#but there is not a lot to base their relationship off!

[yunogasaikinnie]

Yes, I fantasize about Yuno Gasai a lot.

I even wrote a slightly NSFW fanfic on Ao3 about her being in a relationship with my oc (who is based off of my 14 year old self.)

y’all ever fantasize about a fictional character a little too hard to the point you’re convinced you should be admitted to a mental hospital?

[xetlynn]

hii i have a little request for ekko like omg i love him so bad

so imagine winter times come around and you an ekko are in your shared room (the firelights bases ofc)

and he sees you shivering under your cover so he comes over and just cuddles all up under you

thennn a few words and giggles are shared and thingss get a little heated between yall and ykyk 🤗

I hope you wanted smut. That’s what I made.

Arcane Imagines- Ekko

Still Cold

⚠️WARNING🔞: SMUTTTT

[arcane] [main page]

Prompt: it’s cold, you need to be warmed up. (Established relationship)

Contains: hand job, oral m! Receiving. Afab. Whimpering, whiny sub Ekko:(

You shiver, wearing a few layers of clothes along with tons of blankets. Your nose practically freezing off since you feel claustrophobic if you put your face under the covers. You hear the door open to you and your boyfriend’s shared room. Steps coming towards you. “You cold or something?” He asks, You just scoff in response like it wasn't obvious.

He snickers, throwing the blankets off of you causing you to whine. “Oh shush, c’mere you big baby.” He climbs into bed, pulling your body on top of his.

”You’re warm.” You mumble, clinging onto him. “I’m so cold.” You complain, he puts the covers back over the both of you. 

“I know a way to make us even warmer.” He wiggles his eyebrows and you shove his face away from your neck before he got the chance to pounce on it with his lips. He got hard before he even got into the bed. “I’m too cold to think about that.” You huff, adjusting yourself on him so you were more comfortable. 

It didn’t help Ekko’s situation though. He needed you badly and you put yourself right over his crotch. He tensed up but nonetheless stayed quiet, rubbing your back to get you warmer. “My body aches from how cold it is.” You wiggle over top of him. Ekko lets out a low, almost inaudible grunt. “Stop moving so much.” He grabs your hips to keep you in place. “Sorry, sorry.” 

A few moments go by and you begin to understand why he told you to stop moving. You feel something poking against your core. Your lips lined into a smirk, deciding to mess with him. “Ekko, massage me again.” You look at him with a pout. His eyes met yours, he seemed extremely nervous. He never wanted to push anything on you, so when you said you were too cold to think about it he stopped and he tried to take the thought out of his brain. 

“Um, alright.” His hands move on your back again, you let out a soft moan, humming into his chest. The vibration only worsening his perverted thoughts. Your digits find his hips, going up and down his body in slow motions. He wanted to stop and shove you off of him. 

You were so soft, such a comforting body he just wanted to explore every part of you. Keep you warm and safe. His member twitches and you chuckle. His face flushes. 

“He sure has a lot to say.” You tease him, not looking at him as your hand goes underneath you, trailing all the way down to the place he needed you most. He lets out a gasp. 

Your smaller hand palms him through his sweatpants. “Pretty girl, please.” He whimpers, he pulls his arms up to his head, watching your focused expression. “You wanted to keep me warm, right?” A smug smile tugging upwards, “my hands are pretty cold.” You go to his ear, kissing it softly as the hand that was once palming him went to the waistline of his pants. “Gonna treat you so well.” You lay your head back down on his chest, moving your body slightly off of him so you could get a better view of your actions. 

Ekko watches as his girlfriend extracts his dick from his clothing agonizingly slow. Spitting on your hand before smearing it on his tip, mixed with his precum. “So cute.” You compliment. 

“Cute?” He huffs, your thumb rubs it over the sensitive mushroom top. “Mhm.” 

He bucks his hips up, desperate for you to touch him more. You take your hand away to shove his hips back down. “Be patient.” You sit up with the blankets over your shoulders. You spread his legs apart enough so you could sit in between them. You yank his pants off half-way, keeping them at his thighs. 

His orbs grow darker by the sight of you on your knees before him. Even though you're clothed up you are the only one to affect him this way.  

“What do you want?” You ask, your fingers dancing around his skin. “Take your shirt off. Please.” He mewls in a soft tone. “Then I’ll be cold.” Your bottom lip puckers out as you give him puppy-dog eyes. “I need to see them, they’re so beautiful.” He begs, his hand going down to his dick, using your spit to pump up and down. “If that’s what my boyfriend wants. I guess I can make some sacrifices.” You take off your sweater along with the tank top that was underneath. Flaunting your breasts. 

“Stop touching yourself.” You prod aside his wrist replacing it back with your palm once again. Stroking his cock while leaning over to pronounce your boobs out. “I was supposed to b-e warming- shit- warming you up.” He stammers, grabbing at your left tit, massaging it gently. “This is warming me up.” You giggle, laying a kiss on the cockhead. He squeezes his eyes shut as your tongue kitten licks him. 

Your hand is still kneading at the base. “I- ohmygooodd.” He groans. “Use your mouth.” He runs a hand on top of your hair, grasping at it. “Not very good manners.” You glance up at him. He holds a breath. “Please use your mouth pretty girl. Please.” He whines like a dog, rutting his hips up only to be knocked back down. “Patience, Ekko.” Your voice was soft but stern.

You’ve never acted like this before, it was new to him. He was normally in control. “Fuck, okay, okay.” He throws his arm over his eyes. You snigger, sticking your tongue out. You smack his cock on it repeatedly until popping it between your lips. Hollowing out your cheeks, sucking on his tip. 

You lower your head until your nose hits his pelvic region. His happy trail tickles you ever so slightly. You go back up then continue at a leisurely state. Frustrating him ridiculously. “[Name] please stop messing with me. I need more.” He tugs at your hair. “Mmmmhmmm?” Your noises pleasuring him. “I’m going to fuck your throat if you don’t do something.” He tells you through gritted teeth. 

The thought of him facefucking you aroused you. You felt the wetness in between your thighs even through all your clothes. You move your heel underneath your cunt. Pressing your butt down to feel the friction as you bob your head up and down on your boyfriend's thick cock. 

Now being more mindful of his needs. The slurping sounds with a mix of occasional gags. You hold onto the top of his thighs as you get faster. Ekko’s toes curling from your skills. He felt like he was about to cum at any moment. His abs tightening, flexing just for you. 

“[Name], pretty girl. I- oh fuckfuckfuck… I’m close.” Once again his pelvis went up. You weren’t expecting it causing your upper torso to contract as you gag. You lift up, his dick falling against his stomach. The saliva and pre-cum dribbling down your chin. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I’ll be better. I promise.” He implores, his hands wandering on your chest down to your stomach. 

“Fuck my throat.” You vocalise, sounding raspy. “A-are you sure? You don’t have to do it because I mentioned it.” He double checks and you smile, pulling forward by his shirt, kissing him. Your spit and his own liquid smudges across his mouth. 

You drop him back down on the pillows. He plants his feet down on the bed, lifting himself up a tiny bit and you put your mouth back on his dick. “You ready?” He bites his lip, your eyes look up at him. Your cheeks rise, making you seem like you’re squinting to show that you’re smiling. You give him a thumbs up. Both of his hands go to your head. 

He thrusts up into your muzzle, starting off tender you wink at him then his hips begin to accelerate. You hold onto his legs for support. His hands pushing you down as far as you can take him. 

“I’m going to cum! Fu-uuuuck!” He keeps the quick pace. Your pussy spasms at his moans and whimpers he made. “I love you so much, pretty girl. So so so much.” He breathes heavily. “Gonna let me spill into your throat? Swallow it like a good, beautiful girl that you are?” He questions you and you hum out. Slightly nodding your head. “Fuck, that’s my girl.” 

His cock convulses, his tip bruising your uvula. “Ohhh, love you, love you , love…” His voice gets cut off as he cums, his mouth hanging open with no noise coming out. His seed spurting down your throat as your nose pressed against his skin. He restrains you in place until his balls are completely empty. He roughly drops down and you swallow everything before coughing to catch your breath. 

His dick lays limp and his face looks fucked out. “Hope you know I’m not done with you.” You smirk, grabbing his soft cock and he whines, attempting to push you away. “Too sensitive, pretty girl.” He complains. “Mmm I’m still cold though.” 

He tiredly rubs his face realizing how long of a night he was about to have.

[yamayuandadu]

Nonconformity, ambiguity, fluidity and misinterpretation: on the gender of Inanna (and a few others)

This article wasn’t really planned far in advance. It started as a response to a question I got a few weeks ago:

However, as I kept working on it, it became clear a simple ask response won’t do - the topic is just too extensive to cover this way. It became clear it has to be turned into an article comprehensively discussing all major aspects of the perception of Inanna’s gender, both in antiquity and in modern scholarship. In the process I’ve also incorporated what was originally meant as a pride month special back in 2023 (but never got off the ground) into it, as well as some quick notes on a 2024 pride month special that never came to be in its intended form, as I realized I would just be repeating what I already wrote on wikipedia.

To which degree can we speak of genuine fluidity or ambiguity of Inanna’s gender, and to which of gender non-conforming behavior? Which aspects of Inanna’s character these phenomena may or may not be related to? What is overestimated and what underestimated? What did Neo-Assyrian kings have in common with medieval European purveyors of Malleus Maleficarum?  Is a beard always a type of facial hair? Why should you be wary of any source which calls gala “priests of Inanna”? 

Answers to all of these questions - and much, much more (the whole piece is over 19k words long) - await under the cut.

Zeus is basically Tyr: on names and cognates

The meaning of a theonym - the proper name of a deity - can provide quite a lot of information about its bearer. Therefore, I felt obliged to start this article with inquiries pertaining to Inanna’s name - or rather names. I will not repeat how the two names - Inanna and Ishtar - came to be used interchangeably; this was covered on this blog enough times, most recently here. Through the article, I will consistently refer to the main discussed deity as Inanna for the ease of reading, but I’d appreciate it if you read the linked explanation for the name situation before moving forward with this one.

Sumerian had no grammatical gender, and nouns were divided broadly into two categories, “humans, deities and adjacent abstract terms” and “everything else” (Ilona Zsolnay, Analyzing Constructs: A Selection of Perils, Pitfalls, and Progressions in Interrogating Ancient Near Eastern Gender, p. 462; Piotr Michalowski, On Language, Gender, Sex, and Style in the Sumerian Language, p. 211). This doesn’t mean deities (let alone humans) were perceived as genderless, though. Furthermore, the lack of grammatical masculine or feminine gender did not mean that specific words could not be coded as masculine or feminine (Analyzing Constructs…, p. 471; one of my favorite examples are the two etymologically unrelated words for female and male friends, respectively malag and guli).

While occasionally doubts are expressed regarding the meaning of Inanna’s name, most authors today accept that it can be interpreted as derived from the genitive construct nin-an-ak - “lady of heaven” (Paul-Alain Beaulieu, The Pantheon of Uruk During the Neo-Babylonian Period, p. 104). The title nin is effectively gender neutral (Julia M. Asher-Greve, Joan Goodnick Westenholz, Goddesses in Context: On Divine Powers, Roles, Relationships and Gender in Mesopotamian Textual and Visual Sources, p. 6) - it occurs in names of male deities (Ningirsu, Ninurta, Ninazu, Ninagal, Nindara, Ningublaga...), female ones (Ninisina, Ninkarrak, Ninlil, Nineigara, Ninmug…), deities whose gender shifted or varied from place to place or from period to period (Ninsikila, Ninshubur, Ninsianna…) and deities whose gender cannot be established due to scarcity of evidence (mostly Early Dynastic oddities whose names cannot even be properly transcribed). However, we can be sure that Inanna’s name was regarded as feminine based on its Emesal form, Gašananna (Timothy D. Leonard, Ištar in Ḫatti: The Disambiguation of Šavoška and Associated Deities in Hittite Scribal Practice, p. 36).

The matter is a bit more complex when it comes to the Akkadian name Ishtar. In contrast with Sumerian, Akkadian, which belongs to the eastern branch of the family of Semitic languages, had two grammatical genders, masculine and feminine, though the gender of nouns wasn’t necessarily reflected in verbal forms, suffixes and so on (Analyzing Constructs…, p. 472-473). In contrast with the name Inanna, the etymology of the Akkadian moniker is less clear. The root has been identified, ˤṯtr, but its meaning is a subject of a heated debate (Aren M. Wilson-Wright, Athtart. The Transmission and Transformation of a Goddess in the Late Bronze Age, p. 22-23; the book is based on the author’s doctoral dissertation, which can be read here). Based on evidence from the languages from the Ethiopian branch of the Semitic family, which offer (distant) cognates, Wilson-Wright suggests it might have originally been an ordinary feminine (but not marked with an expected suffix) noun meaning “star” which then developed into a theonym in multiple languages (Athtart…, p. 21) She tentatively suggests that it might have referred to a specific celestial body (perhaps Venus) due to the existence of a more generic term for “star” in most Semitic languages, which must have developed very early (p. 24). Thus the emergence of Ishtar would essentially parallel the emergence of Shamash, whose name is in origin the ordinary noun for the sun (p. 25). This seems like an elegant solution, but as pointed out by other researchers some of the arguments employed might be shaky, so it’s best to remain cautious about quoting Wilson-Wright’s conclusions as fact, even if they are more sound than some of the older, largely forgotten, proposals (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 40-41).

In addition to uncertainties pertaining to the meaning of the root ˤṯtr, it’s also unclear why the name Ishtar starts with an i in Akkadian, considering cognate names of deities from other cultures fairly consistently start with an a. The early Akkadian form Eštar isn’t a mystery - it reflects a broader pattern of phonetic shifts in this language, and as such requires no separate inquiry, but the subsequent shift from e to i is almost unparalleled. Wilson-Wright suggests that it might have been the result of contamination with Inanna, which seems quite compelling to me given that by the second millennium BCE the names had already been interchangeable for centuries (Athtart…, p. 18).

As for grammatical gender, in Akkadian (as well as in the only other language from the East Semitic branch, Eblaite), the theonym Ishtar lacks a feminine suffix but consistently functions as grammatically feminine nonetheless. I got a somewhat confusing ask recently, which I assume was the result of misinterpretation of this information as applying to the gender of the bearer of the name as opposed to just grammatical gender of the name itself:

Occasional confusion might stem from the fact that in the languages from the West Semitic family (like ex. Ugaritic or Phoenician) there’s no universal pattern - in some of them the situation looks like in Akkadian, in some cognates without the feminine suffix refer to a male deity, furthermore goddesses with names which are cognate but have a feminine suffix (-t; ex. Ugaritic Ashtart) added are attested (Athtart…, p. 16). 

In Akkadian a form with a -t suffix (ištart) doesn’t appear as a theonym, only as the generic word, “goddess” - and it seems to have a distinct etymology, with the -t as a leftover from plural ištarātu (Athtart…, p. 18). The oldest instances of a derivative of the theonym Ishtar being used as an ordinary noun, dated to the Old Babylonian period (c. 1800 BCE), spell it as ištarum, without such a suffix (Goddess in Context…, p. 80). As a side note, it’s worth pointing out that both obsolete vintage translations and dubious sources, chiefly online, are essentially unaware of the existence of any version of this noun, which leads to propagation of incorrect claims about equation of deities (Goddesses in Context…, p. 82).

It has been argued that a further form with the -t suffix, “Ishtarat”, might appear in Early Dynastic texts from Mari, but this might actually be a misreading. This has been originally suggested by Manfred Krebernik all the way back in 1984. He concluded the name seems to actually be ba-sùr-ra-at (Baśśurat; something like “announcer of good news”; Zur Lesung einiger frühdynastischer Inschriften aus Mari, p. 165). Other researchers recently resurrected this proposal (Gianni Marchesi and Nicolo Marchetti, Royal Statuary of Early Dynastic Mesopotamia, p. 228; accepted by Dominique Charpin in a review of their work as well). I feel it’s important to point out that nothing really suggested that the alleged “Ishtarat” had much to do with Ishtar (or Ashtart, for that matter) in the first place. The closest thing to any theological information in the two brief inscriptions she appears in is that she is listed alongside the personified river ordeal, Id, in one of them. Marchesi and Marchetti suggest they form a couple (Royal Statuary…, p. 228); in absence of other evidence I feel caution is necessary. I’m generally wary of asserting deities who appear together once in an oath, greeting or dedicatory formula are necessarily a couple when there is no supplementary evidence. Steve A. Wiggins illustrated this issue well when he rhetorically asked if we should treat Christian saints the same way, which would lead to quite thrilling conclusions in cases like the numerous churches named jointly after St. Andrew and St. George and so on (A Reassessment of Asherah With Further Considerations of the Goddess, p. 101).

Even without Ishtarat, the Mariote evidence remains quite significant for the current topic, though. There’s a handful of third millennium attestations of a deity sometimes referred to as “male Ishtar” (logographically INANNA.NITA; there’s no ambiguity thanks to the second logogram) in modern publications - mostly from Mari. The problem is that this is most likely a forerunner of Ugaritic Attar, as opposed to a male form of the deity of Uruk/Zabalam/Akkad/you get the idea (Mark S. Smith, The God Athtar in the Ancient Near East and His Place in KTU 1.6 I, esp. p. 629; note that the deity with the epithet Sarbat is, as far as I know, generally identified as female though). 

Ultimately there is no strong evidence for Attar being associated with Inanna (his Mesopotamian counterpart in the trilingual list from Ugarit is Lugal-Marada) or even with Ashtart (Smith tentatively proposes the two were associated - The God Athtar.., p. 631 - but more recently in ‛Athtart in Late Bronze Age Syrian Texts he ruled it out, p. 36-37) so he’s not relevant at all to this topic. Cognate name =/= related deity, least you want to argue Zeus is actually Tyr; the similarly firmly male South Arabian ˤAṯtar is even less relevant (Athtart. The Transmission and Transformation…, p. 13). Smith goes as far as speculating the male cognates might have been a secondary development, which would render them even more irrelevant to this discussion (‛Athtart in Late…, p. 35).

There are also three Old Akkadian names which might refer to a masculine deity based on the form of the other element (Eštar-damqa, “E. is good”, Eštar-muti “E. is my husband”, and Eštar-pāliq, “E. is a harp”), but they’re an outlier and according to Wilson-Wright might be irrelevant for the discussion of the gender of Ishtar and instead refer to a deity with a cognate name from outside Mesopotamia (Athtart. The Transmission and Transformation…, p. 22). 

There’s also a possible isolated piece of evidence for a masculine deity with a cognate name in Ebla. Eblaite texts fairly consistently indicate that Inanna’s local counterpart Ašdar was a female deity. In addition to the equivalence between them attested in a lexical list, her main epithet, Labutu (“lioness”) indicates she was a feminine figure. However, Alfonso Archi argues that in a single case the name seems to indicate a god, as they are followed by an otherwise unattested “spouse” (DAM-sù), Datinu (Išḫara and Aštar at Ebla: Some Definitions, p. 16). The logic behind this is unclear to me and no subsequent publications offer any explanations so far. It might be worth noting that the Eblaite pantheon seemingly was able to accommodate two sun deities, one male and one female, so perhaps this is a similar situation.

It should also be noted that the femininity of Ishtar despite the lack of a feminine suffix in her name is not entirely unparalleled - in addition to Ebla, in areas like the Middle Euphrates deities with cognate names without the -t suffix might not necessarily be masculine, even when they start with a- and not i- like in Akkadian. In some cases the matter cannot be solved at all - there is no evidence regarding the gender of Aštar of the Stars (aš-tar MUL) from Emar, for instance. Meanwhile Aštar of Ḫaši and Aštar-ṣarbat (“poplar Aštar”) from the same site are evidently feminine (Athtart. The Transmission and Transformation…, p. 106). At least in the last case that’s because the name actually goes back to the Akkadian form, though (p. 85).

To sum up: despite some minor uncertainties pertaining to the Akkadian name, there’s no strong reason to suspect that any greater degree of ambiguity is built into either Inanna or Ishtar - at least as far as the names alone go. The latter was even seen as sufficiently feminine coded to serve as the basis for a generic designation of goddesses. 

Obviously, there is more to a deity than just the sum of the meanings of their names. For this reason, to properly evaluate what was up with Inanna’s gender it will be necessary to look into her three main roles: these of a war deity, personification of Venus and love deity.

Masculinity, heroism and maledictory genderbening: the warlike Inanna

An Old Babylonian plaque depicting armed Inanna (wikimedia commons)

Martial first, marital second?

War and other related affairs will be the first sphere of Inanna’s activity I’ll look into, since it feels like it’s the one least acknowledged online and in various questionable publications. Ilona Zsolnay points out that this even extends to serious scholarship to a degree, and that as a result her military side is arguably understudied (Ištar, Goddess of War, Pacifier of Kings: An Analysis of Ištar’s Martial Role in the Maledictory Sections of the Assyrian Royal Inscriptions, p. 389). The oldest direct evidence for the warlike role of Inanna are Early Dynastic theophoric names such as Inanna-ursag, “Inanna is a warrior”. Further examples are provided by a variety of both Sumerian and Akkadian sources from across the second half of the third millennium BCE. This means it’s actually slightly older than the first evidence for an association with love and eroticism, which can only be dated with certainty to the Old Akkadian period when it is directly mentioned for the first time, specifically in love incantations (Joan Goodnick Westenholz, Inanna and Ishtar in the Babylonian World, p. 336).

Deities associated with combat were anything but uncommon in Mesopotamia. There was no singular war god - Ninurta, Nergal, Zababa, Ilaba, Tishpak and an entire host of other figures, some recognized all across the region, some limited to one specific area or even just a single city, shared a warlike disposition. Naturally, the details could vary - Ninurta was essentially an avenger restoring order disturbed by supernatural threats, Nergal was a war god because he was associated with just about anything pertaining to inflicting death, and so on. 

All the examples I’ve listed are male, but similar roles are also attested for multiple goddesses, not just Inanna. Those include closely related deities like Annunitum or Belet-ekallim, most of her foreign counterparts, the astral deity Ninisanna (more on this figure later), but also firmly independent examples like Ninisina and the Middle Euphrates slash Ugaritic Anat (Ilona Zsolnay, Do Divine Structures of Gender Mirror Mortal Structures of Gender?, p. 114).

The god list An = Anum preserves a whole series of epithets affirming Inanna’s warlike character - Ninugnim, “lady of the army”; Ninšenšena, “lady of battle”; Ninmea, “lady of combat”; Ninintena, “lady of warriorhood” (tablet IV, lines 20-23; Wilfred G. Lambert and Ryan D. Winters, An = Anum and Related Lists, p.162). It is also well represented in literary texts. She is a “destroyer of lands” (kurgulgul) in Ninmesharra, for instance (Markham J. Geller, The Free Library Inanna Prism Reconsidered, p. 93).

At least some of the terms employed to describe Inanna in other literary compositions were strongly masculine-coded, if not outright masculine. The poem Agušaya characterizes her as possessing “manliness” (zikrūtu) and “heroism” (eṭlūtu; this word can also refer to youthful masculinity, see Analyzing Constructs…, p. 471) and calls her a “hero” (qurādu). Another example, a hymn dated to the reign of Third Dynasty of Ur or First Dynasty of Isin opens with an incredibly memorable line - “O returning manly hero, Inanna the lady (...)” (or, to follow Thorkild Jacobsen’s older translation, which involves some gap filling - “O you Amazon, queen—from days of yore, paladin, hero, soldier”; The Free Library… p. 93). 

A little bit of context is necessary here: while “heroism” might seem neutral to at least some modern readers, in ancient Mesopotamia it was seen as a masculine trait (Ištar, Goddess of War…, p. 392-393). It’s worth noting that eṭlūtum, which you’ve seen translated as “heroism” above can be translated in other context as  “youthful masculinity” (Analyzing Constructs…, p. 471). On the other hand, while zikrūtu is derived from zikāru, “male”, it might refer both straightforwardly to masculinity and more abstractly to heroism (Ištar, Goddess of War…, p. 397).

However, the same hymn which calls Inanna a “manly hero” refers to her with a variety of feminine titles like nugig. There’s even an Emesal gašan (“lady”) in there, you really can’t get much more feminine than that (The Free Library… p.  89). On top of that, about a half of the composition is a fairly standard Dumuzi romance routine (The Free Library… p. 90-91; more on what that entails later, for now it will suffice to say that not gender nonconformity). 

