#i mean they really have too much in common

[enigmatist17]

Continuation/just ideas I have of the Mecha Pilot Jazz Au by @keferon

First part can be found here :)

A03 version -> https://archiveofourown.org/works/60978709

---

No one is really sure what to think when Jazz finally returns to the general populace, the crowded common room he steps into with Prowl at his side going silent at the mech's arrival.

No, not a mech, a frame piloted by an organic Wheeljack swore to the Pit and back was smaller than most of their servos.

"Soooo, what's up?" Jazz leaned against the closest table as Prowl got himself some energon, no longer keeping up the pretense he needed such liquid.

"That's what you have to say?" Starscream gawked from his seat, the seeker looking like he wanted to start dissecting Jazz's mecha as much as pry the pilot out. "Are all organics from your planet this...this flippant?"

"Not really?" Jazz shrugged, glad no one could see the grin on his face when Prowl rejoined him, placing himself between Jazz and everyone else in the room with a minute flick of his doorwings. "Hell, you sound like one of my commanders, he'd be having a fit right about now."

"Rightfully so, I should say." Mirage commented from behind Jazz, the pilot grinning to himself when he turned, only to see what was supposedly a blank wall. "Then again, you seem to be the type of bo - organic to cause mayhem on the regular."

"Human." Jazz could hear more than a few processors whir at the strange term, and after a moment, grabs a seat at the table next to him. "Organic sounds weird to me, so you can call me human or just my name, I'm not picky."

"Human...weird." Jazz isn't sure who spoke as his visor offlined, ensuring his mecha was supported before fully breaking the connection. The entire room went silent when Jazz's chassis made a soft click before opening, noises of alarm escaping vocalizers as they expected to see a spark, wondering what in Primus' name the org - human was thinking when something moved. What should have been a spark chamber was something else entirely, the central interior some sort of piloting seat that housed the human they'd all come to trust and fight alongside, who waved as he undid a harness. Prowl was the only thing stopping the Cybertronians around Jazz from moving any closer, his doorwings up in a sharp V when he carefully placed one of his servos just below Jazz, Mirage shimmering into view on the other side of Jazz's mecha when the human hopped onto the limb.

"Hey, fellas." Prowl kept his hold on Jazz as he stepped back from the temporarily deactivated suit, setting him on the table's surface as carefully as possible. "Aw, thanks Prowler!"

"You look strange for an organic." Thundercracker tilted his helm slightly, wanting a closer look but not stupid enough to test how close he could actually get.

"I guess?" Jazz reached up to unlatch his helmet, biting back a laugh when there were a few surprised vents at the reveal of his hair. "Back home, I'd say I'm about the best we humans can look."

"With an ego to match." Mirage cycled his optics with a smirk, eyeing his friend curiously while keeping himself between any bot stupid enough to try and sneak up on Prowl's blindside. "Your frame suits you."

"And don't I know it." Jazz winked, setting his helmet on the table by his feet. "Man, you guys are just...so much bigger in person. I mean I know you are, it's just weird ta see it with my own eyes, er optics."

"Trust me, it's weird for us too." Sideswipe commented from his spot among the crowd, amused more than anything when the inevitable questions started pouring in. To his credit, Jazz tries to answer some of them, but he steps back when Prowl draws himself to his full height and silences almost everyone when he crosses his arms, smiling to himself when the bot speaks.

"If you have any further questions, you can ask them another time, most of you are late for your assigned duty shifts, Jazz included."

"Ya wound me Prowler!" The human let out a whine at the supposed betrayal, but the grin never left his face as he turned to his mecha. "I guess I could get movin', don't want to keep Brawn too late."

"Indeed." Prowl offered his servo once more, aware of the many prying optics watching as Jazz hopped onto his palm, slipping his strange helm covering back on as he was safely delivered back to his larger frame. They watched Jazz buckle himself back into the harness within the spa - piloting chamber, the chassis closing up when something connected with the back of his helm covering, the visor on the frame they were all accustomed to lighting up with a slight hum.

"Fun time's over." Jazz waved his servo, everyone murmuring to each other while they slowly dispersed. "Man that was fun."

"You find most activities fun, dangerous or otherwise." Prowl shook his helm in exasperation as Jazz laughed, the human leaning over to gently bonk his helm against Prowl's.

"I'll see you later, gorgeous." With that Jazz sweeps out of the room, Prowl watching him go with a look that made Mirage do a double take.

"You definitely chose someone...interesting." The saboteur chuckled, saving the image of a soft smile on Prowl's face for some future use.

"So I have..."

---

Jazz had wondered what Prowl's face felt like from the moment the met, in awe at how the metal creased and smoothed out much like his own skin did. Would it be cold and stiff, or warm and pliable? Ah the thought plagued him from time to time, becoming worse when he fell for said mech.

So, when he comes across Prowl asleep (no recharge) at his desk, a data pad clutched in his clawed hands, Jazz grins. Locking the door to Prowl's office, more for the tactician's peace of mind than his own, Jazz quietly grabs the only other chair in the room and sets it down on the other side of Prowl's desk, resting one arm on top of the table. Prowl is still asleep when Jazz powers down the link with his mecha, shivering at the sensation of becoming so small before slowly unbuckling himself, setting his helmet aside before starting the (admittedly) long journey across the room. Thankfully his magnetic lock boots made his journey down the arm of his faithful mecha relatively safe, staring up at his boyfriend (boybot? Ugh no, no way in hell) with an amused smile.

"Always gonna be the smallest huh?"

Now, here comes the hard part, one that could end up getting him flung across the room or smashed into paste if he triggered the wrong response from his sleeping partner. Okay, deep breath, and with a quick crossing of his fingers, Jazz activated the magnetics in his gloves before placing them on Prowl's arm as a test run. One doorwing twitched at the initial contact, but Prowl remained still, and with a deep breath Jazz started climbing, climbing up his mech's arm nice and slow. It was a little tricky when he reached Prowl's shoulder, but with a little awkward shuffling and a twist of his upper body, Jazz was within reach of his partner's face.

Now here comes the Hard Part Two: Electric Boogaloo.

It took a few tries to unwrap the base of his glove with his teeth, heart racing when he was only attached to Prowl via his shoes and magnetized knee pads in order to free his hand, but soon he was ready to do the biggest thing he's wanted to since he first laid eyes on Prowl. His hand is shaking slightly, but that doesn't matter when it makes contact with Prowl's cheek, brain short circuiting at how...soft and warm the metal was to his touch. While it didn't exactly move with his touch, Jazz could feel the nanites that were on the outer surface of every Cybertronian react, twitching when he felt a buzzing under his finger tips. He becomes used to the buzz as he takes his time mapping out the dips and curves of Prowl's face, missing the cycling of optics before a loud chirp breaks the silence, Jazz yelping as he jerked back in surprise far enough to detach from Prowl's shoulder. He doesn't fall very far when he lands on a hand (servo dude) with a grunt, Prowl looking worried as Jazz propped himself up on one arm.

"Are you alright?"

"Yep! Next time I need ta clip a harness on you or somethin', don't want to fall again." Jazz waved with his uncovered hand, sitting cross-legged on Prowl's palm. "Saw you asleep, an' I couldn't resist."

"Resist what?" A quick look at his chronometer showed he'd not been asleep too long, optics flickering down to his partner when he felt something strange touch one of his digits.

"This might sound kinda weird, but I've wanted ta touch your face since we met." Jazz had uncovered his second hand and was touching the closest digit, a look he couldn't classify crossing Jazz's face when he gave it a squeeze. "Weird, these are warm, but not as warm as your face."

"Did you enjoy your...examination?" Something fluttered in his spark at the smile Jazz gave him, and once again gave thanks to Primus that he'd been given a chance.

"Mhm! I'd love to again some time, see those pretty lil' optics of yours." Jazz winked, watching doorwings give a full on flutter. "Glad we both agree."

"You shall be the end of me, Jazz." Embarrassment colors Prowl's words as he sits back in his chair, watching Jazz lay back on his palm, hands underneath his head as he sighs happily.

"Your hand is pretty comfy...not a sentence I ever expected to say to my boyfriend, but it is what it is."

"I suppose you shall have to make yourself comfortable then, I still have some reports to finish." Prowl clicked, grabbing the pad he'd been reading before he fell asleep.

"Gives me an excuse to nap then." Jazz moved to remove the outer layer that supported his pedes, his processor supplying the word shoe as Jazz resumed his position with a yawn. "Have fun Prowler."

"Have a pleasant recharge, Jazz."

Jazz doesn't need to know he had already completed his work before his "nap", merely settling in for a novel he'd wanted to get through as his partner slept in his grasp.

[waynes-multiverse]

Hi, I first wanted to say that I’m a big fan of your work, I’m constantly rereading your fics and they have really helped me escape from my busy Uni schedule. I was hoping you could write some smutty head canons about dean, no pressure ofc. I hope you enjoy your day and thank you for taking the time to create and post fics for people like me who need a way to escape their hectic lives.💕

Aww, thank you so much, lovely! I gladly support the escapism 🥰

Sorry this took me so long! I was on a bit of a break there, but I was so excited to get into this. God knows I have so many headcanons 😆

Hope you’re doing well and hope you enjoy this 🤍

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Female!Reader

Warnings: +18 for some smutty content (duh)

Main Masterlist || Tag List

Headcanon: Gettin’ Down and Dirty with Dean

Dean is very hands-on, which means he’ll touch you whenever he can, even if it’s just a hand on the small of your back while you’re pumping gas or walking into a bar.

This also means he takes PDA to a whole new level. He teases you under the table when you’re doing research in the library or eating in the kitchen. He weaves his arms around you when you’re doing dishes. He trails kisses down your neck while you’re cooking.

Especially while you’re cooking. Something about food just turns him on. So much so that every once in a while he stands in front of your door with some whipped cream, chocolate sauce, a cute wiggle of his eyebrows, and a giant grin, begging you to be his dessert.

Sam is mostly annoyed by his brother’s indiscretions, though. Too many times (almost every damn day) Dean has walked into the kitchen in nothing but his gray robe and announced his morning wood to you, not seeing Sam sitting in the corner. That’s when Sam usually folds his paper, takes his coffee, and hurries to the library before Dean’s hands find their way to your body once more.

Sam suffers the most, however, if there’s only one motel room available and the three of you have to share. Dean has zero self-control (and also doesn’t care what Sam sees or doesn’t see). While he cuddles you, he holds you so close to his body that it’s hard to breathe. And again, hands and lips – they wander. Constantly. The man doesn’t possess an off-switch.

It got so bad that Sam has established a rule that the two of you are not allowed to share a bed anymore and Dean has to take the couch for the night. But as soon as his little brother has dozed off, he crawls right back into the warm comfort of your bed.

Speaking of rules, Dean loves breaking them. If there’s a sign that says “Do not enter,” you can be sure as hell he’ll shove you in there and will enter you. For Dean, there’s no such thing as bad timing or an inappropriate place. He even breaks rules that don’t exist and are just common sense like, “Do not have sex in a museum while you’re breaking into said museum.”

And while he loves breaking rules, he also loves following them. Especially when it’s “sexy rules.” He loves when you playfully push him around, when you shove him backwards onto the mattress and tell him what to do. He will smirk at you giddily all the way through and be the best damn boy you’ve ever seen.

Overall, he’s curious about your fantasies and constantly asks you want you want to do. He enjoys it when you take the lead in the bedroom and loves to see what you come up with. He loves being underneath you and watch you ride him with his bottom lip tugged behind his teeth. It barely hides his huge grin. He loves to see your tits bounce from this angle. According to him, it’s the best goddamn view in the world – forget the Grand Canyon.

However, when he’s had a bad day or a rough hunt, he actually likes to be in charge. It all depends on his mood. But taking control of you helps him cope with the things he can’t control in this world. So whenever he comes home with tense shoulders and a tightly creased brow, you know you’re in for a treat.

When he orders you around with his deep voice and sharp tone, you melt into a puddle and only all too happily oblige to his every command. Your legs grow weak when he dominates you with just a look. God, he loves the way you whimper and squirm underneath him, loves how you moan his name when you’re on all fours in front of him, and loves how your lips feel around his cock when you suck him off.

You love to give him comfort in whatever form he pleases. And Dean loves that you trust him with all your heart – and he knows to never betray it. He will always respect your limits, even though he gently pokes them sometimes, testing how far he actually can go.

Sometimes he bends rules like he bends you.

And truth is, he can go pretty fucking far. There’s not much you won’t let this man do. His dirty mouth can convince you to do all kinds of things – things you would for sure refuse if anyone else was asking. But it’s Dean, and one look of his sparkling green eyes will have you on your knees for him.

But honestly, Dean is the same kind of whipped for you, too. He will do anything for you, short of moving actual mountains. Massages, hot baths, ice cream at midnight? He’s got you covered and doesn’t expect anything in return, except for your unconditional love. He’s got it either way, but you do have to reassure him sometimes.

