten minutes you had uncovered the whole statue from under the rocks and plants.
You were surprised that you had never come across this before. This large stone statue that just laid at the bottom of the lake. You just stared at it, honestly, unsure what to do now.
That is until the statue began to rise. You swam back from the statue as it seemed to float up through the water to the lake’s surface, bobbing around with the water plants. How could this statue be so light that it was able to float?
You swam up after it, coming up beside it. You pushed it, testing how light it was, and just from your one light push, it began to drift to the dirt beside the lake where your clothes were. The statue continued to bob around in the shallow water until you dragged it across the pebbles to the dry land.
The statue was of a man with one hand coming up to press the backs of his knuckles underneath his chin. The other curled around his stomach. His lips were full and slightly open. His hair was loose against his forehead. His eyes scrunched together with an expression of pleasure. The statue was also very naked, which made the pose very… suggestive.
Uh…
You really did not know what to make of the statue.
Maybe this is just something that happens in the cursed forest? You find random statues? Statues that seemed like they were in the throes of passion?
But you doubted it. In all your years of coming into the forest, there really was not anything glaringly wrong about it.
It was just a regular forest. 
This was the first weird statue you came across.
Other than the fact that when people would venture into it, they’d never return, there was nothing really demonic about the woods.
Hmm.
You stood beside the statue, before you decided, you didn’t really care about it.
Like, what were you really supposed to do? Tell the other villagers? They wouldn’t care. They probably wouldn't even believe you. Or even if they did, they wouldn’t really have any plans of what to do with it either.
So, it was beyond your abilities to care about.
You left it lying by the shore and jumped back into the lake, going out to gather the plants that were floating around, waiting to be collected. You made quick work of it, gathering them all and bringing them to shore. You wrapped them in a cloth to absorb as much water as possible on them before slipping them into the basket with your other goodies.
You then turned to pull on your clothes, humming a little tune to yourself. And when you were all ready, you pulled on your cloak, picked up your basket, and began your trek back home, you were just about to reach the thickening of the trees—
That is until: “Hey! That’s not how this is supposed to go!”
You stopped in your tracks, your grip tightening on your basket.
Did that come from the… lake?
You slowly turned to the lake, and in between the trees you could make out… something.
Ah, this is the day you die isn’t it.
You thought to turn back around and try to make a break for it, but instead, you walked back to the lake, dropping your basket beside one of the trees.
If you were going to die, you were willing to accept it if it meant you’d be able to see your mother again.
When you made it back to the lake, you expected to see a demon or something of the like, but instead it was just the statue again.
But this time, it was standing up. Its arms fists at its hips with its lips frozen in a pout, as though it was mad at you. Its eyes were open this time as it glared at you.
Okay, magic statue it is then.
Was this statue the thing that killed all your family members before?
Well, you hoped it made it quick.
You walked up to it. Stopping just a step away from it. “Um, did you just speak to me? Like you, the statue?”
With a blink, the statue was in another pose, his palm pressed against its forehead, the other hand still against its waist. And without the statue’s mouth moving at all from its slight agape position, it said, “Yes, I did. Now, kiss.”
With another blink of your eye, the statue had once again changed its pose. Its arms were brought up behind his head, posing like a self-absorbed man trying to show off his arm muscles, as its hands pressed to the back of its head, out of sight. His eyes were closed once again.
You weren’t sure what to do. Were you meant to kiss this statue? You really did not want to. “I’m not going to kiss you. Forgive me.”
With another blink, the statue's eyes shot open. “WHAT?!” With another blink, the statue was right in front of you, nose to nose with you, as it bent slightly to glare directly into your eyes. Its arms were crossed over its chest, as it lamented once again, without moving its lips, “This isn’t how this is supposed to go! You’re supposed to kiss me!”
All you felt was annoyance. Was the statue going to kill you or not? You were getting a bit impatient having to deal with its dramatics. “Is that so? And why am I meant to kiss you?”
In less than a second its posture had changed again. Its arms were still crossed against his chest, but this time he wasn’t leaning into your face. Instead, he was standing upright with his head looking off to the right with a deep pout. “The others did!” He whined. “They said I had to win you over, so that’s what I’m trying to do, but you are not cooperating!”
“Who are they?” you asked, adopting his pose with your arms crossed against your chest.
“You know! My people! The ones who govern this forest and our respective lands. I come from the Kim clan, one of the many clans in the nation. I was meant to tell you this after you kissed me.” He remained pouting off to the side.
“So you come from a group of statues?”
