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ryuyejiho · 1 year

Text

"Will you be my girlfriend?" - Han

Pairing: Han Jisung X Reader

Genre: Fluff

Warnings: School

Summary: It was supposed to be the perfect date for a confession of feelings but something went wrong. However, that didn't stop Jisung from his plans

Word Count: ~1.1k

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There are exactly three minutes left until the end of the last lesson. It was already a few minutes before I packed up all my belongings to get out of the classroom as quickly as possible and run to the school exit.

My friend Jisung was even already sitting sideways to the bench to get off his chair evenly with the bell.

Which is exactly what he did at that moment.

He literally ran out of the classroom and I followed him trying to catch up. Behind me I could still hear the teacher's voice shouting that the lesson wasn't over yet, but I honestly didn't give a damn because a bell is a bell. Information about the end of the lesson.

When we ran outside the school grounds we only saw our only bus just leaving the bus stop. We were supposed to take the same bus an hour ago to a festival where our favorite singer was supposed to be. Since it was at the other end of town the bus there was only one and every two hours or so so so there was no chance we would make it.

"If it weren't for that stupid lesson we would have been there long ago" said an angry Jisung kicking a pebble that was lying by his leg.

"if we hadn't gone they would have lowered our grade" I replied being equally angry. They should have told us about such a lesson at least a week before and not an hour before.

"and what do we do now?"

"I don't know, maybe let's walk somewhere. We can go to the skatepark" the park was literally next to the school. There were always a million people riding there on bikes, rollerblades, scooters or skateboards like Jisung did.

I always admired him for his skills but whenever he wanted to teach me something I refused.

"okay then, let's go " he said and shrugged his shoulders as if he didn't care. I felt very sorry for him because I knew how much he wanted to go there and how much he cared about this concert.

"hey, don't be sad. If not now, then some other time" I ran up to him wanting to catch up with him and put my arm around his shoulder.

"you know how I cared. It was supposed to be a perfect evening and as always something had to go wrong" he said overwhelmed, resting his head on mine.

"I know, but we can't do anything anymore. We can't afford a taxi all the way there, the bus got away from us. We can go there by bicycles if you want" I said with false enthusiasm at which the boy looked at me like I was crazy.

"do you want to bike 35 kilometers to the concert and then ride back the other 35 kilometers while drunk? I doubt it" we sat down on a wall at the entrance to the park and thought about what we should do next.

Not even five minutes passed as Jisung suddenly jumped down happily from the wall and looked at me. We looked at each other for a long moment, me at him like he was crazy and him at me as if he had just won a million at least.

"get up! Let's go to my place! We don't have anything to do anyway so we can go get ramen at my place or something" he made a perverted face at which we laughed and I carefully jumped off the wall.

****

We went into his room where the boy immediately went to the bed and threw all the pillows he had on the floor. I sat down at his desk wondering what was going on in his head sometimes and he went out to the kitchen and brought two chairs with him. He ran again and brought two more which he set at equal intervals to the previous ones so that together they formed a square. On their backs he put his big quilt which was probably to serve as the roof of this contraption, on the floor between the chairs he arranged a blanket and inside he threw all the pillows he had. He walked over to the desk and took his laptop from it, disconnecting it from the charger before.

Satisfied, he placed the laptop deep in that structure and quickly walked back to the kitchen singing some unfamiliar song under his breath. I started laughing at him when I heard the banging of two glass things and after a while a bunch of curses. After a while he came back with two bowls and two glasses which he placed on the floor next to the chairs. Then he looked at me and with theatrical gestures invited me inside.

Happy, I went inside and sat down between the pillows. Jisung threw another blanket inside and came in, sitting down next to me. He smiled at me and covered us with the blanket, earlier pulling the laptop and bowls closer, one with popcorn mixed with chips and the other with fruit. On the laptop he turned on Netflix on which he searched for one of our favorite anime.

"may this evening be as romantic as if we were at a concert" he said looking deeply into my eyes and smiling. At his words I just nodded my head and snuggled into his side.

In the course of watching the already fourth romantic movie, we cried about ten times. We lay cuddled up to each other and tried to calm our emotions while the movie's credits were already flying in the background.

"are you all right?" he asked in a deep voice from crying to which I nodded and raised my head to look at him.

"why do you choose such movies? Because of you, I've already used up my tear limit for the whole next month" the blond man laughed softly and gets up leaning on his elbows.

"that's good. I don't like it when you cry" he smiled broadly but after a while he got quite serious. Strangely enough when I just happened to lick my lips dry from the salt on the chips.

"why such a face?"

"I have something for you" he suddenly said and walked out of our shelter. I heard him walk over to the hanger where we hung our hoodies when we came in and after a while he came back to sit next to me. I looked curiously at the medium-sized box he held in his hands.

"what is this?" I asked, seeing how his hands had begun to shake and how he was getting stressed.

"I wanted to give it to you after the concert well, but.... I'm giving it to you now" he put the box in my hands and looked at me calmly. I opened it and to my eyes appeared a lovely necklace with a heart that had a key-shaped hole in the middle. I pulled it out from inside and admired it when he pulled his necklace from behind his shirt. It was shaped like a key.

Surprised, I looked alternately at his necklace, at mine and at him.

"do you like it?" de asked nervously at which I laughed.

"of course I like it. It is beautiful. But where did you get so much money to buy it?" I asked, looking at the brand name on the box.

"I saved some money and finally bought it" he shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

"you could have bought something for it. A new skateboard, a game. What's the occasion anyway?"