This is a recurring pattern, arguably - Agušaya, where masculine traits are attributed to Inanna over and over again, still firmly refers to her as a feminine figure (“daughter”, “goddess”, “queen”, “princess”, “mistress”, “lioness” and so on; Benjamin R. Foster, Before the Muses: an Anthology of Akkadian Literature, p. 160 and passim). In other words, the assignment of a clearly masculine sphere of activity and titles related to it doesn’t really mean Inanna is not presented as feminine in the same compositions.

How to explain this phenomenon? In Mesopotamian thought both femininity and masculinity were understood as me, ie. divinely ordained principles regulating the functioning of the cosmos. In modern terms, these labels as they were used in literary texts arguably had more to do with gender and gender roles than strictly speaking with biological sex (Ištar, Goddess of War…, p. 391-392). Ilona Zsolnay on this basis concludes that Inanna, while demonstrably regarded as a feminine figure, took on a masculine role in military context (Ištar, Goddess of War…, p. 401). This is hardly an uncommon view in scholarship (The Free Library…, p. 93; On Language…, p. 243). 

In other words, it can be argued that when the lyrical voice in Agušaya declares that “there is a certain hero, she is unique” (i-ba-aš-ši iš-ta-ta qú-ra-du; Before the Muses…, p. 98) the unique quality is, essentially, that Inanna fulfills a strongly masculine coded role - that of a “hero”, understood as a youthful, aggressive masculine figure - despite being female.

It should be noted that the ideal image of a person characterized by youthful masculinity went beyond just warfare, or abstract heroic adventures, though. The Song of the Hoe indicates that willingness to perform manual work in the fields was yet another aspect of it (Ilona Zsolnay, Gender and Sexuality: Ancient Near East, p. 277). This, as far as I know, was never attributed to Inanna.

Furthermore, the sort of youthful, aggressive masculinity we’re talking about here was regarded as something fleeting and temporary for the most part (at least when it came to humans; deities are obviously a very different story), and a very different image of male gender roles emerges from texts such as Instruction of Shuruppak, which extol a peaceful, reserved demeanor and the ability to provide for one’s family as masculine virtues instead (Gender and Sexuality…, p. 277-278). It might be worth pointing out that Sumerian outright uses two different terms to designate “youthful” (namguruš) and “senior” (namabba) masculinity (Gender and Sexuality…, p. 275); the general term for masculinity, namnitah, is incredibly rare in comparison  (Gender and Sexuality…, p. 276-277).

It needs to be pointed out that a further Sumerian term sometimes translated as “manliness” -  šul, which occurs for example in the hymn mentioned above - might actually be gender neutral; in addition to being used to describe mortal young men and Inanna, it was also applied as an epithet to the goddess Bau, who demonstrably was not regarded as a masculine figure; she didn’t even share Inanna’s warlike character (Analyzing Constructs…, p. 471). Perhaps the original nuance simply escapes us - could it be that šul was not strictly speaking masculinity, but some more abstract quality which was simply more commonly associated with men?

In any case, it’s hard to argue that Inanna really encompasses the entire concept of masculinity as the Mesopotamians understood it. At the same time, it is impossible to deny that she was portrayed as responsible for - and enthusiastically engaged in - spheres of activity which were seen as firmly masculine, and could accordingly be described with terms associated with them. Therefore, it would be more than suitable to describe her as gender nonconforming - at least when she was specifically portrayed as warlike. 

Perhaps Dennis Pardee was onto something when he completely sincerely described Anat, who despite being firmly a female figure similarly engaged in masculine pursuits (not only war, but also hunting) as a “tomboy goddess” (Ritual and Cult at Ugarit, p. 274). 

These observations only remain firmly correct as long as we assume that gender roles are a concept fully applicable to deities, of course - I’ll explore in more detail later whether this was necessarily true.

Royal curses and legal loopholes

A different side of Inanna as a war deity which nonetheless still has a lot to do with the topic of this article comes to the fore in curse formulas from royal inscriptions. Their contents are not quite as straightforward as imploring her to personally intervene on the battlefield. Rather, she was supposed to make the enemy unable to partake in warfare properly (Ištar, Goddess of War…, p. 390). Investigating how this process was imagined will shed additional light on how the Mesopotamians viewed masculinity, and especially the intersection between masculinity and military affairs.

The formulas under discussion start to appear in the second half of the second millennium BCE, with the earliest example identified in an inscription of the Middle Assyrian king Tukultī-Ninurta I (Gina Konstantopoulos, My Men Have Become Women, and My Women Men: Gender, Identity, and Cursing in Mesopotamia, p. 363).  He implored the goddess to punish his enemies by turning them into women (zikrūssu sinnisāniš) - or rather, by turning their masculinity into femininity, or at the very least some sort of non-masculine quality. The first option was the conventional translation for a while, but sinništu would be used instead of the much more uncommon sinnišānu if it was that straightforward. Interpreting it as “femininity” would parallel the use of zikrūti, “masculinity”, in place of zikaru, “man”. 

There are two further possible alternatives, which I find less plausible myself, but which nonetheless need to be discussed. One is that sinnišānu designated a specific class of women. Furthermore, there is also some evidence - lexical list entry from ḪAR.GUD, to be specific -  that sinnisānu might have been a synonym of assinnu, a type of undeniably AMAB, but possibly gender nonconforming, cultic performer (in older literature erroneously translated as “eunuch” despite lack of evidence; the second most beloved vintage baseless translation for any cultic terms after “sacred prostitute”, an invention of Herodotus), in which case the curse would involve something like “changing his masculinity in the manner of a sinnisānu” (Ištar, Goddess of War…, p. 394-396). However, Zsolnay herself subsequently published a detailed study of the assinnu, The Misconstrued Role of the assinnu in Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy, which casts her earlier proposal into doubt, as the perception of the assinnu as a figure lacking conventional masculinity might be erroneous. I’ll return to this point later. For now, it will suffice to say that on grammatical grounds and due to parallels in other similar maledictions, “masculinity into femininity” seems to be the most straightforward to me in this case.

The “genderbending” tends to be mentioned alongside the destruction of one’s weapons (My Men Have…, p. 363). This is not accidental - martial prowess, “heroism” and even the ability to bear weapons were quintessential masculine qualities; a man deprived of his masculinity would inevitably be unable to possess them. The masculine coding of weaponry was so strong that an erection could be metaphorically compared to drawing a bow (Ištar, Goddess of War…, p. 395).

Zsolnay points out the reversal of gender in curses is also coupled with other reversals: Inanna is also supposed to “establish” (liškun) the defeat (abikti) of the target of the curses - a future king who fails to uphold his duties - which constitutes a reversal of an idiom common in royal inscriptions celebrating victory (abikti iškun). The potential monarch will also be unable to face the enemy as a result of her intervention - yet again a reversal of a mainstay of royal declarations. The majesty and heroism of a king were supposed to scare enemies, who would inevitably prostrate themselves when faced by him on the battlefield (Ištar, Goddess of War…, p. 396-397). 

It is safe to say the goal of invoking Inanna in the discussed formulas was to render the target powerless. (Ištar, Goddess of War…, p. 396; My Men Have…, p. 366). Furthermore, they evoke a fear widespread in cuneiform sources, that of the loss of potency, which sometimes took forms akin to Koro syndrome or the infamous penis theft passages from Malleus Maleficarum (My Men Have…, p. 367). It is worth noting that male impotence could specifically be described as being “like a woman” (kīma sinništi/GIM SAL; Ištar, Goddess of War…, p. 395).

Gina Konstantopoulos argues that references to Inanna “genderbening” others occur in a different context in a variety of literary texts, for example in the Epic of Erra, where they’re only meant to highlight the extent of her supernatural ability. She also suggests that more general references to swapping left and right sides around, for example in Enki and the World Order, are further examples, as they “echo(...) the language of birth incantations” which ritually assigned the gender role to a child (My Men Have…, p. 368). She also sees the passage from the Epic of Gilgamesh describing the fates of various individuals who crossed her path and ended up transformed into animals as a result as a more distant parallel of the curse formulas (My Men Have…, p. 369). However, it needs to be pointed out this sort of shapeshifting is almost unparalleled in Mesopotamian literature (Frans Wiggermann, Hybrid creatures A. Philological. In Mesopotamia, p. 237), and none of the few examples involve a change of gender. The fact that the "genderbending" passages generally reflect a fear of loss of agency (especially on the battlefield) or potency, and by extension of independence tied to masculine gender roles, explains why they virtually never describe the opposite scenario, a mortal woman being placed in a masculine role through supernatural means as punishment (My Men Have…, p. 370). It might be worth pointing out that a long sequence of seemingly contradictory duties involving reversals is also ascribed to Inanna in a particularly complex Old Babylonian hymn (Michael P. Streck, Nathan Wasserman, The Man is Like a Woman, the Maiden is a Young Man. A new edition of Ištar-Louvre (Tab. I-II), p. 2-3). It also contains a rare case of bestowing masculine qualities upon women: “the man is like a woman, the maiden is like a young man” (zikrum sinništeš ardatu eṭel; The Man is Like…, p. 5). However, the context is not identical to the “genderbening” curses. The text is agreed to describe a performance during a specific festival. Other passages explicitly refer to crossdressing and rituals themed around reversal (šubalkutma šipru, "behavior is turned upside down"; The Man is Like…, p. 6). Furthermore, grammatical forms of verbs do not indicate a full reversal of gender (The Man is Like…, p. 31). Overall, I agree with Timothy D. Leonard’s cautious remark that in this context only religiously motivated temporary reversal of gender roles occurs, and we cannot use the passage to make far reaching conclusions about the participants’ identity (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 298).

It’s important to bear in mind that a performance involving crossdressing won’t necessarily involve people who are otherwise gender nonconforming, and it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the sexuality of the performer. While I typically avoid bringing up parallels from other cultures and time periods as evidence, I feel like this is illustrated quite well by the case of shirabyōshi, a type of female performer popular in Japan roughly from the second half of the Heian period to the late Kamakura period.

A 20th century depiction of a shirabyōshi (wikimedia commons)

They performed essentially in male formal wear, and with swords at their waists; their performance was outright called a “male dance” (Roberta Strippoli, Dancer, Nun, Ghost, Goddess. The Legend of Giō and Hotoke in Japanese Literature, Theater, Visual Arts, and Cultural Heritage, p. 28). Genpei jōsuiki nonetheless states that famous shirabyōshi were essentially the Japanese answer to the most famous historical Chinese beauties like Wang Zhaojun or Yang Guifei (Dancer, Nun…, p. 27-28). In other words, while the shirabyōshi crossdressed, they were simultaneously held to be paragons of femininity.

Putting crossdressing aside, it’s worth noting women taking masculine roles are additionally attested in legal context in ancient Mesopotamia, though only in an incredibly specific scenario. A man who lacked male heirs could essentially legally declare his daughter a son, so that she would be able to have the privileges as a man would with regards to inheritance. For example, in a text from Emar a certain mr. Aḫu-ṭāb formally made his daughter Alnašuwa his heir due to having no other descendants, and explained that as a result she will have to be “both male and female” (NITA ù MUNUS) - effectively both a son and a daughter - to keep the process legitimate. Once Alnašuwa got married, her newfound status as a son of her father was legally transferred to her husband, though. Evidently no supernatural powers were involved at any stage, only an uncommon, but fully legitimate, legal procedure (My Men Have…, p. 370-372). It should be noted that when male by proxy, Alnašuwa was explicitly not expected to perform any military roles - her father only placed such an exception on potential grandsons (My Men Have…, p. 370). Therefore, the temporary masculine role she was granted was arguably not the same as the sort of masculinity curses were supposed to take away, or the sort Inanna could claim for herself to a degree.

Luminous beards and genderfluid planets: the astral Inanna (and her peers)

A standard Mesopotamian depiction of the planet Venus (Dilbat) on a late Kassite boundary stone (wikimedia commons)

Male in the morning, female in the evening (or the other way round)?

While the inquiry into Inanna’s military aspect revealed a fair amount of evidence for gender nonconformity, it would be disingenuous on my part to end the article on just that. A slightly different phenomenon is documented with regards to her astral side - or perhaps with regards to the astral side of multiple deities, to be more precise.

To begin with, in Mesopotamian astrology Venus (Dilbat) was one of the two astral bodies which were described as possessing two genders, the other being Mercury (Erica Reiner, Astral Magic in Babylonia, p. 6; interestingly, it doesn’t seem any deity associated with Mercury acquired this characteristic unless you want to count a possible late case from outside Mesopotamia). The primary sources indicate that this reflected the fact Venus is both the morning star and the evening star, though there was no agreement between ancient astronomers which one of them was feminine and which masculine (Ulla Koch-Westenholz, Mesopotamian Astrology. An Introduction to Babylonian and Assyrian Celestial Divination, p. 40). We even have a case of a single astrologer, a certain Nabû-ahhe-eriba, alternating between both options in his personal letters (p. 126). It needs to be pointed out that while some interest in stars and planets might already be attested in Early Dynastic sources, its scope was evidently quite limited and astrology didn’t develop yet (Mesopotamian Astrology…, p. 32). No astrological texts predate the Old Babylonian period, and most of the early ones are preoccupied with the moon (p. 36-37), though the earliest evidence for astrological interest in Venus are roughly contemporary with them (p. 40). Astronomical observations of this planet were certainly already conducted for divinatory purposes during the reign of Ammisaduqa, and by the seventh century BCE experts were well familiar with its cycle and made predictions on this basis (p. 126).

Inanna’s association with Venus predates the dawn of astrology by well over a millennium. It likely goes back all the way up to the Uruk period - if not earlier, but that sort of speculation is moot because you can’t talk about Mesopotamian theology with no textual sources, and these are fundamentally not something available before the advent of writing. The earliest evidence are archaic administrative texts which separately record offerings for Inanna hud, “Inanna the morning” and Inanna sig, “Inanna the evening” (Inanna and Ishtar…, p. 334-335). However, it is impossible to tell if this was already reflected in any sort of ambiguity or fluidity of gender. It also needs to be noted the archaic text records two more epithets, Inanna NUN, possibly “princely Inanna” (p. 334; this is actually the single oldest one) and Inanna KUR, possibly a forerunner of later title ninkurkurra, “lady of the lands” (p. 335). Therefore, Inanna was arguably already more than just a deity associated with Venus.

It’s up for debate to which degree an astral body was seen as identical with the corresponding deity in later periods (Spencer J. Allen, The Splintered Divine. A Study of Ištar, Baal, and Yahweh Divine Names and Divine Multiplicity in the Ancient Near East, p. 41-42). There is evidence that Inanna and the planet Venus could be viewed as separate, similarly to how the moon observed in the sky could be treated as distinct from the moon god Sin (p. 40). The most commonly cited piece of evidence is that astrological texts fairly consistently employ the name Dilbat to refer to the planet instead of Inanna’s name or one of the logograms used to represent it, like the numeral 15 (p. 42).

Regardless of these concerns, one specific tidbit pertaining to astrological comments on Venus is held as particularly important for possible ambiguity or fluidity of Inanna’s gender, and even lead to arguments that masculine depictions might be out there: the planet can be described as bearded (Astral Magic…, p. 6). Omens attesting this are most notably listed in the compendium Iqqur īpuš (Erica Reiner, David Pingree, Babylonian Planetary Omens vol. 3, p. 10-11). it should be noted that the planet is referred to only as Dilbat in this context (see ex. Babylonian Planetary…, p. 105 for an example). I’m only aware of two texts where this feature is transferred to the corresponding deity: the syncretic hymn to Nanaya and Ashurbanipal’s hymn to Ishtar of Nineveh. Is the beard really a beard, though? Not necessarily, as it turns out.

The passage from the hymn of Ashurbanipal has been recently discussed by Takayoshi M. Oshima and Alison Acker Gruseke (She Walks in Beauty: an Iconographic Study of the Goddess in a Nimbus, p. 62-63). They point out that ultimately there are no certain iconographic representations of bearded Ishtar. There are a few proposed ones on cylinder seals but this is a minority position relying on doubtful exegesis of every strand of hair in sight; no example has anything resembling the “classic” Mesopotamian beard. I’ll return to this problem in a bit.

In any case, the authors of the aforementioned paper argue the key to interpreting the passage is the fact that the reference to the beard (or rather beards in the plural) occurs in an enumeration of strictly astral, luminous characteristics, like being “clothed in brilliance” (namrīrī ḫalāpu). Furthermore, they identify a parallel in the Great Hymn to Shamash: the rays of the sun are described as “beards” (ziqnāt), and occur in parallel with “splendor” (šalummatu) and “lights” (namrīrū). Therefore, they assume the “beard” might be a metaphorical term for a ray of light, rather than facial hair. This would match actually attested depictions - in the first millennium BCE, especially in Assyria, images of a goddess surrounded by rays of light or a large halo of sorts are very common.

A goddess surrounded by a halo on a Neo-Assyrian seal (wikimedia commons)

Perhaps most importantly, this interpretation is also confirmed by the astronomical texts which kickstarted the discussion. The phrase ziqna zaqānu, “to have a beard”, is explained multiple times as reflection of an unusual luminosity when applied to Venus. The authors additionally argue that it is possible the use of the term “beard” was originally tied to the triangular portions of the emblems of Inanna and her twin (which indeed represent the luminosity of Venus and the sun) to explain why a plurality of “beards” is relatively common in the discussed descriptions (p. 64).

As I said before, the second example is a hymn to Nanaya. It’s easily one of my favorite works of Mesopotamian literature, and a few years ago it kickstarted my interest in its “protagonist”, but tragically most of it is completely irrelevant to this article. The gist of it is fairly simple: the entire composition is written in first person, and in each strophe Nanaya claims the prerogatives of another deity before reasserting herself: “still I am Nanaya” (Goddesses in Context…, p. 116-117). The “borrowed” attributes vary from abstract cosmic powers to breast size. The deities they are linked with range from the most major members of the pantheon (Inanna, Gula, Ishara, Bau…) through spouses of major deities (Shala, Damkina…) to obscure oddities (Manzat, the personified rainbow); there’s even one who’s otherwise entirely unknown, Šuluḫḫītum (for a full table see Erica Reiner’s A Sumero-Akkadian Hymn of Nanâ, p. 232).

As expected, the strophe relevant to the current topic is the one focused on Inanna, in which Nanaya proudly exclaims “I have a beard (ziqna zaqānu) in Babylon”, in between claiming to have “heavy breasts in Daduni” (Reiner notes this is not actually an attested attribute of Inanna, and suggests the line might be a pun on the name of the city mentioned in it, Daduni, and the word dādu) and appropriating Inanna’s family tree for herself (A Sumero-Akkadian…, p. 233).

A possible late depiction of Nanaya (wikimedia commons)

It needs to be stressed that Nanaya’s gender shows no signs of ambiguity anywhere; quite the opposite, she was the “quintessence of womanhood“ (Olga Drewnowska-Rymarz, Mesopotamian Goddess Nanāja, p. 156). I would argue the most notable case of something along the lines of gender nonconformity in a source focused on her occurs in the sole known example of a love poem starring her and her sparsely attested Old Babylonian spouse Muati. 

Muati is asked to intercede with Nanaya on behalf of a petitioner (Before the Muses…, p. 160), which usually was the role performed of the wife of a major male deity (or by Ninshubur in Inanna’s case; Goddesses in Context…, p. 273). Sadly, despite recently surveying most publications mentioning Muati I haven’t found any substantial discussion of this unique passage, and I’m not aware of any parallels involving other couples where the wife was a more important deity than the husband (like Ninisina and Pabilsag).

A further issue for the beard passage is that Nanaya had no connection to Venus to speak of -  she could be described as luminous, but she was only compared to the sun, the moon, and unspecified stars (Mesopotamian Goddess Nanāja, p. 153-155).

Given that the hymn most likely dates to the early first millennium BCE (Goddesses in Context…, p. 116), yet another problem for the older interpretation is that the city of Babylon at this point in time is probably the single worst place for seeking any sort of gender ambiguity when it comes to Inanna.

After the end of the Kassite period, Babylon became the epicenter of Marduk-centric theological ventures which famously culminated in the composition of Enuma Elish. What is less well known is that as a part of the same process, attempts were made to essentially fuse Bēlet-Bābili (“lady of Babylon”) - the main (but not only) local form of Inanna, regarded as distinct from Inanna of Uruk (the “default” Inanna) - with Zarpanitu (The Pantheon…, p. 75-76). Zarpanitu was effectively the definition of an indistinct spouse of another deity - there’s not much to say about her character other than that she was Marduk’s wife (Goddesses in Context…, p. 92-93). Accordingly, it is hard to imagine that the contemporary “lady of Babylon” would be portrayed as bearded.

During the reign of Nabu-shuma-ishkun in the eighth century BCE an attempt to extend the new dogma to Inanna of Uruk was made, though this was evidently considered too much for contemporary audiences. Multiple sources display varying degrees of opposition to replacement of Inanna in the Eanna by a goddess who didn’t belong there, presumably either Zarpanitu or at the very least Bēlet-Bābili after “Zarpanituification” so severe she no longer bore a sufficient resemblance to her Urukuean colleague (The Pantheon…, p. 76-77). Inanna of Uruk was restored during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, who curiously affirmed that her temple was temporarily turned into the sanctuary of an “inappropriate goddess” (The Pantheon…, p. 131). However, the Marduk-centric ventures left a lasting negative impression in Uruk nonetheless, and in the long run lead to quite extreme reactions, culminating in the establishment of an active cult of Anu for the first time, but that’s another story (I might consider covering it in detail if there’s interest).

To go back to the hymn to Nanaya one last time, it’s interesting to note that a single copy seems to substitute ziqna zaqānu for zik-ra-[...], possibly a leftover of zikrāku, “manly”. Takayoshi M. Oshima and Alison Acker Gruseke presume this is only a scribal mistake, since this heavily damaged exemplar is rife with typos in general (She Walks…, p. 63), though I’m curious if perhaps a reference to the military character of Inanna herself or Annunitum was meant. This would line up with evidence from Babylon to a certain degree, since through the first millennium BCE Annunitum was worshiped there in her own temple (Goddesses in Context…, p. 105-106). However, in the light of what is known about this unique variant, it’s best to assume that it is indeed a typo and the hymn simply refers to luminosity. 

While no textual sources earlier (or later, for that matter) than the two hymns discussed above attribute a beard to Inanna (Zainab Bahrani, Women of Babylon. Gender and Representation in Mesopotamia, p. 182), the most commonly cited example of a seal with a supposedly bearded depiction is considerably earlier (Ur III, so roughly 2100 BCE, long before any references to “bearded Venus”). It comes from the Umma area judging from the name and title of its owner, a certain Lu-Igalima, a lumaḫ priest of Ninibgal (“lady of the [temple] Ibgal”, ie. Inanna’s temple in Umma). However, Julia M. Asher-Greve  points out that the beard is likely to be a strand of hair, since contemporary parallels supporting this interpretation are available, for example a seal of a priest of Inanna from Nippur, Lugalengardu. Furthermore, she notes that the seal cutter was seemingly inexperienced, since the detail is all around dodgy, for example Inanna’s foot seems to be merged with the head of the lion she stands on (Goddesses in Context…, p. 208). Looking at the two images side by side, I think this is a compelling argument, since the beard doesn’t really look like, well, a typical Mesopotamian beard, while the hairdo on the Nippur seal is indeed similar:

Both images are screencaps from Goddesses in Context, p. 403; reproduced here for educational purposes only.

While I think the beard-critical arguments are sound, this is not the only possible kind of depiction of Inanna argued to reflect the fluidity of gender attributed to the planet Venus.