Dean’s a giver, not a taker, so you do have to force him sometimes to ask for the things he wants. But boy, when he gives, he goddamn gives with both of his massive hands. After he’s done with you, there’s not a single inch of skin left on your body that hasn’t been worshipped. You always come first – literally.

Dean takes pride in making you cum, and it doesn’t matter with which body part of his he does it. They are all equally skilled – his fingers, his lips, his tongue, and his dick. He eats you out and fucks you like there’s no tomorrow, because you both know in a life full of monsters, there actually might not be one. He makes every night and every day count.

Then, there’s his mouth. It should be no surprise, but it’s goddamn filthy. He could make you come with words alone, and not rarely, he sure likes to try. A lot of times it’s stuff you haven’t even heard, dreamed, or thought about until Dean’s said it and put it in your goddamn head.

And yes, Dean’s very sexual and a great lover through and through. He enjoys sex, but most of all, he enjoys going to sleep and waking up next to you. He loves cuddling with you on the couch during a movie, he loves holding you close at night, and he loves that special moment when you’re both coming down from your highs and are still connected, bathing in the afterglow.

Dean has been so touch-starved all his life that he enjoys the little things. He loves when your fingernails caress his back and massage his scalp. He loves using you as his freaking pillow. At this point, you’ve learned not to drink too much water before bed, because you know you won’t be able to escape his prison of strong arms – not that you’d ever want to (unless you really do have to pee).

I honestly could've went on and on and on with this one... 😂

MORE HEADCANONS? 👉 Put 'em here.

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[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:

[project-sekai-facts]

Maybe I'm a hater but I feel like expecting clpl to make Mizuki say "Ena I'm transgender I was a boy but now I'm a girl" was a little too much hope for a rhythm game but I did think they'd be more... Subtle, I guess. Like they wouldn't use the words boy or girl or transgender but maybe something like "oh, I wasn't always like this Ena... I wasn't always "cute" (a girl)" but well. What did we expect.

I do think clpl still has the capacity to redeem themselves a little by finally changing Mizuki's boku to either watashi (in hiragana perhaps?) or atashi, if they really wanna make it "feminine". However, I suspect they won't do that, either.

In conclusion, let's throw rocks at clpl <3 I was also wondering, how are the japanese fans reacting to the event?

yeah i kinda didn't think they'd ever say trans outright, but maybe like, a vague description of sorts. and i think the whole idea of "it's a gacha game they would never be that explicit" is kinda void here as well since, they absolutely can, and other games/franchises absolutely do. prsk is much more mainstream than the stuff that is more explicit though, which probably plays a role.

their one source of redemption is probably gonna be hiichan/minoringo dropping something during the talk show or mizuki's ? in bio getting changed, but as for anything in the text it's not exactly looking great. kanade and mafuyu know now, and an and rui already knew, so we've already ticked off most of her closest relationships before her next event. i mean idk really what they're gonna do for mizuki now since she's a year younger than the other n25 characters who are all having arcs about growing up and thinking about uni/jobs, so maybe they will have mizuki6 being about her coming out to people like airi/shizuku/akito/toya etc. i dunno. there's still room to. try and fix things.

as for how jp fans are responding i'm not really sure since i haven't been hanging around the prsk fandom much for the past month, but i've seen a couple tweets about people being dissatisfied about the fact there's no clear resolution to what her secret is. which, yeah it's kinda wack to spend 4 years reminding the audience about mizuki's secret that is one day going to be revealed only to fade to black when the time comes lol. not sure what the most common response is though.

also yes we should throw rocks at clpl. in fact let's do pipebomb #5

[ruggiesbiologicalfather]

i've been struck by inspiration

here's my ranking of twisted wonderland students by how likely i'd be to let them behind the wheel of a car. this is gonna be a long one bc i'm including explanations of course. (and i know that in-game it's rare to be able to drive, we're ignoring that and pretending it's common to drive around)

1. Leona: canonically, he can drive and drive well. i feel like this was an easy one. but it makes sense!

2. Vil: he just has so many random skills that i feel like driving would be no problem at all. honestly, there's not much that i think vil CAN'T do

3. Trey: everything about him screams Responsible Driver. he would definitely play chauffeur for heartslabyul whenever they need to go somewhere. AND he'd have snacks in the glove compartment. 10/10 ride

4. Jamil: he can absolutely drive well - near perfect i'd argue. what's the alternative? let KALIM drive? get real. it's his duty to get where he needs to go safely

5. Jack: the self-discipline that this boy possesses is unrivaled. he would be locked in behind the wheel. he spent so long becoming the best driver he can be and by god, he's gonna prove it

6. Deuce: LISTEN TO ME, LISTEN! he's really good on that blastcycle which is more dangerous and difficult (said as a former bike/atv guy). a car is nothing to him. plus he's on his Honor Student streak so he's trying his best. my only worry is speed. slow it down, friend

7. Epel: similar to deuce. farm kids learn to drive really early in their lives. HOWEVER... driving safely?? hmmmm... his biggest flaws are going too fast and whipping around curves when no one else is on the road

8. Riddle: he would definitely follow all the road rules. to the letter. every trip would take an extra 30 minutes to an hour. no music, windows up, silence. he won't even let YOU be on your phone lest he become distracted. also ROAD RAGE. interstate driving would get very scary

9. Ortho: fuck it, let the robot give it a shot

10. Azul: i feel like once he figured out the mechanics, he would be fine on the road. however, if he got pulled over he would definitely argue with the cop and get us both arrested. so... i'm gonna pass

11. Jade: yes, we're getting where we need to go. but... nefariously. and there's something in the trunk. i feel like he'd also randomly go "oops" just to freak out his passengers. "what do you mean OOPS?" "don't worry about it :)"

12. Ruggie: there's a wildness to my boy that drove his ranking down. he would definitely drive a jeep with the doors off. music blasting, wind whipping around everywhere. it would be a fairly safe drive but not a particularly enjoyable one. also i would fall out

13. Silver: i don't know, i feel like he would be chill. i put him low bc briar valley doesn't have cars so his driving education would be quite scarce and he'd be a new driver. but he could get the job done. probably

14. Sebek: similar to silver but he needs to relax. malleus is fine, we're just going to walmart

15. Ace: he just gives off the vibe of "16-year-old kid in the car his dad bought for him." never lets anyone merge, hits curbs, can never figure out the speed limit, etc, etc. even worse if deuce is in the car! "ace, watch out for the mailbox!" "don't tell me what to- *BANG*"

16. Cater: gay people can't drive

17. Rook: distracted driver. god forbid there's wildlife around, he would turn 180 in his seat to look at it. this Oh Shit Handle is getting some use. also i KNOW his car would be shit. i don't care that his family is rich, he's driving a 2003 hyundai sonata

18. Floyd: LISTEN! there's a 50/50 shot that everything goes perfectly fine. like as long as he's in a good mood, he can get the job done. you definitely just have to check in before you buckle up. get ready to tuck and roll

19. Malleus: what is a car?

20. Idia: there's so much anxiety there i feel like one thing would go slightly left and he'd almost pass out. he's white-knuckling the wheel, praying that no one else is on the road. it's alright buddy, you can be a passenger princess

21. Kalim: No.

22. Grim + Yuu: okay, for this one it's a joint effort. yuu at the wheel and grim on the pedals. there's so much chaos and screaming. four-way stops don't exist. yellow lights are green and red lights are yellow. the horn has not stopped honking since the engine started. this is an emergency situation ONLY. like someone is bleeding out in the backseat and no one is answering their phones

23. Lilia: absolutely not. i will walk

[rorygilmoresgf]

⋆. 𐙚 ˚ — unexpected love; elphaba thropp & glinda upland

paring : elphaba thropp x glinda upland x fem!reader

reader sticks up for elphaba, glinda feels bad and starts being nicer, she finds herself feeling things, that aren’t platonic?

The air at Shiz was always electric, the hum of students rushing through hallways, whispers of gossip swirling in every corner, and the constant pressure of exams hanging over everyone’s heads. 

For most students, this was just part of the grind—but for you, there was always something else: the undercurrent of loneliness that seemed to follow Elphaba, as constant as her shadow.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t capable of handling it. Elphaba was strong, more than anyone gave her credit for. But there was something about the way she carried herself—isolated, guarded, as if she were constantly preparing for a world that was always just a step away from breaking her.

You never could quite understand why people treated her the way they did, but there you were, sitting beside her at the long wooden table in the common room, a soft breeze trickling through the open window. You tried to concentrate on your homework, the quiet clatter of books and papers the only sound in the room, when suddenly, you heard Glinda’s unmistakable voice.

“Well, Elphaba,” Glinda said with a little too much cheer, her voice dripping with something between amusement and mockery, “are you sure you’re not going to burn your papers with all that… heat you’re giving them?”

You could feel Elphaba tense beside you, her eyes narrowing at the comment. 

Her quill paused mid-sentence, and for a second, you swore the temperature in the room dropped a few degrees. Glinda, oblivious as always to the weight of her words, continued, her gaze flicking between you and Elphaba.

“I mean, really,” she added, her words light as a feather but sharp as a blade. “You can’t possibly be having fun with all this studying, can you? I don’t even know how you do it. You must be miserable.”

You didn’t even think, just reacted. You pushed yourself slightly out of your seat, leaning over to face Glinda.

“Glinda, that’s enough,” you said, voice steady but carrying an edge. “Just because Elphaba doesn’t care for endless gossiping and glitzy parties doesn’t mean she’s miserable.”

Glinda blinked, surprised by your sudden defense. “Oh, come on, I was just joking around!” she said, her tone faltering. “We’re friends, right?”

You couldn’t help the frustration that bubbled up inside you. “Being friends means treatingeach other like friends, not making sarcastic comments about how someone spends their time. Elphaba works hard. And maybe if you stopped acting like her studying was some kind of joke, you’d see that.”

There was a charged silence in the room as the words hung in the air, the tension between you and Glinda palpable. 

But then, you saw it. The faintest glimmer in Elphaba’s eyes, the tiniest of smiles tugging at the corners of her lips. It was small, but it was there. And for a split second, you wondered if you’d made a mistake.

“I’m… sorry,” Glinda said, her voice soft, and the apology seemed genuine, though laced with the uncertainty of someone who didn’t quite understand what they’d done wrong. “I didn’t mean to upset you, Elphaba.”

Elphaba didn’t look up, but her voice was quieter than usual, a softness you didn’t often hear. “I’m fine, really. But… thanks. For standing up for me.”

The words landed between the three of you, shifting the atmosphere like a breeze before a storm. Glinda, for once, seemed at a loss for words, and you couldn’t quite read the expression on Elphaba’s face—was it appreciation, or something else?

But in that moment, something changed. Maybe it was just a small crack in the surface, or maybe it was the beginning of something deeper. 

The three of you sat there, the awkwardness lingering for just a moment longer than it should have, before the tension slowly eased, replaced by the comfortable silence of shared space.

—

The days after the incident in the common room were strange—different, in a way that neither of you quite understood. Elphaba still kept mostly to herself, immersed in her studies, and Glinda, while she made an effort to be nicer, still hovered around with her usual antics. 

But something had shifted. There was a subtle warmth between you and Elphaba, something unspoken, but real.

You weren’t sure what had changed exactly—maybe it was the way she’d looked at you after you stood up for her, or the quiet thank you she’d offered afterward, but the distance between you seemed to lessen. 

You started finding excuses to sit near her during meals, offering her a quiet smile or the occasional comment about the weather or the homework that both of you hated equally. Small things, but they meant something.

One day, you found yourself sitting at the corner of the courtyard, nursing a warm drink in your hands as you watched the late afternoon sunlight spill across the grass. The rest of the campus had emptied out, leaving only a few students wandering between buildings, but you weren’t alone. 

Elphaba had joined you quietly, as she always did—no words at first, just a soft thud of her boots as she sat beside you.

You didn’t mind the silence. In fact, you welcomed it. There was a comfort in sitting with someone without needing to fill the space with chatter. Elphaba always seemed to prefer it that way, and so did you.

After a few minutes, Elphaba shifted slightly in her seat, her eyes on the distant horizon. You knew she wasn’t one for small talk, but you couldn’t help yourself.

“Do you think the world will ever change?” you asked quietly, your voice barely above a whisper. “Like, really change?”

Elphaba’s gaze flickered over to you, and for a moment, there was hesitation in her eyes. She had a habit of keeping her emotions tightly locked away, but you could see the shift—the way her shoulders relaxed just a fraction, as if she was finally letting herself breathe.

“You mean in the way people treat each other?” she asked, her voice low but thoughtful.

You nodded, meeting her eyes now. “Yeah. I mean… Glinda and the others—they don’t always see what’s really going on with you. They don’t see how hard you work, or how much you care. They just see… whatever they want to see.”

Elphaba’s lips tightened for a moment, and you could see the familiar bitterness flash in her eyes. But then, she sighed, a soft, almost reluctant sound. “I’ve learned to stop trying to change their minds. People don’t change that easily. But maybe… maybe it’s enough if I change the way I see things.”