"no occasion at all" he said quietly and then after a long moment added taking a deep breath "I wanted to ask you something"

I nodded my head waiting for his question, while continuing to admire our connecting necklaces.

"what is it?" I finally asked when he didn't say anything.

Jisung, saying nothing, suddenly moved closer to me and touched his lips to mine. I sat in shock not knowing what to do but when I felt him pull away I quickly grabbed his shoulders and brought him back closer, deepening the kiss.

We sat like that for a long moment until we ran out of air. When we moved millimeters away from each other the boy spoke up whispering.

"will you be my girlfriend?" saying nothing, I moved closer to him again and kissed him once more, putting all my emotions into this kiss.

I knew that Jisung understood what I meant because he started smiling and put his arms around me, putting us on a pile of pillows.

#stray kids reactions #stray kids imagines #stray kids #stray kids fluff #han jisung #han skz #kpop #kpop scenarios #kpop reactions #changbin #bang chan #felix stray kids #hyunjin #i.n stray kids #lee know #seugmin #jyp stray kids #fluff

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bestworstcase · 5 months

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okay

let's talk about alchemical readings and rwby.

as the resident crank it would be remiss of me not to begin this little jaunt with a very important disclaimer: like all esoteric lenses, alchemical philosophy is an analytical framework that relies quite heavily on symbolism, and because of that it is really important to be mindful of how you're engaging with the text. symbolism services narrative, not the other way around, and you should always let the narrative guide your understanding of its symbolism. if that doesn't make sense to you, don't worry, because there will be lots of examples to illustrate what i mean.

before getting into the weeds, we're going to lay out some basic alchemical concepts.

in simple terms, the core philosophical idea of alchemy is a gradual process of transformation from base material into the sublime; conceptually the transmutation of lead into gold is also the perfection of human body and soul. alchemy is about change, refinement, rebirth, wholeness.

the prima materia—first matter—is the perfect and formless primordial matter of which all forms of matter are derived. if you're familiar with certain other alchemical readings of rwby you'll have seen it defined as the "raw material" that is transformed into the philosopher's stone through the alchemical process; that is not inaccurate but it must be stressed that the idea here is that ordinary matter comes from the prima materia and the philosopher's stone IS the prima materia, made perfect and whole again through the great work.

<- rwby directly invokes this idea in 'all things must die' ("all bonds dissolve/infinite matter/will always evolve").

yliaster is another name (coined by paracelsus) for the prima materia, which he described as "completely healed human being who has burned away all the dross of his lower being and is free to fly as the phoenix."

the great work is the actual process of alchemy. it is classically broken down into four (or three) stages, each represented by a color:

nigredo, black, involves putrefaction and charring—symbolically, death. decay. rot.

albedo, white, involves purification and separation. the undifferentiated mass of the nigredo stage is clarified and divided into two opposing principles.

citrinitas, yellow, is the "dawn" or reawakening.

rubedo, red, involves coagulation and recombination after the separation undergone in albedo.

citrinitas is not always treated as a discrete stage, instead sometimes being combined into a single stage with rubedo or understood as the transition between albedo and rubedo. hence "four (or three)." there are also a great variety of other stages, mostly given in sets of seven or twelve and listed in myriad sequences, but for our purpose this four-or three-stage model is the most useful.

now!

ordinarily with an alchemical reading, we would begin by finding a narrative pattern of symbolic death and rebirth, but for rwby we first need to interrogate the goliath in the room, namely:

YES, IT'S ABOUT SALEM.

there is a tendency in alchemical readings of rwby to interpret salem's immortality as a lifeless unchanging stasis, and thus to read her as an embodiment of the anti-theme, and surprising absolutely no one i find this to be… well, just not right at all.

rwby initially sets up the pattern through the mantra pyrrha recites when she awakens jaune's aura: "for it is in passing that we achieve immortality. through this we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all, infinite in distance and unbound by death. i release your soul, and by my shoulder protect thee." 'rising' explicitly calls back to this ("we are paragons of virtue and glory/death can't bind our endless story/infinite and unbound") and 'indomitable' reiterates the idea ("when we strive, we transcend/even death cannot end our climb"); this is important to note because the repetition correlates with revelations about salem's story.

the key thing to understand here is that 'the lost fable' is narratively structured around salem's deaths:

first, the god of light bites her and she's drowned in the fountain of life (notice her last breath leaving her mouth; she chokes for air and her eyes rolls back as she loses consciousness, sinking into the depths)…

…and then the god of darkness brings the moon down on her head and she wanders in a haze until finding her way back to the pool of grimm, where she seeks her own destruction and is created anew.

the brothers cast salem into the fountain of life, which pools under the roots of a tree and appears to be infinitely deep. she drowns as she sinks into its darkness—then abruptly reawakens hitting the water again, now only a reflecting pool, and the water-light of aura shimmers over her hands as she rises.

"for it is in passing that we achieve immortality…" the reprisal of "infinite and unbound" in 'rising' draws a line from pyrrha's mantra to the lost fable for a reason; it's to help us understand the truth behind the story jinn is telling. it is not even subtext—it is text. especially after volume nine, which clarifies the symbolic meaning of the tree growing above the waters.

through death, salem became immortal—infinite—and the infinite waters of life and creation became finite.

that water was the prima materia of the brothers' world; it combined with salem—the prima materia changes itself and combined with all imperfect bodies that it touches—and thus she herself became yliaster, "the perfectly healed human being who has burned away all the dross of his lower being and is free to fly as the phoenix."

the dross in her case being the brothers and their divine order, she rebels against them, and they destroy their world. she is all that remains. they leave salem behind in the end of all things and, phoenix-like, she rises out of the ashes of her destruction. yliaster is the prima materia; it contains everything, is everything, and everything is released when it is broken apart.