Paul-Alain Beaulieu notes that an inscription of Nebuchadnezzar with a dedication to Inanna of Uruk she might be called both the lamassu, ie. “protective goddess”, of Uruk and šēdu, ie. “protective genius”, of Eanna; the latter is an invariably masculine term. However, it is not entirely clear if the lamassu and šēdu invoked here are both really a partially masculine Ishtar, since there’s a degree of ambiguity involved in the concept of protective deity or deities of a temple - while there’s evidence for outright identification with the main deity of a given house of worship, they could also be separate, though closely related, and Beaulieu ultimately remains uncertain which option is more plausible here (The Pantheon…, p. 137-138). He also points out that there’s some late evidence for apotropaic figures with two faces, male and female, which were supposed to represent a šēdu+lamassu pair, but rules out the possibility that these have anything to do with Ishtar, since two faces are virtually never her attribute (The Pantheon…, p. 137).  There is a single possible exception from this rule, but it’s an outlier so puzzling it’s hard to count it. A single Neo-Assyrian text from Nineveh (KAR 307) describes Ishtar of Nineveh (there is a reason why I abstain from using the name Inanna here, as you’ll see later) as four-eyed, which Beaulieu suggests might mean the deity had a male face and a female face. The same source also states that Ishtar of Nineveh is Tiamat and has “upper parts of Bel” and “lower parts of Ninlil”, though (The Pantheon…, p. 137), so it’s probably best not to think of it too much - Tiamat is demonstrably not a figure of much importance in general, let alone in the context of Inanna-centric considerations.

The same text has been interpreted differently by Wilfred G. Lambert. He concludes that it’s ultimately probably an esoteric Enuma Elish commentary and that it might have been cobbled together by a scribe from snippers of unrelated, contradictory sources (Babylonian Creation Myths, p. 245). If correct, this would disprove Beaulieu’s proposal, since the four eyes would simply reflect the description of Marduk (Bel) in EE (tablet I, line 55: “Four were his eyes, four his ears”). I lean towards Lambert’s interpretation myself; the reference to Tiamat is the strongest argument, outside EE and derived commentaries she was basically a non-entity. I’ll go back to the topic of Ishtar of Nineveh later, though - there is a slim possibility that two faces might really be meant, though this would take us further away from Inanna, all the way up to ancient Anatolia.

As a final curiosity it’s worth pointing out that while this is entirely unrelated to the discussed matter, KAR 307 is also the same text which (in)famously states Tiamat has the form of a dromedary. As odd as that sounds, it’s much easier to explain when you realize that the Akkadian term for this animal, when broken down to individual logograms, could be interpreted as “donkey of the sea” - and Tiamat’s name was derived from the ordinary Akkadian word “sea” (Babylonian Creation…, p. 246).

The Red Lady of Heaven, my king

While both the bearded and two faced Inannas are likely to be mirages, this doesn’t mean the dual gender of Venus was not reflected in the world of gods. The result was a bit more complex than the existence of a male Inanna, though.

In addition to being Inanna’s astral attribute, Venus simultaneously could be personified under the name Ninsianna. Ninsianna could be treated as a title of Inanna - this is attested for example in a hymn from the reign of Iddin-Dagan of Isin  - but unless explicitly stated, should be treated as a separate deity. This is evident especially in sources from Larsa, where the two were worshiped entirely separately from each other (Goddesses in Context…, p. 92).

Ninsianna’s name can be literally translated as “red lady of heaven” (Goddesses in Context…, p. 86), though as I already explained earlier, nin is actually gender neutral - “red lord of heaven” is theoretically equally valid. And, as a matter of fact, it is necessary to employ the latter translation in some cases - an inscription of Rim-Sin I refers to Ninsianna with the firmly masculine title lugal, “king” (Wolfgang Heimpel, Ninsiana, p. 488). 

It seems safe to say that in Ninsianna’s case we’re essentially dealing with a deity who truly was like Venus. Timothy D. Leonard stresses that while frequently employed in past scholarship, the labels “hermaphroditic” and “androgynous” do not describe the phenomenon accurately. What the sources actually present is a deity who switches between a male form and a female one (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 226). In other words, if we are to apply a contemporary label, it seems optimal to say Ninsianna was perceived as genderfluid.

Interestingly, though, it seems that Ninsianna’s gender varied by location as well (Goddesses in Context…, p. 92). The worship of feminine Ninsianna is attested for example in Nippur (Goddesses in Context…, p. 101) and Uruk (Goddesses in Context…, p. 126), masculine - in Sippar-Amnanum, Girsu and Ur (Ninsiana, p. 488-489). No study I went through speculated what the reasons behind this situation might have been. Was Ninsianna’s gender locally viewed as less flexible than the discussed theological texts indicate? Were specific sanctuaries dedicated only to a specific aspect of this deity - only the “morning” Ninsianna or “evening” Ninsianna? For the time being these questions must remain unanswered in most cases. 

There’s a single case where the preference for feminine Ninsianna was probably influenced by an unparalleled haphazard theological innovation, though - in Isin in the early second millennium BCE the local dynasty lost control over Uruk, and as a result access to royal legitimacy granted symbolically by Inanna. To remedy that, the tutelary goddess of their capital was furnished with similar qualifications through a leap of logic relying on one hand on the close association between Inanna and Ninsianna, and on the other on the phonetic (but not etymological) similarity between the names of Ninisina and Ninsianna (Goddesses in Context…, p. 86). As far as I know, this did not influence the perception of Ninisina’s gender in any shape or form, though.

An interesting extension of the phenomenon of Ninsianna’s gender is this deity’s association with an even more enigmatic figure, Kabta. Only two things can be established about Kabta with certainty: that they were an astral deity, and that they were associated in some way with Ninsianna; even their gender is uncertain (Wilfred G. Lambert, Kabta, p. 284).

It might be worth pointing out that as a result Kabta and Ninsianna seem to constitute the first case of a Mesopotamian deity of variable (Ninsianna) or uncertain (Kabta) gender being referred to with a neutral pronoun in an Assyriological publication - Ryan D. Winters’ commentary on their entries in a variety of god lists employs a singular they (An = Anum…, p. 34):

Wilfred G. Lambert argued that the two were spouses (Kabta, p. 284). More recently the same point has been made by Winters based on Kabta’s placement after Ninsianna in An = Anum, and directly before Dumuzi in an Old Babylonian forerunner of this list (An = Anum…, p. 22). However, I feel obliged to point out that An = Anum, which fairly consistently identifies spouses as such, does not actually specify the nature of the connection between the two. Once the enumeration of Ninsianna’s names finishes, the list simply switches to Kabta’s (An = Anum…, p. 170). 

In another god list, which is rather uncreatively referred to as “shorter An = Anum” due to sharing the first line with its more famous “relative” but lacking its sheer scope, names of Kabta are listed among designations for Inanna’s astral forms, which would have interesting implications for the nature of the supposed relationship between them and Ninsianna (An = Anum…, p. 34). Furthermore, as noted by Jeremiah Peterson, both of them, as well as Kabta’s alternate name Maḫdianna and a further astral deity, Timua, are also glossed as Ištar kakkabi - in this case according to him likely a generic moniker “goddess of the star” as opposed to “Ishtar of the star” - in a variety of lexical lists (God Lists from Old Babylonian Nippur, p. 58). 

In the light of the somewhat confusing evidence summarized above, further inquiries into both Kabta’s character and the nature of the connection between them and Ninsianna are definitely necessary. Assuming that they were spouses, how did theologians who adhered to this view deal with them also being treated as two manifestations of one being instead (I suppose you could easily put a romantic spin on that, to be fair)? Did Kabta’s gender change alongside Ninsianna’s, or perhaps following a different scheme, or was this a characteristic they lacked? Unless new sources emerge, this sadly must remain the domain of speculation.

Ninsianna’s fluid gender also has to be taken into account while discussing one further deity, Pinikir. The discovery of a fragmentary god list in Emar made it possible to establish the latter was regarded as the Hurrian equivalent of the former (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 224; note that there seems to be a typo here, the list is identified as An = Anum but it’s actually the Weidner god list). This deity similarly was understood as a personification of Venus (Piotr Taracha, Religions of Second Millennium Anatolia, p. 99) and was in a certain capacity associated with Inanna - however, as it will become evident pretty quickly these weren’t the only analogies with Ninsianna.

Despite appearing in Emar in Hurrian context, Pinikir actually originated to the east of Mesopotamia, in Elam (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 223). Her name cannot yet be fully explained due to imperfect understanding of Elamite, but it is clear that the suffix -kir is feminine and means “goddess” (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 237; cf. the not particularly creatively named Kiririsha, “great goddess”). Sources from Anatolia recognize Pinikir as an Elamite deity, though direct transfer from one end of the “cuneiform world” to the other is unlikely (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 236). Most likely, Hurrians received Pinikir through Mesopotamian intermediaries in the late third or early second millennium BCE, and later introduced this deity further west (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 237). We know Mesopotamians were aware of her thanks to the god list Anšar = Anum, where the name occurs among what may or may not be an enumeration of deities regarded as Inanna’s foreign counterparts (An = Anum…, p. 36). For the time being it is not possible to track this process directly, though - it’s all educated guesswork.

While as far as I am aware none of the few Elamite sources dealing with Pinikir provide much theological information about her, and none hint at her gender being anything but feminine, Hurro-Hittite texts from Anatolia indicate that at least in this context, like Ninsianna in Mesopotamia, she came to be seen as a genderfluid deity, sometimes counted among gods, sometimes among goddesses (Gary Beckman, The Goddess Pirinkir and her Ritual from Ḫattuša (CTH 644), p. 25). Firmly feminine Pinikir occurs in a ritual text (KUB 34.102) which refers to her in Hurrian as Allai-Pinikir, “lady Pinikir”; interestingly this is the only case where she is provided with an epithet in any Anatolian source (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 211). However, there are examples of ritual texts where Pinikir is listed among male deities (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 229). He is also depicted in the procession of gods in the famous Yazilikaya sanctuary in a rather striking attire:

I know, I know, the state of preservation leaves much to be desired (wikimedia commons) This isn’t just any masculine clothing - the outfit is only shared with two other figures depicted in this sanctuary, the sun god Shimige and the Hittite king (The Goddess Pirinkir…, p. 25-26):

Shimige (left; wikimedia commons) and the king (right; also wikimedia commons)

Piotr Taracha argues that it reflects the attire worn by the Hittite king when he fulfilled his religious duties (Religions of…, p. 89); Pinikir’s isn’t identical - it’s only knee length, like the more standard masculine garments - but the skullcap is pretty clearly the same. He is also winged, which is a trait only shared with the moon god and one more figure (more on them in a bit), and likely reflects celestial associations (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 211). All the same traits are also preserved on a small figurine of Pinikir from the collection of the MET:

A much better preserved masculine Pinikir (MET)

It’s therefore probably safe to say that the male form had a fairly consistent iconography, which furthermore was patterned on what probably was an archetypal image of masculinity to Hurro-Hittite audiences. The king, whose appearance is reflected in Pinikir’s iconography, was, after all, supposed to be not just any man, but rather the foremost example of idealized masculinity (Mary R. Bachvarova, Wisdom of Former Days: The Manly Hittite King and Foolish Kumarbi, Father of the Gods, p. 83-84).

Since we started this section with beards, we may as well end with them - I feel obliged to point out that no matter how clearly described as masculine, neither Ninsianna nor Pinikir were ever described (let alone depicted) as bearded. 

It is difficult for me to estimate to which degree the information about the genderfluidity of Ninsianna and Pinikir can be used to elucidate in which way the association with Venus influenced the perception of Inanna’s gender. However, it seems safe to say the focus on secondary physical characteristics made some authors miss the forest for the trees. I’ll leave it as an open question whether Inanna could be interpreted similarly to her even more Venusian peers, but I’m fairly sure that a metaphorical beard is unlikely to have anything to do with the answer.

Excursus: “the masculinity and femininity of Shaushka”, or when an Ishtar is not Ishtar

Bringing up the masculine Pinikir, and the matter of possible genderfluidity of deities in Mesopotamia and nearby areas, makes it necessary to also discuss Shaushka. The two of them appear mere two lines apart in Anšar = Anum  (An = Anum…, p. 36), though they were not closely associated with each other - rather, they were both deities associated with Inanna who happened to belong to the same cultural milieu.

Mx. Worldwide: the transmission of Shaushka across the cuneiform world

Shaushka was originally the tutelary deity of Nineveh, but the attestations span almost the entire “cuneiform world” - from Nineveh in the north to Lagash in the south, from Hattusa in the west, through Ugarit and various inland Syrian cities all the way up to Arrapha in the east. There are simply too many of them to cover everything here.

The oldest known reference to Shaushka (which doubles as the first reference to the city of Nineveh) occurs in a text from the Ur III period. It’s not very thrilling - it’s only an administrative text mentioning the offering of a sheep made on behalf of the king of the Ur III state (Gary Beckman, Ištar of Nineveh Reconsidered, p. 1). The earliest sources render the name as Shausha; the infix -k- which only starts to appear consistently later on is presumed to be an honorific, or less plausibly a diminutive (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 55-56). Either way, it is agreed it can be translated simply as “the great one” (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 56) - a pretty apt description of its bearer.

Ur III attestations of Shaushka are sparse otherwise: a textile offering in Umma (possibly a garment for a statue), a handful of theophoric names like Ur-Shausha and Geme-Shausha in Lagash, and that’s basically it (Tonia Sharlach, Foreign Influences on the Religion of the Ur III Court, p. 106). Still, it’s probably safe to say it’s one of the examples of a broader pattern of interest in Hurrian religion evident in the courtly documents from this period, and in the appointment of a number of Hurrian diviners to relatively prestigious positions. Whether such experts might have influenced the introduction of Shaushka and other Hurrian deities who entered lower Mesopotamia roughly at the same time (for example Allani from Zimudar or Shuwala from Mardaman) remains an open question (Foreign Influences…, p. 111-114).

A degree of equivalence between Shaushka and Inanna was already recognized in the early second millennium BCE, as evidenced by a tablet from the northern site of Shusharra dated to the reign of Shamshi-Adad which records an offering made to “Ishtar of Nineveh” (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 58). However, it might have happened as early as half a millennium earlier, during the Sargonic period - Gary Beckman suggests the identification between the two might have initially occurred simply due to the importance assigned to Inanna by rulers of the Akkadian Empire (Ištar of Nineveh…, p. 2). 

Furthermore, a number of later Mesopotamian lexical lists label Shaushka as “Ishtar of Subartu” - a common designation for the core Hurrian areas (Ištar of Nineveh…, p. 2). Meanwhile, Hurrians and cultures influenced by them used the name Ishtar as a logogram to represent Shaushka (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 46). Furthermore, they placed Shaushka in Uruk in an adaptation of the Epic of Gilgamesh (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 125). One is forced to wonder if perhaps from the Hurrian interpreter’s perspective Inanna was some sort of foreign Shaushka ersatz, not the other way around.

Despite Shaushka’s origin in the Hurrien milieu of northernmost part of Mesopotamia, the bulk of attestations actually come from Hittite Anatolia (Ištar of Nineveh…, p. 2). Kizzuwatna, a kingdom in southeastern Anatolia, was the middleman in this transmission (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 95). The earliest evidence for Hittite reception of Shaushka is an oracle text from either the late fifteenth or early fourteenth century BCE (Ištar in Ḫatti, p. 84). However, save for the capital, Hattusa, no major cities were ever identified as cult centers of this deity, and they were seemingly worshiped largely within the southern and eastern periphery of the Hittite empire (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 94). Most of the ritual texts Shaushka appears in accordingly appear to have Kizzuwatnean, or at least broadly Hurrian, background (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 87).

Is non-astral genderfluidity possible, or what’s up with Shaushka’s gender?

Probably the most fascinating aspect of Shaushka’s character is the apparent coexistence of a female and a male form of this deity. The best known example of this phenomenon are the Yazilikaya reliefs, where a masculine form, with unique attributes including a robe leaving one leg exposed and wings, marches with the gods (with the handmaidens Ninatta and Kulitta - more on them later - in tow) while a caption accompanying a damaged relief indicates a feminine one was originally depicted in the procession of identically depicted goddesses (The Splintered Divine…, p. 75).

Masculine Shaushka (right) accompanied by Ninatta and Kulitta (wikimedia commons)

A restoration of the procession of goddesses, including feminine Shaushka (wikimedia commons)

A number of epithets applied to Shaushka were similarly explicitly feminine, for instance Hurrian “lady of Nineveh” (allai Ninuwawa) and Hittite “woman of that which is repeatedly spoken” (taršikantaš MUNUS-aš), implicity something like “woman of incantations” (Ištar of Nineveh…, p. 5); magic was apparently understood as a particular competence of this deity (Ištar of Nineveh…, p. 6). There is even a singular case of an incantation being explicitly attributed to Shaushka (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 98). 

Literary texts, chiefly myths from the so-called Kumarbi cycle, generally portray Shaushka as feminine too, and more as a love deity (to be precise, as something along the lines of a heroic equivalent of a femme fatale) rather than as a warlike one (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 85). Mary R. Bachvarova tentatively suggests that a reference to possibly masculine Shaushka might be present in the first of its parts, Song of Going Forth (also known as Song of Kumarbi), which mentions a deity of uncertain gender designated by the logogram KA.ZAL, “powerful”, which she argues has the same meaning as Shaushka’s name (Wisdom of Former…; p. 95 for the text itself, p. 106 for commentary). However, I’m not aware of any subsequent studies adopting this view.

Regardless of the contents of the literary texts available to us presently, Shaushka is explicitly counted among male deities in CTH 712. The enumeration in this ritual text also includes the “femininity and masculinity” of this deity. The male form of Pinikir is there too, though without a separate entry dedicated to any of his attributes or characteristics (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 219). Another example might be less direct: two descriptions of depictions of Shaushka use the terms “helmeted” (kurutawant), which referred to headwear worn by gods, as opposed to “veiled” (ḫupitawant), which referred to the typical headwear of goddesses. This lines up with the relief of masculine Shaushka from Yazilikaya (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 300).

A detail I haven’t seen brought up in any discussion of Shaushka’s gender which I personally think might be relevant to this topic is that their name occurs as a theophoric element both in feminine and masculine Hurrian theophoric names, which is otherwise entirely unheard of. Hurrians evidently were more rigid than Mesopotamians when it comes to theophoric elements in given names, as goddesses occur only in names of women and gods in names of men (Gernot Wilhelm, Name, Namengebung D. Bei den Hurritern, p. 125). 

Interestingly, Hittite sources pertaining to Shaushka offer a parallel to the “genderbending” curse formulas as well (My Men Have…, p. 363-364; note they are actually slightly earlier than the Assyrian examples). In a few cases, including a prayer and military oaths, this deity is implored to deprive foreign adversaries of the Hittite empire of their masculinity and courage, to take away their weapons, and to make them dress like women (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 90).

How did this aspect of Shaushka’s character develop? I’d assume that in contrast with Ninsianna and Pinikir, the influence of astronomical ideas about Venus can probably be ruled out. Beckman stresses that at least in Anatolian context Shaushka was evidently not an astral deity (Ištar of Nineveh…, p. 7). Timothy D. Leonard argues that the wings, which only the male form possesses, likely reflect a celestial role, but he doesn’t explore the point further (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 211). However, he notes that only Pinikir is explicitly identified with Venus in Hurro-Hittite sources, and presumably fulfilled the role of personification of this astral body alone (p. 225). 

Leonard argues that it cannot be established with certainty whether Shaushka  was perceived as capable of taking both male and female forms, as existing simultaneously as a male and female deity (with two bodies, presumably), or if they should be regarded as androgynous. However, he notes that there is no evidence for the recognition of any sort of nonbinary identity in known Hittite sources - so at least implicitly, he assumes the gender of both of the forms would need to be binary (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 298). 

It needs to be noted that the validity of applying the label “androgynous” to Shaushka has already been questioned all the way back in 1980(!) - in the first detailed study of Shaushka’s character and cult ever published, Ilse Wegner argued that in both visual arts and literary texts they are presented either as feminine or masculine, but never is their gender ambiguous (Gestalt und Kult der Ištar-Šawuška in Kleinasien, p. 47). Frans Wiggermann argues that KAR 307, which I already discussed and which describes a single figure with both masculine and feminine traits, might be related to depictions of Shaushka (Mischwesen A…, p. 237; thus I suppose the text would deal with an Ishtar, not with Inanna slash Ishtar herself) but this would quit obviously at best constitute a late exception which could be attributed to very vague familiarity with the deity. 

In addition to the options discussed by Leonard, a further interpretation present in scholarship is possibility is that Shaushka might have been seen primarily as a goddess, but performed a male role in specific context, to be precise when portrayed as a warlike deity (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 301) - in other words, that we are dealing with a similar phenomenon as in the case of Inanna. For instance, Wegner assumed Shaushka was essentially female, and the masculine portrayals merely reflect adoption of masculine-coded character traits and attributes as opposed to actual transformation into a male figure (p. 47-48). Gary Beckman similarly suggests that Shaushka was a goddess, and that the male form, which he likewise considers to be a military aspect, was interpreted as crossdressing, as opposed to an actual shift in gender (Shawushka, p. 1). Leonard accepts the possibility that the male form might reflect the fact that warfare was seen as an exclusively masculine pursuit in Anatolia, though since there are multiple sources where goddesses whose gender never shifted in any way appear on the battlefield he stresses it’s not impossible such gender norms did not necessarily apply to deities (Ištar in Ḫatti, p. 299-300).

Out of all the possible interpretations I personally find the possibility that Shaushka was imagined to shift between a male and a female deity to be the most convincing - in other words, that they were viewed as genderfluid, similarly to Ninsianna, though almost definitely for different, presently impossible to determine, reasons. However, since the matter is far from settled, I opted to generally use neutral forms across this section of the article - I hope this doesn’t make it too confusing. Can any of the information pertaining to Shaushka be applied to Inanna as well? I don’t really think so. For starters, no source goes out of its way to depict a feminine and a masculine form of Inanna in the same location, so I would argue that it is significant this is something attested for her counterpart - a sign that the latter’s masculine identity was more pronounced. Note that this is only my personal impression, though, and it might not fully hold to academic scrutiny, not to mention that the emergence of new sources might invalidate it.

Beyond Inanna: Shaushka’s other connections

While I focused on the connection between Shaushka and Inanna, it’s necessary to point out that the former was more than just a “foreign counterpart”. As a deity worshiped for well over a millennium, they amassed their own complex network of deities - often completely distinct from Inanna. For instance, it’s hard to find a parallel to Shaushka’s position as the sibling (and, in myths, main ally) of the head of the Hurrian pantheon, Teshub (not least because he represented a somewhat different model of a head god than Mesopotamian Enlil and Anu). However, to do this matter justice I’d basically need a separate article. Due to the scope of this treatment of Shaushka, I will limit myself only to a small number of figures they were associated with - either because they have something to do with their gender, or because they are additionally in one way or another connected to Inanna.

In Hittite context, Shaushka came to be closely associated with an Anatolian deity, Anzili (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 112). Since the latter’s character is poorly known (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 113), the reasoning behind the equivalence between them is opaque (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 119). Timothy D. Leonard tentatively proposes that Anzili’s name might be grammatically masculine and that it originally designated a god who later came to be seen as a goddess (as reflected in available sources), or that similarly as in the case of Shaushka both a male and a female form could be attributed to them (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 117). 

Untangling this problem is complicated further by the fact that Anzili’s name is used simply as a Hittite translation of Shaushka in both ritual and literary texts in which the deity of Nineveh is undeniably meant, down to being explicitly referred to with titles pertaining to this city - where Anzili obviously wasn’t actually worshiped (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p.120-121). Through the association with Shaushka, Anzili’s name even got to be used to translate the name of their Mesopotamian counterpart a few times - the Hittite translation of King of Battle, the most famous epic about Sargon of Akkad, refers to his divine backer as… “Anzili of Akkad” (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 125). Ultimately the translation was not entirely consistent, though, and texts written in Hittite where Shaushka’s name is nonetheless rendered phonetically, leaving no possibility that it was translated as Anzili, are also known (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 126).

Next to Inanna and Anzili, the deities probably the most commonly associated with Shaushka were their handmaidens Ninatta and Kulitta (Ištar of Nineveh…, p. 6). They could be portrayed as divine musicians (Gestalt und Kult…, p. 78), but also as warlike deities (John MacGinnis, The Gods of Arbail, p. 109). Ilse Wegner went as far as suggesting the phrase “right weapon of Shaushka” was an apposition of the pair, though that’s obviously speculative (Gestalt und Kult…, p. 79). 