You didn’t speak right away, letting the words sink in. There was something vulnerable in her tone, a rare honesty that you didn’t expect from her. You offered a small, reassuring smile, the kind that didn’t need to be said aloud.

“Maybe the world doesn’t have to change all at once,” you said. “Maybe it just takes one person to change the way they see things. Even if it’s just you and me.”

Elphaba looked at you then, her green eyes softening, and for the first time in what felt like ages, you saw a glimpse of something warm—something genuine.

“Yeah,” she said, the corners of her lips lifting into the smallest of smiles. “Maybe you’re right.”

From that moment on, it was clear that something was blooming between the two of you. It wasn’t fast, it wasn’t perfect, but it was real. 

There were no grand gestures, no big moments of dramatic confession—just the slow, steady building of a quiet friendship that you both desperately needed.

—

The next few weeks felt like a blur—study sessions, homework, and the constant shuffle of life at Shiz. But between the chaos, you found yourself drawn to Elphaba more and more. It wasn’t anything spectacular, just the quiet comfort of being in each other’s company.

One evening, after a particularly grueling day of exams, you found yourself sitting by the fire in the common room. Elphaba was at her usual spot by the window, a book in hand, her dark green face partially illuminated by the soft glow of the firelight. You were curled up in one of the armchairs, trying to relax your sore muscles.

Elphaba glanced over at you, noticing the tense line of your shoulders. “You’re not sleeping well, are you?” she asked, her voice unexpectedly gentle.

You looked up at her, surprised. “What? Oh, I just… I’m fine. Just tired.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You look like you’re carrying the weight of the world. You should take a break sometime, you know.”

You chuckled softly, leaning back in your chair. “I guess it’s hard to stop once you’ve gotten used to pushing through it.”

Elphaba paused, her eyes thoughtful. “Sometimes pushing through can break you.”

The unexpected honesty caught you off guard, but you could tell she wasn’t just speaking from theory. You met her gaze, offering a small, understanding smile.

“Maybe we can both take a break then,” you said, sitting up. “You know, from all this studying.”

Elphaba raised an eyebrow. “And what exactly do you suggest?”

Without warning, you reached for the stack of books on the table and tossed them aside. “I don’t know… something more fun. How about a walk around the campus? The fresh air might do us some good.”

Elphaba looked like she was about to protest, but after a long pause, she gave a slight nod. “Fine. But if we end up in the stables, I’m going straight back inside.”

You laughed, already standing up. “Deal.”

A few days later, you and Elphaba were sitting on the grassy hill near the courtyard, sharing stories and laughs. 

The conversation drifted from mundane things—what the professors had said in class that day—to more personal matters. 

Elphaba opened up, little by little, talking about her childhood, about the people who didn’t understand her. You listened, never interrupting, just offering a kind word when it was needed. There was a rare vulnerability in her voice, a softness you hadn’t seen before.

“I don’t think many people really get me,” she said quietly, looking out at the sunset. “But I’m starting to think maybe… maybe that’s okay.”

You smiled gently, your heart swelling at the moment of quiet connection. “You don’t have to be like everyone else, Elphaba. You’re already pretty amazing the way you are.”

The words seemed to hang in the air between you, both of you silent for a long time, just enjoying each other’s presence.

It wasn’t long before Glinda started showing up, too—seemingly out of nowhere. At first, she’d wander into the courtyard while you and Elphaba were sitting together, her high heels tapping loudly against the stone path.

“Okay, okay,” Glinda would say, holding up her hands in mock surrender. “I’ll join you guys, but only because I can’t stand seeing you both brooding all alone. It’s so dramatic.”

You and Elphaba exchanged amused glances, but neither of you protested. Glinda, despite her sometimes overwhelming personality, had her moments of genuine sweetness, and she seemed to be trying—really trying—to be more kind.

Slowly, the three of you fell into a routine.

 Glinda would join you and Elphaba for casual walks around campus, or sit beside you both at meals. It wasn’t perfect. There were moments of tension, especially when Glinda’s usual teasing slipped out, but you could tell she was making an effort. And for Elphaba, that meant something.

One afternoon, the three of you found yourselves in the library. Elphaba had just finished another stack of books, and Glinda had somehow dragged the two of you into a heated debate about the best way to decorate the dorms for the upcoming semester. 

The conversation was lighthearted, but there was something new in the air—the way you all felt more like a team, like friends who’d somehow found each other.

At one point, Glinda leaned back in her chair, smirking. “You know, you two really are a mysterious pair. Elphaba’s always so serious, and you,” she turned to you, “well, you’re just toonice. You balance each other out pretty well.”

You exchanged a look with Elphaba, a smile tugging at your lips. “I guess we do.”

And in that moment, despite the chaos of everything around you, it felt like you were finally all on the same page. Glinda, with her shine and spark, Elphaba, with her quiet intensity, and you, somewhere in between, finding your place.

It wasn’t perfect. But for the first time in a long while, it felt like things were right.

—

It was a quiet evening, and the three of you had just finished a rather long study session. You were now lounging in the common room, the crackle of the fireplace the only sound filling the space. You were tired, but there was a strange sense of comfort in the familiar routine of being with both Elphaba and Glinda.

Elphaba, of course, had her nose buried in yet another book, her eyes scanning the pages with intensity. Glinda, however, had managed to sneak away from her own homework, casually leaning back in her chair and humming a tune.

After a moment, Elphaba let out an exasperated sigh, clearly frustrated with whatever she was reading. She rubbed her temples, closing the book with a soft thud.

“Something wrong?” Glinda asked, not even looking up from her reflection in the mirror as she adjusted a strand of hair. Her tone was light, teasing, but there was something softer in it than usual.

Elphaba didn’t answer immediately. She simply stared at the pages of her book, a frown creasing her brow. You could tell it wasn’t just the material that was bothering her.

“It’s just… this isn’t going the way I thought it would,” Elphaba muttered, her voice quieter now. “I thought I could just study and figure things out. But sometimes, it feels like no matter how much I do, I’m still falling short.”

Glinda finally turned her head, meeting Elphaba’s gaze. For a moment, there was a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes—something real, something far from the usual bubbly facade.

“You’re not falling short, Elphaba,” Glinda said softly, her voice sincere. “You’re doingeverything. And sometimes, that’s enough, even if it doesn’t feel like it.”

Elphaba blinked, clearly caught off guard by Glinda’s sudden seriousness. The words seemed to hang in the air for a moment, as if Elphaba was processing them, allowing herself to actually hear them.

“Thanks,” Elphaba finally said, her voice almost shy. She shifted in her seat, her tone slightly more hesitant than usual. “I… I know I don’t always say it, but I appreciate it.”

Glinda smiled, though it wasn’t the usual teasing grin. It was soft, almost tender. “Of course, Elphie. You know I’ve got your back.”

There was a long silence after that. You could almost feel the weight of the moment hanging between them, and for the first time, it didn’t feel forced. There was no pretense, no sarcasm—just two people, quietly learning to understand each other.

Another day, the three of you had wandered into the courtyard after dinner, the air crisp as the sun began to dip below the horizon. Elphaba and Glinda had naturally fallen into their usual banter, but there was a new ease in their interactions—like the sharp edges of their old rivalry were softening just a bit.

“So, how’s that little project you’ve been working on?” Glinda asked, throwing Elphaba a sidelong glance. “I’m sure it’s something insufferably intellectual, right?”

Elphaba shot Glinda a look that would have been intimidating on anyone else, but Glinda just giggled.

“I’m trying to write something,” Elphaba said, a small but proud smile playing on her lips. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

Glinda gasped dramatically, her hands flying to her chest. “I knew it! You’re secretly a poet! I should’ve figured it out all along. You’re so deep, Elphaba, it’s tragic.”

Elphaba rolled her eyes but couldn’t suppress the chuckle that escaped her lips. “I’m not a poet, Glinda. I just think—well, never mind.”

But Glinda wasn’t about to let it slide. “No, no. Tell me! What’s your secret talent? Come on, I’m practically begging you.”

You watched as Elphaba seemed to hesitate, but then, slowly, she gave in. “Fine,” she muttered, turning to face Glinda more directly. “I write letters. To people I don’t know. Just… random thoughts.”

Glinda blinked in surprise, and for a moment, you thought she might say something sarcastic, but instead, she looked almost thoughtful.

“That’s… actually kind of nice,” Glinda said quietly. “I think it’s sweet that you get your thoughts out that way. It’s… personal, you know?”

Elphaba didn’t look at Glinda, her gaze focused on the ground beneath her. “Yeah, well. It’s the only way I can make sense of things sometimes.”

There was something almost vulnerable in Elphaba’s words, and for once, Glinda didn’t tease her. Instead, she reached out, gently tapping her on the arm.

“Hey, I think that’s really cool, Elphie,” she said softly. “If you ever want to share one, I’ll listen.”

Elphaba looked at her, and for a fleeting moment, there was a quiet understanding between them—a moment where the walls they’d both built started to crack, just a little.

—

The day was clear and warm, the kind of afternoon that made Shiz seem less like a strict, academic institution and more like a peaceful haven. 

After much coaxing, Glinda had convinced you and Elphaba to join her for a picnic in the gardens—though Elphaba had initially protested the idea, claiming that she “didn’t have time for such frivolity,” you knew she’d come around. 

There was something about the way the sunlight filtered through the trees that made it hard to resist.

By the time the three of you found a good spot near a large oak tree, the air was thick with the sounds of birds and distant chatter from other students enjoying their free time. Glinda spread out a blanket with more flourish than necessary, tossing her hair over her shoulder dramatically.

“Look at us, spending a lovely afternoon together,” Glinda said with a smile, her voice warm. “Just three friends, living our best lives. Totally not a date.”

You raised an eyebrow, glancing at Elphaba as she set down the basket. Elphaba rolled her eyes but couldn’t hide the small smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

“Right, not a date,” Elphaba agreed dryly. “I’m just here to make sure neither of you gets sunburned.”

You chuckled, settling down on the blanket and pulling out a sandwich. Glinda, of course, had already prepared an impressive spread, with sandwiches, fruit, and something that looked suspiciously like cupcakes.

“So,” Glinda started, her eyes sparkling mischievously, “what’s the deal with you two, anyway?”

You froze for a second, glancing at Elphaba. “What do you mean?”

Glinda grinned. “You know… you two. You’ve been hanging out a lot. It’s adorable, really. Everyone at Shiz is starting to talk.”

You could feel the warmth creeping up your neck, and Elphaba’s expression mirrored yours—both of you caught off guard by the sudden shift in conversation. Glinda, though, was practically glowing with amusement, clearly enjoying the moment.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you said, fumbling with your sandwich as if that would somehow distract from the awkwardness.

“Come on,” Glinda continued, eyes twinkling. “Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed the way Elphaba looks at you. And you—” she pointed at you, “—you get all shy whenever she says something nice.”

Elphaba’s face turned a shade darker, and she quickly reached for a piece of fruit to avoid looking at either of you. “You’re ridiculous, Glinda. It’s not like that,” she muttered, though her voice lacked its usual sharpness.

“Oh, sure,” Glinda said with a wink. “Whatever you say, Elphie. But it’s not just the two of you. I mean, look at how you’re all sitting so close. The world can tell, you know.”

You looked down at the blanket, realizing that, somehow, you and Elphaba had ended up sitting next to each other, with only a few inches between you. 

Glinda was sitting just a little further off, but still close enough that it made the arrangement seem… odd. 

Was it a date? It hadn’t felt like one, not in the way Glinda seemed to be implying. You and Elphaba had always shared moments like this, just the two of you, without any intention of anything romantic.

But now, in the warm afternoon sunlight, with Glinda’s teasing floating in the air, you couldn’t help but feel a little self-conscious.

“I don’t think anyone’s going to get the wrong idea,” you said quickly, shifting uncomfortably. “We’re just friends, right?”

Elphaba shot you a look, and despite herself, a small, almost imperceptible smirk tugged at her lips. “Right. Just friends.”

Glinda leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Are you sure? Because if this is a secret date, I have to know all the details. I’m your number one fan, after all.”

You laughed nervously, the awkwardness still hanging in the air. But even as you spoke, you couldn’t help but notice how comfortable you felt sitting next to Elphaba. It was natural, easy, like the conversation didn’t even need to be said aloud.

“Maybe we should just enjoy the picnic, huh?” you suggested, trying to steer the conversation away from romance and back to the lightheartedness you had before.

“Fine, fine,” Glinda said, leaning back with a dramatic sigh. “But I’ll be watching. Don’t think I won’t figure this out.”

The afternoon continued, and as the sun began to set, the three of you settled into a more relaxed atmosphere. 

Elphaba, despite her usual guarded nature, actually seemed to be enjoying herself. She even joined in on some of the jokes, laughing along with Glinda’s exaggerated tales of her “glamorous” life.

