#Appendix W | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

chanifesto · 1 month ago

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ᯓᡣ𐭩 mr. fix it | yeon sieun

pairing: yeon sieun x afab!reader (weak hero)

synopsis: yeon sieun was notoriously known as your program’s tech handyman. when he wasn’t hunched over calculus problem sets, sieun was busy fixing his peers' laptops, for a price of course—one that was nonexistent for you because you seemed to make his software hard.

genre: another smutty university au

word count: 6.9k

warnings: [MDNI!] explicit sexual content, grinding, making out, oral (f rec.), pussydrunk!sieun, piv sex, protected sex, many consent checks, sieun is so so gone for you, you are literally his pretty little angel, if devotion was a person it would be him, sieun can’t figure out his goddamn integral

reader notes: written with afab reader in mind. reader has breasts and a vagina. reader is described to look ‘small’ at one point. all characters are consenting and over 18 yo.

this fic was requested – thank you so much, i loved coming up with the concept .ᐟ

۶ৎ 𝑙𝑒𝑒'𝑠 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑢𝑑𝑒 ࿐ park jihoon uggghhhh need need need him. had the most exquisite time picking out the concept pictures.

“You broke it again?”

His voice sounds flat, but there's a tinge of hope, a sense of subdued anticipation perking his last few syllables.

Sieun stares at the half-solved integral on his desk, phone pressed to his cheek, screen cold against his skin, fingers loosely gripping the sides. The warm glow of his lamp casts a nimbus over the mess made of a barely punched in calculation and his calculus textbook, pages worn from flipping back and forth between the chapter problem sets and appendix answers. Outside his window, the campus sky is dim, too gray for six in the evening.

“I didn’t break it!” Your voice crackles through the line, scratchy with frustration. Sieun can hear your breath over the receiver, rough and rushed.

“It just won’t turn on,” you continue, “I don’t know what happened. I just opened my tabs, and then—dead.”

He exhales. “And you tried plugging it in?”

“Yes, Sieun. I tried everything you taught me—nothing worked,” you huff, “I have an essay due Monday, and everything I need to write it is on this damn laptop.”

You sound slightly breathless, your voice hoarse with the kind of air that clings to lungs on chilly evenings. Wind rushes past the speaker, muddling your words with static. Sieun’s ears pick up on this.

“Where are you,” he asks, dull, but more abrupt than intended.

You’re silent for a few beats.

“Outside.” Another gust of wind bleeds through the receiver.

He feels the warmth of perspiration prick across his palms. “Where?”

The brisk, hollow rustle of plastic, and then, “Walking to your dorm.”

Sieun feels his breath dissipate in the back of his throat.

“I’m sorry,” you start. Sieun squeezes his eyes upon hearing these words in your soundwaves, words he thought were too unnecessary when masked in your voice.

“I saw the forecast, there’s going to be rain—shoot, I forgot my umbrella, I knew I was forgetting something—anyways, I figured I'd head over to yours before it hit,” there’s an unmistakable sincerity in your voice, “I really need you right now, Sieun.”

Need to murder him, he thought. Clearly, that was more fitting for the illusive objective of your last sentence, one that roused his hand to the back of his neck, called his fingers to smooth over his golden skin, wailed for them to curl against his flesh in hopes of helping him get a grip of himself. Literally.

He sighs, half flustered, half enlivened. “You’ll be here soon?”

“Yeah, just five minutes more.”

There’s a pause. “Okay.”

A quick exhale breaks past your lips, a restrained puff of air that had been trapped in the back of your throat, waiting for a green light to let it loose. “Thank you, Sieun.”

He can still feel the ghost of icy plastic against his cheek when you cut the call. Unfocused eyes cloud over the sheets and pens and smudged writing lazing atop his desk.

Of course.

Of course you’re coming over. Because why wouldn’t you? Your laptop’s dead, and he’s the tech guy, and this is just what happens. He fixes things.

And right now, you need him to fix your things. He couldn’t help but feel his heart jump at the idea, an eagerness creeping into his chest, fogging up his lungs and grabbing hold of the air that dared to escape up his trachea.

Sieun, as cold as he seemed, felt warmth fixing your things, like he’d swallowed the sun and it dissolved into his blood. Unlike the peers on your campus, he does it for you free-of-charge—hell, he thinks he’d pay you just to let him fidget around with your laptop’s battery that burns to touch or the program functions you can’t seem to figure out even after using the ‘help’ tab. He’d never admit to it though.

Not yet, at least.

His eyes flicker to the unfinished problem adorning his notebook, numbers and symbols half-formed, abandoned mid-line. The solution sits just out of reach.

Much like you.

His unfinished integral mocks him.

Your cheeks are flushed, supple and radiant, the dermal symptom of cool drizzle and dewy autumn air. Sieun’s eyes surf the strands of your hair, glinting from subtle rain droplets that catch even in the dim fluorescent light of his dorm hallway.

You look small like this in his doorway, backpack straps sagging over your shoulders, your sweater sporting little wet spots that are sure to smell like petrichor. Your hands tightly clutch a white plastic bag to your abdomen, the vertices of a cardboard box poking out at him.

You smile at him, small and sweet and a little flustered. “There was some drizzle when I turned onto your lane.”

Sieun’s gaze, currently traveling across the ridges tenting your plastic bag, snaps to your face.

“Oh.” It’s a soft expression, a barely-there phoneme he manages through concern for you—how dare the clouds cry over your angel face?—and some muffled curiosity.

Sieun just can’t help the fall of his gaze. He stares blankly at the bag in your hands. He’s not surprised when you take notice.

“It’s brownie mix!”

He peers at you again.

“Brownies?”

You grin sheepishly, fiddling with the plastic handles. “Yeah, I thought, well– you work so hard, you deserve a fun break, one you can get a sweet treat out of!” You pause. “And, I guess it’s also thanks for my laptop. You’ve saved me a lot of money I already don’t have, more than once now.”

He’s still staring at you, face blank, unreadable, lips sealed in a line, but his eyes gleamed. Whether it was annoyance or humour, you weren’t sure, but his dreamy, tired eyes gleamed.

Your eyes go wide. “Oh gosh, I should’ve asked you if brownies were okay. They looked so good on the box, I just had to pick them up. You could be allergic to chocolate, or maybe you don’t even like brownies–”

“Brownies are cool.”

Sieun watches your lips halt their rambling, configured mid-sentence, before they slowly spread into a toothy grin, one that radiates a warm feeling into his bones and almost—almost—makes his lip twitch up to match yours.

All you needed to do was force start.

That’s all.

No hardware to trifle with, no delinquent software meddling with your computer programs.

All Sieun had to do was press a couple buttons in tandem before your screen lit back up to life, resurrected from its cry of wolf.

Your cheeks had heated, bashful from your ignorance, but also a little humoured.

They blazed further when you caught sight of the calculus massacre on his desk, hurried apologies spilling past your pretty lips to wash out the guilt that crawled up your chest.

Sieun reassured you all was well—It’s fine, I was almost done anyways—with a look in his eyes that had you capitulating to his sincerity.