Further information about their role is provided in a hymn to Shaushka (CTH 717). They are grouped in it with two other handmaidens, Šintal-irti (“seven-tongues”) and Ḫamra-zunna. The four of them are supposed to look after households which Shaushka views favorably, so that their inhabitants can live in harmony. Meanwhile, four other handmaidens, Ali, Ḫalzari, Taruwi and Šinanda-dukarni, are entrusted with making people in households which Shaushka resents quarrel with each other (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 120-122). It has been argued that this reflects the two aspects of Shaushka’s character - as a love deity in the case of the first four handmaidens, and as a warlike one in the case of the second group (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 123) - but I am skeptical if this can be easily reconciled with the fact Ninatta and Kulitta appear with them no matter which side of them is in the spotlight. 

Ninatta and Kulitta also represent probably the strongest case of Shaushka leaving a mark on their Mesopotamian counterpart. In the Neo-Assyrian period, they appear as members of the entourage of the latter not only in Nineveh, but also in Arbela and Assur under “Akkadianized” forms of their names, Ninittu and Kulittu (The Gods of Arbail, p. 109)

While Inanna had an extensive court - something that for mysterious reasons is not acknowledged online or even in publications aimed at general audiences (to use a recent example - even an a-list example like Nanaya comes up less times in Louise Pryke’s Ishtar than Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who, as far as I am aware, is not attested in any cuneiform texts) - I’m not aware of any instance of Ninatta and Kulitta being explicitly identified as counterparts of any of its members, though. Perhaps the fact that some of the cities in which they are attested were originally Hurrian has something to do with it - they weren’t introduced there as new additions, it was the Mesopotamian goddess who was superimposed over their original superior (The Gods of Arbail, p. 112).

Madonna-whore complex and beyond: (the modern reception of) Inanna as a love deity

After the brief detour focused on Shaushka, it is time to go back to Inanna - specifically to the most major aspect of her character I largely left out before, her association with love and all that entails.

As I already said, the oldest available texts affirming this was one of her prerogatives are younger than these linking her with war, let alone these hinting at her astral role. Regardless of when this aspect of her character first developed, it took until the Ur III period for it to take the center stage (Inanna and Ishtar…, p. 338). Simultaneously, it is by far the most well known today, to the point you often get the impression people barely know there’s more to her. Tonia M. Sharlach notes that even in scholarship there is discussion over whether this aspect of her character isn’t perhaps overestimated to a degree (An Ox of One’s Own. Royal Wives and Religion at the Court of the Third Dynasty of Ur, p. 268). 

At least when it comes to the spread of this misconception online, one is tempted to ask to which degree pretending this is the only thing about Inanna that matters amounts to the need to present her as some sort of demo version of Aphrodite, with limited, if any, concern for Mesopotamia.

None of these phenomena is why I kept it for last, though - even if I do agree that viewing Inanna simply as a “love goddess” is misguided at best. My decision simply reflects the fact that the relevant sources portray Inanna probably at her least gender nonconforming . As argued by Bendt Alster, in some cases in love poetry it would essentially be possible to substitute her and Dumuzi for an average young human couple without the need to make any adjustments (Sumerian Love Songs, p. 78).  Ultimately, these works reflect fairly normative ideas of courtship, romance and sex, though with a clear female focus (Frans Wiggermann, Sexuality A. In Mesopotamia, p. 412). The portrayal of love and eroticism in them has been described as “playful”, in contrast with the more blunt genres like potency incantations, or even with portrayal of sex in myths like Enki and Ninhursag (Jerrold S. Cooper, Gendered Sexuality in Sumerian Love Poetry, p. 92-94). Many of them are honestly an enjoyable read, as long as you are willing to engage with heavy use of assorted metaphors in descriptions of sex (date syrup, lettuce and agricultural activities are particularly abundant). Here is a fairly representative example:

The Song of the Lettuce (ETCSL)

There isn’t really much to say beyond that - they’re a fascinating topic in their own right, but they are largely irrelevant for the matter this article investigates.

Frans Wiggermann, an author whose work I generally value highly, made the peculiar argument that erotic poetry in which Inanna is the more active side and her goal is sexual gratification might reflect attribution of masculine traits to her and proceeded to argue every depiction of sex where the woman tops is ought to be related to this phenomenon (Sexuality A…, p. 417-418). He simultaneously raises an interesting point that these representations of Inanna might have been supposed to justify sex without the aim of reproduction. It is unclear to me how it would “allow minorities a place under the sun”, though (p. 418), as the sex scenes in relevant compositions are invariably straight.

While I am unsure about some aspects of Wiggermann’s argument, I should stress that I think it was made in good faith. Sadly this can’t be said about much of the other scholarship pertaining to Inanna and sexuality, and especially the intersection of the topic of sexuality and gender.  This matter has been investigated in depth by Zainab Bahrani in the early 2000s already. She argues that publications which overestimate the ambiguity of Inanna’s gender (which typically employ hardly applicable labels like “hermaphrodite”; she singles out Rivkah Harris’ Inanna-Ishtar as Paradox and a Coincidence of Opposites and Brigitte Groenberg’s Die sumerisch-akkadische Inanna/Ištar: Hermaphroditos? as relatively recent examples), in particular while emphasizing her erotic character, are essentially a leftover a fear of nefarious seductresses common in popular culture of fin-de-siècle Europe, for example in symbolist paintings (Women of Babylon…, p. 146).

Jen Delville's The Idol of Perversity, a fairly standard example of the sort of symbolist painting Bahrani meant, a representation of the fear of "unquenched bestial desires of a woman" (wikimedia commons)

I think it’s also a valid point that traits like assertiveness or a quick temper could very well be assigned to a femme fatale, and are not necessarily an indication of any ambiguity of gender (Women of Babylon…, p. 144), though I don’t think every aspect of Inanna’s characters needs to be subsumed under the erotic, and recent publications focused on her military role and its intersection with gender are much more nuanced, as you could see for yourself earlier.

Bahrani also highlights that publications she criticizes - both historical and modern - treat transsexuality, crossdressing and various adjacent phenomena and (male) homosexuality as basically one and the same (Women of Babylon…, p. 145; I will come back to this). However, I feel she falls into this trap herself to a small degree when it comes to women, as she appears to link the dubious Inanna scholarship  overestimating the ambiguity of her gender and the phenomenon of various femme fatale figures being portrayed as bisexual for voyeuristic purposes, and to Orientalist art at the very least implying lesbian activities (Women of Babylon…, p. 146). I am not aware of any actual publication dealing with Inanna or relevant phenomena (of any quality) which would go into this direction, though.

I also disagree with treating Inanna as unique compared to other goddesses just because she is not primarily portrayed as a wife or mother (Women of Babylon…, p. 149) - the median Mesopotamian goddess was a personification of a profession or the interests of a city or both, arguably; major members of the pantheon like Nanshe, Nisaba, Ninmug, Nungal or numerous medicine goddesses were hardly defined by either of these two roles, even if they could be, indeed, portrayed as wives or mothers in a capacity Inanna was not.

Most importantly, I disagree with invoking Freud and his disciples (positively, for clarity) to bolster arguments (Women of Babylon…, p. 153-154).

Still, I do think the core concerns raised by Bahrani are more than sound. The next section will sadly make that painfully clear.

Sexualization of lamenting

The validity of some of Bahrani’s criticism is pretty evident just based on the survey of past literature on the matter of the assinnu (The Misconstructed Role…, p. 83-84), a type of religious specialist or performer who you already met earlier in the subsection of this article dedicated to military curses. It would appear that the authors most keen on far reaching speculations about their gender identity and sexuality are probably some of the least qualified to deal with this matter, and lo and lo and behold, typically blur together being gay, nonbinary and any form of gender nonconformity. 

Furthermore, even though texts from Mari explicitly link the assinnu with Annunitu (The Misconstructed Role…, p. 94) - the single most straightforwardly warlike Inanna-ish deity of them all, whose very name, “the skirmisher”, refers to combat - a peculiar obsession with rendering their role into something innately sexual (or rather lascivious) just because of their association with Inanna, appears to be a distinct trend. It  intersects with the former issue; after all, it is known that anything but being a cis straight person who is a paragon of gender conformity is innately inappropriately (or even “abnormally”, as one of the past evaluations cited by Zsolnay critically put it) sexual.

For what it’s worth, there is some evidence that the assinnu were men who - at least in certain situations - crossdressed and played lyres (The Misconstructed Role…, p. 86). In an Old Babylonian hymn I’ve already mentioned, this is said to take place during a festival which also involved female performers who for this occasion dressed up in a masculine way and carried weapons, who are not described with any specific technical term (The Man is Like…, p. 6). Given the context of this mention, I feel the jury's out on whether this was universal, or merely a specific local festival, especially in the light of other evidence for the activities of the assinnu, though. The participation in a celebration which involved crossdressing could explain why late lexical lists - first examples only come from the Neo-Assyrian period, some 1000 years after the Mariote and Old Babylonian attestations - sometimes offer UR.SAL as the logographic writing of assinnu. This combination of signs can be interpreted in different ways - some probably can be ruled out since they refer to female animals (canines and big cats), not to people; this led to the common interpretation as “feminine man” or “woman-man” based on other sign values. Zsolnay disagrees with it, and tentatively proposes something like “servant of women” (The Misconstructed Role…, p. 85)., though this might be an overabundance of skepticism.

However, Zsolnay’s position might not be entirely unwarranted. She correctly points out lexical lists are not necessarily reliable when it comes to synonyms of technical terms, such as religious titles (The Misconstructed Role…, p. 86). Furthermore, the assinnu seemingly were famous for performing a song titled “Battle is my game, warfare is my game” (mēlilī qablu mēlilī tāḫāzu; presumably purposely a nod to terms often  used to describe Inanna’s warlike characteristics). They also danced the “whirl dance” (gūštu) - which likely also had belligerent connotations, and which quite importantly is the main topic of the poem Agušaya, which entirely focuses on Inanna as a warlike deity (The Misconstructed Role…, p. 93).  Yet more important is the fact that UR.SAL is not the only combination of logograms which could be used to render the term assinnu. The other option, SAG.UR.SAĜ, literally means “foremost hero” - in other words, it does appears to point at some sort of “warlike” or, to be more precise, “heroic” role  (The Misconstructed Role…, p. 85). Zsolnay accordingly concludes that the ordinary role of the assinnu was most likely that of an exaggerated “heroic strongman” performing war dances, and that with time an association between these specialists and festivals associated with the military aspect of Inanna (and similar deities like Annunitum) developed due to obvious similarities (The Misconstructed Role…, p. 98).

Nonetheless, just due to the association with Inanna combined with possibly vaguely gender nonconforming behavior (I will not attempt to evaluate whether it was a staple of their activities or only one of the celebrations they took part with), they came to be described in questionable scholarship as “temple prostitutes” (not an actually attested insitution, though it is evident we are dealing with a multi level conflation of crossdressing, being gay or trans, and sex work based on quotes from previous studies provided) whose very existence simultaneously must have terrified the general populace (The Misconstructed Role…, p. 85). 

I feel obliged to point out in a footnote Zsolnay states that after finishing her article she was informed by a reviewer similar conclusions about assinnu have been independently reached by Julia Assante in Bad Girls and Kinky Boys? The Modern Prostituting of Ishtar, Her Clergy and Her Cults. Sadly, while I am quite sympathetic to the latter author’s valiant struggle against the myth of “sacred prostitution” and related problems, her methodology is much more flawed than Zsolnay’s, and at times it feels like she herself falls into some of the pitfalls she correctly points out in other studies. I also feel obliged to warn you that for reasons uncertain to me, Assante at some point in the 2010s abandoned academic work and became a medium. Therefore, I would engage with her publications cautiously, to put it very lightly.

There’s at least one point Assante raises which warrants further consideration, though (even if she phrases it very differently than I would). She notes it is peculiar that any individuals whose gender might have been perceived as non-normative or ambiguous, or whose gender is unclear, are automatically presumed to be AMAB, and the possibility that women might have been gender non-conforming, or that people whose gender identity might have differed from Mesopotamian norms were AFAB, is not considered seriously. As an example, she points out that a passage according to which an enigmatic cultic official, the pilipili, received a weapon “as if she were male” sparked little, if any discussion (Bad Girls…, p. 36). This is definitely agreeable, and if nothing else a good start for further inquiries, considering no detailed studies of the pilipili alone have been conducted, as far as I am aware.

It might be worth noting that in the satirical Old Babylonian literary text The Old Man and the Young Girl the second of the eponymous character tricks her way into temporarily reversing gender norms through a royal court verdict, which prompts her to encourage other women to “behave like the pilipili” to celebrate her victory (Jana Matuszak, A Complete Reconstruction, New Edition and Interpretation of the Sumerian Morality Tale ‘The Old Man and the Young Girl’, p.192-193). While more evidence would be necessary to make a genuinely strong case, the possibility that the pilipili were women perceived as gender non-conforming does seem compelling to me on this basis - so, I suppose, credit to Assante in that regard, even if her treatment of the matter leaves a bit to be desired. It’s worth noting a similar proposal about the identity of the pilipili has recently been advanced by Sophus Helle based on the same passage Assante cited (Enheduana. The Complete Poems of the World's First Author, p. 158).

On a further related note, as a pure curiosity it’s worth mentioning that a single lexical list, Malku, lists the feminine form of assinnu - assinnatum - who never sparked the sort of discussion her counterpart did. It should be noted that this label is explained in this context as a synonym of ugbabtum, a fairly widespread type of priestesses (attestations are spread virtually everywhere from Terqa to Susa) involved in the cults of various deities (The Misconstructed Role…, p. 86). As far as I am aware, this is an isolated example, so for the time being it’s impossible to determine if assinnatum ever designated a distinct class of performers or cultic personnel or if it was a scribal invention. I’ll refrain from any speculation about whether it might have anything to do with the women who appear alongside assinnu in the Old Babylonian hymn discussed earlier.

To go back to the assinnu themselves one last time, a further thing to note is that sometimes far reaching dubious conclusions are drawn based not even on information pertaining to these performers themselves, but rather the gala and an enigmatic class of cultic officials presumably involved in mourning, the kurgarrû. However, while the latter two occur together quite often in literary texts (recall that the two clay beings in Inanna’s Descent bear the names Kurgarra - an obvious variant of kurgarrû - and Galatura, ie. “little gala”; however, note as well that gala also commonly occur alongside ašipu), there is very little evidence for any actual close association between them and assinnu - they only occur side by side in a single literary text, the lament Uru-Amirabi (The Misconstructed Role…, p. 91).

The gala (Akkadian kalû; not to be confused with galla, either literally a “gendarme” or town guard, or a type of demon fulfilling an analogous role in the underworld) themselves warrant some further discussion, as they are probably the most egregious example of the phenomenon discussed in this section of the article.

The primary role of the gala was performing various types of hymns, prayers and laments in emesal, a dialect of Sumerian (Paul Delnero, How To Do Things With Tears. Ritual Lamenting in Ancient Mesopotamia, p. 41). Through the third and second millennia BCE, gala most commonly occur alongside temple singers (nāru), for reasons which should be self explanatory, while in the first millennium BCE - alongside āšipu, a type of exorcist, which reflected the involvement of both groups in scholarship (Uri Gabbay, The kalû Priest and kalûtu Literature in Assyria, p. 116).

The gender identity of the gala is a subject of much debate. It might have been unique to them (in other words, they were nonbinary, with gala being both a professional designation and gender identity) or alternatively they might have been men who engaged in broadly speaking gender nonconforming behavior (How To Do…, p. 109). I am not going to attempt to convince you one option or the other is more plausible, I personally don’t think the matter will ever be possible to fully settle unless texts written by gala themselves going in depth into how they perceived themselves ever emerge. Obviously, we also have to take into account what exactly being a gala entailed varied between time periods and locations.

The only thing that can be said for sure is that the gala were not regarded as women. This seems to be an entirely online misconception, though one with an enormous reach - a post making similar claims garnered some 40k notes on this site recently. Said post also stated that they underwent “gender affirming surgery”; it needs to be noted that the status of the gala - or any other type of clergy - was in fact not attributed to any medical procedure (and I don’t think Magnus Hirschfeld, who pioneered gender affirming surgery and deserves more credit than he gets for it, lived in Early Dynastic Mesopotamia…). Obviously, this is not a denial of the possibility the gala weren’t cis (to put in in modern terms) - but it seems beyond credulous to both claim their identity depended on a medical procedure alone, and to project a fairly recent accomplishment for which a genuinely heroic maverick should be credited into incredibly distant past. I don’t think we need a trans version of “ancient matriarchy” mirages, personally.

However, ultimately the main misconception about gala is that they were “priests of Inanna” - and various mortifying hot takes emerge specifically from that. Especially online, more or less haphazard attempts are made to prove that, despite the plentiful evidence for what being a gala entailed, their role - and the roles of any even just tangentially related religious personnel - was innately sexual, since it was tied to Inanna (we have such choice tidbits as “males who engage in transgendered or prostitute behavior”, courtesy of Patrick Taylor, The Gala and the Gallos, p. 176; unclear to me how these labels are in any shape or form interchangeable). 

To put it bluntly: it seems like to some the fact the gala might have been, broadly speaking, lgbt (or just gender non-conforming) is in itself something sexual, much like the possibly gender nonconforming performance of the assinnu. 

What differentiates this view of the gala from similar faulty opinions about the assinnu is that I think at least online the intent often isn’t malicious - it is not wrong to hope someone in the past was similar (as I understand, the underlying assumption behind many misguided post is that the gala were trans women). However, sadly the underlying motivation of the authors whose takes end up laundered to teenagers online this way is ultimately an example of the same phenomenon which, in a more extreme form, leads to various suspicious groups calling for removal of the tamest possible literature for teenagers from libraries because a gay or trans character appears.

A further problem is that while the assinnu indeed occur chiefly in association with Inanna, the gala were not innately associated with her (and especially not with her sexual side) - referring to them as “priests of Inanna” is a misconception at best, and outright malevolent at worst (in bad faith cases, the logic follows what Bahrani described pretty closely). They were actually present in the cults of numerous deities, most of whom were paragons of gender conformity and had no sexual aspect to speak of - in other words, whatever the identity of the gala was, it was disconnected from the identity of the deity they performed for. Every single major temple dedicated to a city deity had a “chief gala” among its staff. Such an official oversaw the activities of other gala employed by it, but also took part in day to day economic activities of the temple, like managing prebends (How To Do…, p. 110). To go through all of the available evidence would take too much space, so I will only list a handful of particularly notable examples.

There was a “chief gala” among the staff of Ninurta’s main temple Eshumesha in Nippur, as attested in a list of provisions where this official appears next to a “chief singer” (Wolfgang Heimpel, Balang Gods, p. 583). In Old Babylonian Kish another “chief gala” was the second most important religious official in service of Zababa, with only the temple administrator ranking higher (Walther Sallaberger, Zababa, p. 165). A further “chief gala” resided in the temple of Sin in Harran, as attested in sources from the Neo-Assyrian period; the holders of this office were tasked with sending astronomical reports to the kings of Assyria (Steven W. Holloway, Aššur is king! Aššur is king! Religion in the exercise of power in the Neo-Assyrian Empire, p. 409). A “chief gala”, as well as a number of regular gala, were also part of the staff of the temple of Nanshe in NINA (reading uncertain; Tell Zurghul) in the Early Dynastic state of Lagash (Gebhard J. Selz, Untersuchungen zur Götterwelt des altsumerischen Stadtstaates von Lagaš, p. 205-206).

It’s important to note that the arts of the gala and the knowledge transferred among members of this profession - kalûtu - were associated with Ea, not with Inanna; the closest parallel are, once again, the arts of the āšipu (The kalû Priest…, p. 116). However, it would be disingenuous to call them “clergy of Ea” - I’m just highlighting they had no specific connection with Inanna. Stressing the lack of any unique degree of connection between her and the gala is not supposed to be an argument against inquiries into their gender identity, either - though I do advise to be cautious which authors are consulted. 

Maternal obsessions: do deities even follow gender roles?

While I dedicated a lot of space to warnings about questionable motivation behind some arguments pertaining to the gender of Inanna and especially clergy with varying degrees of association with her, it needs to be stressed that there’s a need to be cautious about the exact opposite attitudes too sometimes. While skepticism is generally a virtue in scholarship, it is hard to deny that some of the opposition to inquiries into Inanna’s gender and related matters also has highly questionable motivations behind it. 

For instance, my reservations towards Julia Assante’s article discussed earlier come from the fact that at least some of her criticism is rooted not in valid reasoning, but in what appears to be a degree of homophobia -  for instance, part of her opposition to interpreting cultic officials like the assinnu or gala as gay men (for which the evidence is indeed hardly sufficient - we have evidence for crossdressing in one case, and for either gender nonconformity or a unique gender identity in the other) stems from her conviction that this is an example of “abnormal male sexuality” (Bad Girls…, p. 37). 

Interestingly this is a selective case of homophobia, though, since she simultaneously voices a perfectly valid complaint that earlier scholarship has “not allowed discussion on lesbianism other than to dismiss it” (p. 36; it needs to be noted that in contrast with gay men, direct evidence for lesbians is lacking altogether in cuneiform - see Sexuality A…,  p. 414 for reference to a MLM love incantation and absence of a WLW equivalent - but you’d at least expect some serious inquiry into Ninshubur’s portrayal in literary texts by now). Some examples are even more blunt. For instance, Wolfhang Heimpel, after concluding that references to “bearded” Inanna reflect the perception of the planet Venus as opposed to the deity (which is not too dissimilar from the interpretation I highlighted as plausible earlier) reassures the reader that Inanna was therefore not an “androgynous monster” (A Catalog of Near Eastern Venus Deities, p. 15) - I am somewhat puzzled what exactly would be “monstrous” about facial hair. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that in contrast with the newer study of the same passages which I discussed in detail and have no objections to, it’s not the weakness of the evidence that bothers the author, but the slightest possibility of androgyny.

Not everyone is so direct, though. There are also more insidious cases - and these invariably focus on Inanna herself, as opposed to any religious officials. What I’m talking about are sources which refer to Inanna as a “mother” or “fertility” goddess or some nondescript “divine feminine” entity entirely detached from historical context. As a result Inanna is essentially forced into an incredibly rigid feminine role she never actually fulfilled. I won’t dwell upon the abstract maternal obsession itself much here. I already wrote a separate article a few years ago about its impact, exemplified by the recent portrayal of Inanna as a grotesque pregnancy monster in a certain videogame (this is not an exaggeration) and I think that was enough. It will suffice to say that these visions belong not in Mesopotamia at the dawn of recorded history, but rather in the most feverish depths of Victorian imagination (I won’t explore this topic here; Cynthia Eller’s publications are a good start if you are interested, though). Interestingly, simultaneously sources of this sort basically never investigate Mesopotamian texts which actually focus on motherhood - which is a shame, because compositions such as Ninisina A are filled with genuine warmth. However, they don’t deal with some sort of overwhelming Frazerian ur-mother reduced to bare biological essentials.

To go back to the main topic of this section, the  true crown jewel of the discussed subgenre of Inanna literature has to be this paragraph courtesy of Tzvi Abusch (Ishtar in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, p. 453):

One is tempted to ask why Abusch argues Inanna is “incomplete” or exhibits “psychic wounds” due to her character not revolving around being a wife or mother. How about her roles as a war deity, love deity, personified astral body or representation of political interest of one city or another? Roles which are, quite obviously, fully realized? As a war deity, she was believed to assist kings, deprive their enemies of the ability to fight, and to confront various supernatural adversaries like rebellious mountains; as a love deity, she was invoked through love incantations and acted as the archetypal lover in erotic poetry; as Venus, she shone in the sky. 

Should we also question why, for example Tishpak’s roles as a husband and father are not fully realized considering he primarily plays the role of a warrior and divine sovereign of Eshnunna (the human ruler was merely acting as a governor on his behalf, a fairly unique situation otherwise only attested for two other gods)? Very few male gods actually match the image of masculinity presented in Instruction of Shuruppak as an ideal to strive for - just as very few goddesses fit the image of the ideal wife preserved in proverbs.

This is not the first time this comes up in this article, but while the world of gods, and the character of its individual inhabitants, obviously arose in specific historical context, it was not a perfect mirror of the world of humans and its mores  (Do Divine Structures …, p. 105-106). Ilona Zsolnay outright argues that even if some (but not all) of the Mesopotamian deities were at least in part characterized based on normative patterns of behavior tied to them - there are, after all, deities defined at least to a degree by, for example, fatherhood (like Enlil) or marital status (like Aya) - ultimately they were not bound by the same gender norms as humans. Furthermore, religious and political factors, as well as natural phenomena deities could be linked with, influenced their character considerably more (Do Divine Structures …, p. 116).