You caught a quiet moment with Elphaba near the end of the picnic, the two of you standing together at the edge of the blanket.

“Don’t mind her,” you said softly, nudging Elphaba gently. “She likes to stir things up.”

Elphaba smirked, but it was warmer than usual. “Yeah, well, if she keeps calling us a couple, I might just have to kiss you to make her stop.”

Your eyes widened, and Elphaba, clearly having fun with her teasing, quickly added, “I’m kidding.”

But for just a split second, you both locked eyes, and there was a strange flutter in your chest. Maybe it was the lighthearted teasing, maybe it was just the moment, but there was something in the air between you that felt different. Real. Honest. And just maybe, Glinda wasn’t entirely wrong.

—

It was one of those rare, quiet evenings when the campus seemed to settle into a peaceful lull. After a week of chaotic classes and exams, the three of you—Elphaba, Glinda, and you—found yourselves gathered in the Shiz common room. 

The fireplace crackled softly, casting flickering shadows across the space. You were all tired, but there was a certain warmth in the room—something unspoken that made you want to stay there, together.

Glinda, as usual, was sprawled out on a couch, her legs propped up on the armrest, a bright grin on her face. You and Elphaba sat nearby, Elphaba with a book in hand, and you just enjoying the peaceful evening.

“So,” Glinda began, turning to look at you with a mischievous glint in her eyes, “tell me, dearest,” she addressed you with exaggerated sweetness, “have you thought any more about… us?” She leaned forward a little, her voice full of playful teasing. “You know, you and me. We’d be fabulous together.”

You blinked, unsure of where she was going with this, but you recognized the look in her eyes—she was clearly setting the stage for another round of her usual flirtatious games.

“Oh no,” you said, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you’re going to start again.”

Glinda pouted, dramatically flicking her hair over her shoulder. “What? No! I just think we’d be so cute together, don’t you? You’re so charming, so adorable… And honestly, I’ve got nothing but time and way too many compliments for you, darling.”

Elphaba, who had been trying to ignore the conversation by pretending to focus on her book, couldn’t help but roll her eyes. She made a sound of disbelief—half annoyance, half amusement.

“Glinda,” Elphaba said, not bothering to hide her sarcasm. “You can’t just flirt with everyone you meet. You’re giving all of us a headache.”

Glinda simply flashed Elphaba an innocent smile, unbothered by her comment. “Oh, come on, Elphie, it’s all in good fun. Besides,” she added with a sly smile, “I can’t help it if I have perfecttaste, can I?”

You chuckled, shaking your head. “Right, because you just can’t resist flirting with me.” You paused for a moment, making eye contact with Glinda, before adding with a teasing tone, “Is it because you secretly like me?”

Glinda leaned forward, her eyes sparkling with a flirty challenge. “Oh, you,” she said with a sigh, batting her lashes. “You make it so hard to stay professional, don’t you?”

Elphaba, clearly not amused, raised an eyebrow. “Are you really flirting with her right now? In front of me? This is ridiculous.”

You chuckled, knowing exactly what Elphaba meant. There was something a little over-the-top about the whole situation, but you couldn’t deny it—Glinda’s flirting was kind of entertaining, in a way. And in some strange way, it was oddly… fun. But there was also something else there, hidden behind her words, a warmth that was starting to feel less like playful teasing and more like something real.

As Glinda continued to talk, there was a subtle change in her energy. She was still being her usual dramatic self, but there was something deeper in the way she was looking at you. Her teasing smile softened, and her voice became quieter, more genuine.

“Seriously though,” Glinda said, her gaze lingering on you for a moment before glancing at Elphaba, “you two are different. You’re like… a breath of fresh air. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s kind of… refreshing.” She smiled softly, a rare moment of vulnerability breaking through her usual bubbly demeanor.

You were taken aback by her sudden shift, unsure of how to respond, but there was a softness in her tone that made you feel like maybe there was more to her flirtations than you realized. And then, just as quickly as it had come, her flirtatious nature returned, almost like a defense mechanism.

“You two are lucky I’m not making more moves,” Glinda said, winking. “Otherwise, I’d be trouble. You’d never escape me.”

But this time, her teasing didn’t feel like a joke. There was something in the way she looked at you, and something in the way her eyes briefly flicked over to Elphaba, that made you realize that maybe, just maybe, there was more than just flirtation here.

You glanced at Elphaba, noticing the way she had become more still, her eyes focused on her book again but her attention clearly elsewhere. There was a strange tension in the air, like something was hanging between the three of you, unspoken but very much present.

And then, for the first time in a while, you caught Elphaba’s gaze—just for a brief moment—but it felt like more. It wasn’t just the usual friendly glance. It was like she was considering something, feeling something, and so were you.

“Alright, alright,” you said, standing up and trying to shake off the awkward tension. “Let’s just enjoy the quiet for a second, huh?”

Elphaba nodded, clearly still processing everything that had been said. But as the silence stretched on, you noticed her stealing a glance at you every now and then, her usual guarded demeanor slipping just a little.

—

The night had fallen quiet, the fire in the hearth crackling softly as the three of you sat in the common room. Glinda had slipped into one of her more reflective moods, no longer speaking in her usual dramatic tones. She was sitting cross-legged on the couch, a rare moment of silence surrounding her. You and Elphaba had been talking about trivial matters at first, but it wasn’t long before the conversation began to slow, leaving a heavy stillness in the air.

You couldn’t shake the feeling that something was different—more real—between the three of you now. All of the teasing, the laughter, the flirtations, had led to something unspoken, something that was sitting just beneath the surface, begging to be addressed.

Glinda was the first to break the silence, her voice soft and uncharacteristically serious.

“Do you ever feel like you’re too much?” she asked, looking at both of you. “Like… like you’re pushing everyone away without even meaning to?”

You glanced over at Elphaba, but it was Glinda’s vulnerability that caught you off guard. You didn’t expect her to speak like this, not after all the playful flirting and teasing. The sudden shift in tone left you feeling a little exposed, like she was finally letting down the walls she’d been hiding behind.

Elphaba was quiet, her lips pressed together in contemplation. You could tell she wasn’t sure how to respond to that either, but the vulnerability in Glinda’s voice seemed to make her rethink her usual sarcasm. She shifted a little on the couch, leaning back against the cushions.

“You’re not too much, Glinda,” Elphaba said softly, her voice calmer than usual. “You’re just… honest. Even if it’s wrapped up in jokes and teasing, it’s real.” She glanced at you, and you could feel the unspoken words hanging between you.

You took a deep breath, your heart racing as you finally met Glinda’s gaze. “You know,” you began slowly, “it’s not always about the jokes. Sometimes, the things we say… they actually mean something.” You hesitated, the weight of your own words hitting you harder than you expected. “And I think—”

Glinda’s eyes flicked between you and Elphaba, a sudden realization flashing across her face. “Oh,” she said softly, her voice quieter than before. “So, we’re all just… pretending, huh?”

Your heart skipped a beat. Glinda’s smile faltered for a second, and it was then that you realized how much she truly cared—about you, about Elphaba, about everything. The flirting had never been just for fun; it was her way of masking something deeper, something she had been too afraid to confront.

“I’m not pretending,” you said firmly, taking a step closer. “I think we all know by now that… there’s something between us. Something more than just… whatever we’ve been calling it.”

Glinda’s eyes softened, her usual confident demeanor wavering as she processed your words. And then, finally, Elphaba spoke.

“I’m not good at this kind of thing,” Elphaba said, her voice low and a little unsure. “But I’m not pretending either.” She turned to you, her eyes lingering for just a moment before meeting Glinda’s. “There’s something here. And I think we’ve all been trying to avoid it for too long.”

The words hung in the air like a delicate thread, pulling all of you closer together.

Glinda’s eyes met yours again, and for the first time, you saw the vulnerability behind her teasing. She bit her lip, as if unsure whether to speak her heart. But then, with a deep breath, she said the one thing that made everything click.

“I think… I think I’m in love with you,” Glinda said, her voice barely above a whisper, but the weight of it was undeniable.

You blinked, shocked by the sudden declaration, but as you looked at her, you realized that it wasn’t just a flirtation anymore. This was real. The way her eyes shone with something deeper, something more serious. And in that moment, you realized that you were falling for her too.

“I—” you began, unsure of how to respond, but then Elphaba spoke, her voice steady but full of something raw.

“I’m not going to pretend that I haven’t been feeling the same,” Elphaba said, her eyes unwavering. “I don’t know what this is—what any of this means—but I know that I care about you.” She turned to Glinda, her voice softer now. “And I care about you too, Glinda.”

The room seemed to still as the three of you stood there, unsure of where to go next. The words were out in the open now, hanging in the air, and all you could do was let the silence settle around you.

Glinda’s gaze flicked between you and Elphaba, her lips trembling as she spoke again, this time with a little more certainty.

“Maybe… we don’t need to have all the answers right now,” she said, her voice quieter than before. “Maybe it’s okay just to… feel this. Whatever this is.”

You nodded, your heart still racing as you stepped closer to both of them. “Yeah. Maybe it’s enough just to feel it.”

For a long moment, the three of you simply stood there, the weight of everything that had been left unsaid finally coming to the surface. And in that quiet, uncertain moment, you realized that none of you had to be afraid of what was happening. Maybe the truth was messy, but it was real, and it was yours.

And for the first time in a long while, you felt like you were exactly where you were supposed to be.

—

The silence stretched between the three of you, heavy and thick, like the calm before a storm. The confession had left you all exposed in ways you hadn’t been before. But for some reason, the tension felt comforting rather than awkward, as though the raw honesty between you and Elphaba and Glinda had created a new kind of connection.

You could hear your heart pounding in your chest, a rhythm that echoed through the space. It wasn’t just the lingering weight of the words spoken—it was the feeling of being on the edge of something new, something that had the potential to change everything.

Glinda was the first to break the silence, but her voice was quieter now, softer. Her usual confident, flirtatious tone had been replaced with something more genuine. “So… we’re really doing this, huh?” Her smile was faint, but there was something in her eyes that made you want to step closer.

You nodded, your voice low as you met her gaze. “Yeah… I think we are.”

Elphaba stood beside you, her arms crossed over her chest as she observed the two of you. There was a quiet understanding in her eyes, and for a moment, you wondered if she was thinking about how all of this had come to be—how you had all been strangers, then friends, and now… something more.

And then, before you could overthink it, Glinda stepped closer to you, her breath catching slightly as she tilted her head. The look in her eyes was intense, but there was something hesitant in her movements—like she was still unsure if she should close the gap that was growing between the three of you.

Without thinking, you reached out, your hand brushing hers. It was a small touch, but it sent a shock of warmth through you. She looked down at your hand, then back up at your face, her expression softening.

“I… I’ve never done this before,” Glinda admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. “I’ve never… felt like this. Not for anyone.”

You didn’t need to say anything in return. You just moved closer, a part of you knowing what was about to happen. And as you stood in front of her, you felt Elphaba’s presence beside you—her steady gaze, her warmth, her unspoken approval. It was as if everything had aligned in this one moment.

Glinda reached up, her fingers brushing against your cheek before she hesitated, searching your eyes. “Are you sure?” she asked softly, her lips only inches away.

You nodded, the closeness between the three of you too electric to ignore. Without waiting any longer, you closed the gap, your lips meeting hers in a soft, tentative kiss. It was slow at first, a gentle exploration of emotions that had been building for so long. You felt the weight of everything that had led to this moment, and in that kiss, you knew that this was the beginning of something new, something beautiful.

But then, as the kiss deepened, you felt another warmth press against your side—Elphaba. You’d almost forgotten she was there, but the moment she moved closer, her hand finding your wrist, you realized that it wasn’t just between you and Glinda anymore. It was between the three of you.

You didn’t pull away from Glinda as you turned your head, your lips now meeting Elphaba’s in a kiss that was both fiery and soft, full of everything that had been unsaid between you for so long. The sensation of two pairs of lips on yours sent a rush of emotions through you—an intoxicating mixture of longing, tenderness, and the realization that this was exactly where you were meant to be.

The kiss was electric—full of unspoken promises and the weight of everything that had been simmering beneath the surface. It wasn’t rushed, but it wasn’t without urgency, either. It was a kiss that spoke volumes without saying a word.

When you finally pulled away, breathless and wide-eyed, you saw the same mixture of wonder and uncertainty reflected in both Glinda’s and Elphaba’s eyes. It wasn’t a perfect moment, but it was real—and for the first time, none of you were afraid to admit that.

Glinda gave a soft laugh, her lips curling into a smile that was equal parts shy and confident. “Well… that was unexpected.”

Elphaba, who had been quiet since the kiss, finally let out a breath, her face flushed. “I guess we’re not pretending anymore,” she said, her voice still slightly unsteady.

You smiled, feeling your heart race as you stood there, between them, realizing that this was just the beginning of something completely new. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t easy. But it was yours.