“Can I repay you with brownies?” you had prompted, fingers twiddling behind your back as if it would have subliminally helped rouse the answer you sought after.

Sieun slowly flattened your laptop to a shut before his Bambi eyes peaked at you and whispered exactly what you needed to know, exactly what you wanted to hear.

So, you’d both clambered in his tiny, cozy dorm kitchen, ingredients and bowls and utensils scattered across granite, instructions serenading the walls in your voice, Sieun’s hands working to mix the dark sea of cocoa batter.

You had assumed the role of a conductor but managed to pull a mess over you like a magnet. Whatever hadn’t been mixed into the warm batch of brownies basking atop Sieun’s countertop had found consolation on your being—cocoa powder and melted butter and drying batter decorated your skin and sweater.

Sieun thought it was the cutest thing he’d ever seen.

Of course, Sieun had missed any defiant ingredient attacks entirely.

You’d both picked up a piece each, melted chocolate furnishing your mouths while Sieun, starry-eyed and attentive, listened to you babble about your stress baking and how, no matter the many times you made something, you’d always be left with a bit of a messy souvenir from the process.

It was during this instance when the rain had hit.

Hard and harsh and pattering ferociously against the window of his measly living room. You and Sieun had snapped your heads at the sound, sticky embellishments of chocolate coating your fingers.

You’d looked so worried, so consumed in the thought of how you’d walk home through what was practically a typhoon. You hadn’t checked for a storm warning, all you’d known was a chance of rain. Your umbrella wouldn’t have stood a chance.

You’d looked so worried, so it felt almost natural when Sieun suggested you just stay over.

“...Really?” Your eyes were breaking past their sockets, and Sieun had nerely felt the weight of his words crash over him until your orbs softened and he saw the ghost of a smirk brush past your lips.

“Yeah, you can’t get home through that,” his voice had been tinged with his radiation of care for you. His eyes swept over your chocolate-covered frame. “You can use my shower if you want. I’ll give you some clean clothes to wear.”

You’d obliged. Quite happily.

And now, Sieun sat at his desk, unfinished integral staring up at him, the muted sound of his shower silking through the wall, almost louder than the merciless storm outside his window.

Sieun hadn’t touched his sheets or pens since he’d retreated to his room, changed into his own set of nightwear, and lowered himself into his desk chair. He couldn’t focus.

How could he? When you were just a dozen feet away, naked and wet under the rush of his shower.

He knew he shouldn’t think about it, begged himself not to, but when his mind slipped over the way you had chocolate powder flowering your neck and underneath your sweater, he couldn’t help but let his mind run, just a little.

Run over the way your fingers probably tucked under the bottom of your sweater, dragging it up along your beautiful body and over your head. What had you worn underneath? Had you even worn anything?

In Sieun’s little fantasy, you hadn’t. You’d been bare for him under your clothes, and he’d been ready, quick to ravish you, to kiss and suck and bite at your warm skin.

But, that was just a fantasy.

In reality, it didn’t matter whether or not you’d worn anything underneath your sweater. Sieun had just helped you out, made things a little easier for you, eased your anxiety by offering an innocent sleepover so you wouldn’t have to sacrifice yourself to what was the making of an ocean outside his dorm.

It didn’t matter, just like his integral, still unfinished. Deferred. Mocking.

The blood had barely made it to his cock before it was rushing back to his brain.

A couple minutes more of unsuccessfully undressing the math symbols littering his half-blank page and you were padding your way into his room, feet bare, heels marginally lifted off the cold floor of his dorm. Your clothes were folded, carried atop your forearms, and your cute body was swallowed in his t-shirt and shorts, sleeves too long, neck hole too wide, fabric swaying just over your knees with each of your scampered steps.

You gaze at Sieun from the edge of his bed, clothes now tucked away in your backpack, the hem of his shirt twirling in your fingers.

God, Sieun thought you looked ethereal, bare-faced and in his clothes. The warm, mellow glow of his desk lamp illuminates your face like a halo. Your sweet angel eyes are drowning him far past the storm outside.

Sweet oblivious angel eyes. If only they could see the mess he’d made of you in his head.

“Are you ready to sleep, or do you want to study some more?” Your voice is so soft, so melodious bouncing within the confines of his skull, and your eyes twinkle just right, brightened from his lamp and the mere cast of moonlight simmering through his window.

“I’m done,” Sieun starts, “You take the bed. I’m going to sleep in the living room.”

He’s about to push himself up when you cross your cute arms, defiant and determined. He watches your eyes narrow, eyebrows dip with a scrunch.

“Absolutely not!” you chide, your squint piercing. Sieun stares, half stood. He sits back down.

“It’s not fair to you! I showed up, practically unannounced, had you press a couple buttons on my laptop because I was too incompetent to figure it out myself, then made you make brownies with me against your will since you don’t take any economic compensation! And I know you’re not done with your problem set, I can see it from here. It’s exactly how you left it before we made those godforsaken brownies! I completely butted into your evening and messed up your studying, so you best believe you’ll be sleeping in your own bed and getting a good night’s rest!”

You puff at the end, like you’d said it in one breath, forearms glued to each other, fingers digging into your biceps.

Sieun is still staring at you, face blank, eyes gentle.

“You’re not incompetent.”

You blink.

“That’s not the point, Sieun.” You huff, pointing to his blankets.

“Now, get to bed.”

His eyes flick, your attention on his bed now shared. There’s an ease in the air, one that helps to hoist Sieun from his desk chair, click his lamp off, and carry himself over to the side of his bed. He lifts the corner of his duvet, slides underneath, and lets it fall over him. All without a peep.

His eyes scan to your frame, still at the edge of his bed, still in his too-baggy clothes, still looking too ethereal for him to indulge below the moonlight’s gaze, even in your quarrelsome stance.

You stare back at him.

“Okay… good.” You sound stifled, almost suspicious of his obedience.

Your arms unclasp, a little dazed at how fast he’d listened to you. With a hesitant scratch to your neck, you shuffle to what would be your side of Sieun’s bed, just for tonight.

Even though Sieun wishes it could be a less transient arrangement.

But he was doing this to help you.

Afterall, you’d looked so worried.

Sieun watches your warm body roll onto his mattress, feels it dip with your added weight from across. You shamble to face him, the duvet bunching in your hands, a relaxed, content tilt gracing your lips. Your cheek presses against the pillow, eyes squinting with warmth and kindness and gratitude and what Sieun could describe as a fatally contagious ray of tranquility.

You look so sweet like this, cuddled into his bed in clothes—his clothes—that swallow your body whole. The rain had slowed, granting permission to an even larger crowd of moonlight to flow over your face.

Sieun thought you were unreal, a mythical being from a dreamy world far beyond the current celestial limits.

A mythical being who saw him only for his technological abilities.

You were only here for tonight. Sieun was just helping you.

Because you had looked so worried.

So, he rolls onto his side, nearing the edge of the bed, hands tittering close to an abyss.

“Goodnight,” he grumbles. He doesn’t bother to pull the duvet to his front, lets it hang just over his side, as if any extra movement would make him appear more visible to you.

You gape at his back.

“Sieun!”