"this force of pure destruction could not destroy a being of infinite life, so it created a being of infinite life with a desire for pure destruction." destruction exists within creation exists within destruction: salem embraces death, throwing herself into the "blackened pools of annihilation" in the land of darkness. nigredo.

she's torn apart and reborn, and remnant is born with her, a pure-white being clambering into a revitalized new world she cannot touch; after a long separation, her partner returns to her and she experiences love, connection, freedom for the first time in years, until she learns that he seeks the destruction of this world and a return to the old and they burn each other alive in a violent parting. albedo.

salem's arrival in atlas literally at dawn incites the struggle between herself and cinder, which culminates in salem beginning to relinquish control and as her true feelings come to the surface. citrinitas.

thus, what remains of her story is rubedo: reconciliation with cinder, reunion with ozma, peace between humans and grimm (<- unity of opposites), and finally symbolic transcendence over death by convincing the god of light to ascend, with "death" being specifically the threat of annihilation represented by the divine mandate.

ozma's arc, of course, mirrors hers very closely: the god of light breaks him apart, the god of darkness burns him (nigredo)—his reincarnation divides him very literally into two, and symbolically divides him between duty and desire (albedo)—he awakens with the dawn, reconciles with oscar, and begins to face the truth in atlas (citrinitas).

as alchemical readings go, this one is not difficult or arcane or remotely ambiguous. it isn't even symbolic; the deaths and resurrection are explicitly literal and occur onscreen with the accompaniment of helpful explanatory notes. the goliath in the room is making aggressive eye contact.

but we are not done here yet, because i never do anything by halves and we have symbolism to talk about.

THE GREAT WORK.

salem, you will recall, is yliaster, the prima materia of remnant. you will also recall that the prima materia is the formless primordial matter from which all other matter is formed, and thus it is both the raw material of the great work and the philosopher's stone. yes? good. rwby interrogates this contradiction through the idea of balance, which the god of light conceives of as an inviolate order that must be designed and enforced. but, as the blacksmith explains, his understanding is a limited falsehood:

"balance is not two forces locked in never-ending battle. balance is an ecosystem, an organism, a living, breathing thing; thus balance cannot be restored by force or calculation. it only requires love and the patience to see things through to the end."

here is where i think a lot of the fandom—not people doing alchemical readings necessarily, but in general—miss the mark by interpreting this to mean that opposition and balance are antithetical to each other, that a system with two opposing forces is inherently out of balance. rwby's metaphysics are grounded in hellenistic philosophy, plato in particular (<- neoplatonism had a significant influence on the western european alchemical tradition), and the philosophical ideas undergirding the ever after follows herclitus.

(i recommend perusing the category pages for λόγος, justice and strife, the harmony of opposites, φύσις, ψυχή, cosmology, fire, water/the river, life/death, and waking/sleeping—i know that sounds like a lot of reading, but it isn't, as what we have of heraclitus is only fragments and the summaries provided are brief and accessible.)

the two key ideas we're interested in here are flux and strife. the world exists at rest in a continual state of change; a river is always the same river, but its flowing waters change from moment to moment. this conception of the world—"changing, it rests"—is flux. strife incites change through the tension between opposing forces. strife is not discordant but rather harmonious: "men do not know how what is at variance agrees with itself. it is an attunement of opposite tensions, like that of the bow and the lyre." (B51) just as a bow could not fire and a lyre could not sing without tension on the strings, so the world could not be without strife.

this is what the blacksmith means by balance. true balance is not war; it is strife. not two forces locked in never-ending conflict, but opposite tensions in harmony with each other. destruction and creation are opposing forces, but each exists within the other and they are both interdependent and inseparable.

salem embodies this theme. through death, she became life, and by destruction she was created. human and grimm, light and darkness, creation and destruction. she seeks to tear down the huntsmen academies and incite revolution in pursuit of a new world. she is balance—and the god of light inflicted his punishment upon her not because she failed to understand the importance of life and death, but because her dedication to change challenged his false and hollow conception of what balance means.

this guides the alchemical reading of the wider narrative in significant ways. salem is the prima materia of remnant—yliaster, broken apart to release everything contained within—and thus both the subject and the aspiration of the great work. when we examine other characters through this lens, it is in relation to her.

we'll begin by discussing the narrative's big symbols: the rose, the broken moon, the tree, grimm, silver eyes, and fire.

traditionally, the rose symbolizes rubedo. in most alchemical readings of rwby, ruby rose is accordingly presumed to represent this stage for obvious reasons—however, if we pay attention to how the narrative itself symbolically identifies the rose:

ruby's emblem, which she inherited from her mother, is a burning rose.

our first sighting of it is on summer rose's grave, above an epitaph—"thus kindly i scatter"—taken from a poem which uses the death of a rose as a metaphor for the speaker's loneliness and despair.

"red like roses fills my dreams and brings me to the place you rest," and "red like roses fills my head with dreams and finds me always closer to the emptiness and sadness that has come to take the place of you"

adam's emblem is a withered rose.