Granted, it should be noted that Abush is basically writing about an Inanna he made up. As you’ve seen earlier, the first attestations of Inanna already sound fairly similar to her most famous portrayals from later periods. However, he instead argues that the original Inanna lost to time was one of “primitive earth of mother goddesses” and that from the fourth millennium BCE onwards (coincidentally when the first actual attestations of Inanna emerge thanks to the advent of writing) Mesopotamians simply couldn’t grasp her true character (Ishtar, p. 454). The need to portray Inanna as she actually was imagined as some sort of aberration, coupled with a desire to uncover an “original” version which just so happens to conform to an incredibly rigid vision of femininity is quite something. Rarely do you see someone basically recreating the Madonna-whore complex so literally.

Absent parents, ever present children

While as I said I won’t engage in depth with the peculiar obsession with making Inanna into a maternal figure evident in Abusch’s treatment of her, I do feel obliged to cover a related phenomenon: the obsessive focus on the quite rare cases where some minor deities are identified as her children. This is a particularly big problem online, though vintage scholarship and publications aimed at general audiences (even very recent ones) are equally, if not more, guilty of it. 

The nominal assignment of largely irrelevant deities as children to Inanna was ultimately inconsequential, and in particular it had nothing to do with her erotic role - or with Dumuzi, for that matter, as he is never identified as their father (Inanna and Ishtar…, p. 339). Pregnancy, childbirth and maternity are not topics dealt with in compositions focused on the two of them (Gendered Sexuality…, p. 95). 

Only three deities have ever been described as Inanna’s children in primary sources: Shara, Lulal and Nanaya. In every single case caveats apply.

Shara’s connection to Inanna was geographically limited. It wasn’t a pan-Mesopotamian convention to regard them as related, but rather a local tradition restricted to Zabalam (Goddesses in Context…, p. 202). Julia M. Asher-Greve suggests that it might have originally been little more than a way to give Inanna access to the epithet ama, literally “mother” (but metaphorically, as a divine epithet, something like “venerable woman”; Jeremy Black, Songs of the Goddess Aruru, p. 48), which was however primarily used not to indicate motherhood but rather a position of authority in the pantheon (Goddesses in Context…, p. 140).

It’s also important to note that Inanna of Zabalam didn’t really start as (an) Inanna, since the earliest literary text she appears in, the Early Dynastic Zame Hymns from Abu Salabikh, refers to her with the enigmatic name Nin-UM. Joan Goodnick Westenholz assumed that Nin-UM was the original name of the goddess of Zabalam, with the name Inanna (and many of Inanna’s traits) effectively imposed upon her due to the theological and political influence of nearby Uruk (Goddesses in Context…, p. 42-43). Whether this was the case or not, the two are treated as functionally separate deities in god lists (Goddesses in Context…, p. 79-80). 

While this is far from certain, Douglas Frayne proposed that this phenomenon might also be the motif of conflict between Inanna and Gilgamesh, first attested in the standalone poem Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven from the Ur III period, and fully developed in the considerably later standard edition of the Epic of Gilgamesh (which might reflect what Paul-Alain Beaulieu described as “anti-Ištar sentiment”; The Pantheon..., p. 108). He assumes that it reflected hostilities between Uruk and Zabalam, with the antagonist actually being Inanna of Zabalam and not Inanna of Uruk (The Struggle for Hegemony in "Early Dynastic II" Sumer, p. 63-64). In any case, the connection with Shara cannot be taken out of context and applied where it is not explicitly mentioned.

The other most frequently cited case, that of Lulal, is even weaker than Shara’s. He is addressed as Inanna’s son exactly once, in a fragmentary hymn published in the 1960s (Anna Glen, Jeremiah Peterson, The Lulal širgida Composition CBS 12590 (HAV 5, pl. 7, VIII), p. 169) - so he has an equally firm claim to being her son as the personified Styx has to being Persephone’s mother. In Inanna’s Descent, the composition most often “enriched” today with forcible assertions of familial bonds between Inanna and miscellaneous side characters, the connection between them is merely “close, but unspecified” (Wilfred G. Lambert, Lulal/Lātarāk, p. 163). Anna Glen and Jeremiah Peterson assume he is an attendant, not a family member, and point out elsewhere (Inanna D, line 32) he is portrayed only as a minor warrior god acting on her behalf (The Lulal širgida…, p. 169). An annotated edition of the Weidner god list equates Lulal with Sin (Klaus Wagensonner, CCP 6.7.A - Weidner’s God List A) which, as it will become clear very soon, creates some issues for claims of widespread acceptance of his status as Inanna’s son.

The third deity sporadically addressed as Inanna’s child was Nanaya. In contrast with both Shara and Lulal, she was actually a major figure in her own right, and her connection with Inanna is attested in various cities and time periods. Ironically enough I don’t think I’ve ever seen her described as her daughter online, though. I suspect the explanation is fairly straightforward: she doesn’t appear in the “canon” of shoddy vintage translations of a small handful of texts on which the online image of Inanna often seems to be built.

However, the fact Nanaya had a firm connection to Inanna doesn’t mean undue importance should be assigned to the cases where they are presented specifically as mother and daughter. Only three sources actually refer to them this way: an inscription of king Lipit-Ishtar, a first millennium recension of an older balag song, and a unique oath formula. Olga Drewnowska-Rymarz assumes the relation described in them might very well be metaphorical (Mesopotamian Goddess Nanāja, p. 30).It would not be hard to find parallels proving this is a distinct possibility: Ninshubur was demonstrably not Inanna’s mother, and yet she addresses her as such as a sign of respect in at least one composition. Ninshubur herself has no known parentage, and yet refers to every high ranking god as “father” in Inanna’s Descent. The examples of using terms of kinship as an indication of respect or closeness are numerous.

Furthermore, multiple genealogies could be assigned to Nanaya. In laments, she is consistently the daughter of Urash, the tutelary god of Dilbat, for instance (Mesopotamian Goddess Nanāja, p. 31). Obviously, the fact that Nanaya could also be at least partially identified with Inanna (though this is a late phenomenon; Goddesses in Context…, p. 131) poses some problems for viewing them as child and parent. In most cases it’s probably best to agree with the description of the relationship between the two as “definite, but unspecified” (Joan Goodnick Westenholz, Nanaya: Lady of Mystery, p. 68). 

On a side note which is not directly related to the main topic of this article, it is quite peculiar that preoccupation with Inanna existing as a part of a family never seems to extend to highlighting her connection with her parents. Ironically, the family connections people downplay online are the ones which actually mattered the most theologically.

The tradition making Nanna (Sin) and Ningal Inanna’s parents was by far the most widespread one, and it is reflected in various genres of texts across history (Aino Hätinen, The Moon God Sin in Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Times, p. 309-310; Goddesses in Context…, p. 230; The Pantheon…, p. 111; even Abusch’s Ishtar, p. 452). References to this connection are frequent in literary texts, even ones which don’t focus on Inanna, let alone on her family ties. For instance, Ka Hulu-a, which isn’t even a composition dealing with deities on the most part, casually refers to Inanna as “wise daughter of Sin” (dumu galzu Suenna; Jana Matuszak, Don’t Insult Inana! Divine Retribution for Offense against Common Decency in the Light of New Textual Sources, p. 361). 

The connection between Inanna and her parents was so strong it could be transferred to other deities by proxy. Both Shaushka (Marie-Claude Trémouille, Šauška, Šawuška A. Philologisch, p. 102) and Pinikir (The Goddess Pirinkir…, p. 27) - not to mention an entire host of major and minor Mesopotamian goddesses, ranging from Annunitum (The Moon God…, p. 313), though Belet-ekallim (Ištar in Ḫatti…, p. 160) to Nanaya (The Moon God…, p. 312) - could be addressed as the moon god’s offspring (or, at the very least, as the offspring of a moon god since at least in Shaushka’s case the name is in all due likeness used as a logogram).

Perhaps even more importantly, the connection between Inanna and her father was also responsible for her well attested association with the number 15, best reflected in the use of this numeral to represent her name from the Old Babylonian period onwards. Since Sin’s number was 30 (a reflection of the number of days in the lunar month), a half of that was deemed a suitable number to represent his daughter by ancient theologians (Wolfgang Röllig, Götterzahlen, p. 499).

Conclusions

I was initially reluctant to cover the topic of the gender of Inanna and related deities in depth, I’m frankly not sure why. It is not my intent to boast, but much of my online activity has consistently revolved around assyriology since 2020 (technically it has been my interest for much longer, but my methodology required refining). I wrote 200+ wiki articles about Mesopotamian deities, including multiple which specifically required dealing with the matter of gender; in contrast with the overwhelming majority of hobbyists I keep up with academic publications.

To go back to the question which originally inspired this article, I don’t think it’s possible to give a straightforward answer. I’d say at least some of the current mainstream Assyriological scholarship (by which I mean roughly from the mid to late 1980s to now) offers a fairly accurate evaluation of what can be said about Inanna’s gender, and about the gender of related figures - Ninsianna, Shaushka, Pinikir etc.; I hope spotlighting sources which can be described this way through the article makes this clear enough. Some specific details are definitely overemphasized (the eerie quest for a beard is the prime example but I’d be lying if I said Wiggermann’s puzzling views on femdom didn’t make me laugh). What is definitely overestimated is to what degree the supposed ambiguity of Inanna’s gender was tied to her sexual aspects. The general lack of any such characteristics among deities even more firmly associated with sexuality than Inanna was - I highlighted it in the case of Nanaya, but it holds equally (if not more) true for Ishara, Gazbaba, Kanisurra, Bizilla, the list goes on - also doesn’t seem to ever be highlighted. While obviously each of them was a deity with own unique character and not just a carbon copy of Inanna (for example, Ishara was associated with weddings in a capacity no other love goddess was, while Nanaya persistently appears in texts dealing with unrequited love or rejection), convergence of traits was a fairly common phenomenon in Mesopotamian religion. For example, numerous couples consisting of a medicine goddess and a war god emerged over the course of the late third and second millennia BCE - so surely it would eventually reemerge in one of these cases?

A further problem is of course the questionable scholarship based on these misconceptions which focuses less on Inanna herself and more on clergy associated with her, or even just vaguely adjacent to her. While a lot has changed since the early 2000s, let alone the 1980s, it is still arguably a major weakness of assyriology as a discipline that often gender, sexual orientation and presentation are often treated as entirely overlapping phenomena. There are numerous authors who write about relevant matters thoughtfully, but this is hardly the rule; especially when assyriology intersects with Bible studies or classics, the problem remains strong (meanwhile, in depth studies of, say, transmission of laments will often be quite cautious; it’s also not as easy as just blaming the age of some researchers and calling it a day).

However, there are also matters related to the gender of Inanna and related deities which definitely receive too little attention. To which degree what we know about Ninsianna can be applied to Inanna? Why the planet Mercury, despite also being regarded as switching between two genders, seemingly never came to be personified the same way as Venus? Why Shaushka and especially Pinikir appear in firmly masculine attire, while Inanna basically never does? All of these questions require further in depth inquiries. Much as I can’t give an unambiguous response to the initial question, I honestly don’t think it’s possible to give a straightforward answer on the matter of Inanna’s gender in the first place. Obviously, it’s impossible to disagree that fundamentally she was primarily a feminine figure. However, it’s also important to remember she essentially took a masculine role in the military context. I still stand by my joke chart from a few months ago:

While as I demonstrated things get much more murky when it comes to outright ambiguity or fluidity of gender, I would not rule it out entirely either, at least in an astral context - though I also doubt it’s fair to speak of anything directly comparable to the cases of Ninsianna, Pinikir or Shaushka. 

Perhaps in the end we have to simply accept how Inanna’s character is summarized in an Old Babylonian composition I brought up much earlier:

[littlexdeaths]

eddie munson x fem reader

warnings: mostly fluff but all my works are 18+, established relationship, fear of flying, a very dramatic nose bleed and eddie being an adorable but horny mf

a/n: i recently started rewatching supernatural again, and in doing so i came to the conclusion that dean and eddie are very similar. so this is a little something that’s loosely based off a scene in season 1, episode 4: phantom traveler. enjoy xx.

“are you seriously humming enter sandman right now?” you ask, amusement creeping into your voice as you glance over beside you.

only to see your boyfriend. with his cheeks flushed, leg bouncing erratically and ringed fingers gripping tightly onto the armrest nestled between you.

when you originally brought up the idea to book a flight to visit your folks for the holidays, instead of making the almost 10 hour trek to good ole’ minnesota, eddie had seemed all for it.

he encouraged it actually.

making some joke about how his “decrepit, aching twenty-six year old body” couldn’t handle another 10 hour drive.

however, the closer the trip loomed, the more reluctant eddie became. and he tried every which way to get you to cancel the flight and make the dreaded drive instead. but that was an argument he wasn’t going to win.

it wasn’t until the plane began to ascend into the air that the reason for his sudden reluctance became blatantly obvious.

eddie munson was scared, no scratch that—petrified of flying.

and try as you may, you just found that new tidbit to be even more endearing.

eddie gives you a sideways glare as you attempt to hide your grin. and really it shouldn’t be this funny. but maybe your lack of sleep from the early morning drive to the airport is finally beginning to weigh on you and soon the delirious giggles will start to kick in.

“yes, it calms me,” he huffs, gaze tearing away from you to glance out the small window of the plane.

“well you don’t look very calm to me.”

you rest a hand on his bouncing knee, just as another round of turbulence rocks through the cabin. and your amusement quickly delves into concern as he grips your arm to pull you closer into his side.

“okay—that cannot be normal!” he nearly whines, leaning his head back against the seat.

“baby, it’s just a little turbulence. you know you’re more likely to die in a car accident than on an airplane, right?”

while he appreciates your attempt to ease his mind a bit, it’s seriously not working.

“nice try, but i’ve seen final destination, sweetheart. i know how this shit ends.”

and you can’t help but roll your eyes at his dramatics.

soon his humming starts back up, becoming a lot louder. and earning him a solid kick in the back from the teenager seated in the row behind you. the kick seems to be perfectly timed however. as the force of it and another jostle of the plane has his body flying forward, his nose smashing directly into the seat in front of him.

his pained groan has your temper flaring, ready to whip your head around and give that shit head kid a piece of your mind. but you freeze when you notice the way he’s cradling his nose. your gaze following the drops of crimson that have dribbled down his chin and onto his shirt.

“shit, eddie you’re bleeding.”

he makes a noise in confirmation, but before he can utter some sarcastic remark you have unbuckled both of your seatbelts and hauled him to his feet.

the flashing seatbelt sign be damned.

a flight attendant tries to stop you on your way down the aisle toward the bathroom, but you’re having none of it.

“miss, you both need to return to your—”

and if looks could kill, this whole plane would come crashing down.

“either you let me through so i can help clean him up, or he makes a mess of your aircraft. your choice.”

while you can tell she wants to argue, seeing the blood beginning to seep through the space between his fingers has her moving aside to let you pass.

“christ, sweetheart.” eddie groans when you carefully shove him inside the small bathroom and squeeze in behind him.

“sit, now.” you order.

he does as instructed, spreading his legs so you can slip in between them. you grab a wad of the practically sheer toilet paper, running a corner of it beneath the stream of water.

“keep the bridge of your nose pinched, it’ll help stop the bleeding.”

and when you turn back toward him, your brows pull together in confusion. his lips are stretched in a toothy grin, any trace of his anxiety now forgotten.

at least for the moment.

you begin to gently dab at the drying blood on his upper lip, thankful that most of the gushing had ceased for the time being. and eddie winces slightly once you start to clean around his nose.

“why are you looking at me like that?” you ask, having felt his burning gaze from the moment he sat down.

“you’re just…” he trails off, slipping his fingers through the loop of your jeans to tug you closer—if that were even possible. “really fuckin’ sexy when you’re bossy.”

and a subtle glance down has you huffing out a laugh of disbelief.

“eddie, do you seriously have a boner right now?”

and he just grins wider.

“guilty as charged.”

[taiey]

a minor analysis of Manepear's manipulation (mane-ipulation)

A few thoughts to frame the discussion: Clownpierce has the mace; Clownpierce has not yet died. Clownpierce doesn't log on very often, and of everyone on the server Clownpierce is closest to Kaboodle.

With that in mind... 1hr 13min into 'A New Leaf..?', after a lot of open honest conversation about the war, morality, honour and Mane's potential as an interior decorator, Kaboodle brings up her constancy towards Clownpierce and Manepear starts telling her she should put herself first, because Clown doesn't.

He starts with the basic, obvious facts: Clown doesn't log on very often, he's never attacked Mane for her, he's never sacrificed himself for her like she has for him. Even... Woogie..? backs him up on all that.

Then she starts bringing up counter-examples and he pushes back, with subtle mis-framings like "it would have been easy for him to say I searched for Mapic on purpose so that I could get back for you" when, like, I saw that video and I bet you did too, he said that to Mapicc, and not to Kaboodle. Or brushing off that time he did fight Mane's team as if there's "10 people he knows he's not going to get targeted and if he gets a kill on Main and Flame that would be huge for him", when, uh, it's not that Mane has specific knowledge that the other group chat was considering jumping Clown for the mace earlier in the day, but I do feel that dynamic is sufficiently common knowledge.

I've actually had this thought before because I thought that he was, I was, I was confident that he was betraying me cuz I was thinking like "why would Clownpierce betray and and use everybody except for me? how does that make any sense? why would I be the only one?" and it doesn't make sense like nothing would make me special

Drawing parallels digs into her fears without him directly saying she's not special so as to elicit sympathy and not offense. (and pay no attention to the dissimilarities in their relationships to clown)

I think it was easy for him to defend you from Subz because he knows that he can kill Subz but if it was me in that situation I'm not so sure if he would he would have done the same thing

(y'know i didn't actually notice at the time that uh that's a very different line than his Subz Glazing to Zam&Mapicc)

Mane: did he leave my alliance or did I force him out? Kab: you did force him out Mane: he didn't have a choice not to choose you Kab: yeah that's a horrible... Mane: [crosstalk] he could have at least shot me a DM—wait! Oh my gosh! I just remembered

Things I did not notice on first listen: sorry, when could he have shot you a DM? When you turned on him?? No, no, that segue makes no sense. Mane absolutely did not "just remember". DMs only came into this because he wanted a segue into: his climactic reveal.

When I was looking for your base, I told him about my, my plan to find you using dogs, and he was telling me how to do it more efficiently.

So. Let's look at [the screenshots that i copied off someone else o7]

The first thing that stood out to me, as I was watching the stream, was this: Mane says "he was telling me how to do it more efficiently", and then he lets Kab stew in that for a bit, and then he sends her these screenshots. The framing is set up. But there is not one line in there that is Clown giving Mane advice on how to track her.

The nearest he gets to advice is "she knows when you do tho". Mane glosses that to Kab as "he was telling me exactly what not to do as well", but listen: look at it. The closest he gets to advice is: maybe don't track her. Maybe you shouldn't even try.

Mane asked "what should I say", he relates it like it's another example of advice, which looks like it could lead to advice, and then the screenshot cuts off. And... it's shorter than the first one. We know for an absolute fact that the height is not limited by, say, the height of the screen. It cuts off there because whatever comes after that does not back up the narrative Mane's selling her.

Laughing about her, saying she's scared: it's emotionally affecting, but it's not actionable information. It does not help Mane find Kab. All it does is give the feeling that Clown is on Mane's side.

After exiting the conversation Kaboodle grieves to chat about it; she starts off thinking of it as"actively telling Mane how to find me is, is..." but a few minutes later she's caught on to "if you look at the messages he's not actively selling me out"; she has prior history of coming back the next day going hang on...

Very interested to see how far she gets with it. That thing with the dogs was streamed live; I watched it. The memory of it tickled at my brain, so after today's ended I tracked it down, and found:

Clownpierce: Did he find the manepears? What? Kaboodle: So all the manepears teleported to me when they hit, when he hit them. Clown: [AWKWARD LAUGHTER] Kab, fearless: I'm thousands of blocks away, I'm really far away. Clownpierce: Maybe they... they sometimes do move in the direction they teleport to, maybe he knows the location. Maybe - maybe move around.

Clownpierce was DMing Manepear saying "ok good idea"—and then, on a call with Kaboodle, telling her Mane's tactic and what to do about it.

:)

(He doesn't maximally betray Mane, he doesn't tell her he knows Mane's doing that or tell her before it starts happening; there's a degree of trying to stay on both sides. But he isn't neutral, and he is ultimately, materially, on Kab's side.)

I, like Kaboodle, saw Manepear's "removing all netherite" video and really enjoyed it (the twists genuinely surprised me) but there was this doubt where—videos and not streams usually feel this way to me—I wasn't sure whether, to convince the server that he wasn't the guy on his friend's account, he had to actually convince them. I just knew that was a kind of story he wanted to tell, and hoped he'd try it on Lifesteal.

Now, though, I believe it. I've seen maybe two other fandom people even doubting this. I believe he did because I see he can. And oh my goodness I love it.

[vatelixx]

In the crooks of your body (I find religion),

mid-seasons Spencer Reid x afab!reader

SMUT!! (and fluff, lots of fluff. no angst this time, mostly for damage control) ─── soft love & early mornings. idk it’s just domestic bliss for a change.

Warnings: light d/s dynamic (sub spencer, im predictable), low-key praise for both parties, pre-established relationship, they’re soooo in love, they’re also domesticated, morning sex (but there’s no penetration, just oral), they’re both nerds, their pillow talk is science, autistic spencer always (it’s canon to me) greek mythology references, probably the nicest thing i’ll ever write.

w.c: 3k

a/n: post-prison (as requested by many) is still being worked on. it makes me sick. i wrote this to improve my mental health. i’d apologise for being inactive recently but it was necessary, ohmygodihavesomuchcoursework.

──────────────

Saturdays are for this. Waking up to no obligations, work tossed aside, Spencer’s state of impending doom reduces to something distant, untouchable. Barely dawn, there’s a level of domesticity to the art of sleeping together.

Sure, he could go on tangents, disbelieving that he’s allowed to attain this. But it’s futile, he’s long grown tired of exhausting the how to your dynamic, the statistic improbabilities, he always thought you would be reserved to his fantasies. Pandora’s box, a hypothetical kept under lock and key.

But no— he’s willing to accept that, on this one off occasion, he’s made an error in his calculations. An illogical anomaly.

Draped in the mantle of sleep, he feels the soft push of cotton sheets first, then the warm-blooded body curved around him. There isn’t traces of a case lingering at the forefront of his mind when he shifts, drawing himself closer, almost subconsciously, by guided instinct.

Touch. Touch, a natural, biological need. Something Spencer has always shied away from, finding nothing but hurt at the double-edged sword of intimacy. It’s not like he has much experience to base this on. And yet, right now, he’s not thinking factually, from a logical standpoint. Because, okay, there’s comfort in knowing the person that touches you is in fact supposed to touch you.

His hands find your body, his movements still slow and weary, thumb brushing the edge of your vertebrae, the divot just below your shoulder blade.

Spencer is many things. He’s obsessive, incessant, obstinate on occasion. Difficult, to put it bluntly. But despite all that, despite his complications, he’s here, touching, trusting, because for the first time in his life, it feels good.

“Moonless earth theory,” he says, moving to accommodate when you decide to lie on your side. Face to face, in hazy, dimmed light. He stares. “Okay, Abian, Alexander Abian, claimed that blowing up the moon would solve every problem in existence.”

Selfishly, unabashed, he slips his hand beneath your top to trace halos across your skin. “It’s so dumb. If that happened, tides would decrease. And, and, the moon's presence has a partial correcting effect on any instabilaties that arise in a non-homogenous, non-symmetrical—“ he sighs, presses his lips together for a moment, “Basically, the earth would wobble. Which… uh, isn’t very good?”

You’re still half-asleep, dreary to his random information. It takes a moment for your brain to settle, to comprehend what he’s saying, and then another, longer moment, to respond.

“Mhm. Days would be shorter,” you respond before laughing. “This is what you think about when you’ve just woken up? I’m basically a walking lobotomy until at least 10AM. And that’s providing I have a shower, feed my caffeine dependency, et cetera et cetera.”