Sieun closes his eyes. Perhaps the world around him wouldn’t see him if he couldn’t see the world.

You puff, a frustrated push of air that has Sieun squinting his eyes shut further. He feels the duvet minutely ruffle behind him, feels the dip of the mattress sink gradually.

“I don’t get it, are you actually upset?” Although you were quiet, you sounded so disgruntled, confused. Sieun could only wish he was better at this so he wouldn’t have to bear your honey-like voice convey such emotion, like thrones stuck in a cloud.

But, Sieun was Sieun. A man of minimal words who spoke the truth and nothing but—until now.

“No, just trying to get a good night’s rest.” Just trying to keep my mind off you, so close, for just one night.

“Ugh! Will you just turn around so I can talk to you?”

Your hand reaches out and grips the collar of Sieun’s shirt, a tight grip pulling him towards you, a gentle grip to avoid attempted murder.

His eyes pop open, a hand catching onto the taut fabric around his neck. If there was the slightest chance Sieun’s conscious was to succumb to strangulation tonight, he thinks he’d only remember the warmth of your fingers fogging over the back of his neck.

Sieun yields to your force, falling onto his back. Why are you so damn strong?

With a hatch of his neck, his eyes find yours in the dark room, the patch of moonlight from his window dimmed from the roar of thunder and familiar strikes of heavy droplets against the glass.

There’s light provocation simmering through your face, playful like a child in a game of tag.

“Talk about what?” His voice is quiet but firm, his body a statue sandwiched between the mattress and sheets, daring not to move a millimeter.

You peer at him, words hanging along the tip of your tongue, as if debating whether they were worth speaking into the medium shared between your beings.

You decide they are.

“I know you take a fee from others when you fix their laptops.” There’s a quirk in his neck, a twitch at the corner of his lips that urges you further. “You’ve never taken one from me, even when I mention it. Why is that?”

Sieun feels a gradual quickening of his heartbeat at this concoction of your voice, and, like the start of a tornado, the thoughts in his head rampage into a whirlwind.

To be or not to be? Sieun, who previously seemed to lack any cognitive resources to solve his monster integral, was now calculating his next move with rigorous intricacy.

Maybe it was the kick in adrenaline that had him instigating your little game.

Sieun chose to be.

“Why do you think?”

Your eyes narrow in an instant, the entire play a chain reaction. Were you also debating your next actions, words? Were you also aware of the string snapping taut between you, tense and nearing a strong, sudden tear?

Sieun definitely was. Like always, he knew what he was getting himself into, knew he was igniting something far beyond repair, unlike the many laptops he’d resurrected.

Sieun knew what he’d started. He’d calculated it, perhaps from the very beginning, from the moment he uttered the word “stay.”

He was just helping you, for one night. Just one night.

You’d looked so worried, of course.

Perhaps Sieun had wanted your eyebrows to furrow from another force of nature—him.

Say something.

A quirk to your lips. Dark shadows in your eyes.

And a hand reaching out for his neck, this time to pull him to the plushest centre of your visage.

His lips graze the fullness of yours when you whisper in a breath.

“I knew to force start.”

Sieun isn’t spared a chance to retaliate his sockets stretching back when you press into him.

The dense pressure molds his own lips flush against yours, an electric fog swarming your face and down the flanks of your neck.

It’s a reflex, an abrupt, consuming, greedy reflex, when his arm curls over your back, big hand hastily grazing along your spine to knot into your hair.

Had Sieun fallen asleep?

This has to be a dream.

But your lips were too soft against his, too warm.

And your back curved so well along his forearm, strands so luxurious curled around his fingers.

Your hand on his chest, basking down his torso… Sieun believes he doesn’t possess even a speckle of the imagination required to muster a feeling as heavenly as that.

Definitely not enough to muster a feeling as heavenly as your hand sliding over him through his thin flannel pajamas.

You were a fallen angel who had come to play unsacred games.

And Sieun proved to be a worthy opponent.

His fingers grip around the base of your skull to pull you from his lips.

His eyes are heavy with a murmur of inquisition, flitting over your lips before boring into your own with words unspoken. You mirror his gaze with equal weight, savouring his quiet inhale when you push further down over his hardening curve, feathering your hand up to rest against the supple part of his abdomen.

“You know where this is going.” It was a statement, a quiet, breathless, almost restrained mutter carrying all the responsibility and uncertainty and anticipation littered within Sieun.

You gaze, knowing, unbothered.

“This is what you want? This is what you came for?”

“Yes,” you whisper, “Take it as part of my thanks.”

“I thought the brownies were your thanks.”

You smirk. “That was just the appetizer.”

Sieun scoffs quietly, a humble pfft to accompany the fingers gently rubbing over the bottom of your scalp, a means of easing into his next utterance.

You were drowning in his milk chocolate orbs, a velvety sea full of nothing but care and adoration and awe for you.

“Are you sure you want to go further?” Any quieter and the storm battering upon his window would have drowned his sound completely.

“Yes, Sieun.”

That was everything he needed to hear.

A gentle push to your neck has your lips pressing back into the plushness of his own.

It’s a slow kiss, chaste but blazing with the need you’d both been bearing for months. You move against the other, the ghost of anticipation urging you further into it.

Sieun definitely is not dreaming.

All his prior frustration, graced from his still unsolved practice set and the many long, agonizing weeks of indirect contact with you, melts away, leaving a tender warmth to dry in its place. Your lips feel as soft as—no, they were softer, so much softer, and warm like sun rays on cold skin—the many times he’d imagined the ghost of them wisping against his.

A transient ghost, barely lasting a mere tortuous ten seconds. He’d stop himself from savouring it, pry the ghost away before his hopes shot higher than the sky above him.

But now, you were here, tangible, with your mortal lips on his. They were so supple, so plush and warm and real. And they were flush against his. No one else but him.

Sieun had spent so long denying your fabricated being, the one who would distract him from his problem sets, urge him to isolate from the many gadgets his peers would throw his way in times of technological misfortune.

Sieun decided it was finally time to show you what your ghost had been doing to him.

He sucks in your bottom lip, hands grazing over your hips to pull you over his growing hardness with a delicate hold, treating your vessel like original vintage artwork. Fragile. Authentic. Godly.

The duvet shifts against your back while you shift over him, the core of your heat finding solace over his own. The hem of his borrowed t-shirt rides up your torso like it knows what’s coming.

It’s an abrupt, consuming, visceral feeling when you first connect with the stiff rod bulging against the stressed material of Sieun’s pajamas.

It’s the same for Sieun, so when a small groan muses from the depths of his throat at the feeling of your heat radiating along his length, he remains basking in its aftermath.

Lips still working into each other, you almost don’t acknowledge the slow, tantalizing roll of your hips.

Sieun does, and it drives him crazy.

Sieun, who was always so cool, composed, and distant was now growing hot and undone, all while pressing himself further into you, meeting you at an undefined middle, ridding any and all separation from your heating bodies from the insufferable vexation of need.

His hands knead into your hips, bearing your heat further along him, before they configure to push himself up while embracing you flush against his chest.