"the moon will sadly watch the roses die"

"maybe red's like roses? maybe it's the pool of blood the innocents will lay in when in the end you fail to save them"

"the rose will grow to be a seed, from every life another leads" (<- evokes an image of deterioration, rot; the rose going to seed)

"some roses will never bloom, some dreams will rot on the vine"

in rwby, the rose represents death. it burns, it withers, it dies, it is scattered, it never blooms; thus, it does not symbolize rubedo but rather the death and decomposition of nigredo. why then is ruby's primary color red? we'll get to that in a little while.

the moon traditionally symbolizes albedo, which is a process of separation, reflection, and illumination. the god of darkness shattered the moon as he departed after slaughtering humanity, and:

"the moon will sadly watch the roses die"

"the sky is turning black, light is fading fast, but we don't surrender; shattering the night, radiant and bright, armored in splendor, shining forever […] we're rising like the moon"

salem falls into and through the reflection of the broken moon when she casts herself into the pool of grimm

the broken moon symbolizes the death and resurrection of humankind, which—as noted—is the beginning of the albedo stage in salem's story.

so in rwby the broken moon does indeed represent albedo.

the tree, obviously, represents the whole circle of life-death-rebirth, with its symbolic meaning on remnant following its actual function in the ever after, where it is the cosmic tree, the river, and the ever-living fire. thus cinder and salem falling into pools of water at the base of a tree are symbolic (and in salem's case, also literal) rebirths.

grimm are "manifestations of anonymity," "the darkness," hates and feared as soulless monsters, destruction incarnate, thought to have no purpose other than to exist as "mankind's greatest foe." rwby is consistent in using the grimm to symbolize ostracism, persecution, fear of the other or the unknown, and salem's exile is justified (in ozma's mind) by her grimmness. which is to say, the grimm represent the separation undergone during albedo; they are the darkness to humanity's light. (hence, the narrative building toward coexistence between humans and grimm, exemplified by the faunus.)

silver eyes are described in opposition to the grimm and likewise represent the separation of albedo; the light to grimmkind's darkness. salem's experimentation with combining them into one being is a faunus for good reason, and i do not think it is coincidental that cinder has become less vulnerable to the glare as she finds balance with the grimm arm. and speaking of her:

the phoenix is another traditional symbol for rubedo, which naturally calls to mind associations with fire. citrinitas, similarly, is represented by the dawn or the "solar light," overtaking the moonlight of albedo, which again connotes fire. in rwby, fire is used to symbolize hope and wrath, which are thematically intertwined (hope ignites fire -> loss of hope incites wrath -> wrath ignites fire, and is thus a form of hope):

"even the smallest spark of hope is enough to ignite change […] nature's wrath in hand, man lit their way through the darkness"

"a simple spark can ignite hope, breathe fire into the hearts of the weary…" becoming "i can't wait to watch you burn"—salem seeks to smother ozma's hope, and thus rekindle her own.

"the light of hope is taken and discontent is the contagion; the blinding eyes that burn a yellow flame, the embers that remain will light the fuse of condemnation"

"we were destined to light the flame of revolution; consider this the spark" + "i think father may have just provided the spark that's going to set this kingdom on fire"

flame imagery used in relation to cinder and salem in the volume eight opening and jaune throughout volume nine.

cinder being… a spark…

as i noted, the paradigm shift between salem and cinder in atlas represents the transition from albedo to rubedo through the dawn. in rwby, the kindling spark symbolizes citrinitas and the changing flame that follows is rubedo. the role cinder will play in reigniting salem's hope is obvious, and the symbolic use of fire to reawaken first jaune and then neo in volume nine only underscores this meaning. in combination with the dust and ashes motif going on with salem and the grimm, the fire becomes specifically phoenix imagery.

now!

why, if the rose is nigredo, is ruby red?

in order to explain this, we first need to examine team STRQ, because the answer is that the great work is cyclical.

in team STRQ, we have:

summer rose, whose red-and-gold interior is masked by her white exterior

taiyang xiao long, who is all yellow

raven branwen, who is an amalgam of red and black

qrow branwen, who is mostly white except for his red cape

the branwen twins also transform into corvids, traditional symbols for the nigredo stage; qrow's scythe harbinger and raven's allusions to the morrígan underscore their symbolic association with death.

if we consider these color associations through an alchemical lens, the pattern that emerges is—by design—muddled and strange, but not actually that convoluted:

raven "tried to leave," but couldn't. she became the spring maiden by mercy-killing a girl whom she loved as her own family, and never having dealt with that grief or guilt, is trapped in nigredo whilst projecting a hollow image of rubedo—her pretense of strength. she runs away from her feelings, rather than challenging or examining them; what she needs instead is to separate and reflect honestly on herself.

summer did leave. her white outer shell—the phantom she left behind—suggests albedo, but her true colors are what she wears beneath the cloak: red trimmed with gold. she found salem, listened to her and awoke to the truth of this world, and then joined her. but in order to do that, she had to separate from her own family, joining salem exile; thus her individual rubedo brings her into alignment with the grimm in salem's albedo.

qrow, shattered by the dissolution of his team, is undergoing his own albedo. like his sister, he wears the trappings of rubedo—he is the one left standing, ozpin's most trusted agent—but this is a false projection which crumbles once it challenged by the revelations of ozma's deceit. his drinking and reluctance to be around people for fear of bringing them to harm make it impossible for him to move forward until he finds new hope and decides to try again. like his onetime mentor, he experiences citrinitas in atlas and the beginning of his transition into rubedo is marked by the introduction of maroon (desaturated red) and tan (desaturated yellow) into his atlas fit.

tai, lastly, is interesting because in one sense, he is citrinitas in isolation, a dawn with nothing to illuminate because his team left him behind, but in another sense, tai mediates the generational transition between team STRQ (albedo) and team RWBY (rubedo). he is yang and ruby's father and—crucially—he raises both in idealized casts of their mothers. ruby feels compelled to live up to the fairytale idea of summer rose; tai tells yang that he sees all of raven's good qualities in her and warns her to be wary of being too much like her mother, in almost the same breath.