You look at him, observe the sight: tousled hair, swollen lips half-parted, dilated, heavy-lidded eyes that stare back back back.

“I think about a lot of things in the morning,” he mutters, “A lot of things in general.”

When he leans in to kiss you, it’s languid, slow, he’s still in stasis, a state of suspended animation. Tenderly, as if the contact could break, he parts your lips with his own, his breath warm against your mouth, slow, like he wants your touch burnt into him.

Inevitably, your tongue slides against his, and he moans. Hot. It’s so slow, slow enough that time feels warped, nonexistent, like the universe has just stopped without warning.

He feels you shifting, the movement subtle, legs intertwining, hips flush. Good. So good. His lips break away, only to find their way across a cheek, along the column of your throat, further, over the curve of your collarbone.

He’s pressing kisses anywhere his body allows, touch lingering against your skin, tracing invisible imprints. “Sometimes, well.. um, most of the time, I think about you.”

He laughs, shifting to press his forehead against yours. “It’s a huge interference on my routine. And yeah, there’s also the facts, and the statistics. But then my mind will betray me, and i’ll just think about how you might respond, if I told you them.”

This information isn’t exactly new; you’ve woken up to random, impromptu messages regarding space, earth, philosophy, facts that you can never quite place at such an early hour. Then, there’s the phone calls, the dumb, domestic phone calls, ringing you just to over-explain some new hypothesis he’s studying.

Starry-eyed ambition. Sometimes it hurts to think that the job, the BAU, the nature of the cases, will inevitably warp his softness.

You cup his face, palm pressed against cheek, watching as he melts, molten gold, into the contact. “Yknow, I’d really like to study you in a lab.”

“Mm,” he hums, a sound that translates to please don’t put me in a lab.

His hand wraps around your wrist, preserving the contact, holding onto it like there’s a possibility, an actual chance, fact and figure, that he could lose it.

“I’d just be your lab rat? And they say romance is dead,” he scoffs, “You would commit so much medical malpractice.”

“Pft, medical malpractice. That’s made up,” you silence his protests before they can leave his lips. “I think it would be fun to preform experiments on you. Though, i’m not sure I should be trusted with a scalpel. A law probably needs to be put in place. Yknow, for the safety of the people.”

“Ah, ha.” he’s quick to respond, “It’s the scalpel you’re worried about? You’re forgetting the needle, the drugs, the restraints? You cannot be trusted, you’re a danger to society,”

Spencer pouts, features creased. “And your idea of a fun Saturday morning is committing violent acts against your oh so innocent boyfriend. I see, I see where your priorities lie.”

You grin, press a light kiss to his cheek. It’s soft, tentative contact, and yet he still shivers. No dignity. “Sorry, sorry. What was that last part of your sentence? I zoned out after you said restraints.”

“Right. That’s uh, well. That wasn’t the point I was… trying… to make?”

“Yeah, yeah. Medical malpractice. Evil girlfriend. I get it. You’ve made your point. I am very very ashamed of my hypothetical actions.” you say, hooking your leg around his waist, drawing him onto his back. Spine meeting mattress, your body on top now, straddling him.

You hike up his sweater, running your hand across his torso. There’s something obscene to the way he blushes, draping an arm over his face, as if your movements physically pain him.

“Stop acting coy. I’ve seen you in this position before. Worse ones, if we’re going to be honest here—“

“Hey, hey, hey— I’m not acting coy!" he protests, unconvincingly. He’s breathless, attempting to hide the way his body reacts. As if the slight friction warranted from the movement doesn’t grant him fleeting bliss.

The contact is intense, fervent, your body flush with his. “We really really don’t need to talk about the other occasions.” his eyes shut, head falling back against sheets, lips parted, hands gripping the skin of your hips.

“You’re uh, you’re really unfair,” he mumbles, “And beautiful. I should tell you that more often.”

“You tell me every day.”

Moving off his lap, he’s accommodating as you help to untangle clothes from his body, raising his hips when needed, lifting his arms when necessary. Your touch has him compliant, obedient, eager to fall pliant, beneath you. The sight, god: slender, pale skin, faint blemishes staining his thighs from previous nights, matching with the few that adorn his neck.

“I don’t say it enough, then.”

You laugh, “Oh, you’re such a sap.”

It’s a process: getting Spencer to sit up. Because he doesn’t seem to comprehend your intentions, to realise what you’re trying to imply here. Still, when he’s finally perched on the edge of the bed, you rise, shifting to stand between his legs, to look down at the picture of him, bare, undone, so pretty just for you.

He stares up, eyes wide like marbles. “Hi.”

You card your hand through his hair, strands falling between crevices in your fingers. It’s soft, the movement, the gesture, you’re not sinking down to the root yet. “Hi.”

Your name falls from his lips. And yeah, there’s something reverent to the way he says it, the pained whisper. Something that dissolves into a messy, unrefined whimper when you sink to your knees.

“Oh, god. I—,” he swallows, his voice rough. “I, I love you so much.”

There’s this repeated question on your mind, the same one that loops into existence every time you’re in a compromising position: how loud is Spencer going to be today? Because, objectively, he’s loud. It demeans, ruins the chances of abrupt, clandestine touches in semi-public places. In sneaking around. Even when you’ve got your palm against his mouth, he somehow manages to combat, to prevail the suffocation.

Your lips press soft kisses along his thigh, touching those marks now, the ones you must’ve left last night. No? Maybe yesterday afternoon? It’s hard to keep track. “I love you.”

He melts.

“Such a pretty cock. All for me, hm?” jesus christ. You’ve always been so blunt, outward, inherently shameless. Spencer thinks he might die, divine madness. Theia mania.

When you drag your tongue along the length of his cock, there’s a current, sharp, sending his hips bucking. They arch forward, into you, into the contact. Sight shuttered by swollen eyes, he thinks about regulating his breathing, inhale, exhale, the concept falls on deaf ears.

“All yours,” he whimpers, “Yes. Only,.. only you. Always.”

It feels like devotion. The way he confirms vocally, the way you sink down, take him deep into your mouth. His head spills backwards, baring his neck, indiscernible noises bleeding through the open air, sunlight touching his skin, highlighting his intemperate demeanour in diluted canary.

He’ll apologise to the neighbours later.

Shaky, fumbling hands reach out to brush loose strands of hair from your face, to grip, the pads of his fingers meeting your scalp. He would never push, he just needs something firm, solid, tangible to hold onto.

And when you hum around him, just to mess with him, just to hear those sounds, to draw those pleasure-soaked, beautiful noises out of his mouth—

“Oh, oh oh— that’s, yeah. Mhm, yeah. Just… ruin me.” he’d probably thankyou after. Because he’s polite.

You draw back from the contact to catch your breath. Lips stained, now bruising, emitting soft little gasps. There’s tears gathering in the corner of your eyes, reducing your vision to a distorted haze. Blurry traces of reality that all seem so inconsequential now, now that you’re here.

“I love the way you sound for me, Spence. So pretty.”

“Well,” he huffs out a breath, “I’m uh, being taken care of… very well.”

You lean forward to press a kiss against his tip, as if that’s the most innocent, innocuous gesture imaginable. “You deserve it.” your nails run across his thigh, leaving faint white lines in their path. “Exploding that genius brain of yours yet?”

“That shattered the moment you got down on your knees. Maybe, um… okay, possibly earlier.”

“Earlier?”

“Way earlier..”

He whimpers when you drag your tongue across his tip. There’s a plethora of please please please he shamelessly emits, only somewhat satiated when your lips are wrapped around his cock, when you’re demolishing his sanity, and everything else in the process.

He doesn’t even realise how lewd he is, most of the time. It’s not like he’s making a deliberate effort, he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to attain that skill anyway. It’s just… him, raw and unbridled, so delirious from pleasure.

His eyes, dilated, gone, are half-lidded, watching you through thick curls of messy hair, damp with sweat and morning light.

“I’m trying, I’m trying so hard,” he moans, and then words are destroyed, obliterated, as you gag, taking him down to the hilt. “Oh,” he says, “Oh.”

It never lasts long. Not where he’s concerned. Features creased, pleading, you have to restrain him from bucking, nails burning crescent marks into his skin. “Please— please, ‘m gonna…”

He looks done. You hum, oh, silent confirmation, the vibrations stimulate his cock, and then he’s shapeshifting, morphing, transcending into something blissfully gone, releasing deep into your throat.

The orgasm has him ruined, undone. Barely conscious, just floating like something inviolable.

Afterward, he’s urging you to drink water, soft kisses pressed down the curve of your neck as you both readjust. When his phone, his outdated, underused phone lights up, artificial haze, he curses Prometheus for giving humans fire, for hiding it in a stalk of funnel and allowing them to inevitably create technology.

The phone gets locked away in his drawer. He’s half-scared of it anyway.

Spencer has never quite understood the appeal of mornings, but he’s starting to see the merit in them, with you. He’ll tell you that sometime, maybe. One day. Soon.

Right now, however, he descends down your body, lips dragging a path from collarbone to the space between your thighs, where he actively groans.

“Best Saturday morning ever,” you remark, helping him to remove your shorts, then the offending panties that prevent his mouth from working you to ruin.

It’s almost domestic, the way you mirror his actions, feeding your hands through his hair, supporting him as he slips a pillow beneath your hips. Sprawled out across tangled sheets, flushed and restless, you let out an appreciative sigh at the reciprocation.

“Definitely,” he agrees, blowing cold air against your core, just to watch the way you curve, contort. “Though, uh… every morning with you is the best morning ever.” It’s dumb, and god he’s blushing between your thighs.

But, Spencer likes to thank you. Because all in all, he considers himself a well-mannered person. So this, he parts your thighs further, applies slight pressure to your clit, is completely necessary. Mandatory, he’d argue. Something that needs to be embedded into daily routine.

Usually, it’s a slow, methodical process. He can be a perfectionist, a completionist, but he doesn’t mind. He trails his tongue across the inner sections of your thighs, to catch the wetness that stains your skin there.

“You are so perfect,” he regards, pressing a kiss to your clit, mirroring your actions. “So pretty. The prettiest— i’m going to, yeah..”

His tongue moves in languid circles, in soft, calculated motions, before finally delving inside of you, tasting you, drawing a moan, a plea, a muffled prayer from your lips. Okay, alright, maybe his lips too.

“I could do this all day, I want to, I—“ And he doesn’t really have to finish the sentence, because you know him too well, and it’s implied. Implied that he’d spend ceaseless hours here without complaint, oh far from complaint.

He likes to have something to focus on. A task to preform. It distracts his mind, and this one? Yeah, it reduces his thoughts to only you.

If he had it his way, his current mental state would be permanent.

“On your back, pretty boy..” you watch with soft eyes as he mindlessly obeys. Legs bent, pressed against the mattress, you sink down onto his face, getting off from a new angle. Your back instinctively curves, arches, a series of warped moans ripped straight from your throat.

“Just like that— mhm..” you mutter, gripping his hair tighter now, mostly for stability. It’s hard to look down, to see the obscene sight he’s been demeaned to.

His thoughts are always haywire, spitballing off one another. It’s a constant cycle of overthinking, over-analyzing, brain fried beyond reason. But you? You make him feel grounded, tethered, to the very world itself. You’re the one constant that he can predict, and yet, oxymoronically, still so unpredictable in the same breath.

So human..

When you begin to rock against his face, to take the initiative, using him, he simply reaches down, hands trailing across his overstimulated body to stroke himself because of course he’s hard again. How could he not be? He’s at the altar of your body, and god he knows how to serve.

Spencer’s pretty certain he’s forgotten how to breathe, and it’s a hard, harsh gasp when he has the chance to drag air into his lungs — before diving back down to you, because yeah he needs it, he needs you.

It’s messy, muffled whimpers, and desperate sounds emitted from both of your mouths. A constant onslaught of him, his tongue working halos against your clit. When he comes, he’s got his face buried into your heat, obstructing all of his senses. Delirious. Pussy-drunk.

There. There. There. He makes sure to prolong the pleasure, to work you through the bleeding mess of stars, and cosmos, and heavenly bliss, until you’re squirming away from overstimulation.

There’s a set routine when it comes to aftercare. One that both of you fail to adhere to, every. single. time. You’re both firm, assertive, in the belief that you should be the one to look after the other, so it ends up being a lazy, mutual act. Showering, the way he buries his face into your shoulder, naked body pressed against naked body. Hydration, soft touches, muttered words that help you return from the astral plane.

“I can’t believe we’re getting back into bed,” you say after you’ve changed the sheets, traded your ruined clothes for fresh pyjamas. You’re wearing Spencer’s shirt, fumbling buttons, half sealed, exposing your collarbone, draping over your shoulder when you preform any sort of physical movement that requires arms.

“No complaints though.” by nature, your body finds his beneath blankets. “I’d happily rot here. They could make a shitty reality show, it would be good entertainment.”

“I think I’d get fired from the BAU,” he protests, “You know, the first reality TV show aired in 1948. Candid Camera, on ABC, the premise was uh… hidden-cameras? So, yeah, the usual invasion of privacy, sounds entertaining.”

“Mhm. Sounds like something you’d hate.”

You’re lying face to face, arms draped over each other. The Lovers of Valadro position, he calls it. You’re not sure if that’s romantic, or slightly morbid.

“Here’s the plan,” you press your forehead to his, staring at those doe-wide eyes, “We’re going back to sleep. Then, I guess you can be a rule-abiding FBI agent, or whatever, and finish up your reports. As long as you’re done by 4. Because I want to see a movie,” he laughs, in that knowing way. “Yes, yes, i’m aware it’s your turn. Which means we’re gonna end up watching some documentary. Just uh? Make it space themed, yeah? Or, dinosaurs. I can settle for dinosaurs.”

His lips meet yours, abruptly, and he’s grinning into the contact. “I love you so much. I, we, still need to watch MoonWalk One. The Mars Underground, um.. The Valley of the T-Rex? There’s another that I read about yesterday. The Universe at the Edge of Knowledge. Oh, or Dark Universe. You’ll really like Dark Universe, and Edge of Knowledge has this, this cool segment on —“

“Okay, nerd.” you laugh, “Whatever one you want, we’ll watch. I’m still halfway through Paleoworld right now, 30 episodes in.” he knows that, because you’ll message him through the duration, make use out of that untouched (borderline) dusty phone he neglects.

He intertwines your fingers, presses a soft kiss to the back of your hand. “Yup. Yup. Whatever. Can we nap now?”

[osakhee]

like that, perv!sohee x reader

! obsessive behavior, voyeurism (from both sides), reader kinda take revenge on sohee, dry humping, blowjob, a little bit of spit... some cum eating kinda...

based on the song like that by babymonster

note : i LOVE that song so badly but the lyrics are absolutely insane i couldn't stop thinking about it its been WEEEKKSSSS and finally i decided to do something out of it... lyrics will be written in red, please enjoy :3

if you ask him, sohee will tell you it's not that bad. no, he's not being too much. it's not too much when he follows you around the corridors, it's not too much when he tries to take pictures of you when you wear special kind of outfits, it's not too much when he sits behind the bench in front of your building so he can get a peak of you in your pajamas when you get close to the window. he likes you, it's a common behavior, isn't it?

you know sohee has been keeping an eye on you since the start of the year. you know he's been watching closely, a little too closely. you used to have a quite normal relationship with him, just two classmates that share a lot of classes together, and sohee has always been friendly. you don't really know what happened, but his behavior flipped after the first month. he used to sit next to you and he loved chatting between classes, but you soon found him sitting at the very far back of the class. even if you thought it was in your head, you could swear you felt his eyes on you the whole time. and sohee avoided you in the hallways. sometimes he would walk very close to you, without looking at you and his gaze fixed on his shoes.

you were a bit sad, sohee could have been such a nice friend through this school year, and you kept wondering what you did wrong. did you do something that hurt him? the whole time, you felt really terrible as if sohee's behavior was your fault. maybe just seeing you made him feel bad and he couldn't do anything about it, so you started mirroring the way he acted with you.

it's only after months of feeling a pang of guilt in your heart every time you saw him that you finally caught him. you arrived late to an early morning class, and you had to walk behind sohee to reach your desk. that's when you saw on the screen of his phone a picture of you in a very weird angle, probably a shot taken really fast and in an awkward way. and you couldn't miss the way sohee was slowly palming himself through his pants, his finger drawing circles on the faint bulge poking at his jeans. it felt dirty, and disgusting, you hated every part of it. the pretty and innocent face of your classmate turned out to be one's of a pervert that got off by seeing you.

since that moment, you became more aware of sohee's acts toward you. the way his eyes would quietly travel your curves, his hand in the pocket of his sweatpants each time you met him in the corridor and the weird tension each time he had to speak to you. after a while, you started finding funny how desperate he was. he was probably dreaming of having you all to himself, probably fucking you or anything else he could have in bed, but in the end, he was only jerking off in the school's bathrooms.

instead of confronting him in front of your class like you had decided at first, you decided to play with his mind. just because it was much funnier that way. on the days you shared classes with sohee, you started wearing your most revealing clothes, you created appealing outfits to fuck with his head. and you couldn't help the smile on your face when sohee would rush out of the class the second it ended, or the blush that creeped on his cheeks and up to his ears. and the best of all, sohee was completely oblivious. he had no idea you were playing with his heart -and dick, for some reasons-, he just thought to himself that he got really lucky to meet you.

you knew sohee would often follow you home. it's the part that creeped you out the most, and you thought it was also the most pathetic of them all. fucking his fist at school with his tshirt in his mouth to muffle his moans was a thing, but jerking off to the sight of someone while sitting outside of their home was another level of desperation. you started walking more often in underwear in front of the window, only closing the blinds when you were sure sohee left his poorly hidden spot.

each day only made sohee grow more addicted to you. just your scent when you walked past him, or the outline of your body when the lights were dimmed in your apartment, it was enough for him to go over the edge all the time. he spent another evening sitting beside the bench in front of your building, his eyes quickly wandering to the open window on the first floor so he would catch a glimpse of you taking off your hoodie and ruffling your hair. god why do you need to be attractive to him? why is he feeling that way each time he sees you? just like any other day, sohee couldn't help himself, his hand quickly making its way inside his boxers so he could massage his dick to the sight of you. more than often, he'd end up covering his underwear in the sticky liquid after he wiped his hand on it before making his own way home.

sohee wished you would never know. his situation wasn't the best, and he could only dream of having you on your knees for him, he wished he could take you with him and hide you somewhere so you'd be his forever. sometimes he felt like you would catch him taking sneaky pictures of you and it made his whole body burn with anxiety, his heart pounded in his chest to the point he believed it was going to jump out. he felt ashamed, but how else could he act? he liked you, he wanted you so much, he couldn't think of any other ways to fulfill his desires and needs without having to tell you. probably because he would melt on the spot if you ever asked him about it.

one more evening of watching sohee fumble after he came in his pants outside your window and you had enough. he was so desperate, you were sure taking care of him was going to be a dream come true to him. you almost felt pitiful when you imagined his pretty eyes turning wide. after all, that's all he wants, you were doing him a favor! maybe if you have fun, it wouldn't be a one time thing. you decided to consider it like a punishment, it made you feel a little better about it. a revenge, a way to fight back for his nasty acts.

you walk into class and look right at sohee. you meet his eyes and he immediately looks away, you can already see the red that paints his cheeks. you smile to yourself, he's so easy to play with, you couldn't wait to make his mind spin. for one of the first time, the class seems endless. you're really passionate about your studies, but your brain is focused on sohee and what you planned for him.

and when finally your class ends, you quickly get out so you could catch up on sohee. he's walking away so fast in the hallway that you almost lose him, it's like you're taking his place when he chases you home at the end of your day. when he finally slows his pace, you extend your hand to grip his wrist. sohee jumps in surprise and turns to you, his heart is pounding so loud in his ears he feels like he's gonna pass out. he can barely recall how your voice sounds like, it's been so long since you spoke to him, and when you call his name, he feels weak in his knees.

"sohee? can i speak to you for a second?"

"is there... something wrong..?"

his voice sounds so hesitant, he doesn't even try to free his wrist but the feeling of your fingers burn his skin to the bone. his breath gets shorter, his throat feels so dry he doesn't know if he'll be able to speak again. he licks his lips and looks down at your hand, where your grip is tight on him. you clear your throat and sohee looks back at you again.

"you know we have this essay due at the end of the week... you always do well, i figured out you could help, what do you think?"

"oh um... well maybe, when do you-"

"come over tonight? is that okay?"

"oh..."

sohee couldn't believe it, his flushed ears couldn't believe it. the forbidden door of your home finally opens, he will be surrounded with your scent, your clothes, and you all in the same place. he can't help but the warmth that colored his face with nervousness travels down his body to start a fire in his lower stomach. he looks away and nods, freeing his wrist from your fingers. he believes the smile that appears on your lips is just a grin of relief because he'll be studying with you.

you couldn't sit still while looking at the large clock on the wall, the seconds are ticking abnormally slowly to you. you look back at sohee and you could feel his anticipation from his seat, for once he seems really concentrated on your teacher's speech. as if he wanted time to stop so he would never have to follow you to your dorm room. he can't maintain eye contact with you, he wonders how he's going to even speak to you once it's just you and him.

the clock finally shows 5pm and you gather your notebooks. sohee is stuffing his paper sheets in his bag as slow as possible, he can feel your presence next to him and waiting for him. the silence between the both of you is unbearable to him when you walk home, you try not to innocently ask him how he knows what path to follow. you open your door and sohee wonders if he still have the time to run away. suddenly his spot behind the bench outside feels really safe and comforting. but you lock the door behind him, and he knows he's trapped for god knows how long with you. how is he supposed to stay concentrated? you're everything in his mind, you devour every little thought he can have, his blood flows in his veins so he can wake up for another day and see you. after all, he just likes you. just a normal amount.

you offer a seat to sohee at your desk, there's only one chair, you just want to be polite. you drag the chair closer to your bed so you could sit in front of him, and once sohee is settled, you plan can finally start. sohee's leg bounces nervously on the floor and he fidgets with his fingers to avoid putting any kind of attention on you. he knows if he does it's going to be impossible for him not to get hard immediately. you walk behind him, your hand rests on his shoulder and reaches the back of neck, brushing your fingers in his brown hair. sohee is completely frozen in place.

"sohee? did you hear what i said?"

oh. sohee jerks his head up to look at you from the corner of his eye, and you make your way in front of him. he can't escape you anymore.

"what did you say..?"

"i said, i know the look upon your face, you know?"

you walk so close to him sohee can feel your scent filling his mind, he feels like his heart is going to explode, he wants to hand it to you so you could keep playing with it as much as you want. you sit down on his trembling lap, your hands on his shoulders, and the boy in front of you is just a mess under your eyes.

"i might know what you need sohee. if i show you that i know what it's like, would you like that?"

"w-what do you mean..?"

"if i come close baby, do you think you will like that? much closer?"

your breath hits sohee's lips, his desperate eyes plead you to make the first move, to make him realize he's not having another dream. instead, you cover his jaw with warm kisses, you suck a little on his skin, your fingers tangled in his hair. sohee grips his knees so tightly he can feel his nails digging into his pants. you trail your mouth down his neck, you discover every hidden mole on his throat, your teeth sink into his skin and you listen to sohee's whines with a smile. you draw your body closer, your hips pressing down on his. you tug a little on his tshirt to reveal his collarbone, tracing the curves with your tongue, and sohee swears he's going to lose his mind. he's going to wake up, and nothing is going to be real. or if it is, he's going to be home soon but empty, you steal everything, his brain, his heart, his lungs, his secrets. and when you suck on his shoulders to paint pretty red spots, it's like you're sucking his soul away. when you stand up to look at him, his eyes are heavy with need, his hair already feel damp and some strands stick to his temple, his lips are a darker shade of pink probably from staying between his teeth the whole time.

"are you scared sohee? because if you do, i know the way to make sure you never leave."

your voice turns into a whisper that sends a delicious shiver to his spine.