“Not pretending,” you agreed, your hand finding Elphaba’s, and then Glinda’s. You stood there for a moment, feeling the weight of the night settle in your bones. Whatever this was, you were ready to face it—with them, together.

laur yaps ᡣ𐭩.ᐟ — okayy first fic how are we feeling about this? I made it in 30 minutes so it may not be the best…but oh well!

have a great day or night <3

[gatheredfates]

WELCOME to Sea's Catch Up (For) Starlight Challenge! Also know as 'A FFIX Prompt?' (I just woke up), 'Is it Cosy or Cozy in Australia?' (Cosy) and bEANS (bEANS!).

Suffice it to say, there have been a lot of challenges this year—Gpose challenges, FFXIV Write, Down to Dawntrail and Seafloor Saints Wake (just to name ours)! I know from personal experience that I haven't had the time to get to every single prompt... but I've wanted to. I also know it can be really disheartening to miss out on prompts and feel like you're being weird for engaging with it later on in the year.

To that end, I wanted to open a challenge that encourages people to either tackle an existing prompt from any gpose/writing/art challenge that was hosted during the year (under the excuse of it being for this challenge) OR pick from one of the prompts above to make a Starlight-themed creative piece!

All of these words were chosen by various people within the SEAFLOOR Discord, and i have tried not to tie them too closely to Christmas so people who don't celebrate the holiday don't feel left out. If you want to change a word that is more applicable to your culture, but still embodies the same spirit of the holiday through family, humanity, spending time with your loved ones, etc. I highly encourage you to do so!

This challenge will run the entirety of the month of December and can be tackled in any way you see fit. If you want to do a prompt a day and mix in the words in amongst working on your old project(s), go for it! If you want to select some words and not others, cool! If you want to only work on your old stuff and leave this list in the dust, a okay! It's all about giving you a low-stakes way to engage with your creativity and an excuse to go back to stuff you might have missed, or take some time to celebrate the season and people who mean a lot to you (and your ocs)!

Please use the tag #catch up (for) starlight if you participate and consider joining our community! A more comprehensive FAQ is contained in the read more below. ☃️

But also:

Is the use of mods/shades/tools okay? Yes, of course! Whatever works for you to make your creative dreams come true.

What about NSFW (gore, sexual or otherwise)? Use common sense and appropriate tags as necessary, especially for common fears and phobias. I obviously cannot control what Tumblr sees as being too much, but the general rules for SEAFLOOR apply where possible. If your conservative boss wouldn't like to see it, consider tagging and content warning were necessary.

Where do I post works? Hopefully your Tumblr blog, silly, but you can also reblog them to the SEAFLOOR Tumblr Community or join us on Discord! If someone posts their work in either of those spaces, consider reacting with a wintery-themed emoji! It just lets people know you enjoyed it. ❄️ I am going to do my best to reblog prompts when I see them, but I am going away during the Christmas period so I may not be contactable in that time.

Is there a prize? There might be this time around, though I haven't given it much thought. Seafloor members will get a fancy cosmetic title.

[cpvnksabm]

hey rtc fandom. i wanted to talk about some of the more common ableist stereotypes that affect how society views disabled people. i don't see ricky as being much of a stereotype in canon, however i sometimes see fanworks where he's depicted in stereotypical ways that really don't line up with how he's portrayed in canon, and i find this worrying. i think there's a lack of awareness around these stereotypes and people often aren't realizing that what they're doing can be harmful

Infantilization of disabled people

This is basically just the idea that disabled people are somehow mentally younger than their actual age, or should be treated as younger than their actual age. This idea is mainly used against people with neurodevelopmental disabilities, intellectual disability in particular, but it is also sometimes applied to people outside that group. And this stereotype is really harmful because of how frequently it results in disabled people's freedom being limited. based on a false idea that disabled adults are "mentally too young" to drink alcohol, swear, or make their own life decisions.

You can see this stereotype in the musical itself, with how Ocean treats Ricky. Despite only being six months older than him, she refers to him as "Sweet Little Ricky Potts", expresses shock when he talks about sexual topics, and claims in her song that "he'll never learn to read".

But you can also see in the musical that Ocean is wrong to treat him this way. Ocean's character development, culminating in her decision to choose Jane over herself at the end, is a huge part of the musical! Ricky's entire song focuses on him expressing his creativity and talking about sexual fantasies, which he has just like most teens do. And his dialogue after the song focuses on talking about his worldview, showing that he does have thoughts that are worth sharing.

So I find it concerning when the fandom also gravitates toward treating Ricky like a child - sometimes talking about him using the same infantilizing language that Ocean uses. RTC might not have had a scene where Ocean turns directly to the audience and says "By the way, I was wrong to infantilize Ricky and this was due to my own ableist biases!", but that doesn't mean you're supposed to agree with everything she says.

Ricky might be the youngest of the choir, but only by a few months. It's not appropriate to talk about him as though he's a small child. Please be mindful of the words you're using for Ricky, particularly words that are used to infantilize him in canon like the "sweet little ricky potts" nickname, and try to talk about him just like you would talk about any other seventeen-year-old character.

Disabled people getting "special treatment"

This is just the idea that disabled people automatically have access to special privileges because of being disabled - that we can easily get away with things that abled people would be punished for, that we get given anything we want without having to work for it, that we are automatically treated better, etc etc.

This stereotype is twofold. First of all, it involves framing basic things like mobility aids and accommodations as "special privileges", when in reality, these things mainly exist to level the playing field. They don't give us an automatic advantage over abled people - they just help mitigate the advantage abled people generally have over us. And second of all, this stereotype involves assuming that these basic things, such as mobility aids and accommodations, are automatically given to us.

In reality, disabled people are not automatically treated well for being disabled. The opposite is true - we are frequently discriminated against in a variety of ways. Even extremely important things, like medical treatment or mobility aids, are often a struggle to access.

Despite all of this, people in the RTC fandom sometimes talk about Ricky getting special treatment or extra attention for his disability. In fact, that claim was the one that inspired this whole post.

And yet in canon this couldn't be further from the case! Karnak literally emphasises that Ricky was treated with "the worst cruelty humanity can muster - complete apathy". We see him being constantly ignored by his classmates and expressing that the choir, in the afterlife, are the first people to actually listen to him. The most "special treatment" he gets is his classmate, who infantilises him, singing about how his life isn't worth living because of his disability. And that's barely even special, she sings like that about most of the characters!

The idea that Ricky gets any "special treatment" for being disabled is clearly not inspired by anything in the musical itself. And it's also not accurate to real disabled peoples' experiences. It's just a completely wrong stereotype.

I've touched on this in previous posts but just a reminder - you should never be trying to "fix" RTC's disability rep without doing research. I think that sometimes people wrongly believe the ableism ricky faced in canon was unrealistic, and that they're improving canon by having him be automatically treated well for his disability - this is not true at all. Please look into real disabled peoples' experiences as inspiration for changing or expanding on canon, and please put in the effort to make sure your idea of "realism" isn't just based in stereotypes.

The "all disabilities are the same" idea

This one is simple - it's the idea that all disabilities can be treated interchangeably. For example, that two people with different disabilities (such as autism and arthritis) will automatically have similar life experiences, just because they're both disabled.

This is a ridiculous stereotype. "Disabled" is an extremely broad term which describes an extremely wide range of things. Not everyone benefits from the same sorts of aids or accommodations, and not everyone has the same experiences.

What this means in regards to Ricky is that you cannot swap his canon disability out for another one and have that not be erasure. Ricky canonically has a rare degenerative disease (heavily implied to be neuromuscular), which causes mobility impairment (resulting in him needing mobility aids), inability to speak, and a reduced lifespan. None of these aspects of his disability are interchangeable with other disabilities.

It's not okay to remove aspects of Ricky's disability just to give him another, different disability. They are not interchangeable.

It's perfectly okay to give him disabilities he isn't implied to have in canon - people frequently do have multiple unrelated disabilities! Just please make sure this is in addition to his canonically implied neuromuscular disability, and not replacing it.

Conclusion / TL;DR

I'm all for death-of-the-author and interpreting characters in various ways but it's a little concerning when I see fanworks and the like pigeonholing ricky into specific ableist stereotypes, when canon almost went out of its way to avoid them. we all know that stereotyping isn't polite or accurate so there's really no reason to depict ricky in these ways. i assume people aren't realizing the potential harm or sometimes think they're improving on canon by making it more stereotypical? this is why it's important to research rather than assuming you know what would be the right way to depict ricky

i didn't cover everything in this post because there were some issues that i thought were complex enough to justify a separate post. but reminder that my asks are always open if you'd like a disabled person's perspective on something specific! please dont hesitate to ask for advice!

[plusvanity]

Metalion was arguably one of Pelle's closest friends in Norway, and the very same person who saw Pelle trying to drown guinea pig in a jar, then putting it in the microwave. That story would have never been known if not for Metalion. He decided to share it, which points to him NOT being the "Pelle was an angel" type of person.

Yet he said that Pelle only pretended wanting to kill the farm cat and said he actually believes Pelle could have caught the cat if he wanted but pretended it was too fast for him. He also expressed belief that Pelle was actually fond of cats "in his own twisted way".

(Metalion was also the person who received the famous rant from Pelle about the inclusion of Garfield comic in the Slayer mag, with the accompanying "I HATE CATS" drawing where he put Garfield in the meat grinder).

What do you think about this? Do you agree with Metalion or you think he could have been wrong? I could have asked you this in dm but I feel like reading the discussion if anyone wants to add their two cents.

I definitely feel like Pelle was trying harder than his metalhead peers to seem brutal, tough, cold and 'evil' and his harsh antipathy towards cats is, in my opinion, the easiest way in which you can tell he's purposefully exaggerating his image.

Now, I wouldn't say he was an angel either. He was very complex as a character in the scene and I'm glad we have this story from Metalion to contour a wider view on Pelle's personality. I wouldn't consider him evil or an animal abuser for killing a rodent, but the way in which he carried out the act is quite interesting for a few reasons. If I recall it correctly, he was drunk when he did that. We all know that alcohol allows disinhibition and promotes reckless/ unthoughtful behavior. I see him as having fun and wanting to see 'cool and brutal' to his friends, so his sporadic decision to microwave the hamster must've been born from the wish to impress. And what wanting to impress really means? To belong.

I very much believe that a lot of Pelle's actions and declarations originate from his wish to belong, to be perfectly integrated into a small group of friends that he made. And this could be traced back to being bullied in school, having low self-esteem and being emotionally neglected. These are some of the conclusions that I tend to have when looking back at his history and relationship with others.

I don't have any way in which I can prove or disprove this, but my gut feeling tells me that Pelle wasn't sadist, cynic, or evil in the slightest. I believe he was, in fact, a sensitive person and sensitive does not equal 'angle' or innocent. I think he was forcing himself to be more intimidating than he was in reality because of a tough lesson that he's been taught since early in his life.

Another aspect of why he might be pressured to maintain this exaggerated act was because of the environment, after all the black metal scene was designed to capture 'the worst' in people as a backlash to conformity and normality. He couldn't be less aggressive, less brutal, less 'cool' than his peers, not when he finally had the chance to express himself in a way that could be appreciated by those who shared his feelings.

If Pelle was indeed prone to violence and aggression, it would've shown and there would've been stories about this, but there are none. The only person he ever hurt was himself, and this is not because he couldn't hurt anyone, because he could if he wanted to, but he took it on himself as a mindful decision.

Although self-destructive behavior is common for people with low self-esteem, it is not the rule. Many people lash out on others for their own feelings of self-hatred. (Vikernes for example)

I don't see the possibility of him secretly liking cats this far-fetched because exaggerating about just how much you hate something is sometimes a good indication of how you actually enjoy something that you're very ashamed of.

To sum this up, I think Metalion was observant enough or lucky enough to see beyond Pelle's shocking acts of impression. I see that instantly cooked rodent incident as something isolated, pushed by the circumstances in which Pelle was at that time rather than part of a continuum of cruel events.

I think Pelle had a limit when it came to seeming cool, and this would make a lot of sense if h indeed chose not to catch the cat at the farmhouse when he could just do that.

Some people take their frustration on smaller creatures because they need to punish a lesser being than them the way they've been punished by a bigger being. This is an antisocial mentality. Pelle could have done so, if he wanted to many times, but he didn't. Also, most antisocial acts are committed ALONE, not with friends, or at a party, or in any social circumstances and things like that don't stay hidden for long, so eventually people start noticing. This is clearly not Pelle's case.

[parkcivconfess]

hiii.... Cannibalism anon again, i have never even thought about that omg the old man fucked up big time like actually and he never got the fair punishment for his crimes?? He shouldve rotted in parkour hell for his parkour sins

Ok but switching topics to starvation . Do you think that sharing food is a common love language for the noobs. Like theyre willing to not eat for an entire day just to give someone else their portion.