You’re consuming him, physically and mentally. Your lips on his, your body wrapped tightly around his own, hot cunt slowly grinding over the hard curve of his cock, a barrier of too much fabric plastered between your beings and pushing you both into frustrated desperation.

Your name, your scent, the suppleness of your skin, they all fog his head, conquer it with the ghost of you.

Both your mortal and immortal forms had possessed him, consumed him whole until he was nothing but a spec of utter devotion to you and you only.

Your hips grind again, slow, sinful, and Sieun’s breath stutters against your mouth.

You feel the shiver that rebounds through him like a tremor, feel the tight grip of his hands at your waist falter before steadying again, tighter this time, as if he needs to anchor you, or maybe himself.

His lips leave yours only to trail hot, desperate, open-mouthed kisses along your jaw, your neck, your crescent of skin beyond the shirt’s collar, the devotion in each press of his mouth turning you molten.

“You feel…” he murmurs, barely audible, like he’s speaking to himself, “…too good. Too good to be real.”

You tilt your hips forward again, slower, answering him with equal desperation, and Sieun’s head tips back, a ragged exhale pulling from his throat. The sight strikes you—his lashes trembling, his brows knit together in pleasure so raw it borders on pain. He looks ruined.

Kiss-swollen lips and flushed cheeks, shades of pink colonizing his visage in the shower of eventide luminosity.

You don’t realize you’ve gasped until his gaze finds you again, pupils blown wide and gleaming with disbelief. His thumbs rub along your hip bones, a fragrant sensation even through the fabric of his shorts you adorned.

Your hands glide under his shirt, pushing up until he’s reaching for the edge himself, prying the shirt past his head and letting the fabric fall to the cold hardwood beneath his bed.

His hands slip beneath the hem of your own, and his touch is hesitant, wavering, like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he reaches too far.

“Can I…?” he asks, voice husky and threadbare, already tugging at the fabric.

You nod. His hands glide up, slow and reverent, brushing over the curves and valleys he’s only ever imagined, each touch leaving heat in its wake.

He drinks in the sight of you like he’s been thirst-starved for days, gentle eyes falling over your face and down to your taut peaks. You weren’t a ghost anymore—you were a dream, glowing and radiant beneath the muted haze of damp moonlight.

And when your bare chest presses to his, skin to skin, nothing between you but the thundering pace of your hearts, Sieun chokes out a soft, desperate moan.

The ghost of you has vanished.

What remains is you—real and soft and warm and all his.

And he’s no longer a boy haunted by longing. He’s a man who’s finally allowed to feel.

Your fingers find the nape of his neck, weaving into the soft strands of his hair, and the sound he lets out—broken, hushed, completely unguarded—settles somewhere deep in your chest.

Sieun’s lips return to yours with more urgency now, less caution, the kind that only comes when desire and restraint blur into the same overwhelming thing. His tongue traces your bottom lip before slipping inside, gentle, exploratory, worshipping, like he’s memorizing you.

Every movement of his hips under you is hesitant but needy, as if he’s still trying to slow himself down, still trying to process that you’re not slipping away.

“You’re driving me insane,” he whispers against your mouth, voice hoarse and cracking like lightning behind the storm-glassed windows.

He kisses you again, softer now, almost like an apology for how his hands are now gripping at the swell of your thighs with mounting desperation.

Then, with a breath that shakes against your lips, Sieun pulls back. Only just.

“Lie back,” he murmurs, voice low, thick with something you’ve never heard from him before. Anticipation, maybe. Hunger, definitely.

You do, painfully unlatching from his warmth and sinking into the pillow behind you.

Sieun follows, crawling down the length of your body like a man crossing sacred ground, his drowsy gaze never leaving you. It lingers on the slope of your neck, the lines of your collarbone, the tender stretch of skin bare to the cool air of his bedroom. Each inch he memorizes like scripture, utterly fascinated and unspeakably enamoured.

“You’re…” he begins, almost too quiet to even comprehend, but trails off, like no word quite fits what you are to him.

And then you see it. The way adoration turns to ache.

A valley of creases between his brows, a marginal slit parting his pout, the quickened wisps of air trailing out of him. He’s wrecked, far past.

And you had barely touched him.

Sieun’s hands slide up your thighs, calloused fingertips brushing along the waistband of the very shorts he lent you, the ones riding too low on your hips, the ones he's dreamed about you in far too many nights to count.

He kisses the inside of your knee.

Then your thigh.

Then the soft dip just above your hip bone.

His hands move, thumbs hooking into the waistband. There’s a beat—one last, wordless check—and then he draws them down.

And stops breathing.

You’re bare beneath them. No panties. Just slick, glistening proof of how long you’ve wanted this too.

“Fuck,” he breathes, like it’s been torn from him. His jaw goes slack, eyes shadowed with affection and disbelief. “You didn’t wear—?”

He doesn't finish. He can't.

His hands twitch.

You’ve rendered Yeon Sieun speechless.

Sieun blinks once, twice, like he’s trying to process the sight before him, trying not to let it undo him entirely.

But it does.

It does.

He swallows hard, jaw flexing as his eyes drag along the slick sheen glistening between your thighs, warm and glimmering and pooling out of you sans constraint.

His hands settle on your hips again, firm, needy, desperate.

“You’ve been like this this whole time?” he whispers, voice hoarse, eyes flickering up to meet yours, the question half-shattered already. “Wearing my shorts… like this?”

You don’t have time to answer.

Because Sieun leans in, drawn like a man starved, mouth ghosting just above your heat and breathing you in.

His composure fractures there.

A low, guttural sound breaks from his throat as he presses a slow, devoted kiss to your core. Just one.

Then another. Then again, deeper, wetter, until his tongue slides through your dampened heat with a shuddering groan of restraint and craving colliding all at once.

Your hips twitch and Sieun’s grip tightens instinctively, his fingers digging into your waist to anchor you to him like you might vanish otherwise.

His tongue moves again, slow and patient, still trying to worship even while losing his mind.

But you’re so wet, and he’s so gone.

Each soft moan that slips from your lips draws another shaky exhale from him, each roll of your hips a crack in his control.

He tries to keep it measured. Gentle.

But then he hears you gasp his name, all broken and raw, and something inside him snaps.

His pace quickens.

He licks into you deeper, more desperate, tongue flicking, flattening, circling like he’s chasing a high that stubbornly runs just a step out of his reach. His nose brushes your clit and he doesn’t even think to pull back.

He wants it all.

You feel his moan against you, deep and wrecked, and you realize:

Sieun isn’t composed anymore.

He’s hungry.

Possessed.

And completely, unbearably devoted to the taste of you.

You’re gasping now, each breath shallower than the last, and Sieun can feel you trembling beneath his palms.

It spurs him on, wrecks him in ways he never knew were possible.

His thumbs rub slow circles into your hips, as if to soothe you, steady you, but his mouth is relentless, nose tirelessly working into your nub. His tongue is languid one moment, then firmer the next, lapping through your folds with aching, focused precision, memorizing all that makes you fall apart.

You roll into a nimble arch, head tipping back, and your thighs quiver where they rest over his shoulders.

“Sieun—” you whimper.

His name breaks in your throat, and that’s what crumbles him.