ruby's red and yang's yellow represent the culmination of what tai wishes could have been; the summer rose who returned whole and alive, the raven branwen who chose reflection and reawakening instead of running away. but both colors are only things projected onto them—false images.

in truth, ruby represents nigredo. her scythe and the burning rose both connect her to death; her semblance disassembles her into a swirling formless mass of rose petals; her own identity is lost beneath the idea of summer rose and the first nine volumes of the story are devoted to the long, slow journey to her symbolic death at the roots of the tree.

only with her ascension has she begun to undergo albedo (notice the greater emphasis on her silver eyes and the flaring white light as she comes out of the tree; also, "otherside, did you mean to leave me half or whole? will i ever be complete? when will i become all of me?" and "what is left? i know it's you and i when i look inside"—she is beginning to separate herself from the imaginary paragon.

weiss represents albedo—her story is fundamentally about separation from her family, leading to self-reflection and growth, and in the process she has become an emotionally intelligent, insightful person who consistently helps others draw out and clarify their hidden emotions. her mirror motif and her knight summon further represent this: the self and the reflection.

blake represents citrinitas—her golden eyes, her association with the black king, her identity as a faunus, all support this reading. her time with the white fang was her albedo (she lost herself, gradually began to see herself in a new light, and finally separated herself from everything adam represented) and her personal moment of citrinitas is the removal of the bow and meeting with sun after she reveals herself as a faunus, after which she begins her journey of rediscovering herself and reintegrating with her faunus heritage.

finally, yang represents rubedo—her fire, her red eyes, "scathing eyes ask that we be symmetrical, one-sided and easily processed, yet every misshapen spark's unseen beauty is greater than its would-be judgment," "feel like i'm finally unbroken, feel like i'm back from the dead," the whole thematic conceit of bumbleby being the catalyst and the flame, the dawn and the sun, and so forth, two-in-one, "we're protecting each other."

the team collectively represents rubedo in relation to salem, in that they will be the ones primarily negotiating with her and this will obviously not begin to happen until ruby has her personal moment of citrinitas, which is to say not until ruby meets the real summer rose.

as a final point of interest, the four qualities (and relics) of destruction, creation, knowledge, choice map neatly onto the four-or-three alchemical stages—destruction as nigredo, creation as albedo, knowledge-then-choice as citrinitas-then-rubedo—and given the parallelism between yang and cinder, blake and raven, and weiss and penny+winter, it is probably a safe bet that the summer maiden is a) not summer rose, and b) a character foil to ruby, which i think adds some weight to the gillian theory.

anyways.

the philosopher's stone is ozlem.

#to be clear i think the alchemy thing is more convergent evolution from plato than deliberate use of alchemical structure #but neoplatonism did significantly influence western european alchemical philosophy so there is a lot to work with #and putting it in alchemical terms can be a clarifying analytical shorthand #as long as you don't. ignore everything the narrative spells out wrt salem #ANYWAY. HERE. TAKE IT.

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banepenis · 16 days

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the way that the computer internet is structued means that you can make a lot of early-game mistakes that result in you getting the bad ending, where the only real reward you get is the ear of an army of white woman who hope that one day their services to the science of bluey interpretation will allow tem the right to put their face on the end of tjat one lineup of like marx and lenin and mao etc. but if you what my opinion the most efieicent compter startegy is to only use it to yo on youtube and exclusively watch <100 subscriber gusy who do laptop webcam recordings of them shredding some otherwise uninteresting metal songs in a way that makes you feel a special kind of bubbling in your loins ,and often these guys are built so muscularly that it makes your dreams a little better after seeing them. .the reward for doing this is that every day you have a chance of encountering a beautiful androgyne who will kiss you on the lips, blessing you with a boon of great vitality. just my two cents

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bro-atz · 3 months

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1024UB CHAPTER FIFTY: THE END?

word count: 2.1k

table of contents ♤ previous chapter

Sober Gang, meanwhile, were hanging out at Ze Cafe— Seonghwa, Mingi, Yeosang, and San were all keeping Hongjoong company as he sullenly worked the closing shift at the cafe. There were hardly any people left in the cafe closer to closing time, which meant it was okay for the boys to stand right by the register, but Hongjoong was still spiraling around the machines cleaning and shutting them off for the night.

While they hung out, San found Seonghwa clinging to him and apologizing over and over again. After he and Gyuri had that heart-to-heart, Seonghwa was literally apologizing every single minute, every single hour, every single day. It got to the point where finally Hongjoong had enough of it and threw his cleaning rag on the ground.

“Seonghwa! If you apologize one more time, I’ll throw the dirty water from the espresso machine in your face!” Hongjoong threatened.

That shut Seonghwa up real fast. San almost laughed out loud seeing Seonghwa meekly retreat and shuffle away from Hongjoong to hide right behind Mingi.

“Well, I guess I really should stop… Gyuri’s clearly in love with San, so I won’t be annoying about this anymore,” Seonghwa admitted.

San’s smile dropped. While he thought the girl did love him, she never actually said those words out loud. He could feel his insecurities creep in as he wondered if he knew Gyuri well at all.

“She, uh… She actually still hasn’t told me she loved me.”

San felt four pairs of eyes land on him all at once. He looked at the group to see various forms of shock painted on each of their faces. Seonghwa, who covered his mouth with his hands to express his shock, moved his hands to the sides of his face as he realized, “Oh my God… I totally forgot… She doesn’t like or understand love.”