Imagine EMF gave Evbo his golden carrots back when Evbo was still a master and Evbo just started tearing up before remembering he's not at the noob level anymore and the food here is plentiful, EMF has full hunger bar, a few golden carrots is nothing. Because to the masters, dignity and maintaning respect for oneself is more important than survival. EMF is not Evbo, he wouldnt know just how valuable the act of giving food to Evbo means to him

And. He may not feel hunger anymore as a champion or the Parkour God, but he would never turn down food thats personally given to him. Even if eating makes him sick. Even if it never fulfills his hunger. You had him in mind when you're giving this food to him, and honestly? Its more so the thought thats enough for him

omg i believe this too. i think evbo is REALLY big on sharing like even the most personal items he has he will share them with other people he likes. even if they refuse he always offers JUSTTT one more time for good measure. i also think he'd be like. really hyper aware / concerned about how much and when everybody's eating on each level because he really doesn't want them to starve or anything cause he knows what it's like and it fucking SUCKS.

he sometimes brings food over for see'watt even though he HATES him because starving is very unpleasant and it's not like anybody would let see'watt into food establishments after everything he did.

i think that emf is just really. lanky and tall with a high metabolism so evbo often over worries about his health out of love and care (which often comes as annoying to emf until he finds out what noobs in evbos day lived like and realizes that evbo cares for him so much that he'd literally starve for him).

emf makes a cake for his birthday or something and evbo SOBS like a little BABY

[hydrangeapartridge]

Manfred's first magic duel (EmmRook short fic)

Summary: Manfred is challenged to a duel by another apprentice.How will it go?

(Spoilers for the end of the game)

Part of my collection of post-game dometic EmmRook stories. Cross-posted on AO3 or found on my blog

“You’ll what ??” Emmrich almost spat his tea and Rook’s eyes grew as wide as saucers when Manfred made his announcement.

“Duel” The skeleton simply repeated, in the same way he would inform them he learned a new levitation spell.

In all fairness, duelling was a rather common practice in the Necropolis; friendly combats that helped watchers keep in shape and ready to fight undead or other enemies. Aside from being knowledgeable, Nevarra’s necromancers were also experts in combat, as Emmrich proved in his days with the Veilguard.

“No absolutely not. It’s too dangerous” Emmrich’s tone was final, yet Manfred protested, made bolder than he was only a few years ago from his growing independence and his schooling at the Necropolis.

“But you do it” He pointed out.

Rook felt like she was watching a teenager arguing with his father. It would be sweet if it wasn’t escalating. And if she didn’t end up dragged into the argument.

“Rook?” Manfred turned to her, almost begging

She turned to Emmrich and he crossed his arms over his chest, unable to hide his upset state, but gave a small sign of his head for her to give her opinion.

“It could be dangerous” She started and Emmerich nodded approvingly. She didn’t dare look his way as she continued. “But less advanced trainees duel so... why not? It’s not worse than hunting demons down the chambers of the Necropolis?”

Emmrich’s jaw almost comically dropped. “Assignements are a totally different matter” He replied, looking at Rook like she just gravely betrayed him.

She frowned. Her husband could have a flair for the dramatic when he was upset. And now he was arguing with her instead of their magical skeleton son. She did not like where this was going.

“Emmrich. Deep breaths” She gently suggested, like she often did when she found him overreacting.

He sighed but did as he was told, while Manfred kept looking between the two of them, oddly silent. “ Right. We’ll discuss this again tomorrow after sleeping on it. Now go read in your room” He instructed, and Manfred complied, waving them goodnight before he climed the stairs.

When Emmrich was sure that the spirit wouldn’t hear them, he sat closer to Rook on the sofa.

“Darling, when teaching Manfred discipline, we shouldn’t openly disagree in front of him” He said, though with a warmer tone than expected, taking Rook’s hand in his. He caressed her pulse point with his thumb in a soothing gesture alike to an apology for his earlier irritation.

“Sorry, but honestly you were being a bit unfair” Rook replied, placing a tender hand on his thigh. “I understand where you’re coming from but Manfred’s right, you did duel and still do. Every Necromancer does. He must already feel different from the other students so we shouldn’t aggravate him. Plus, he’s a spirit of curiosity, he’s bound to want to try new things”

Emmrich listened intently as Rook exposed her point. “Also, too many restrictions could push him to disobey you or to hide things from you. Better to support him and keep a close eye on how things go.”

Emmrich sighed. He knew that she was right. Rook had always been a voice of reason; this was part of what made her a great leader for the Veilguardn and a quality he loved deeply.

He ran a hand over his tired features.

“I worry too much don’t I?” He chuckled and Rook smiled.

“It means you care. It’s adorable”

“Davrin often said I should give Manfred more independence. He was right, and so are you”

Rook’s hand pressed a little more against his thigh. “ So … you’re not upset with me for openly disagreeing with you? ” She still felt illegitimate sometimes when it came to Manfred’s upbringing, even after so long.

He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “Of course not darling, I never really was. My ego was just a little bruised when Manfred turned to you for permission like he could bypass me”

“Every child does that” Rook pointed out with a small private laugh before she placed a small loving peck on her husband’s lips.

- - -

On the following day, Manfred was overjoyed to learn that he was allowed to duel the student who challenged him.

Emmrich offered to help him prepare for it. Which turned out to be quite necessary. They set up in the living room, moving the coffee table aside to have more space.

“Now, first with the rules. Do you know them?” Emmrich asked, palms joined in full lecture mode.

“If can’t move or thrown out arena, lose” Manfred offered in his still approximative hold of the common tongue.

Well, that was a start.

“This is partly true” Emmrich nodded. “And tell me, how do you plan on defeating your opponent?”

“I burn him” Manfred declared with a shrug.

Rook snorted, but went back to her book when Emmrich turned to her with a chiding look. No doubt Manfred was not a spirit of compassion; directly thinking about burning his adversary. He did love fire spells for some reason. Rook could understand; fire was simple. Effective, but not subtle at all.

Emmrich pinched the bridge of his nose. “No Manfred, fire spells are prohibited, as well as any spell directly hurting the body like blood magic, or decaying spells”

Manfred deflated. “What can use?” He wondered, as if his arsenal of spells revolved only on those forbidden.

Emmrich joined his hands in front of him again, his bangles singing a song that Rook loved. “Good question. Wind spells for one, Ice spells too, Ligthning but not too high voltage” He enumerated. “It takes finesse to be an accomplished duelist you see. It is not just about brute strength. You need a strategy of some sort, quick reflexes and thinking to take advantage of your opponent’s weaknesses”

Manfred listened intently as Emmrich taught him a thing or two about classic duel strategies. The more Emmrich explained and then demonstrated, exchanging a few friendly spares and spells with his disciple, the more Rook watched fondly, grinning wide from how much fun they seemed to be having.

- - -

The day of the duel soon arrived. The light atmosphere of the large room full of marble statues dedicated to duels contrasted with Emmrich’s solemn mood. He barely slept the previous night, and had been firing last minute advices at Manfred nonstop since breakfast.

Rook was at her husband’s arm, pleased and supportive. She felt a bit nervous too, admitedly. She wanted Manfred to have a good time, and she trusted he could win. He was a talented little magic skeleton. But Emmrich’s worry was a bit communicative so she hoped everything would go smoothly.

The place reminded her of that one time when, urged by Emmrich’s colleagues, she had agreed to duel her lover for fun. The memory made her smile. She remembered the way Emmrich fought, like he was dancing with her, all elegance and precise strength.. In theory the odds of wining hab been in her favor, but Emmrich was more familiar with the duel rules and knew her so well he could spot her weaknesses easily. She was a strong mage, confident and unpredictable. but she hadn’t realized how much he had observed her techniques when back in the Veilguard. They managed to each win a long fought round, but decided to stop there, all sweaty and breathless, ending up quite dishevelled and eager to go back home to each other to diffuse the growing tension between them. The other watchers had praised the impressive show they gave, as well as their fair play of ending in a tie.

And what a night it had been then when they had found themselves dancing between the sheets afterwards.

Emmrich placed one last encouraging pat on Manfred’s shoulder before he would leave to get in position in the arena, the sound bringing Rook out of her reverie.

The skeleton looked to his mentor, determined as he announced. “I win. I make you proud”

Rook’s heart positively melted as she watched Emmrich’s expression impossibly soften with affection. She swore she saw the shiny glint of a tear in the corner of his eye.

They waved at Manfred’s figure walking away as his opponent, a flashy young human with fiery red hair entered the arena. Given the heraldry on the large gold pendant he ostentiously wore, he was surely the offspring of an old and influential noble family.

Emmrich was visibly stressed, paling a little. “I hope he won’t hurt his bones. It is a painful process to put them back in place”

Rook took his hand in hers so he'd stop biting his nails. “He will be fine. The referee will stop them if things gets too dangerous”

Luckily, today’s referee turned out to be Vorgoth, whom both Emmrich and Rook trusted and respected.

Once the fighters were in place, they saluted, and Vorgoth signed for them to begin.

Encouragements but also jeers were heard from the crowd as the two apprentices exchanged spells that were easily countered by their shields, cautiously gauging their opponent.

Manfred kept up easily, but didn’t take initiative to incapacitate his adversary, so it left the other mage free to do as he pleased. With a hit of his staff to the ground, the human apprentice conjured a slippery layer of ice on the floor before him. He then quickly cast a wind spell that Manfred couldn’t block fully, and which made him flinch and trip, the poor skeleton landing on his coccyx.

And so Manfred lost the first round.

“Damn it” Rook clicked her tongue, already very invested in the fight. “It’s okay Manfred, you’ll bounce back!” She encouraged once the arena had been returned to its original state for the spirit to get up.

Beside her, Emmrich was alarmingly quiet. His eyes were fixed on Manfred’s opponent, his expression dark and irritated. Rook only ever saw him look that way to nobles he particularly despised.

During the small break between the rounds, the red-haired apprentice took upon himself to round the arena, bowing and waving at the crowd like he owned the place.

“Yeah, see how I tripped that thing? It didn’t see it coming!” He boasted, raising his arms to encourage a group of fangirls that screamed his name like lovestruck geese. Rook felt her blood start to boil in her veins. Most watchers were very nice and tolerant to Manfred. Most but not every watcher...

Her fist clenched at her side as the young mage passed them, making sure to stop in front of Emmrich.

“How did I do Professor?” He asked with a smirk, the taunt so unsubtle in his voice that he sounded ridiculous.

“Passable” Emmrich only said, standing straighter than ever and giving him his best unbothered look before he pretended to be very interested in the state of his nails.

Vorgoth motionned for the red-haired mage to get back into position, and when he turned his back to them, Rook barely felt a very subtle hint of a magic she knew was Emmrich’s before the noble’s son’s foot hedged and he fell face first onto the ground.

A roar of laughters rose from the crowd as Manfred’s opponent quickly rose, his face red from anger and embarassment. He did not have time to question what happened, for Vorgoth urged him to join him, least he be disqualified.

“He should tend to that weak left ankle” Emmrich commented lowly, only for Rook to hear, earning a low chuckle from her. For all his kindness, Emmrich could be mean and vindicative, even borderline petty when truly upset. And he hated bullies "I have no respect for show offs" He whispered to his wife, trying to justify his childish action when he saw the judging glint in her amused gaze. She loved when he was being mischevious, enjoying it even more for how rare of an occurrence it was.

“You reap what you sow…” Rook commented with a shrug, making Emmrich smile tightly.

Then the second round started.

The red-haired mage’s bruised ego made him more aggressive. More dangerous but also more sloppy. The crowd was wild, urging the mages to fight dirty, so far from the expected etiquette and chic of the Mourn Watch. Ah, youth…

Manfred blocked and dodged each brutal but predictable blow with ease. Had his opponent been more observant, he would have noticed the subtle change in hue of Manfred’s shield as the spirit used each attack aimed at him to charge it with energy.

"Get him Manfred!” Rook shouted as loud as possible, joining in the frenzy of comments from the crowd, making her husband start from her rowdy behaviour.

Upon hearing her words, Manfred hissed in determination and released all the energy accumulated in his shield in a thundering shockwave that sent his opponent flying, then crashing at the very edge of the arena.

Loud clapping and impressed whistles were heard as the crowd easily changed favourites, except for the group of fangirls too busy checking if their champion was alright. Turned out he was, save for a few bruises to his body and to his large ego.

“Oh dear, that was bright but a bit of an overkill” Emmrich commented lowly, barely able to hide the huge grin splitting his lips.

Vorgoth announced Manfred as the winner of the second round, and Emmrich politely clapped, trying to appear less invested than he truly was. For Rook, her husbands’s reactions were almost as much an entertaining show to watch as the actual duel.

With the two opponents now at a tie, the stakes of the third round were high, and the ambiance of the room became electryfying. Vorgoth had to calm a few overly enthusiastic students and order them to step back from the edges of the arena before he allowed the final round to begin.

“You little…!” Manfred’s adversary swore before he released a blast of burning greenish light.

The attack surprised Manfred, for it ate away at his shield, wild and stubborn. The little skeleton was forced to focus hard to dissipate the growing fire that hindered his vision more than it burnt him.