He groans into you again, the vibration shooting straight through your core as he licks you harder now, deeper, more rhythmic, mouth coaxing you right to the edge, right to the place he’s been aching to take you.

His hands are cradling your hips now, keeping you spread open, helpless, vulnerable, his.

And then he whispers it, barely audible, a prayer into your skin.

“Come for me.”

Your breath catches.

“Let me taste all of you,” he mumbles again, like he’s asking for divinity, like your pleasure is holy.

And when you finally do, when your body tenses and your thighs clamp tight around his head and that beautiful cry of his name leaves your lips, Sieun doesn’t stop.

He groans into you, licking you through it, drinking it in like he’s never tasted something more sacred.

Like he’s never belonged more to anything—anyone—than he does to you in this moment.

And even after the tremors still, even when you’re limp and gasping and glowing beneath him, he keeps kissing you softly, as if he can’t bear to let you go just yet.

As if this is how he says I’ve wanted you like this forever.

You’re still panting when he pulls back, lips slick and pink, eyes hooded and blown wide with awe. He looks stunned. Disheveled. Like a man undone by worship.

But you, squirming and aching and desperate to have all of him, manage to find your voice.

“Sieun,” you whisper, reaching for him. Your fingers trail along his jaw, coaxing him up until he’s hovering over you again. “I want more.”

His breath hitches.

Your palm slides over his chest, feeling the rapid beat of his heart beneath his ribs. “I want you inside me.”

Sieun stills completely.

And then his eyes close, jaw tightening as if your words alone could undo the last shreds of his composure.

“Fuck,” he breathes, voice rough with disbelief.

He kisses you, not hard, not hurried, but slow and deep, like it’s all he can do to keep from losing control. You savour the heady taste of your slick coating his lips. He presses his forehead to yours, and mutters shakily, “One second.”

You watch as he reaches for the drawer beside his bed and pulls out a condom from the crumpled blue box Hu-min had shoved at him weeks ago with a stupid grin and no explanation.

He’d meant to throw them out. He hadn’t.

He tears the foil open with controlled fingers and slides his flannels and boxers off his body, finally bearing himself free.

He’s thick, flushed, already leaking from the tip. He hisses under his breath as he rolls the condom on, fingers twitching like he’s barely holding it together.

When he settles between your thighs, eyes drowning in your sight, the air changes.

Gone is the boy who’s too quiet, too closed off, too powered from the urge of indignation.

What remains is Sieun drowned in passion, eyes wide and dreamy and dazed by the sight of you spread open for him, the warmth of your body beckoning his own.

“You sure?” he asks again, voice almost too tender.

You nod, pulling him down into a kiss, and guide him with a soft whisper, “Yes. Please, Sieun. I want all of you.”

He exhales shakily.

Then he lines himself just beyond your heat, and with a leisurely push of his hips, he slides inside.

You both gasp.

You’re hot and wet and hug onto his inching cock, and he sinks in like he’s always meant to belong there.

“God—” he grits, arms quavering on either side of you as he tries not to lose it too fast, forehead dropping to your shoulder.

“You’re…” His voice cracks. “So good. So—gosh, I don’t—”

You wrap your legs around him, anchoring him to you, and moan when he rocks forward again, deeper this time. You feel everything, every inch, every pulse, every lazed drag.

He starts slow, shallow, testing your fit, his own restraint. His hips roll into yours with a tender kind of ache, like he’s afraid to break you, like each inch of him inside you is a miracle he can’t fully comprehend.

But your body answers with desperate softness, clinging to him like silk caught in wind. You tilt your hips, chasing more friction, and whimper at the way his cock presses deeper, fuller, perfectly where you need him.

Sieun moans, a sound so broken and quiet it nearly guts you.

“Please,” you breathe, clutching at his back, your voice hitching with each movement. “Don’t hold back.”

His jaw clenches. His eyes flutter shut.

And then he moves deeper, hips rocking into you with a fluid rhythm that makes your breath stutter and your legs tighten around him.

The friction is delicious. The stretch, overwhelming yet cosmic.

Sieun presses closer, burying his face further into your neck, panting softly against your skin.

“You’re so—” He chokes on a groan as your walls flutter around him. “You feel unreal.”

You drag your nails lightly down his spine, whispering back between moans.

He fucks into you slowly, like it’s sacred. Each thrust is a vow, a prayer, an unraveling. His hands are everywhere—one gripping your thigh to anchor you to him, the other cradling your jaw like you’re too precious to let go.

Your body sings for him. You meet each movement with your own, hips rising to greet him, rolling and shifting to take him deeper, to keep him close.

Your moans mingle with his gasps, the heat between you building with every thrust, until there’s nothing left of restraint, only the desperate, languid drag of two bodies finding rhythm in devotion.

Sieun lifts his head to look at you—really look—and what he sees makes his hips stutter.

Your face, flushed and shining, lips parted, still pink and swollen, eyes glassy with bliss and admiration.

You’re breathtaking. And right now, you were his.

He moans again, broken and stunned, and leans down to kiss you like he’ll fall apart if he doesn’t, slow, messy, teeth grazing lips, all while his hips begin to move faster, harder, chasing something he’s never dared imagine before you.

Your bodies are slick with heat and need, the world around you reduced to nothing but the way he fits, the way he fills, the way he worships you with every thrust.

Sieun is whispering your name like a lifeline, like it’s the only word he knows, murmured into the skin of your throat, your jaw, your lips, as if it can tether him to reality while he teeters on the edge of something vast and consuming.

“You feel so good,” he rasps, voice hoarse and reverent. “So perfect—you’re perfect.”

Your back arches, body shuddering as he angles his hips just right, deep and slow and precise, hitting that spot inside you that makes gush over his length.

Your moans turn high and breathless, desperate.

“Sieun—” you gasp, legs tightening around his waist, pulling him in deeper. “I’m close—oh god—”

He knows.

He feels it, the way you start to flutter and squeeze around him, the way your breaths collapse into whimpers. And even through the haze of his own rising pleasure, Sieun slows down just enough to draw it out for you, to feel every quivering second of it.

“I’ve got you,” he whispers, breath stuttering. “Come, please.”

And you do.

It rushes over you in waves—white-hot, pulsing, unstoppable—your climax washing through your entire body with a strangled moan, your limbs tightening, your voice shaking as you cry out his name.

Sieun swears under his breath, something desperate and soft, and then he loses it.

The way you clamp around him, slick, pulsing, so warm, is all it takes to send him spiraling. His rhythm falters, hips stuttering, muscles trembling as the pressure finally breaks. He groans, deep and guttural, and spills into the condom with a few last shallow thrusts, his whole body curling into yours like he’s trying to fuse the two of you together.

And when it’s over, when the tremors in both your bodies begin to subside and your chests press together in exhausted, blissful rhythm, he stays.

Buried in you, breathless, consumed. His forehead pressed to yours, his lashes fluttering, lips ghosting your cheek.

And finally, his lips quirk at the corners, gracing his features with a small, gentle smile.

Because he decides he won’t be washing his shorts.

And he thinks he’ll get you to ruin another pair when you bring your laptop over for him under the guise of fixing it again.