Upon hearing this, San felt as if his spirit got sucked out of his body. His eyes grew more and more bleak by the second, and even though he felt like his entire world came crashing down, he said, “It’s okay. As long as she knows how I feel, that’s all that matters. I don’t need her to say it back for me to not know how she feels about me or for me to still love her.”

Suddenly, the boys heard someone blow their nose loudly. They turned to the source of the noise and saw Hongjoong with a couple tears rolling down his face and a tissue at his nose.

“Who’s cutting onions?” Hongjoong called to the back despite no one being behind the bar with him or in the kitchen.

The boys started making fun of Hongjoong reacting so emotionally to San’s words, but San just wasn’t mentally present with the group anymore— he was swimming in his infinite amount of anxious thoughts. He kept telling himself that Gyuri felt the same way about him because why else would she spend all this time with him, but then he started doubting himself. What if she was tolerating him? What if he was just being way too clingy and she was reluctantly going with it? Did she actually like him the same way he liked her? He knew he was always further ahead in the relationship than she was, which was okay with him because he didn’t mind waiting for Gyuri to catch up, but what if she never intends to catch up? What if she’s going to stay with him, but not ever be with him?

San left for 1024UB first. He felt like a zombie walking away. His energy was draining more and more with every step and thought that popped into his mind. Let’s say he was being too clingy, that he was overwhelming her. Should he give her space and wait for her? There was no way in hell he was going to break up with her, and he prayed to God that she wouldn’t break up with him, but he wondered if he should keep loving her the same way he was now or ease up on the gas pedal. Maybe he was moving too fast. Maybe their relationship was moving too fast. They did go on that vacation together after only being official for about a week, and they did sleep together before they even went on a proper date. The structure of this relationship was so out of whack, and so was he.

The closer he got to the building, the more focused he was on the path in front of him. He needed to stop overthinking this and just live in the moment with the girl he loved. He needed to forget about the “what ifs” if he wanted their relationship to work.

As he arrived at the block where the apartment complex stood, he saw a figure standing outside and waiting by the entrance. San immediately recognized her— Gyuri. She was checking her phone and looking around like she was waiting for something. San continued walking towards her slowly, and he thought to himself that at the end of the day, he loved this girl so much and will always love her and will always love her strongly.

San was within six feet of her when finally looked directly next to her. Her eyes brightened immediately, and she jumped into his arms as she said, “San!”

Just hearing her say his name with such excitement made butterflies swarm through him the same way it had when he first realized he liked her. He held her tight as her arms went over his shoulders. They leaned back and looked at each other, only for San to feel himself get pulled into her immediately. She ran her fingers through the hair on the back of his head as she brought his lips to hers.

It was as if her kiss released fireworks into his heart. He was drawn into it. She’d initiated kisses in the past, but not like this. Definitely not like this. It was warm, passionate, loving, and it stretched on for eons. He held her tighter as he felt her suck a little too hard on his lower lip, turning him on just a bit. Jesus fucking Christ, this kiss was everything to San— No, it was everything and more. He loved this girl. He definitely loved her.

Although he knew that the kiss had to end sometime, he was still disappointed when she leaned away from him. Her face was rosy pink, and her eyes, her large doe eyes, were shining. She was so fucking beautiful, he could just stare at her all day. San felt her hand move down and rest over his heart lightly, and he knew for a fact that she could feel his heart racing as soon as she spoke.

“I love you, San.”

Unable to contain his happiness, San lifted her up and spun her around while bringing his lips to hers. Her laughter in between kisses made him feel like he was floating on a cloud. He didn’t realize how intensely much those three words meant to him until he finally heard them from her, and all he wanted to do was keep hearing her say that.

They managed to get to Gyuri’s place at some point. San pinned Gyuri down on her bed and kept kissing her over and over and over again until his addiction was satisfied. He loved hearing the little moans she would let out as his tongue waltzed with hers and as his knee pressed lightly in between her restless legs. She held onto him tightly as if she would fall if she didn’t. San’s body was getting more and more impatient by the minute, but his lips weren’t done with hers just yet. He worked on removing her clothes while still keeping his lips firmly with hers, a pile of her clothes collecting next to her bed, leaving her stark naked. Her back arched when his fingers grazed the small of her back, and her breath hitched before she exhaled sensually.

He finally released her lips to say, “Gyuri.”

Gyuri was breathless. Her chest moved heavily as her breathing slowly steadied. Her hand went from clutching his shoulder to caressing his face, a small smile appearing on her face as she responded with a soft hum.

“Gyuri,” he whispered into the nook of her neck, his tongue trailing along the side of her neck lightly.

“San…”

“Gyuri, I love you. I love you so much,” he repeated the three words as his lips trailed down the middle of her chest and across her stomach.

He felt her restlessly and urgently start to tug his clothes off, a wave of heat rushing through his body. He sat up and pulled off his shirt to see her face get redder. She pushed herself up so that she was sitting up, her hands reaching for his face and neck, her lips lightly pressing against his. She ended up pushing him back slightly, the two of them shifting so that he was leaning back on his arms while her hands worked on removing his pants. Her impatience was also driving him insane— although she was right there, he wanted her more than anything in the world.

When they both were fully undressed, San was once again pinning her on the bed. Her long wavy hair was still somehow perfect even though it was splayed everywhere, resting on her shoulders, wrapping around his wrists, covering her face slightly. His fingers grazed her skin softly as he moved the hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear, a light pink blush emerging from under her freckles. All San wanted to do was just look at her face. She had such a loving expression on her face that made San fall in love with her all over again. Her eyes were looking up at him, and his eyes lingered on hers.