He left out an affronted gasp. “Good Earth, no! This is obviously a facade that was meant to woo you! We’re obviously not a people of statues. How absurd of you to even imply that.”
“Then what are you then? And why do you need to “woo” me?”
He changed his position again, now sitting on the ground with his legs crossed, his head propped up on his hand. He looked frustrated. “I would have explained all that to you if you had kissed me like you were meant to. If you want to know, you shall present me with a kiss.”
You sat down in front of him. “That’s unfortunate as I am not going to kiss you.”
His mouth fell open in shock. “I told you, I’ll tell you once you kiss me!”
“Yes, I heard. And I am not going to kiss you,” you insisted, also resting your head on the palm of your hand.
“But that’s what we’re meant to do! The elders told me that I get to be the one from our clan to finally have our turn to get a L/n human as a spouse! They told me I’m meant to come up with a ceremony to sweep you off your feet, and then you’ll be mine! I was only supposed to explain everything else to you after you gave me your hand.”
The statue shot in front of you, now sitting up on his knees, with his hands on either side of your body, his face only a few centimeters from your face again. This time he had his lips all puckered up, with his eyes all scrunched up as if he was prepared for a kiss.
“Now give me a kiss,” he demanded. “And then I’ll tell you everything you want to know. Plus, I can take you back to my lands with me. Now. Kiss!”
“That all sounds well and good.” You leaned back from the insolent statue. “But I’m still not going to kiss you, especially not if it's part of some ceremony.”
The statue was on the ground in a blink of the eye. His knees bent to the sky, as he covered his eyes with his hands. His mouth downturned in a frown. “Why did I have to get the L/n that was the most stubborn of them all?” He seemed to ask no one in particular.
You let him wallow in his self-pity, instead picking at the grass surrounding the both of you. After a few minutes of silence, you asked him, “Has your tantrum completed yet?”
Like a child he said, “no.”
“Well then,” you stood up, brushing the dirt off of your rear, and pulled your hood over your head. “I’ll be off.” You turned and were back on your route, picking your basket up as you passed it.
“Wait!” Finally a man appeared before you, no longer a statue, but a human looking man. His chest was rising and dropping quickly as he held his arms up in front of you, keeping you in place. It was good to see him actually moving, and not just teleporting whenever your eyes closed, it was starting to strain your eyes. “Look, I’m in my true form now, will you just let me explain?”
“Alright, but I will not be kissing you.”
“Yeah, I got that part,” he mumbled, pushing his purplish-pink, wet hair back from his forehead. “Can we sit? And I’ll explain.”
“Could you put on some clothes first?”
He sighed, but in an instant he was dressed in an immaculate, translucent set of fabrics that seemed to shimmer in the early evening light. The clothing was unlike anything you’d seen before. They were in hues of blue and green that flowed loosely over his body as though they were waterfalls that sprouted and fell from his body.
You wondered if they were tangible or something he had just magicked up. You wondered if you were to grab at them, would you be able to feel them or would your fist come back empty.
He walked past you, back towards the lake with his clothes dragging behind him. He looked luxurious.
He went to a different edge of the lake, with giant boulders. He sat down on them, letting his legs soak in the water, his form slumped.
You followed after him, and also sat beside him, but instead of dipping into the water, you sat beside him cross-legged.
He twirled his feet around in the current. “I thought you’d like my entrance. I thought you’d want something romantic for the first meeting you had with me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I was meant to win you over. You were mine to have, but it’s not that simple. We are not allowed to just steal you away, We need you to come willingly. We need you to fall for us.”
“We as in your people?”
“Yes, my people. We are known by many names to you humans: fairies, fae, elves, pixies, selkies, nagas, tricksters, incubi, demons, witches, immortals. We are shapeshifters, we have magick, we can come to humans however we please. It led to many folklore about us. Really, all those myths stem from our mating ceremonies.”
You waited for him to continue.
“We are only allowed to pick mates from one lineage. In every nation, there is only one family that we can take spouses from. It’s part of our laws, so we do not reveal ourselves to much more than we need to to humans. It also keeps our spouses from fighting amongst themselves, since most of them are on good terms with one another. It prevents clan wars.” He turned to look at you, his hair slightly drier than before.
You took a moment to take in his beauty. He was a handsome man, that you could not deny. You had never met a person with colourful hair like his, other than the one person in the glade with red hair. But this was so different from that. It looked like he’d dyed them with flowers like people did wool, something unnatural for people to have. You couldn’t help but wonder if that was his natural hair colour or if this was one of the perks of being a shapeshifter.
You hummed at him to keep going with his explanation.