��ৎ 𝑙𝑒𝑒'𝑠 𝑝𝘰𝑠𝘵𝑙𝑢𝑑𝑒 ࿐ i decided for a soft, feral rendition of sieun’s university au. this will be the last weak hero fic i write before i move onto skz and atz! need more? you can read hyuntak’s version over here ⌯⌲ smart girl

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yamayuandadu · 23 hours ago

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Pride Month special 2025: shifts in gender, shifts in character. A Mesopotamian deity triple feature

The following article, in addition to being a pride month special, is also the third installment of a series which started with Nonconformity, ambiguity, fluidity and misinterpretation: on the gender of Inanna (and a few others) and continued in Ninshubur(s), Ilabrat, Papsukkal and the gala: another inquiry into ambiguity and fluidity of gender of Mesopotamian deities. This time instead of looking at the gender of a specific deity or category of deities I’ll instead discuss three remarkable cases in which a deity’s gender shifted: a mourning goddess turned fire god; a second, originally female, Dumuzi (feat. two unique passages which are as close to non-subtextual Inanna f/f as we can get for now - caveats apply); and a divine clerk in the service of Inanna who went from god to goddess without any other apparent changes.

Note that while I previously said this will be the final installment of the series, I have since realized at least one more will be necessary - stay tuned for further updates.

For now, more under the cut, as usual.

From mourning mother to “the handsome one”: Lisin (and Ninsikila)

Lisin already appears in the Zame Hymns from Abu Salabikh (c. 2500 BCE), one of the oldest religious texts presently known. She is the last of the deities listed, and her corresponding cult center is ĜEŠ.GI (reading uncertain), possibly to be identified as Abu Salabikh itself (Manfred Krebernik, Jan J. W. Lisman, The Sumerian Zame Hymns from Tell Abū Ṣalābīḫ With an Appendix on the Early Dynastic Colophons, p. 14). The hymn is fairly formulaic, and doesn’t say much about Lisin beyond her connection with ĜEŠ.GI. She is referred to with the title ama, literally “mother”, though it is unlikely that it should be taken literally. Instead it most likely functions as an indicator of her role as the tutelary goddess of the corresponding city (The Sumerian Zame Hymns…, 46).

A lament focused on Lisin (Lisin A; as you can see here it’s part of the ECSL system, but isn’t actually accessible online), written in first person from her perspective, portrays her mourning the death of an unnamed son, for which she blames her own mother, Ninhursag. She states that this event made her lonely, and that she has no friends or neighbors. The description of mourning itself is fairly formulaic, with all the expected mentions of tearing her own hair, performing lacerations, et cetera. While multiple copies are known, they are imperfectly preserved, and not much can be said about it beyond that (Christopher Metcalf, Sumerian Literary Texts in the Schøyen Collection, p. 52-56).

Lisin’s importance declined by the Old Babylonian period (c. 1800 BCE), if not earlier (Piotr Michalowski, Lisin in RlA vol. 7, p. 33). However, that was not the end of this deity’s history. At an uncertain point after the decline, the name was rediscovered by compilers of god lists. They correctly noticed that Lisin had a spouse, Ninsikila, but that was about it - not even the gender of those two deities was evident to them. Since Lisin typically comes first in older sources, up to the Old Babylonian period (Lisin…, p 32), the new generations of theologians concluded that the former must have been male and the latter female, effectively switching their genders around, as attested for example in An = Anum (Julia M. Asher-Greve, Joan Goodnick Westenholz, Goddesses in Context: On Divine Powers, Roles, Relationships and Gender in Mesopotamian Textual and Visual Sources, p. 103). To be entirely fair to them - in Old Babylonian sources listing couples together, such as the Nippur god list, the husbands pretty much always precede the wives (Goddesses in Context…, p. 80). It was a decent guess to make based on evidence available to them.

The cylinders of Gudea (wikimedia commons)

A second factor might have been the phonetic similarity between the name of Ninsikila and that of a goddess from Dilmun (Bahrain) at some point introduced to Mesopotamia (Lisin…, p. 32). Despite actually being named Meskilak, the latter could even be referred to as Ninsikila in Mesopotamian sources, as already documented in the long composition preserved on the cylinders of Gudea (Manfred Krebernik, Meskilak, Mesikila, Ninsikila in RlA vol. 8, p. 94). Lisin also developed a distinct new role as a fire deity in apotropaic magic, though it’s not certain if that first happened after the change of gender or before (Markham J. Geller, Healing Magic and Evil Demons. Canonical Udug-hul Incantations, p. 310; Michalowski favors a late date; Lisin…, p. 33). Through dubious linguistic exegesis relying on alternate sign values and homonymy - a favorite pastime of priests and other similar experts in the first millennium BCE - Lisin's name was provided with a new etymology, too. Both cuneiform signs forming it also had readings pertaining to fire (or at least were homonyms of signs which did), so as attested in an esoteric explanatory text (BM 47463) it came to be explained as “he who burns with fire”, “the burning one” or “he who burns an offering”. A further “translation” which arose as a result of similar inquiries was “the handsome one”, relying on the use of a homonym of the sign SI from Lisin’s name being a logographic representation of Akkadian banû (Alasdair Livingstone, Mystical and Mythological Explanatory Works of Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars, p. 60-61).

A Kassite period depiction of Nanaya on a kudurru (wikimedia commons) One final step in Lisin’s career was the incorporation into the court of Nanaya in Borsippa in the late first millennium BCE (Rocío Da Riva, Gianluca Galetti, Two Temple Rituals from Babylon, p. 192). In a single case, the two of them alone occur in a ritual (Two Temple Rituals…, p. 220). In another, Lisin is just one of many courtiers listed (Two Temple Rituals…, p. 192; Usur-amassu, who will be discussed later, shows up too).

Sadly, as far as I am aware no sources shed any additional light on how exactly the connection between Lisin and Nanaya was conceptualized. It was possible to establish how it most likely developed, though. Nanaya’s temple in Borsippa - the Euršaba (“house, oracle of the heart”) - shared its ceremonial name with a temple of Lisin (Two Temple Rituals…, p. 203). While Lisin’s original Euršaba was located in Umma, a city which didn’t even exist anymore by the first millennium BCE, it continued to be referenced in laments and, most important, has an entry in the Canonical Temple List (Andrew R. George, House Most High. The Temples of Ancient Mesopotamia, p. 157). We know that in late periods theological lists could be essentially strip mined for deities to integrate into a city’s pantheon, as well documented in Seleucid Uruk (Julia Krul, The Revival of the Anu Cult and the Nocturnal Fire Ceremony at Late Babylonian Uruk, p. 261). It’s easy to imagine something similar happened in Borsippa as well. The original temple would doubtlessly be long forgotten by the late first millennium BCE, so a priest stumbling upon a reference to Lisin being worshiped there and concluding the local namesake temple is meant instead strikes me as entirely believable.