Her eyes were sparkling like they never had before. San could see the entire universe in her eyes, and he just wanted to swim in the depths of her eyes. His hand reached for her face and caressed her cheek, her head tilting so her cheek fit more comfortably in the palm of his hand. It drove San crazy. He wanted to ravage her, but in the same breath, he wanted to go through the slow burn of feeling every single part of her body, listening to every hitch in her breath, watching her every movement.

Gently, he held her hands and laced his fingers with hers, his lips finding hers. San trailed his lips along the side of her neck, across her collarbones, down her sternum. He moved slowly as if he were making sure he didn’t skip a kiss along his line.

Gyuri’s back arched when his fingertips trailed along her waist to her back, her lips tugging on his bottom lip the slightest bit more as he entered her. Their fingers remained laced together as San gradually got faster, his head resting in the crook of her neck so he could hear her moan his name with sensual sighs. He wanted so badly to bite the side of her neck as he only got faster and harder, but he raised his head so that he could feel her breath on his skin, and his teeth nibbled lightly on her earlobe.

“San,” she whispered sweetly above the noise of the squeaking bed springs. “San, I love you.”

“I love you, too. I love you so much,” he whispered in her ear, her hand holding his tighter at that moment.

It was only when Gyuri hips met his with a satisfying slap did San realize he was close to finishing. Just as he did, Gyuri did as well, the two of them moaning each others’ names at the same time. He sat up and looked at her. She giggled quietly, the most gorgeous smile spreading across her flushed face. It took everything in San to not take her again, but this time with a raw animal instinct.

He laid down on the bed next to her, his arms wrapping around her waist and bringing her closer to him. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and brought herself the slightest bit closer to him, the two of them clinging to each other as if the world would end if they didn’t. She looked up at him with affection pouring out of her eyes, his own heart melting upon seeing her look at him like that. He kissed her forehead and rested his chin on her shoulder with a happy exhale.

“I love you, Gyuri.”

“I love you, San.”

table of contents ♤ previous chapter

1024UB tag list: @dalsuwaha @eyeryis @choisanswifexo @haebaragisworld @dazzlingstarrs @hongjoongswifefr @yjpumas @my-lightspirit

network: @cromernet

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leighsartworks216 · 1 year

Text

Pottery with Data

Data x gn!reader (platonic)

I thought I posted this but I guess I didn't so *shrug* Two Data fics in one night congrats

Warnings: none, just fluff

Word Count: 1884

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The holodeck looked like the epitome of an old Earth pottery studio. Sinks sat against the wall with deep, stainless steel basins. A table for kneading dough, another for making slabs. In the center were several throwing wheels, set up with stools and buckets of water. Hooks near the entrance held already-dirty aprons, covered in dried clay and flecks of glaze.

Data seemed confused by the state of the aprons. He wondered why you were using them, rather than asking the holodeck to produce clean ones. You said it was easier to get messy if there wasn’t a struggle to keep everything clean. He filed the response away in his databanks to think about later. You rolled up your sleeves. He followed suit.

You cut off even parts of clay, one for him and one for yourself, with a thin wire. You balled it up by hitting it with the palm of your hand. He followed suit. You showed him how to knead the clay against the wooden table to remove any trapped air bubbles. It wasn’t necessarily difficult for him to do, it was just different. It took a moment for him to understand how much strength to use, how to move his body with the action, how to fold and wedge the clay together correctly. Where you seemed to struggle against the substance, he found it only took a small amount of strength to manipulate.

Set up right across from one another at the throwing wheels, you taught him how to slam the clay into the center of the wheel so it stuck, and consequently how to center it. You told him how to form his hands and keep his elbows supported on his legs, how to press the foot pedal to make the wheel spin and at what speed, how to form the clay into a volcanic shape and press it back down into a stubby cylinder. He watched with deep interest as you worked with different tools - the water from the bucket, a sponge, scrapers and wooden ribs - to form a small cup. You were, in the human sense, a ‘natural’. It was like watching a master craftsman at work.

Data took in all the info thrown at him like a sponge. Attempting to act on it all, however, was proving to be a challenge. Despite his attempts, the cup continued to collapse in on itself. All the while, you were working on a second ball of clay to make another vessel.

He sat back after a few attempts, looking down at the wet clay mixture stuck to his bioplast. “I seem to be unable to build a stable form.” His yellow eyes locked onto you, his expression a vague facsimile of confusion. “I have calculated the integrity of each shape, and account for all possible factors, yet they continue to fall apart.”

Your wheel came to a stop, a half-formed bowl sitting in the center. With hardly a thought, your hands scraped any thick excess onto the protective plastic rim of the wheel, and wiped what thin layer was left behind onto your apron.

He watched as you stood from your stool in a way that reminded him of how Commander Riker sat down. You lifted the wooden bat off his wheel. With all the patient casualty of someone who has done this before, you quickly wedged a new ball of clay for him and returned to his wheel with a new bat. Once he was settled with a fresh canvas, so to speak, you pulled your stool over to watch.

You smiled and nodded to the new lump of clay. “Show me.”

With a nod, Data did as you taught him. He lifted up the ball and slammed it back down into the center of the wheel. He centered it, brought the wheel to an appropriate speed, and tried to replicate your actions to form a cup. However, as he tried to form the walls of the vessel, it collapsed. He stopped the wheel and looked to you for guidance. Somewhere in his programming, he was surprised when you weren’t irritated or upset with him for ‘messing up’.