“Veilfire!” Emmrich gasped, outraged “Fire spells are forbidden, that’s suppose to include veilfire!’” He loudly disapprouved, stepping closer to the arena, but stopping when Vorgoth turned in his direction in a silent warning not to interfere.

The apprentice took Manfred’s distraction as an opportunity to charge with a hand on hand attack, swinging his staff hard at the skeleton. Manfred managed to block it with his own staff, but pure force was not his strong point given he had no muscles to back it up. His hold on his staff faltered under the strength of his opponent, and the spirit’s weapon was thrown to the ground out of his reach.

A panicked whimper escaped Emmrich whose hands reflexively covered his mouth in a way that reminded Rook of unpleasant memories. Internally, she urged Manfred to get a grip and do something. She knew he could. He was brave and clever and strong, contrary to what his adversary might think.

Under the crowd’s eager eyes, Manfred’s fists started glowing blue with an ice spell, and before his bones got hit with a second blow of his opponent’s staff, he punched him square in the jaw. Unelegant but deadly effective. The redhaired human fell to his knees and Vorgoth calmly announced that the skeleton had won.

After recovering from the shear surprise of the action, Emmrich and Rook exulted.

“Bravo Manfred!” Emmrich clapped and Rook whistled alongside the excited crowd. ‘You rock little man! Serves him right!’ she thought she heard someone say, and the thought that Manfred could have friends here to support him made her heart squeeze in her chest.

“That’s cheating!” The defeated apprentice accused, massaging his jaw as he slowly got up.

“So is using veilfire” Emmrich commented loudly from outside the arena, sending Vorgoth a dark glare.

“Technically only his spell collided with your face” Vorgoth declared, looking down onto the smaller human.

The redhaired boy protested but Vorgoth’s deep voice interrupted him. “Humbly accept your defeat young apprentice”

The younger mage lowered his head and bolted away from the room, followed by his weeping fanclub.

Manfred happily joined his caretakers outside the arena, a spring to his steps. “Yeah! I won!”

“What a quick reaction Manfred! That was unexpectedly clever! But where did you learn to do that?” Emmrich asked, more enthralled than skeptical about this unusual move that he never suggested during their training.

“Did like Rook do with bad guys!” Manfred excitedly replied and Rook flushed.

She recalled she had a bad habit of punching people in the face back when she was irritated by having Solas in her mind and overstressed from the prospect of the world ending.

“Well I suppose all examples can be beneficial” Emmrich chuckled, bringing Rook closer by her waist.

He then turned to Manfred again, a warm smile on his lips. “I am so very proud of you”

If skeletons could purr from happiness, Manfred did right there and then.

[fizziepopangel]

A Fizziepop Take: Let’s talk about the next 100 years

Oh. My. God.

Did everyone watch what I just watched? Because I literally can’t right now! I swear to god my anxiety was so high from start to finish of this episode. Vivzie really did it with this one, because I was almost at a loss for words…. ALMOST. But the “Mastermind” episode was like a big beefy steak and potatoes smothered in gravy with a glass of wine; there’s just too much to sink my teeth into, starting with Stolas being stripped of his power, so let’s get into it.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

“Stolas, I hereby strip you of your status, your power, and your title for the next hundred years.”

Stolas’ face after hearing that he was being stripped bare of his title was literally heartbreaking because Stolas is not only stripped of the title and the respect that came with it, or even just the power he’s grown accustomed to…. Stolas is stood in front of a group of his peers and stripped of everything he has ever known. Everything. His daughter, his home, everything is just suddenly off limits for him. And after living for the Goetia and only the Goetia for 30-something years, Stolas isn’t accustomed to living as a common type demon, especially a common type demon ranking as low as he is currently who has literally nothing. To go from a prince with a mansion and a daughter and a home to being basically having no one, being homeless, and having people throw things at you on the street is a BIG step. And with zero preparation for such a big change, it must have been the shock of a lifetime….. But then we get to the last bit of Satan’s punishment for him: “...for the next hundred years.” So it isn’t that bad, right? Ehhhhhhh….. 

Ok, so let’s really break it down and think about what exactly the hundred years could hold for the former Goetia prince.

Homelessness and potential poverty

Soooooo… I know that technically Blitz has taken Stolas in, but given the current state of their relationship, we can’t really be sure that will last. As a Stolitz fan myself, I was internally screaming when Blitz took him in and started caring for him because AHHHHHHHHH….. But Blitz also has a tendency to self-sabatoge relationships with the people he loves the most, and a long history of not being able to communicate wants, needs, or anything really outside of being drugged with a truth serum, being in a seriously life-threatening situations, or being on the tail end of a breakdown, and now with Stolas being in an even more vulnerable state than he was before, I’m not sure we’re going to be getting the full Stolitz comeback we all want quite yet… And that may mean Stolas not staying in Blitz’s apartment quite as long as he probably would have prior to the events of “The Full Moon” and “Apology Tour” since we see the prince trying to move past the relationship and into a new era of his life. We may also see him struggle financially if his assets are affected by this banishment, and from the loss of his title and home, I think there’s a good chance that that is the case. While I do see Blitz offering to make a place for Stolas at IMP, with his now limited powers and lack of experience in the workplace, and in hell as a common place demon, it may not be something that is completely feasible right now…. And that brings us to the 2nd thing we might see in upcoming episodes:

Falling back into bad habits

Despite the fandom’s love for Stolitz, I think we can all agree that while love did come of it eventually, Blitz was one of the prince’s bad habits in the beginning. Blitz, for Stolas, was a rebellion, a sort of ‘fuck you’ to the life he had planned out because of his place as demon royalty…. And now as a just a mere demon with no power and no status, things could go the complete opposite direction from what I mentioned earlier, and he may run right back to the familiarity of Blitz with no regard for whether there has been a change made on either of their parts or not, which could also set Blitz back since Stolas wouldn’t necessarily care if he was treating him better or not, so he might lose the motivation to want to be a better version of himself.  Both men need support outside of just each other, and while Blitz has it within his IMP family (as well as a lot of support from his community now), Stolas doesn’t.

Now, don’t get me wrong, M&M and Loona will more than likely step up to support Stolas in this time, if not solely for the fact of him being the man Blitz loves, because they all know that what Stolas did was something he didn’t technically have to do for them all, BUT  Stolas lost his title and (seemingly) access to everything relating to that, including his daughter who is arguably his only true family that we’ve seen since the flashback of him and his father when he was a literal child. Now, keep in mind that this man stayed in a relationship with someone who physically abused him, and tormented him mentally and emotionally for years, all for his daughter. Has he been the best dad? No, not by a long shot, but Loona does have a point in “Seeing Stars”, when she explains to Octavia that parenting is complicated and sometimes parents make mistakes despite loving their children…. We see how important his daughter is to him a lot throughout the show, and with what Andrealphus said about Octavia now solely being cared for by her  “wholesome parent” (*laughter*), we can pretty much guarantee that even if he wasn’t banned from seeing her, her mother and uncle would never allow it, and I think this will be something that could cause him to spiral, and possibly start picking up new bad habits, maybe even more harmful ones than we’ve seen him use to cope in the past.

Death

Stolas has had 2 attempts on his life that we know of so far… What’s to stop Stella from sending Striker back for him now? Technically she doesn’t need to, since her ex husband is unable to keep her from the fortune and power she and her brother had been after, but what better time to off him than when her daughter is still a minor and can’t take over his spot in the system of royalty, and he’s hated by so many people now?

She only has the next hundred years, and if she doesn’t do it now, she may lose th upper hand she has in this moment and she may not get another chance to have as much power as she has in this moment. But would Vivzie off Stolas? I don’t know, but she does everything for a reason in her shows, so we know she’s setting up for something big. Could it be another assassination attempt? Multiple attempts? More than just Striker going after him? It would be a good time to do it from the perspective of the characters, but would the death of a character so intertwined with the main protagonist of the series be a good idea? As a consumer of the content, I would literally be in tears at a death scene involving a character I’ve been allowed to get so attached to over the course of the series…. as a creator, someone who writes and enjoys the engagement that my content brings and enjoys creating the content I create, a major death like that would open up doors for plots that may not have been an option before and while it would shock the fandom, and while the fandom’s devastation could be catastrophic, it could all pull us further into the hell she’s created because we all love the characters still living and would all have a single question after seeing such a beloved character go: What comes next?

As a humble Fizziepop, I can’t say that I know what comes next, but after “Mastermind”, I can definitely say that I’ll be hoping for a more funny and light-hearted episode next time, but I’ll keep a box of tissues on standby incase Vivzie has another tear-jerking episode in store for us. What do you think the next hundred years might look like for Stolas? And what does everyone think will happen for the Stolitz ship?

[moonlightdancer26]

i have another concept for you.

In my opinion, making fun of Snape for his “sickly skin” or “greasy hair” is both thinly veiled racism and thinly veiled classism.

Now hear me out when I say I see A LOT of parallels between me and Snape over our looks. (I’m Korean for reference)

We both have:

- Yellow tinted skin

- Small eyes

- Greasy hair (I’m learning to manage it better)

- Crooked teeth (I got mine straightened out but I had them for a while)

Not to mention the Resting Bitch Face™️, which I most definitely picked up on from my Korean dad.

He’s also described to be relatively thin, which was a common trait in Asia in the 1960s/1970s (Although this may have also been because he was poor)

Every single one of these things are stereotypical east asian, and Korean things.

- “Yellow” skin has been a stereotype of East Asians for decades. I remember when I was first made fun of my my skin.

- Small eyes (due to monolids) are also a rampant stereotype. I’ve had many people pull their eyes back at me and tell me that’s how I look.

- Greasy hair is often caused by fine, thick hair, something many east asians have. Typically in my experience, many of my Korean friends end up washing their hair every day to make it not greasy. But Snape probably didn’t have the money to “waste” that much water, so he learned to deal.

- Crooked teeth. Many East Asian mouths/jaws are smaller than average, so your teeth don’t always have enough room to grow. Personally all my teeth either came in wrong or crooked, so I had to get 3 removed and get braces. But Snape wouldn’t have had the opportunity or money for this. So again, he learned to accept it.

Unlike me, as I come from a relatively well off family that could afford to let me wash my hair everyday and to get braces and mouth surgery, Snape didn’t have access to things that would “fix” his ugliness.

He was made fun of his entire life for being “greasy” and “ugly”. Had I not had the funds to fix my teeth and learn about my hair, I probably would have ended up like Snape. Hell, when I was at rock bottom hardly washing my hair because i didn’t have the energy, I looked a lot like him. He simply didn’t have the means to take care of himself, and for that he was ostracized and demonized.

Another thing I would like to add before I take my leave is that Snape grew up in 1960s/1970s ENGLAND. In a millers town. These people have never seen an Asian kid. Beauty tips in Asia are passed from mother to child. Eileen was European as far as we can tell. Even if they had a few things to help his hair (citrus rinses anyone?) or his mouth, or his skin (you can use rice to brighten your skin!) he wouldn’t have had someone to teach him that.

Anyway that’s some reasons why I think JKR not only applied stereotypical East Asian features to Snape to make him “ugly”, therefore encouraging an outlook that thinks East Asian features are ugly, but the fact that he was made fun of for it his whole life is definitely racism/classism.

Love ya! <3

The veiled racism thing is definitely more debatable, but the veiled classism isn’t even veiled lol. I think we can all agree on that.

But I do agree, the yellowish tint of his skin, along with his other features that are typically associated with East Asian people, also led people to wonder and headcanon that Snape was a POC. JKR has definitely included some very problematic stereotypes in her books (the Goblins, for example). I’m not sure if all of them were completely intentional, but they deliver harmful messages nonetheless. And honestly people calling Snape ugly or making fun of him for having said features is actually gross, like it’s fine if you hate the character, but there’s really no need to bring specific physical features into it.

Thanks for your ask!! Sorry I take too long with answering, but my body just refused to provide me with energy lol.

[nadiuu]

I saw a post mentioning how Matt most likely has ADHD, and since I 100% agree, I wanted to elaborate a bit here (also because I’ll approach it from a matt/mello angle and I don’t want to annoy anyone who doesn’t ship them). I’ve also noticed that this is a headcanon that many people share, so I’d like to delve deeper into it. I’ve been meaning to write a mini-analysis on why these two are so compatible due to their neurodivergences. Please keep in mind that English isn’t my native language so sorry for any mistakes, and I’ll be projecting a lot of myself here, so be kind XDD

It’s not crazy to think that Matt might have ADHD based on the few clues we have in canon. Mogui and Misa’s escape could indeed be attributed to good planning, and not necessarily Matt’s fault, but the guy makes it clear that he’s absolutely bored to death having to keep watch and is always glued to his console.