To be entirely fair, I think there’s a second possibility, though it doesn’t necessarily contradict that proposed by Rocío Da Riva and Gianluca Galetti. One of the rituals pertaining to Lisin’s new role in the Euršaba mentions a cultic installation dedicated to Nabu (Two Temple Rituals…, p. 193). Elsewhere, in astronomical texts, a star named after Lisin (Antares) is associated with Nabu and Borsippa, despite the origin of the name (Hermann Hunger, Lisi(n), RlA vol. 7, p. 32). Zachary Rubin argues that Lisin might accordingly be a stand-in for Nabu in a colophon from Borsippa which lists him together with Nanaya (The Scribal God Nabû in Ancient Assyrian Religion and Ideology, p. 70). However, the cult of Nanaya in Euršaba had no strong connection to Nabu to speak of overall (Goddesses in Context…, p. 282), and as far as I know that is the only house of worship in the city Lisin was introduced to.

From a modern perspective, the gradual shift from a dime a dozen mourning goddess to a one of a kind god certainly might feel almost like trans coding. Ultimately it’s pretty much entirely accidental, though - it’s doubtful anyone involved in Lisin’s theological transformations was aware of the full history of this deity.

(The other) "Dumuzi, she herself": Dumuzi-abzu

Tell al-Hiba, the ruins of Lagash, in 2016 (wikimedia commons) In the third millennium BCE, roughly at the same time when Lisin enjoyed a position of relative prominence in the Zame Hymns, the local pantheon of the state of Lagash included the goddess Dumuzi-abzu. This name can be translated as “good child of the abzu” (Gebhard J. Selz, Untersuchungen zur Götterwelt des altsumerischen Stadtstaates von Lagaš, p. 114). Something that needs to be addressed right off the bat is that the abzu is extremely unlikely to be personified in this case, and it’s virtually impossible Dumuzi-abzu is literally supposed to be the child of the literary character people usually think of today when they hear this term. Prior to the compilation of the Enuma Elish in the late second millennium BCE, which famously pairs Abzu and Tiamat as a theogonic couple, abzu was rarely, if ever, regarded as a deity as opposed to a location (Wilfred G. Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths, p. 217-218). In a number of sources from between the Early Dynastic and Old Babylonian periods it isn’t even consistently a designation of the watery subterranean domain of Enki/Ea, and might instead be described as mountainous (like in Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta or the hymn Ishme-Dagan D). A variety of sources, including the Temple Hymns attributed to Enheduanna, use it as a poetic term for sanctuaries, making it potentially quite vague depending on context (The Sumerian Zame Hymns…, p. 95). What exactly does it entail in this specific case? Hard to tell, though there were many sanctuaries referred to with the term abzu in Lagash in the third millennium BCE, with Dumuzi-abzu possibly originating in one of them. Furthermore, interpreting the name as “good child of the sanctuary” would be a sensible parallel to fellow Lagashite deity Dumuzi-gu'ena, “good child of the throne room” (Akiko Tsujita, Dumuziabzu. A Goddess and a God, p. 8-9).

Dumuzi-abzu was the tutelary goddess of Kinunir (or Kinirsha), a lost city located somewhere in the proximity of Lagash (Goddesses in Context…, p. 61). We know very little about her character otherwise, though it can be safely assumed that she was closely associated with Nanshe and her daughter Nin-MAR.KI (Untersuchungen zur Götterwelt…, p. 116). Offering lists group her with the likes of Nindara, Ninshubur, Hendursaga and other figures of similarly moderate importance in this part of Mesopotamia (Untersuchungen zur Götterwelt…, p. 115).

At least in Lagash, Dumuzi-abzu’s name could be shortened just to Dumuzi (Untersuchungen zur Götterwelt…, p. 114). Manfred Krebernik actually proposed that every single reference to a deity named Dumuzi in Early Dynastic texts - not just from this one state, but also from sites like Tell Fara - pertains to her, and not to Inanna’s spouse, who at the time would be primarily known as Amaushumgalanna (Manfred Krebernik, Drachenmutter und Himmelsrebe? Zur Frühgeschichte Dumuzis und seiner Familie, p. 163-164). This might be too radical of an approach, though (Gebhard J. Selz, Dumuzi(d)s Wiederkehr, p. 215), and it has been suggested that even in Lagash at least in theophoric names Dumuzi might be, well, Dumuzi (Untersuchungen zur Götterwelt…, p. 116).

As of 2024, it remains uncertain when Dumuzi became the default name of Inanna’s spouse, though first unambiguous examples are available from the Sargonic period, and it can be established with certainty that it was used fully interchangeably with Amaushumgalanna by the Old Babylonian period (Jana Matuszak, Hanan Abd Alhamza Alessawe, A Sargonic Exercise Tablet Listing “Places of Inanna” and Personal Names, p. 37). This doesn’t really change the fact that Dumuzi himself “did not belong to the leading deities in any period of Mesopotamian history” and his inflated modern importance owes a lot to the Golden Bough and similar disreputable sources (Bendt Alster, Tammuz(/Dumuzi) in RlA vol. 13, p. 433-434). This is not the time and place for further exploration of this topic, though.

Dumuzi-abzu was eventually seemingly largely subsumed into Dumuzi, but that only happened after her decline as an actively worshiped deity after the Ur III period, which in turn was a result of the area of the former state of Lagash losing its importance (Dumuziabzu…, p. 11-12). The god list An = Anum from the Kassite period identifies Dumuzi-abzu as a male deity, and as one of the sons of Enki, with no reference to any associations with Kinunir, Lagash, or deities from its pantheon. This is presumably a result of a reinterpretation of the abzu in the name as Enki’s dwelling. The shift in gender meanwhile reflected confusion with Dumuzi (Dumuziabzu…, p. 10-12). Andrew R. George suggests that Dumuzi-abzu came to be understood as a title designating the regular Dumuzi during his annual stay in the underworld, based on a broader pattern of confusion between the abzu (in this context explicitly the domain of Enki/Ea, ie. a mythical subterranean sea) and the land of the dead (The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts, p. 861). The apparent conflation of Dumuzi and Dumuzi-abzu resulted in at least one further curiosity relevant to this article. There is a unique love poem which addresses Inanna’s lover, who is left nameless through most of the composition, as Dumuzi-abzu, as opposed to simply Dumuzi. Sumerian has no grammatical gender, so technically it would not be impossible to translate the relevant passage as if the traditional female Dumuzi-abzu was the target of Inanna’s affection, though obviously this is not exactly a plausible interpretation (Bendt Alster, Sumerian Love Songs, p. 143).

Modern replica of a typical Mesopotamian lyre on display in the Iraq Museum (wikimedia commons); in all due likeness Ninigizibara was envisioned with, or as, a similar instrument Surprisingly, Dumuzi-abzu isn’t the only usually feminine figure who got to replace Dumuzi in the role of Inanna’s spouse in an unusual composition. A single late copy of the lament Uru’amma’irabi (BM 38593) casts Ninigizibara as Inanna’s husband (Wolfgang Heimpel, Balang-Gods, p. 588). Usually this deity was described as a goddess, a harp (or lyre) player and a courtier of Inanna (Goddesses in Context…, p. 115). The unique copy is self-contradictory though, since on one hand an Akkadian gloss interprets Ninigizibara as masculine, on the other the passage itself refers to the deity as a “lady” (gašan), as opposed to “lord” (Balang-Gods, p. 588).