“I think it’s because you’re moving too fast.”

“How does speed factor into the structural integrity? I made sure to rotate the wheel at precisely one hundred revolutions per minute as you demonstrated.”

Somehow, despite his pale skin and bright eyes, you forgot he was an android, capable of thousands of calculations per second. With his hands dirty, wearing a ratty apron over his Starfleet uniform, it was so easy to forget.

“Pulling the clay too fast can make it lose its center and become unstable,” you began explaining, using your hands to describe what you were talking about, “or air left in the clay if you don’t work it enough, or too much water from working it too much - it’s a delicate balance.”

He tilted his head slightly, taking in this new information. “And decreasing my speed will help prevent such errors?”

“It’ll help, but I think you’re focused too much on the end result.”

“Is the act of ‘throwing’ pottery not to create a utilizable form, such as a cup or vase?”

You chuckled lightly, nodding. “Yes, at its barest definition.” His eyes followed you with interest as you took his bat again. You cut the clay off their bases with the wire and kneaded them back into balls. “It’s also about patience,” you explained.

You placed one bat onto his wheel and moved the pedal under your own foot. As the wheel spun, you used one of your scraping tools to remove the excess material. You did this with the next wooden bat as well, but you left it on his wheel to be used. The other was set aside near your wheel. You grabbed one of the balls of clay and centered it for him.

“It’s hard to explain, but you need to feel the clay beneath your fingers. You have to feel what you want it to become. You can’t just see what you want to make, you have to know how to manipulate the clay to become that object.”

Data frowned, though he did not seem truly upset. “I cannot feel,” he reminded you. His voice was neutral. It was a statement of fact, nothing more. “Is it possible to make pottery if I am incapable of feeling, like you described?”

Your body reacted immediately to the thought. Your eyes widened and you sat forward, leaning toward him, as if you were telling him a secret. “Of course you can! You just need a little help, is all.”

Set on a mission, you moved your stool behind Data’s. He watched, confused, as you settled in to reach your arms out from under his, hands cupped behind his own as a guide. Your chin rested on his shoulder, though due to his height your vision was obscured. Undeterred, you nodded as best you could to the foot pedal and he used his foot to shift it back into place.

It was admittedly awkward at first, at least for you. Not because of your proximity to the android, nor because you could feel the systems in his body humming against you as they worked to keep him functional. Rather, it was awkward because you couldn’t see, and had to work by feeling his hands’ positions to know what to do next.

Still, you slowly helped him form the clay into a conical shape, and then pressed it back down into a stout cylinder. A few times, to be absolutely sure you removed any lingering air bubbles, and you helped him build the vessel proper.

Your hands moved with his as fluently as speaking. You both formed the walls, evened out the bottom, and rounded the rim of the cup. Your head rested against his back as you helped him - the blind leading the blind. It felt like mere moments, not nearly 30 minutes, before the wheel was coming to a stop and you were finally allowed to see the fully thrown piece.

Maybe it wasn’t perfect. Maybe it was ever so slightly uneven. Maybe the walls weren’t an exact 90 degrees all the way up. But it was beautiful.

You were beaming as you showed Data how to use one of your tools to scrape away the excess at the bottom of the cup. You practically skipped as you took the bat off and danced it over to a shelf with other projects, covered in plastic bags.

“Now we just have to wait for it to dry a little, and then you can trim it, and glaze it,” you were rambling as you excitedly grabbed your own cup and placed it next to his. “And then we can fire it in the kiln!”

And then your shoulders fell. With your back turned to him, he could not fully decipher how your mood had changed, nor could he reason why it changed. When you turned back to him, you looked sad.

“I forgot to mention before…” you murmured. It took you a moment to gather the courage to go on. With a deep breath, you finally met his eyes again. “You can make anything in here, and you can glaze it with a thousand different glazes, and you can fire it and hold it, but… You can’t take it back to your room, or display it or use it.”

Ah, that’s what was troubling you. Of course, during his extended stay in this room, he forgot about the limitations of the holodeck. Everything was simply a hologram, projected into the room. But the moment something was out of the projector’s range, it was nothing.

“I do not mind,” he assured you.

“But…” Your words died in your throat.

He seemed to understand what you were about to say. “The act of creating does not necessarily have to be for utilization or decoration. While it is common practice to create works of art as a means of displaying them, I have also discovered - and as you have taught me - the act of creation is in itself art. You yourself said that to create pottery, you have to ‘feel what you want it to become,’ and that creating an object that can be used is the ‘barest definition’ of pottery. By your own teaching, you have shown that making the art is overall more valuable than the art itself.

“By saving the simulation at specific intervals as you create your work, you are capable of displaying your works in here as they are made. Should I wish to, as you might say, ‘show off’ my creations, all I would need to do is load the latest save. After all,” he nodded to the shelf full of clay creations behind you, too full to have all been made in one day, “you are already creating a collection of pottery. All you would need is a shelf especially for displaying your art, which the holodeck can create for you.”

Your shoulders sagged, but this time with relief rather than disappointment. You smiled. The environment returned to its warm, comfortable atmosphere. Already, you were imagining shelves along the walls for displaying artwork.

And front-and-center to it all would be Data’s first cup.

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#fanfic #fanfiction #star trek #star trek fanfiction #data #star trek data #data x reader #data star trek #star trek the next generation #star trek tng #pottery #fluff #platonic #possibly romantic #gender neutral reader #x gender neutral reader #gn reader #x gn reader

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