“It was agreed upon centuries ago that it would be the L/n family that we would take partners from. As long as they had had time to have children to keep the family line going, we could take our pick of who we wanted. In return, your family got the ability to walk in our lands unharmed. Something that other humans would be… killed for trying to do.”
He eyed you to see what your reaction would be to him admitting to his people killing humans. He didn’t know how to feel when he saw no sympathy for the humans who had perished.
“It was my clan’s turn next to get a L/n, and of course, there was you. I had just turned twenty, and you had been twenty-one. I was entranced right away by you. I wanted to take you right away, after all, it was my birthright. But, the elders of the clans told me I had to wait. I had to wait for you to have a child, but how could I?!” He had turned right towards you, pulling your hands into his lap. “How could I let a human hold you close before I got the chance to? How could I let you raise children with a human, with someone other than me. I couldn’t bear it.”
He had pulled your hands to his chest. “But the clan leaders, Y/n, while they understood me—they had after all had to go through the same thing as I did before they got their L/n—but they told me I must wait. So I did. I waited even though it hurt me. I waited until you had a child so that I could finally take you away, but then it just wasn’t happening! You weren’t meeting people, you weren’t falling in love or having children! It had been five years, and it just wasn’t happening.”
He pulled one of your hands from his chest to come up and cradle his cheek in your hand. “So I spoke with the clan leaders, and they said I still couldn’t take you.” 
His arm came around your torso, pulling you against him. “So I decided, I was going to take you. Who are they to stop me from taking my spouse, my mate? Let them burn, I say. Who cares if the remaining clans will not have their own L/n spouses, I do not care. You are mine, and I refuse to wait any longer.” His other arm had come to the back of your head, bringing you closer to his face. “Kiss me, Y/n, and then I can claim you as mine.”
He tilted his head, flickering his eyes closed as he went to close the gap between the two of you, but you instantly put a finger up to his pursed mouth.
“Do you mean to tell me my mother is alive? She was taken by one of the other clans?” Your eyes were urgently digging into him.
The man pulled away slightly, his eyes opening back up slowly. “Well yes. All of your family members are alive in one way or another in our lands.” He could see the way your eyes hardened, he could imagine that you were worried for your mother’s state. “Once we take them, they become ours, Y/n. We tie them to our eternal life so they could be by our side as long as we shall live. We take good care of our spouses, that I can assure you. I’ve met her once before.” He cupped your face in his hands. “She is well, Y/n.”
You felt tears run down your face and onto his hands. “S-She’s alive?”
He nodded.
You collapsed against him in sobs, calling out for your mother. He rubbed your back, trying to calm you down the best that he could.
Fifteen years it had been since she’d disappeared—no, been taken from you.
Fifteen years.
It didn’t matter that she hadn’t come to see you in all those years, you could forgive her for that, but you wanted to see her now. You needed to see the only person who cared for you. You needed her.
You straightened up, wiping your tears away before grabbing onto the man. “Take me to her. I’ll do whatever you want, just take me to her.” You begged in a choked voice.
“I can only do that if you agree to be mine. Only if you kiss m—”
You pressed your lips against his.
For a second he didn’t move, just allowing you to ravage his lips. But once he realized what had happened, he immediately pulled you closer. He pulled you against him and kissed you back with as much fervor as you did. He felt jolts of electricity pass through his body as the vow between the two of you cemented in place.
You were his now.
And he was yours.
When the burning in your chest got too much, you pulled away from the magickal man. Just enough for you to breathe in some air.
He pressed a kiss against the corner of your mouth as you panted. “I suppose it is time for me to give you my name now that you are mine.”
He pressed a kiss to your jaw before he whispered into your neck, “I shall give you my name, as you gave me yours through the completion of the ceremony of the vow. I give you my name: Kim Seokjin.”
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Reader won't even realize the gravity of him giving his name to you until they went back to his land and learned more about his people. He really meant the whole "I am yours, and you are mine" thing 😬
Just so you guys know, I wanted to write a bit more to explain why he decided to come to you as a statue, but then this was just already way too long, so I decided not to. Long story short: He was inspired by the Greek myth of Pygmalion and Galatea, and he thought he may woo you (as that is part of the ceremony, he must win you over), by replicating that myth. He thought you'd fall head over heels for his handsome statue self, and you'd kiss him without him even having to ask! Obviously, he was a bit over confident lol.
Maybe at some point, I'll write that Jin explaining to his partner why he did what he did later on in the month or maybe afterwards. I just wanted to write him being all pouty as he explained his plan, but oh well lol.
Anyway, please reblog and comment, it makes my day and motivates me so much! Have a good night!
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