And you might say: Nadiu, just because he gets bored watching something static doesn’t mean he has trouble concentrating. Sure, it’s normal to get bored. But Matt is aware of how important it is to keep watch, and even then, he can’t help it. If his brain doesn’t receive enough stimuli, he dieeeees (which could be an indicator of his giftedness), and he’ll seek out little dopamine boosts wherever he can. If it’s not gaming, it’ll be eating junk food. If it’s not eating, it’ll be smoking. This could indicate a certain level of anxiety (again, a possible indicator of giftedness or ADHD).

We also know he’s someone who hates the outdoors. Why might this be? For someone with ADHD, being surrounded by too much stimulation can be overwhelming. Gifted people will tend to notice everything around them, and those with 2e (gifted + ADHD) may struggle to focus their attention if they’re overstimulated. They pick up on all the stimuli and can’t focus on just one. This could lead them to prefer isolating themselves, at least occasionally, especially when they reach burnout.

Another thing to consider is his lack of sociability. This doesn’t have to be exclusive to ADHD because it’s also common among gifted people, even without 2e. For gifted people, socializing can be hard if there’s nothing engaging to take away from a conversation (our greatest enemy is small talk hahhaha). This doesn’t apply to everyone, but it’s a fairly common factor. We like to keep our brains stimulated 24/7.

Now imagine someone who perceives everything around them, analyzes every detail, and can’t discern what’s important and what isn’t. They’re chatting with you, but instead of focusing on what you’re saying, they can’t help but notice your eyelid twitching e.g., which might mean you’re stressed, and then they start thinking about all the possible reasons you might be stressed. Meanwhile, there are countless sounds and stimuli around them that they can’t ignore. It’s going to be hard for them to really listen to you, and they might not feel at peace until they get home, where they can finally relax. Gifted people can also be sensitive to light and sound; in our homes, we control everything. They’re our safe spaces.

Again, this doesn’t have to be true for everyone. Let’s remember that every person is unique.

That leads me to Mello—he’s an example of how someone can be gifted and still be sociable. I don’t think Mello has any neurodivergence beyond his giftedness, without 2e (adhd or autism). I know there’s some debate about whether giftedness counts as a neurodivergence, but let’s assume it does for the sake of this post ahhahah

I think the most interesting trait of Mello, in terms of his giftedness, is his hyper-demanding nature. We tend to be perfectionists, extremely demanding of ourselves, which leads to low frustration tolerance. We want to achieve excellence and can become obsessive in pursuing our goals. However, we’re very likely to encounter obstacles (without obstacles there’s no growth), but we often don’t know how to deal with them. Needless to say, this ties in with Near, who is a prodigy, and with Mello’s inferiority complex.

So, why are Matt and Mello such a good match?

First of all, in Wammy’s House, Matt didn’t pose a threat to Mello. Matt was ranked third, and whether it was due to a lack of interest or difficulties with studying, he never surpassed Mello. For Mello, anything below him wasn’t important; what deserved all his attention was whatever was above him.

We have to assume they maintained some kind of friendship at Wammy’s House because years later, when Mello is left on his own, he reaches out to Matt, and Matt comes to his aid. Matt drops everything to go to him. He knows what he’s getting into, the risks involved, and yet he does it. He must have some motivation to help find Kira. And if it’s alongside his old friend, even better.

Here’s where the sociability factor comes in. How many friendships could an introverted guy have made in those five years, after losing the ‘shelter’ of an orphanage full of kids similar to him and being thrown into the real world, surrounded by neurotypical people? You get what I mean, right...? Mello must have left some sort of mark on him if Matt went all the way to New York for him. Could it be that he was already in New York? Maybe, but let me dream hahaha

Now imagine how an introvert and an extrovert, both incapable of forming and maintaining relationships with others due to that sense of being misunderstood (‘the world is neurotypical and I’ve never dealt with it’), complement each other. This makes me think about Near’s loneliness, but we’ll leave that for another day XD Matt works from the safety of home, and Mello, obsessed with success, has no problem going out because he takes the world head-on. Matt, who has likely felt somewhat useless his whole life because of his ADHD, has Mello by his side telling him “I choose you”. Matt, who might have always been a bit insecure, has Mello betting on him. Maybe because he has no other choice? Maybe, but if Mello wants to find someone else who can truly understand him, his only option is Matt.

Mello, who’s willing to blow himself up to win, then has Matt telling him, “Calm down. Stay in tonight to play video games and smoke a joint.” Mello, who has some suicidal idea for catching Kira, shares it with Matt, and Matt agrees because his brain has produced more dopamine in two months than in five years. The Kira case is a puzzle that stimulates them and gives them a purpose.

To wrap this up, I want to share a dialogue (still a rough draft) that will appear later in my fic, putting the cherry on top of this tragedy. Matt tries to dissuade Mello from pursuing the Kira case after the massive scar he earned on his face.

Matt: Why is it your duty to keep going? Why yours? Mello: Who else will do it? Who can keep up with Kira? Matt: You, right? Or Near. Or me. Because we had the sheer luck of being born with this intellect. Mello: Yes. Matt: No. You and I have no duty to a society that failed us. We don’t have to fix the problems of a society that let us rot in that institution. Is it because we’re orphans? Is that it? Do we have nothing to lose but our lives? No one to mourn us if we die? Because there are plenty of other people out there with the abilities you and I have, and I don’t see them risking their necks the way you do. They weren’t pushed to become detectives. They have something to lose; they have their families. Do you deserve to die just because no one will miss you?

And if you’ll allow me to break your heart a little more, Matt’s next thought is:

'Because it’s not even true. You’ll kill me if I lose you again.'

[alexas-fandom-and-random-blog]

Well it's late night for me and helluva Boss Mastermind episode just dropped and I'm kinda in the mood to do a live reaction to text of first and honest impressions thingie. So let's go!!

------

Awww. Loona hesitating to burn their first job pic was precious❤️

Holy shit okay Satan's design is the first Sin I actually legit adore! Freaking amazing!😳

Can the the rip-off-Elsa brother (won't bother remembering the name) PLEASE stop calling Stella hot? Neither funny, nor character driven just really freaking creepy! Stop!

Vasago first impression. Uuuh okay? Is the gimmick he's simply gonna talk to another language.

STRIKER JUMPSCARE!!!!

Hiiii baby!! Looking good in that suit! Daaaamn! Good to see ya!~🥴

Warning up to the new VA each episode ngl. Doing a sexy job with it😚

I can't decide if I love or hate the "LINE?" joke... Could work as him not giving a fuck to spell the "fancy" word I guess😆 but mostly it makes him look kinda stupid so yeah... not a fan.

Whatever, moving on!

Tone down Moxxie pulling uwu and crying faces please? Just a bit. It's too much is all I'm saying. He's baby but like it's not endearing if you do it constantly 😢

Animation is so gorgeous tho as always. How rip-off-Elsa moves and uses his power is so smooth!

So Striker just made a guest appearance and fucked off with a wicked smile. I can't!😆

I mean good for him for getting that immunity deal but not even a tiny bit of verbal interaction with I.M.P? Moxxie? Anything? No?? You're killing me man. I am robbed and inconsolable 😭

The Sins interactions are mostly annoying but lmao at Mammon's clown noises bahahahah! Love it!

Uuuh Satan's voice might be doing things to me👉👈

Goddamn his design is amazing too!

Fizz!!! He's trying! Bless his heart he cares about his friend a lot imma cry!

Oh wow! Kudos to Blitzo for giving that speech. Dare we see social commentary that actually hits? And he's using it to save his family? Respect!

The guards are threatening af! I love how creepily slow they move and how that one touched Blitzo after the execution announcement was so foreboding. Really good way to convey the imminent danger. Niiice!

Muzzle on Loona just showing how little she's allowed to be. Even lower than the imps basically. This is sad.

Stolas to the rescue! Ye- Song? OhmyGod🤦 nah man just... okay whatever I'm skipping it, it feels really awkward to have in this situation.

Skip skip skip

Okay no back up back up. Satan singing???

That's-

....

No still don't care about it, too awkward sorry.

Skip skip skip

"This is a sturdy door"

Frick that caught me off guard! 🤣🤣🤣

Oh my god noooo. Via making that sound while crying broke my heart!!! Poor Baby bird!😢

Yeah see having Stella be non abusive and manipulative with her is an amazing idea and I love it but goddamn it, it doesn't work if you present her as absolutely brain-dead and obvious about everything the rest of the time!!!!

...well that was embarrassing 😂

Actually felt more bad about Stolas assuming he'd be sacrificed than the sacrifice itself.

Heroic I know but holy shit 🤣

Really love Satan's entire schtick. Very much a fan! The guy is so entertaining to watch!

Vasago really didn't do much in the end besides fanboy over Stolas did he?😆

"For the next 100 years"

Bahahahahahahahah!!! Get fucked rip-off-Elsa lmaoo!!! That bit was gold!!

And Stolas is common folk now. Okay I guess. I'm very neutral about that.🤷

Ohooo?? Blitzo actually getting support from this whole ordeal?? Oh kudos! Great direction! Very much support it!

More of soft Loona yes!!🥺❤️

(and I'll be willing to pretend the kicking his balls awful nonsense never happened 🙄)

Ah the last scene with Stolas? That was actually so very soft and sweet. Beautiful quiet moment to close off to

----

And that was it🫠

Whelp I didn't think I'd have this many reactions watching the episode.

Overall not bad. I'm going to bed now tho I'm tired🥱

Oh And in conclusion:

Bring Striker back soon!!!!🙏

Goodnight!

[acupofinkedblood]

Coil x reader [Training Went Wrong!]

Not: This is a draft because I’m feeling funny

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝

Everyone in the underground boxing ring has heard of the renowned Hellhound. To be able to clear out such Biografts and opponents without breaking too much of a sweat, it was almost common knowledge that this man is not to be taken lightly unless someone is certain that they can take him in a fight. The boxing ring is where he shines the brightest, roar of applauses and the victorious glory - they are all his to enjoy

You on the other hand, is the definition of a feeble wimp. If Coil was a wolf, then you are a chihuahua. Even though you can’t fight for shit, you still insist on attracting troubles at any give chance. Your fierce and vocal attitude is the perfect contrast to your fighting skill

And usually, Coil has to step in to drag you out of troubles or take things personally himself

It feels good to have your boyfriend back you up most of the time, but you don’t want your problems to be his problem. Gosh, it feels annoying when you are reminded that you have to rely on his strength to get your ass out of a tough situation. You don’t like it, that’s for sure

Even when Coil insists that it’s fine, you still figure a way to argue back. And then you come to the ultimate solution - to get your boyfriend, the infamous Hellhound, to teach you on how to defend yourself properly!

Coil is, as expected, unamused because he is more than aware how much of a shitty fighter you are. Hell, you probably trip on your step before you even launch a punch at him. And oh boy was he right

“Okay smartass,” he huffed, “Time’s up, and you haven’t been able to even punch me with all your strength. Are you learning to fight or to play catch?”

You bites back a sarcastic remark before catching your breath. Coil has a point, because on the SFOTH’s souls he can swear that a kid can fight better than you. He has seen some certain kids in Playground beating each other’s asses off, and the memory makes him baffled. But that’s just how he emphasizes your amateur skills

The differences in he and you is large. He has been trained within the ring, getting beaten up multiple times and beating the living shit out of his opponents on daily basis. Not to mention the Biografts that end up becoming scarps when they try to hunt him down. His current strength and physique is the fruit of how much he has been throwing himself in danger. And as for you, you look like someone who deal with paperwork most of the time

And look, as much as he finds it adorable when you wants to learn how to fight for yourself instead of having him deal with it, your limited strength really doesn’t help with the fact you are so inexperienced

“Hey, I got you to teach me how to learn, not poke fun of me, asshole”

“Well,” he shrugs, “I’m your asshole of a teacher, take it or leave it”

Coil can’t really take you serious, you just have to understand. He is really holding the urge to laugh the hell out of his throat when he sees your attempts of throwing a hit at him. He means it when calling you a chihuahua after all: All barks, no bites. But hey, he means that in an affectionate way

On the other hand, you are not having it

“Listen here you fuck—!”

Without a further warning, you pounce onto him with frustration — which is, again, another poor attempt of yours to get him — hoping that it will work somehow. It catches him off guard. Even when you’re already exhausted, that attitude of yours doesn’t seem to falter at all. Yet being someone with professional skills, Coil can easily flip you up and throw you onto his shoulder

It’s almost comical, how you keep squirming and wriggling out of his grasp like a fish that just gets out of the water. Your vivid vocabularies definitely make the situation even more amusing for Coil. Heck, he only needs one hand to keep you in place on his shoulder

“Alright alright, you glorified chihuahua of a princess,” Coil barks out a laugh, “That’s it for today. If we keep this up any longer, you might as well kiss the ground before you can fight like me”

A playful smack made its way to your ass, which causes you to yelp slightly. Knowing that your effort of struggling will lead to nowhere, you begrudgingly accept your fate as you stay there on Coil’s shoulder

”I’m going to bite your ass”

“You know damn well I enjoy that shit. Now c’mon, let’s get back”

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝

Note: I was writing an essay while I wrote this and what the duck did I just write