"baby would you like that?"

sohee finally looks into your eyes. the way he nods so eagerly and desperately makes you smile, you slowly roll your hips into his and watch his face contort in pleasure. his eyes flutter shut, his head falls back, exposing his neck. you immediately attack his skin again, and sohee's hands that clawed at his pants catch your shoulders, he pushes you closer to his body as you cover his throat with hot kisses. you can feel his hips rut into yours messily, the hard bulge growing in his clothes brushes you each time. you let all your weight on him and grind your core harder, this time sohee moans audibly. the noises he makes fall into your ears like a melody, one that stay in your mind and play over and over again. one that gets you obsessed.

sohee is breathless, he feels so hot it makes him dizzy. if you don't stop your actions anytime soon he will definitely cum in his pants. it's not new to him, but in front of you it's embarrassing. he wanted to hide. deep down, he wanted to have you watching him, he wanted you to know, to make him yours too, but his innocent facade is almost unbreakable. he's shy, he's embarrassed, you know you'll need so much more to melt his armor.

"sohee baby... how do you feel? tell me."

"mhh i... c-can i have more..."

you can finally feel the crack in his voice, you're slowly making your way inside his locked mind. your hand travels down his chest and under his tshirt that's starting to cling to him, your nails graze his skin and you can feel his shivers under your fingertips. you hips rock against his to a steady rhythm, sohee's hands finally resting on your waist after he found the courage to hold it. his high pitched whines fill your room, he can't hide the pleasure that courses through his veins and burns in his stomach. when you nibble on his earlobe, you feel sohee's grip tighten and he moans your name, his hips twitch against yours in a desperate need of release.

"you like that? better than your hand hm?"

"s-so much better..."

"right baby... i know..."

"please p-please don't stop i'm s-so close..."

it would be too easy to let sohee have his way. he guides your hips into his with weak hands, his moans grow louder each second. you finally stop all movements and you hear sohee's breath stop in a silent whimper, like a desperate cry. when you look at him, he's so pathetic, tears shine in his eyes and threaten to fall off his eyelashes, his face is flushed and his hair messy from how many times he pushed them away. his tshirt now sticks to his chest that moves heavily, and when you get up from his lap, you can see the wet spot that formed on his sweatpants from how much he's been leaking under you.

you walk around him, almost like a predator that finally trapped its prey. and that's how sohee feels like under your hungry gaze, as if you are going to eat him whole. you're already tearing up his mind, the flow of thoughts frozen from the pleasure so intense it makes his head spin. your hand holds his jaw from behind, you tilt his head the way you want and play with his face with your fingertips. each touch sends jolts of pleasure through sohee, making his cock twitch in his pants. the way you whisper in his ear has his eyes rolling back in his head.

"is that what you want sohee?"

"i want- i w-want it so much..."

"don't worry baby, i'll make you feel way better than in your dreams."

you kiss his temple, your hand rest on his neck and you push his head to the side. your lips go down his jaw while your hand goes under his damp tshirt, you rub his chest with your nails and watch him lean into your touch. sohee almost cries when your hands leave him again, as if being far from you is now painful. he doesn't know a world where your hands aren't on him anymore.

your hands hold his knees and you part his legs enough to place yourself in between. sohee can't get his eyes off you anymore, the mask he tried to keep on for so long finally breaks, he gets drunk on your touch, he craves your gaze into his, if he ever felt shame for a while, it got wiped out by the pleasure and the lust. your hand grabs the bulge between his legs, you massage him very slowly through his pants. it's a sweet torture but sohee wishes he could feel it everyday, all the time. you finally pull down his sweatpants, you lean closer into his thighs so you can give kisses to his cock through his underwear. the fabric is already wet from the amount of precum that keeps leaking from his swollen tip, your tongue traces the outline of his hard length through the fabric and sohee can barely hold it any longer.

"m-more... please g-give me more..."

"i know baby."

you finally slide sohee's boxers down and the heavy sigh he lets out once his cock is free has you shivering. it throbs painfully under your gaze, his pink tip desperately calling for you. you lift your eyes to meet sohee's when you open your mouth, you let your tongue rest flat on his slit. immediately sohee's hands cover his face but he can't hide the moan that erupts from his throat, and the others once your hand grab his dick. you let spit dribble from your tongue and down his length while you give him slow strokes, mixing it with his wet arousal.

sohee feels like he could cum at any moment, especially if you keep jerking him off with that look on your face. you take his tip between your lips and eagerly swirl your tongue around it, you just play with the head of his cock for a while until sohee's cries of pleasure get louder. his hands grip your head and his fingers tangle in your hair when you take him deeper inside your hot mouth. you feel him hit the back of your mouth, he's pushing your head down but you try to keep your own steady pace. the way your tongue goes all the way up his length and circle around his tip has sohee breaking apart, he can't stop himself from getting louder and louder. he can feel the tension so close to break and burn his insides, he feels like he's gonna catch on fire soon if you keep going.

you never planned to stop. you jerk him off a little more and tease his slit with your thumb while covering his cock with messy kisses, and when you put him back into your mouth you can tell sohee can't hold it any longer. you let him have his way just for once, his grip on your hair tightens and he fucks his hips up into your mouth to finally chase his orgasm. it comes crashing on him, he buries himself as deep as he can in your throat before stilling his hips. you feel his warm cum fill your mouth, you let it drip on your chin and down your neck. sohee finally lets go of your hair and lean back on the chair, he's spent and exhausted, he's convinced he'll never feel that kind of pleasure again. when he looks down and sees your face covered with his sticky load, he swears he could cum again right on the spot. you slowly get up and kiss him, you share with him nothing but roughness when you play with his tongue and taste his seeds with him. you leave him panting even more as if his breath isn't already ragged by the high he's coming back from.

sohee smiles like an idiot. he feels like he's in heaven, and heaven is definitely your room, with you in it. he feels like he doesn't need to hide anymore, he gets up from the chair and lets his hand rest on your cheek, wiping away the remains of his cum. his eyes are still blurry but the way he looks at you could almost melt your heart. you pull his sweatpants and underwear up and tidy up his shirt, you savor the confused look on sohee's face. you reach for his hand and walk him around your room, you head for the door. he's still as pathetic and clueless as ever. you open the door and drag him outside, he just stands there in complete disbelief. back from heaven and straight to hell.

"i never give pervs like you a second chance. hope you remember that day though, you'll never feel like that again even in your wildest dreams."

you close the door shut.

YAYYYYY PERV SOHEE YAYYYYYY i love him

[glamourscat]

¡Shidou’s hcs and character analysis!

tw// childhood trauma, violence, reference to possible SA in his past, my writing cause I didn’t proffered this

PHYSICAL TOUCH!! Friends, lovers or even just acquaintances, he has the bad habit of seeking touch, small or big doesn’t matter. From shoving to fidgeting. It’s different obviously base on the relationship you have with him. Are you two friends? Expect playful shoves, ruffling each other’s hair, if sat together legs or shoulders will touch casually. He is the type of person to laugh and slap your shoulder while laughing. 

If you two are lovers: hand holding (he does that thing of rubbing his thumb on the back of your hand), kisses, hair ruffling, legs intertwined, hugs from the back, nibbling/biting. Pressing his forehead against yours. SQUEEZES. Especially if you have more fat on you, he would *love* it. The need to hold you close and squish your rolls or chub. 

I personally see him as unlabelled. I know a lot like to hc him as gay. And it does make sense, but one can flirt with guys and it doesn’t erase the possibility of being into women too. That said, I do believe he has a preference for guys, especially aesthetically, but ultimately his choice of a partner would be base on mental compatibility and aesthetic attraction, no gender. I feel he is into someone who truly enjoys being their true self and doesn’t conform to society norms, more on this in a sec.

He is complex, as we see glimpses of this in the “egoist bible” and during his internal dialogue (like in the U20 arc). I don’t think he would be a bad boyfriend, but neither would he be perfect. Objectively speaking, he does have a rough, almost explosive side. But that’s a side he brings onto the football field. How he is outside of football we don’t really know. He is shown to be someone who values uniques, and also strength, complimenting other players strengths. He is not a demon, he just so happens to be a human with a deep complex personality. He seems to value peace in his life outside of football, which is something you don’t expect from him. Because he gets presented as this brute individual and yet he is the same who pops out this answers: “What made you cry recently?” At the end of the day when I become nothing, tears come out.

“What will you do on your last day on earth” Watch it as it reaches its end

“How would you spend your day off?” Be free from everything and become nothing

His answers are, intense, are they not? Which leads me to several thoughts. 1) He is very lonely. Using humour and anger to defend himself, a common trait of children who were abused, neglected in their childhood.

2) base on this, I feel in a relationship he would enjoy someone who has similar vibes to him but ultimately is different. Someone he can be chaotic with, someone he can laugh as loud as he wants, someone with who he can gossip and still have deep conversations at the same time. Ultimately, an artistic partner would be the best. Not only because he is into art, mostly as a way to cool down and shut down his brain, but because an artist or even a writer can see the world under different shades of colours rather than in greyscale. Classical introverted x extrovert duo, with the exception that the introvert individual becomes as extrovert as him when they are alone. His partner is his ancor. He will need to feel at peace from the turmoil inside of him. 

3)his home life was not the happy kind. Now, this has been long speculated and I will give my 50 cents on the matter. Let’s analyse his favourite movie, manga and song: 

Music > hide. Especially "Pink Spider" 

Movie > "A Clockwork Orange" 

Manga > "Chainsawman"

On the base line all three explore the darker sides of humanity, the need for personal freedom, and the consequences of defying societal norms. They create a raw and intense narrative about self-destruction, survival, and transformation.

But if we dive deeper > the movie mainly depicts SA, it’s a twist mix of violence, societal injustices and lack of free will… “Chainsaw man” it’s all about violence, power imbalance and manipulation. Denji was a tool from the start to end (again, lack of free will). The song, explored themes of internal chaos, the darkness in humanity, destruction and emotional turbulence and the psychological tool that that violence and abuse leaves on people.  I mean… can it be any more obvious? His whole character is shown to be this brute, rude, violent individual but slowly we are being feed details into his insight. Like how deeply philosophical he is, artistic and yet he is genuinely over sexualised. Maybe is a reach, but I don’t think that movie, the song and the manga choice are casual. They are a mirror image into the possibility that his childhood was pretty much terrible. That his sexual comments, which come off as almost distasteful, and feel icky in a way, are a projection of what he went through. Trying to use a distorted sense of humour and the violence he grew up with, to shield himself from what’s his personal life and past.

Like when he was locked up, his reaction was intense. He was close to begging to be set free. Again— lack of freedom, he hates not being able to be free. Something could have been taken away from him in the past. Maybe is as simple as a culture thing— as we know Japan is a rather modest country with certain unspoken rules. Its traditional outlook on things such as gender and sexuality are the total opposite of Shidou’s persona. His appearance is loud, his personality is loud and it alls screams “look at me I’m here” and yet at the end of the day he is still a lonely being.

I recently reread the U20 chapter where he enters on the field. His inner monologue he uses biology (specifically fertilization) as an analogy to scoring. Many people interpret it as him making a connection to sex, but for me, it didn’t read as such. Maybe it’s my literature student nerd ass, but, I took from his inner monologue a sense of need in terms of leaving a mark onto this world. He speaks how art leaves a mark, so does books, buildings and obviously children, showing the family legacy. Proof that something existed before them.

Shidou feels that his legacy, his needs, are validated through scoring. He feels seen, people are cheering. He is leaving a mark. Which ultimately could be validating a lack of emotional attention he received when he was a child. To me, all of these references and the constant sexual innuendos are a meaning for something deeper. We saw how each character with a heavy backstory has a trait or something in them that screams “something is not right”. Like Rin’s personality being a result of what happened between him and Sae. Can’t think of anything else to add, maybe I will add something later. If you have any opinions, I am more than willing to read them!! Feel free to reblog/comment :))

[serpentface]

i know u havent posted about them for a while but did archen gunsmithing get nerfed too? seems like those lil guys have taken nothing but Ls in this current iteration

Yeah it got semi-nerfed but not COMPLETELY nerfed.

Where it's at now is more like they have independently developed gunpowder much earlier and have some explosive devices, but not firearms.

The single biggest threat to archin is vulnerability to much larger predators- a single archin's death doesn't ultimately harm a unit or colony consciousness, but a singular archin IS substantially more important to a colony's survival than a singular non-sapient ant, so devising anti-predatory techniques that limit casualties (rather than the ant-typical strategy of SWARM BITE STING) would be likely. In addition to very advanced and fortified nest building strategies, this is accomplished in domestication of much larger animals for above-ground protection (probably deriving from earlier symbiotic relationships), then possibly experimentation with poisons (especially in that certain natural substances can give off toxic fumes when burnt). A formula for gunpowder could have been discovered in that context (fumes from burnt saltpeter might have already been used as a repellent).

They are very involved in managing land at large scales (and lighting/spreading fires for controlled burns is very hard when you are a collective of inch long bugs), so it would have first been used to start and spread fires. Then used for killing very large animals for food (probably first in the form of strategic fires, then as bombs). Then more refined/more explosive forms could be used in Ant Warfare to produce incendiary devices (mainly to bust open fortified nests or kill en-masse with fire). So like their gunpowder weaponry is closer to dynamite than anything else.

Them having Gun's was kind of a vestigial remnant of them formerly being 2ft tall anthropomorphic bees and like, it would just be an absolutely colossal stretch with their current morphology (as pheromone-based 'hive consciousness' inch-long but otherwise normal ants) for them to develop or see any need for anything resembling a firearm. The way I translated it to their new design was more like "how can I keep the ant guns" rather than "what would sapient ants use as weaponry against larger animals and what natural (or at least Believable) stages of development would bring this about", and I try to use the latter approach as much as possible.

I honestly don't see this as a downgrade though like 'ants with guns' has a wackiness factor I guess but taking the sapient ant collective premise more seriously is a lot more interesting to me.

[ktlurksforsomereason]

A few new thoughts + theories about obxanon and Rudy's departure

I keep seeing the same angry, recycled theories on obxtwitter without a lot of critical thought, which like fine, people are mad, I get it. But I've been really trying to take my emotions out of the situation and just consider how this could realistically have happened, and I have a few theories that I want to put out there.

I think #obxanon is Lilah Pate, OR someone very very close to Lilah or the Pates. Why do I think this? For one, #obxanon mentions Lilah far too much. Like I'm sorry, she's just not that important lol. She's a nepotism baby riding on daddy's coattails, and she was not a major player in any of the bts drama until #obxanon mentioned her specifically in their first (now deleted) post. #Obxanon also seems to know a lot about the personal relationships between cast members, far more than a crew member or a producer might know (specifically in the way they describe Rudy and Madison's history/feelings towards each other). This tells me #obxanon is someone who personally spent time with the cast, especially in the s1 era. Finally, in a previous post, I've talked about how #obxanon is very bias against Rudy and for the Pates. I believe SOME of the facts they present (a lot of it is bullshit and opinions), but I think whoever is behind that account has personal anger towards Rudy and Elaine, especially Elaine. #Obxanon mentioned personal conflict between Elaine, the Pates, and LILAH. Why is that even important? Because Lilah thinks she's important, and Lilah is #obxanon.

2. In saying this, I think #obxanon's first post in August leaking JJ's death was an intentional move by the Pates (and maybe Netflix) to sus out how audiences would feel about JJ dying. I just can't believe that Netflix/HR wouldn't be cracking down on every single person who could know this information if they weren't already allowing it to be leaked. Like the first post? Huge leak of insider info. But ok, JJ death theory was gently leaked during Morocco filming so maybe not a drastic break of HR policy. But the second post after s4 part 2 dropped? And continuing to post answers to fan questions up until very recently? There's just no way. Someone would be getting sued. A crew member would be out of the job. The Pates would be putting a stop to it. Unless it was intentional. Unless it was Lilah. Who wanted to

a. gently prepare audiences for JJ's death,

b. get a feel for how angry people would be, so they could edit/prepare to launch their bullshit PR "he was always gonna die" statement,

c. know whether they should renew the show for 1 or 2 more seasons, depending on how much viewership would be lost,

d. maybe even try to convince/guilt-trip Rudy into changing his mind based off of fan response? And if that last ditch effort didn't work,

e. proactively shift the blame onto Rudy to redirect fan outrage, meaning the writers/showrunners could take slightly less heat.

The show getting renewed for a 5th and final season BEFORE part 2 dropped and all hell broke loose? This tells me that they had a solid idea of how bad it might be and opted out of the original 6 season plan. They probably didn't know it would be THIS bad lol, but clearly the writers have their heads up their own asses and don't know how shit they actually are, so they underestimated big time.

And before people start saying this is a conspiracy and couldn't be PR, I really wouldn't underestimate how involved marketing teams can be, especially for a high budget #1 show on Netflix. The Pates mention all the time how they read and monitor fan feedback. Like, if the obx twitter account can interact with fans the way they do? They can definitely be sneaky about leaking info on tumblr through an anonymous yet extremely, SUSPICIOUSLY informed source.

And finally,

3. I think the reasons for Rudy leaving (and I absolutely believe that he left) are far more complicated than simply "Elaine was jealous." I think the way he handled it was messy and shitty and immature, but I've tried to theorize WHY and I've come up with a few intersecting reasons. I want to preface this with I DON'T ACTUALLY KNOW. But I like trying to understand people's decisions, it makes them more human to me and allows me to move forward with empathy rather than anger. So here's what I think:

a. He and Madison were previously FWB. I can't pretend to know the timeline or why it ended. But it happened sometime in 2019/2020 and Elaine was unaware of this (or at least how strong the feelings involved were) until later on in her and Rudy's relationship. Elaine not knowing about their fwb arrangement is alluded to in multiple Deuxmoi blinds over the years. Just feels too consistent to not have some truth to it. I can see how finding this out could blindside Elaine, make Rudy feel ashamed and uncomfortable, and contribute to growing jealousy and tension throughout years that finally hit a breaking point. I'm not saying jealousy is acceptable, especially because portraying a believable Jiara romance was Rudy and Madison's JOB. Obviously the healthiest decision is either break up or make peace with it. But I think this could at least explain why Jiara upset Elaine so much. She felt lied to. Also if Rudy actually cheated on Teo, that would increase Elaine's insecurity even more (once a cheater always a cheater). AND put pressure on Rudy to prove that he won't cheat on Elaine, making him all compliant and weird n shit towards Madison. The whole thing is just messy.

b. Rudy did not want to do Jiara in the first place. He didn't even sign up for it when he joined the show. Their "chemistry" in s1 was a literal representation of Rudy and Madison's chemistry in real life, likely due to their fwb arrangement. It wasn't JJ and Kiara liking each other. It wasn't planned. (I hate how Kiara asking John B "Did you tell JJ" is literally always used as proof against this, but I always saw that as Kiara not wanting to admit she actually did like John B and wanted to keep shit on the down low until they figured it out. That's totally how it's written. But the obx writers suck and don't elaborate on that ever again, so it gets misinterpreted). Regardless, fans saw their obvious chemistry and SCREAMED for JJ and Kiara to get together. They also screamed for Rudy and Madison to get together, which was probably fun until it was awkward. But Rudy literally NEVER actually liked it as a plotline. In interviews for S1 and S2, he talks about how JJ is not ready for a relationship, maaaaybe endgame could be them hinting at getting together but he just didn't think it made sense with the storyline. And Cleo was getting written in as JJ's actual love interest. And Kiara had already kissed John B AND Pope. It was not the writer's original plan, and Rudy has said that he thinks the show should not be swayed by fan desires. Except the writers are spineless and lack creativity, so instead they chose to listen to the fans and pivot their entire storyline to make Jiara happen. Which Rudy was contractually obligated to then do. Unwillingly. For 4 seasons.

c. Outside of Jiara, Rudy hated the writing on obx. And who can blame him? Everyone hated the writing on obx. The plotline has been getting more and more unrealistic and ridiculous since S1. If there was no bts drama and JJ lived and the show was renewed for 3 more seasons, season 4 would STILL be hot smelly garbage. Rudy has been getting increasingly more and more vocal in interviews about how he hates bad writing, he respects good writing, he wants to participate in art that moves people, means something, makes a difference. He basically calls out the obx writers in that Larry Moss interview for being trash. It is absolutely implied. The fan service of Jiara and the deterioration of the plot and the absolute destruction of his character JJ who he loved dearly and put so much effort into? God, that would piss me off too. Total opposition to his values. We all heard Rudy talk about JJ's storyline in S1 interviews as a nod to trauma survivors and how respectfully he tried to portray that. Only to have the writers not give 2 shits about any of that. I can totally see why he stopped giving a shit too. By s3 interviews, he literally repeats "my job is to do what the writers tell me" over and over. Dude was done long before asking to leave s4.

4. The final tipping point? The hate that Elaine gets. I'm not defending the girl. I think the whole conflict/tension/jealousy thing is wild. Hard to know what's actually true, but I think it's fair to say she doesn't make the healthiest choices (her launching her bikini line while Rudy is getting dragged by the media and fans?....wow.) However, the absolute visceral HATE Elaine has been getting for literal years, unwavering, unfiltered, unending? No one deserves that. Especially not for the petty shit she supposedly did (the girl posted some ignorant shit as a 17 year old on facebook in 2013. Like come on, she's not Kelly Osbourne saying Latinos only clean toilets on literal live TV). You can't make me believe that hate like that for 4 years straight on every possible social media platform wouldn't impact your mental health. You can't tell me it wouldn't make Rudy hate the fans, and hate the show, and hate social media. He would feel guilty, like it was his fault. He would want to protect her. They would both be so powerless to stop it from happening. Like, it literally killed her photography career before it could begin because her social media platforms were just bombarded with hate. And not just hate, but embarrassing, cancel culture accusations. If that was my partner getting treated like that because of my job? I think I'd leave too.

All of this combined = creates a total shitshow that Rudy probably couldn't wait to get away from. He's talented. He's passionate about acting. He likely wants to do other projects while he's still young and fit and eager. OBX contracts stopped the actors from doing any other work that conflicted with obx scheduling (filming and press). That reeeeally limits their other opportunities.

So I really can't blame the guy for leaving. I just think the way he did it was shitty. If he had just told them he wanted to leave before S4 was written and already filming, I think things could have been a lot more amicable. But I guess money complicates everything. Dude probably made a good mil a year with obx, that's hard to leave.

Soooo yea. Just my theories and thoughts. I could be totally off, a lot of it is hypothetical. But I haven't seen a lot of these theories fleshed out as people talk about everything, so thought I would add my 2 cents.

[year2000electronics]

I’m also gonna propose the OTHER side of the coin.

Mom!Tippi

Wouldn’t it be so tragic if Timpani had been that much closer to Bleck this entire time? If potentially Luigi were to meet and befriend her, neither having the slightest clue who the other is, prior to the events of SPM? And by the time they do all realize who everyone is and fully reunite, they only have like 5mins max to cherish it before two of them have to sacrifice their lives to save the third :)

Then on the other hand it’s also lowkey kinda hilarious?

Tippi is just kinda going through the motions with the prophecy. No memories and very little sense of self, she’s putting all her focus on the Pure Hearts and stopping the Void. Very… clinical-like. And gradually she starts to open up more to Mario & Co, grows a bit more lively and starts remembering things.

Like her lost love.

So imagine her surprise as things are starting to click and she’s piecing things together, and for the latest piece to the puzzle, there’s her exchange with Bleck when the group’s confronted by the Count in Sammer’s Kingdom. And then he not only mentions the name “Timpani”, which is very familiar for some reason, but also mentions a son.

There are many questions once she’s got her full memories back. At least she thinks so, but she certainly doesn’t remember having a child with Blumiere before they were torn apart and she was cursed to wander dimensions forever! Who IS this child? Where did he come from? What does this mean? Does this make her a mom? Will the child want her as a mom? Can she be a good mom? This was way less terrifying and complicated when it was just saving all reality from violent oblivion!

At first she thinks it’s Mr. L based off observations from the heroes’ fights against him. But then surprise! It’s actually Luigi! The sweetheart boy she’s known and befriended a few years prior to the adventure… how they were this close to have preventing it altogether had they figured it out sooner.

Picture the final thing that confirms for them both without a doubt their shared connections to Blumiere with the MOTI song that’s the duet to the Memory/Bounding Through Time track. A cherished melody between the lovers when they were together, that was also used as a lullaby for Luigi as a kid when he had nightmares.

Btw Luigi and Tippi being amnesia buddies throughout Ch7 Underwhere and Overthere segment is super cute. Criminal that this wasn’t capitalized on in the game either, like c’mon! Amnesia Buddies! Just supporting each other and helping the other get through the more intense flashbacks when they hit in addition to quest/adventure stuff.

Makes Luvbi’s teasing comments hinting that Tippi’s got a crush on Mario, Luigi or both a lot more awkward, tho.

That awkward moment when you accidentally call your mom friend “mom” out loud to their face, but it later turns out she was your actual mom the whole time.

It’s hard to hug on account of Tippi being a butterfly Pixl, but she carries the intent when she sits on Luigi’s nose and stretches her wings out across his face as best she can.

…I have far too much to say on potential relationships between characters that barely interact canonically.

AW YES... let tippi and luigi bond theyve earned it

i think the funny thing about that, too, is that even though tippi and luigi don't get much together, tippi does have some VERY strong opinions on mr. l (calling him greasy, saying he's weak, and her tattle on him specifically says he has 'no other outstanding features of note') so if she thinks mr. l is bleck's son (instead of luigi) i'm sure her first reaction would be... Interesting... LMAO

[admirationandromantics]

Going overboard, 1: Memento Mori

Okay, so first the prologue, and now the first chapter. As I've said before, not all chapters include a Josh-interactions because of accuracy to the game, so you'll just have to live with it. If you haven't read the Prologue, go to my profile, then the masterlist, Josh Washington. You'll find it there. Get ready for tomorrow!

❀--✽--❀--✽--❀--✽--❀--✽--❀--✽--❀--✽--❀--✽--❀--✽--❀--✽--❀

Chapter 1: Memento Mori

After what happened up on the mountain last year, Josh didn’t stay in touch. At first we all tried to talk to him, help him, but we gave up one after another. He talked with Sam a lot. I think she did the most she could until he cut contact. I didn’t want to put too much on him, and we all were in grief as well, so it probably was the best solution. 

Sam and I had regular coffees. It helped us both. We shared stories about them, and she told me about everything which happened that night. The prank wasn’t about me, nor Josh. Not even Beth, but she still had to suffer the consequences. Poor Beth, and poor Hannah. We all knew she had a thing for Mike, but setting her up like that was not okay. I now despised them all, Jessica, Emily, Mike, Matt, Ashley. Matt was such a sweet guy, I couldn’t imagine him standing there with a camera, recording everything. For me though, Ashley hurt the most. I loved her, I truly did, but I cut contact quickly after I got to know about the evening. She sent me a bunch of texts, begging me to talk to her. She was sorry, she was drunk, caught up in the moment, and everyone was doing it so she felt like she had to. She never knew that the aftermath would be as bloody as it did. I still didn’t text her back. 

A month before the anniversary of their disappearance, Sam got a video message from Josh. He invited her up to the cabin again, stating that this would be a way to honour their memory, and relive the experience, but with a good ending. There would be booze, partying and just making new memories. Based on the video, it seemed like he asked everyone in the old group. Everyone except me. I felt hurt. Betrayed in a way. I was one of the few he talked to, cried to. Our relationship didn’t evolve after the event, but I was still there for him, trying to comfort him. Sam told me that I should come with her, but I declined. If he didn’t want me there, it was okay. She couldn’t understand why, but she kept being insistent, urging me to give it a chance. I didn’t have to be there the whole time, and if I wanted to, I could leave the very next day since the bus went through the area once every day. 

It would be good to talk to Josh, maybe even if he didn’t want to. I was selfish, I knew that, but I had to see him. I wanted to see how he was doing, how he was feeling. This also made me think of Chris. He would probably be there, and I hadn’t kept in touch with him either. I felt bad, but at the same time, we weren’t that close. I knew that he still hung out with Ashley sometimes, and maybe that made me a bit afraid. Maybe she would try to contact me through him? Maybe I wasn’t just selfish. Ashley also needed to talk. Talk to me, clear the air. I would let her. I finally agreed to come with Sam up to the cabin. 

***

The bus is empty, except for Sam and I of course. She didn’t pack much, and I didn’t either. I figured that I wouldn’t stay long. I just needed to talk to people, get some weights off my shoulders. The radio is playing, and no surprise, it’s about Beth and Hannah. I hold my composure, trying not to cry. The trip is long, and I end up sleeping on her shoulder for a good amount of it. Sam is watching something on her phone, but I don’t peek. I simply look out the window. There is an eerie feeling to these mountains. I felt the same last year, but this time it feels stronger. The black trees are covered in snow, untouched by animals. 

Finally we reach our stop. The sign says “Blackwood Pines” and hadn’t it been for last year's events, I would still love the name. Being here for the first time felt magical, straight out of Narnia, joining a winter wonderland of mystery. Now, I feel nervous. The air isn’t as fresh, the ground not as hard and the snow was too white. Instead of smelling winter, I smell something musk, like a dead animal or rotten meat. I look over at Sam, and I think she notices too. 

We start walking in silence, through the gate and up the trail. As we walk, she stops. 

“Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” I whisper, getting anxious. Maybe it’s a wild animal, a wolf or a bear. 

“Hello!?” Sam shouts, and my eyes widen. Why would she do that, what if the animal looks at us as a threat now. I look around, expecting something to pop out, but it’s silent. 

“Sorry, I probably just thought I heard something,” she says, continuing walking. She notices my tenseness. 

“Are you okay?”

“No, absolutely not” I state, looking around again. 

“Hey I get it, this is weird, but we’re doing this for Josh right,” she starts, taking my hand, stopping me. 

“I hate to say it, but you need to relax. Nothing bad is going to happen, and people are just being friendly”

“I know, I know. I just can’t shake off this feeling that there’s something here”

“It’s because of last year. We’re all still thinking about it, so we know how you’re feeling”

I look up at her. She’s right, I’m not alone in this, and we’ve both been there for each other the whole year. 

“Yeah, thanks for the talk. It’s just… well, weird”

“It is, but I think this is good for you. This trip could be a way for you to let go, get some closure. They both would’ve wanted that for you” she says, before pulling me into a hug. I breathe, and some of the tension lifts. Thank God I still have Sam. When we pull away she looks at me, smiling. I smile back, before looking behind her. My mouth opens, eyes widen and my breath hitches. I grab her hand, holding hard. 

“S-Sam, c-c-careful. Stand s-s-till,” I whisper. She holds her breath while searching my face for answers. 

“Boo!” I shout, punching her with both my hands. She screeches, jumps and I feel her pulse in her hand. 

“Got you” I laugh, while she’s still trying to compose herself. 

“Fucking asshole” she says. I can’t stop laughing. 

“You know, you’re going to ‘wolf wolf’ me.”

“I can live with that” I continue laughing, before starting to walk again, her following after. 

“I’m joking, that was out of line, sorry” I say after a while. 

“At least you got to see my ‘frozen’ face”

“Yeah that’s why I laughed” 

We reach the gate, and a piece of paper is pinned on the lock. 

“The gate’s busted, climb over -Chris” 

“I guess we have to climb,” I state, looking at the gate. There are big spikes on the top of the gate, so I look over at the side. It’s a stone wall. 

“Right up my alley” Sam says enthusiastically. Of course it is. 

“I’ll give you a lift first if you take my bag” she says, already taking off her bag. 

“Fine, just don’t throw me over with those strong climber-arms of yours” I reply, taking her bag and making my way to the wall. She puts out her hands and I grab somewhere safe on the wall. She helps me get up, and I jump down the other side, looking up, waiting for her. 

“Gosh, the stones are cold” she complains, finally getting to the top. 

“Should’ve worn gloves” I smile, showing off my red-covered hands in a theatrical manner. She laughs before hopping down. I give her backpack back, and we continue up. 

When we finally arrive at the cable car station, the place seems empty. I see a couple of cars in the parking lot, but don’t want to check who they belong to. One of them must be Josh’s. I walk up to the bench, noticing a backpack and a ringing phone. My curiosity is immense, but I don’t touch it. Sam notices who’s bag it is. 

“Hey Chris!” she yells, looking around for him. 

“Hey guys” he answers, and we both turn around. He seems older, more harsh than the year before, but I don’t comment on it. 

“How are you ladies?”

“Well, as you can expect” Sam answers, still smiling. I smile as well, keeping the mood light. I don’t notice how much I’ve missed him before seeing him now. Something in me breaks a little. 

“Oh, so, I found something kind of amazing”

“What?”

“I’m not gonna tell you got to see for yourself” he smiles, grabbing his backpack and leading us around the house. We get to the other side where we’re met with a shooting range. Barrels and bottles stacked for hitting, as well as bags hanging from the trees. 

“Ta-da! Pretty rad right?” Chris exclaims, loving this a bit too much. Sam forces a smile, guns are not a source of happiness for a pacifist. 

“A gun range on the bottom of a ski lodge” I comment. “How… nordic?”

Chris picks up a gun before looking at me. 

“Well, have you met Josh’s dad?”

“Yeah”

“Then we shouldn’t be surprised” he says before turning and aiming the gun. I hold my breath, not comfortable with this funny clumsy guy holding a death-weapon. He shoots the bags and one of the cans. I’m kind of impressed. 

“Nice shootin Tex” Sam teases, not impressed. I guess it would take something better than shooting to impress her. She fakes an annoyed look before turning my way. 

“Wanna try?”

“You know what, sure. It’s been a while” I say before taking the gun from him, taking off my backpack and laying it beside me. 

“You’ve done this before?”

“Josh has taken me shooting several times, not hunting though, luckily” I smile, remembering how close we felt the first time he showed me how to use it. 

“I bet that’s not the only thing you two have done” he comments, a smirk on his lips. 

“Haha, funny guy” I tease back. Sam holds her laughter. I shoot a couple of bags, stopping when a squirrel jumps on one of the barrels. 

“I guess that’s our sign to start going to the lodge,” I say, leaving the gun and grabbing my bag. 

“Jeez, I wish Josh would take me shooting,” Chris says, and I smile. 

The cable car is coming, and Sam makes her way over there. I use the opportunity to grab ahold of him. 

“Hey Chris, about this year-” I start, but he holds a finger up, signalling for me to stop. 

“I get it, if I were in your shoes I would’ve done the same”

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’s weird being back, but I’ve been wanting to clear up everything. We should keep in contact, even though you don’t want to talk to Ashley, I understand”

“When did you become such an understanding gentleman,” I tease, punching his arm and start walking. He lifts his arms in the air. 

“Haven’t I always been?” And I laugh at him. 

We all get in the cable car, and it starts moving up. Chris starts talking about how he and Josh met, and I pay close attention. I’ve only heard this story from Josh, and I love getting the different story-perspectives. 

***

We arrive at the top, I stand and try to open the door. It will not open. 

“Uh, guys, I can’t get the door open.” Chris tries, but can’t manage either. His response is to smack the window. 

“Ahh, what the hell!” I hear someone say. Jessica. I compose myself. 

“Jess! Over here, open the door!” Chris shouts. I see her through the window, and I bite my lips from having to look put together. Don’t look like a bitch, don’t look like a bitch, don’t look like you have anything against this piece of scum. I keep chanting in my head. 

She opens the door, and we all thank her. As we walk out, Chris starts whining. 

“Oh my god. I thought we were goners. Another ten minutes in there and I would’ve chewed off my own leg.”

“Aw, sick Chris,” Sam comments. 

“Look, I’ve got a lot of meat on my bones. This is all muscle down there.”

Sam rolls her eyes. “Yeah riiiiiight”

“Keep telling yourself that Chris,” I add, clapping him on the shoulder as I walk past him. He lowers his voice to a whisper. 

“Well, we all know who’s bone you want to jump…”

I turn around, mouth agape and eyes threatening. He immediately puts his hands up in defence, walking backwards two paces. 

“Just jokes, just jokes” says, voice cracking. 

“Dickhead”

“Notice how I’m not going to make another joke about that,” he answers. I quickly make a snowball and throw it at him, hitting his chest. Sam places herself between us, arms tense as if waiting for someone to attack. 

Chris uses this opportunity to snatch whatever Jess is holding. 

“Well, well, well… What do we have here?”

“Chris” Sam starts. He opens it, a surprised look on his face. 

“My goodness! Seems like someone has a crush on our good friend and dear class president Michael Munroe.” Shit. That’s not good. 

“Chris,” I threaten. 

“And what kind of sizzling erotica might our Jessica be capable of imagining, I wonder…”

Before he’s able to see more, Jess quickly snatches the item back. 

“If you must know-” she starts.

“Mike and I are together now.” We all look at each other. 

“Drama,” Chris answers. 

“No, pretty cut clean actually. Em’s out, I’m in,” she explains. I look over at Sam. She doesn’t know what to say. Luckily, Chris breaks the awkwardness. 

“Well, we should keep going” 

“You go, I’ll be waiting here for a bit”

“Waiting for Mike?”

“Just go”

We oblige, walking further and leaving her behind. The trail is quite big and visible. It’s comfortable to walk on. As we turn a corner, I see the cabin. The cabin where Josh is, where Ashley is probably waiting. The cabin which was the last place two of our best friends were seen alive one year ago.

[twilightkitkat]

I'll have you know that I am heavily considering writing something based off of your latest Time travel idea. It is already in my list. Because I genuinely cannot stop thinking about it

I love time travel as a concept and I'm honored you were inspired by my idea. I'm sure it'll turn out amazing, make sure to tag me when you finish it.

I'm considering what to write of my own. To be honest I've been a bit busy lately because my finals are in a week and I have a lot of things due and I've also had a lot of plans, but I want to get back into writing more consistently.

For the time travel idea, I think it'd be really interesting to consider his relationships with everyone. He avoids the X men with a passion, absolutely not wanting to get involved (especially when Logan isn't a part of them yet, he checked). Colossus isn't even an adult yet so he can't go bother him either...

His relationship with the Avengers is complicated. He's somewhat of a son to Tony, except for the fact he's much older than he claims and can take care of himself. He isn't as good with Tony at engineering, but he knows how to work with his hands and has brilliant ideas so he ends up hanging out in the lab anyway. Mainly to fiddle with random shit and offer insight that's a little too on the nose considering he only knows some programming (he starts to learn more, though).

With Cap, he's awestruck at first. That's his childhood hero, after all. But once the initial excitement wears off a bit he's able to work well with him, bouncing off his shield like a fucking boomerang and responding with witty quips. Steve grows fond of him pretty quickly.

As for the others, he interacts with them in his own way. He chats with Bruce (particularly about Gene editing, sue him) and has fun jumping up on the Hulk when they fight together. He gets along with Wanda and the Black Widow because he understands suffering and doing what's needed and he has this perspective beyond his years. He makes fun of Hawkeye and buddies up to Thor (mainly because he remembers that scene of him holding him in his arms).

Despite this, he avoids conversations about joining the Avengers. In this life, they actually want him. But also in this life, he has a better team he's waiting for.

[rusted-fairy-wings]

I’m honestly really surprised to see people vibing with this…. SO UH YEAH HERE’S MORE LITTLE BITS SINCE I HAVE BEEN ASKED

-they’re not all the exact same age, so here’s how I would sort them based on my HCs. Kai, Cole, and Zane are all third years/juniors. Of these 3, even tho Zane is always depicted as the oldest in the fandom, I kinda like the idea of him being the youngest. Pixal and Skylor are both seconds years/sophomores. Jay and Nya are first years/freshmen. Lloyd is a second year/sophomore in high school.

-RGB siblings is absolutely canon because they do in fact mean the world to me. Lloyd is straight up their adopted little brother in this AU. Kai purposely picked a uni only a couple hours from home so he could be closer to Nya and Lloyd even after moving out.

-The entire cast of this AU makes fun of Kai because he hates school the most, but because he wants do law, he’ll be in school longer than all the rest of them. Kai struggles the most in uni in general as school doesn’t come easily to him.

-Jay and Nya met in a calculus class in their first semester of uni and just immediately hit it off. They do not care whenever someone says something along the lines of “you know a lot of relationships from your first year don’t last”. They are convinced once they do get together that they’re simply built different.

-Pixal is actually closest in age to Jay. Sh skipped a grade and was ahead on school. She’s the opposite of Kai—school comes very naturally to her, it’s social stuff she’s not always the best at.

-The uni is quite far way from Cole’s hometown. He’s still got a rocky (sorry earth pun) relationship with Lou that he’s working on fixing. He decided he really needed space to be on his own and figure stuff out. Lou isn’t a bad father, they’re just still repairing things.

-Skylor, Nya, and Pixal do in fact have girls’ nights/study sessions. Skylor makes snacks. Pixal organizes everything and makes sure they stay on task. Nya is in charge of the fun activities during their breaks, like what shows they watch or games they play. Said girls’ nights get very chaotic. The boys totally haven’t had to get them out of dumb situations before.

Ty for giving me an excuse to yap, genuinely surprised some people like this!!!!

literally nobody asked for this butttttt….

Here are my HCs for what everyone would be studying if I were to do a Ninjago College AU because if I have to suffer so do they!

Zane: culinary arts. I think if he didn’t have to worry about saving the world all the time, he’d love to just cook for people as a job.

Nya: engineering. Specifically mechanical engineering. She’s already got a clear inclination for it, and we love to see a woman in STEM.

Jay: engineering again, but this time electrical. I feel like that one’s for obvious reasons. Just combines his inventing/STEM interests with his powers.

Cole: double major in psychology and art. I’m a big fan of artist Cole, and it’s something I think he’d really focus on if he had the time. Psychology because he’s grounded enough to consider the idea that art may not lead him to a lucrative career even if he wants it to. He wants to help others. Specifically I could see him studying child psychology.

Kai: hear me out—political science but with the intention of going to law school. He has a very strong sense of justice and would want to make things he sees wrong with the world right. He wants to be the type of lawyer that sticks up for the little guy.

Lloyd: sorry but we’re skipping Lloyd because in a modern/college AU there’s no tomorrow’s tea and he’s still in high school. He has no clue yet what he wants. He’s considering studying astronomy though. But he’s kinda like “this is a future me problem” and a bit scared to think about his future.

Pixal: computer science girly!! She loves coding and finds it relaxing, so she thinks “why not do this?”. She accidentally stays up til 3 am sometimes because she’s genuinely having so much fun on her studies.

Skylor: like Zane, culinary arts. She wants to own her own restaurant one day. Zane is the first of our 6 ninja she meets and befriends in this AU because of this.

[maxdibert]

If James chose a muggleborn as his longterm partner, why not Sirius? After all Sirius had a tendency to parrot a lot of the stuff James did.

But Sirius is not James. Sirius saw James as a moral compass because he likely thought James, being from the same social class but belonging to a “progressive” family, had the right ideals—first to annoy his mother, and later to serve as a guide for his behavior. However, a guide is one thing, and the essence of a person is another.

James could justify being an absolute piece of trash to Severus by making all sorts of political excuses: he was a Slytherin, hung out with shady people, liked the Dark Arts, and so on, convincing himself that bullying Severus wasn’t personal (even though it was) but instead served some higher purpose. He probably needed that justification because rich kids with hero complexes need to believe they’re serving a greater good to excuse the terrible things they do.

But Sirius didn’t. Sirius grew up in a family of sadists who taught him from an early age that he was above others and had the right to step on anyone he deemed inferior. James’ moral compass helped Sirius identify muggles and muggle-borns as people not to touch, but that guidance stopped there. If Sirius thought someone didn’t fall into that category, he had no remorse in torturing them and didn’t seem to care about their life at all.

For me, a very telling example of this is The Prank. Sirius didn’t just not care if Severus died—he might have even found it amusing because he had completely dehumanized him at that point—but he also didn’t care that his supposed friend, Remus, could have committed murder and been judged and condemned for it. James, on the other hand, did care. If James saved Severus, I believe it’s because he didn’t want Remus’ secret to be revealed and because, honestly, I think James drew the line at death. James wasn’t raised in sadism, and while he could be a piece of trash, he knew that killing was wrong, even if it meant killing someone he despised. He knew Remus could face severe consequences, and he didn’t want that. James was raised with a certain conscience—Sirius wasn’t. James wanted to perpetuate the public image of a hero, a role model, someone to admire. Sirius didn’t. James wanted the spotlight. Sirius didn’t. Sirius wanted to piss off his mother, make her seethe with rage, and maintain his friendship with James, but beyond that, he didn’t care about anything else.

(Except for Harry, whom Sirius only loves so much precisely because he is James’ son, in a way very similar to how Severus only protects Harry because he is Lily’s son. It’s quite funny how these two hated each other so, so much but have such similar ways of loving people. It’s also quite amusing that Severus is often called obsessive when it comes to Lily, yet Sirius was exactly the same in his relationship with James.)

Sirius’ fixation on James is similar to Bellatrix’s fixation on Voldemort: only James could stop Sirius, just like only Voldemort could stop Bellatrix, because both Bellatrix and Sirius gave them that power. But this doesn’t mean Sirius shared James’ values—he absolutely didn’t.

James, with his image as the pure-blood hero of the people, benefited greatly from marrying a muggle-born. And the fact that Lily not only was muggle-born but also from a working-class background further reinforced that image. James’ personality is built around not being like other pure-bloods, coming from a family of progressive wealthy people—upper-class but concerned with worldly causes. Having a partner who embodies the values he so publicly champions is the perfect fulfillment of the heroic archetype he aspires to and works hard to perform. No one could doubt him now, no matter how arrogant, idiotic, or abusive he was. How could they? His partner was at the very bottom of the magical social hierarchy, right?

But Sirius didn’t need that. Sirius didn’t base his personality on being the knight in shining armor, the king’s first man, or the kingdom’s hero. Sirius’ identity revolved around wanting to piss off his mother and doing everything he could to enrage her while remaining perpetually tied to the attitudes and tendencies he learned from his family. Sirius wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing his intimacy with someone who wasn’t from his world.

The clearest example is that his best friend, the one whose house he fled to after leaving the Black household, was equally magical, equally pure, and equally rich as he was. Sirius viewed muggles as something exotic or as a means to annoy his mother; beyond that, he didn’t care. In fact, it would make perfect sense for him not only to end up with someone pure-blooded and from a good family but also someone who reminded him, in certain ways, of his mother. Someone rather authoritarian, who could keep him in check.

He’s textbook Oedipus, sorry.

[aruanism]

any personal hc's for aruani?? either be modern setting or canon!!

Headcanons :3

btw tysm for asking! i didn't answer last night because i knew it'll take me too long to write (it was like 12 am)

Castes

- Since Armin is part of the lowest tiers of the castes system, he's very undesirable; Annie on the other hand, is undesirable because she's scary. The two of them get together because there's no competition and only mutual pining lolz!! The two are just "I thought you didn't like me because I'm a geek!" and "What? No! I thought YOU didn't like me back and kept walking the opposite way because I was the delinquent!"

- The day their relationship was already becoming a rumor, no one dared to approach Armin because of the students' fear of being beaten up by his girlfriend

- Annie posted a soft launch pic on her socials with a picture of Armin's face covered in kiss marks (only one side of his face minus the eyes)

- That post of hers literally did nothing lol people still found out it's armin because of the glasses and fuckass bob

- Armin has a lot of extracurricular activities which led to minor arguments between him and annie, though they eventually make up over sweets

- I do think that Armin's family is kinda well off and that his parents aren't dead; both of them are researchers! Armin buys Annie the things she loves the most. (Applicable in modern universe as well)

Cadets

- Armin and Annie would forage berries and edible flowers, then make them teas and jams that they made a profit off of. At times, they go out together on dates and to buy supplies that they need.

- After curfews at night, Armin sneaks off to the girls' dorm and gossip about the boys. Armin sits down on Annie's bed along with her (then the two lovebirds cuddle together after until 2 hours before their official wake up time to avoid suspicion which the girls don't know about !!!)

Post-canon

- The two got married in Paradis. Annie was 27 and Armin 26. It was a simple celebration and Historia officiated the wedding (queen perks)

- THEY SHARE A ROOM!! However, they don't share a bed sometimes since Armin spends his nights in the office

- Armin and Annie did not have pets as ambassadors

- After finding a permanent place to live in, the two had two children, one kitten, and a puppy (adopted at the same time and already had a bond)

Modern (I have lots of modern based aus 😞 that'll be for another post if someone asks)

- Annie met Armin at a coffee shop as a student part-timer barista and she found him attractive lawlzers. Turns out he's a mutual friend, so she got his number from Mikasa

- The two's first date was at a museum

- Annie dreamt of meeting Armin weeks prior