Son turned daughter: Usur-amassu

In contrast with Lisin and Dumuzi-abzu, who both became somewhat malleable simply because they were no longer worshiped, the final major case I’ll discuss is a deity who started as a largely irrelevant figure, but arose to a position of prominence only after their gender changed.

A god named Usur-amassu (“obey his command”, possibly implicitly “obey Adad’s command” given the two are defined as father and son in An = Anum) is first documented in the Old Babylonian period; in other words, roughly when the careers of Lisin and Dumuzi-abzu were already in shambles. As is often the case with minor deities, the earliest evidence are theophoric names, one example being Usur-awassu-gamil. However, it’s worth noting the name was itself a given name in the first place, with prominent bearers including a king of Eshnunna (Paul-Alain Beaulieu, The Pantheon of Uruk During the Neo-Babylonian Period, p. 229)

Uruk in the late first millennium BCE (artefacts-berlin.de; reproduced here for educational purposes only, in accordance with the terms of use)

Usur-amassu at some point came to be worshiped in Uruk. The oldest source attesting to this is a short text commemorating the dedication of a field by Kaššu-bēl-zēri, who served as a governor of the Sealand. Sadly nothing about the text makes precise dating possible; however, the element Kaššu is fairly rare in personal names, and was only in the vogue for a couple of decades, roughly between 1008 BCE and 955 BCE (The Pantheon of Uruk…, p. 225-226). However, in this city Usur-amassu was regarded as a goddess, not a god. This is surprising, as the name is grammatically masculine - and the person “asked” to obey is supposed to be the bearer (The Pantheon of Uruk…, p. 229).

It should be noted this is hardly the only case where the grammatical gender of a name doesn’t match the gender of a deity, though. As I discussed in the article about Inanna and gender linked in the lead, the name Ishtar is grammatically masculine despite not only functioning as a feminine theonym but even being the source of one of the two generic words for goddess in Akkadian. Looking further, the husband of Nungal, the goddess of prisons, bore the feminine name Birtum (“fetters”; Antoine Cavigneaux, Manfred Krebernik, Nungal in RlA vol. 9, p. 617; I doubt that we are dealing with a Bronze Age equivalent of a he/him lesbian, though I think it would be a fun way to provide this generally irrelevant deity with more personality). There is also the entire phenomenon of nin names, though it is likely that despite being conventionally translated as “lady”, “mistress” etc. this term was initially gender neutral (Goddesses in Context…, p. 6).

To be entirely fair, we do have clear instances of Usur-amassu’s name being partially modified after the shift in gender - the spelling Usur-amassa occurs in Kaššu-bēl-zēri’s dedication and in Neo-Assyrian sources, and while in the Neo-Babylonian period Usur-amassu predominates, this reflects a change in the feminine possessive pronominal suffix in Akkadian, and thus keeps the name equally feminine. The first element was never adjusted, though, and the expected Usri-amassu (or Usri-amassa) is nowhere to be found (The Pantheon of Uruk…, p. 228-229).

In at least one case, Usur-amassu’s gender was indicated by the use of a double determinative - the standard dingir (“deity”), which prefaced theonyms, was combined with innin (The Pantheon of Uruk…, p. 228), a variant of Inanna’s name which could also function as a generic term for goddesses, at least in Uruk (The Pantheon of Uruk…, p. 122).

It might be worth noting that a somewhat similar practice is documented in Old Babylonian Mari, where dingir could be combined with nin for similar purposes. In a single case this created a minor conundrum for researchers, as one of the deities designated this way (to be fair, only in a single source) is Lagamal (“no mercy”; ironically known well from the personal name Lagamal-gamil, “Lagamal is merciful”), who is otherwise firmly a god. Possibly two unrelated deities with the same name arose in two different cities (Gianni Marchesi, Nicolò Marchetti, A Babylonian Official at Tilmen Höyük in the Time of King Sumu-la-el of Babylon, p. 5)

Paul-Alain Beaulieu assumes that the shift in Usur-amassu’s gender had something to do with her introduction to Uruk and subsequent incorporation into the court of Inanna, and that accordingly the name came to be understood as “obey her (ie. Inanna’s) command)”, though he doesn’t pursue this point further (The Pantheon of Uruk…, p. 229).

One might be tempted to wonder if perhaps the situation has something to do with Inanna’s oft cited association with change of gender (or at least of gender roles). I personally find this implausible. As I already discussed in the first article from this cycle, in sources which were contemporary with Usur-amassu’s arrival in Uruk this ability tends to be invoked in a highly specific, negative context. “May she change him from a man to a woman” and similar formulas appear as a penalty for oathbreakers in royal inscriptions and treaties, as first attested during the reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I. The aforementioned formulas constitute a threat of the loss of a very specific sort of performative masculinity associated with "heroism" or martial valor. More broadly the threat of a change of gender also reflects the fear of a loss of autonomy, something generally tied to masculinity in everyday life in ancient Mesopotamia (Gina Konstantopoulos, My Men Have Become Women, and My Women Men: Gender, Identity, and Cursing in Mesopotamia; Ilona Zsolnay “Goddess of War, Pacifier of Kings”: An Analysis of Ištar’s Martial Role in the Maledictory Sections of the Assyrian Royal Inscriptions).

This is not really a good parallel to Usur-amassu's mysterious "transition". Perhaps most importantly, every single reference to it has humans be affected by the reversal, not gods. There is also no evidence that Usur-amassu was perceived negatively - in contrast with anyone who would hypothetically break a royal oath. Furthermore, nothing really indicates that her role changed alongside her gender. In An = Anum and the incantation series Šurpu the male version is grouped with his brother Misharu (“justice”) and Ishartu (“righteousness”); the sources pertaining to the feminine version from Uruk similarly portray her as a deity of justice, “who renders judgment for the land”, essentially a divine judiciary clerk (The Pantheon of Uruk…, p. 229). In contrast with martial valor, as far as deities go this role is pretty clearly not really tied to masculinity - or femininity, for that matter (for an overview of judiciary deities and their perception see Manfred Krebernik, Richtergott(heiten) in RlA vol. 11). The change of gender also seemingly didn’t impact Usur-amassu’s preexisting connections, as an inscription from Uruk dated to the reign of Nabonassar explicitly refers to her as a daughter (bukrat) of Adad (The Pantheon of Uruk…, p. 228).

It’s unclear how Usur-amassu was introduced to the local pantheon of Uruk, but evidently she won over the inhabitants of Uruk pretty quickly. In the Neo-Assyrian period she was one of the deities representing the city during coronations of Assyrian rulers (The Pantheon of Uruk…, p. 227). In the following Neo-Babylonian period she was one of the five main deities of the city, next to Inanna/Ishtar, Nanaya, Urkayitu (“the Urukean”, an epithet of Inanna turned into a personification of the city) and Bēltu-ša-Rē�� (The Pantheon of Uruk…, p. 179). Thanks to Usur-amassu’s reasonably prominent position in the pantheon of Uruk, she is well represented in the Eanna archives, which document assorted paraphernalia prepared for statues representing her (The Pantheon of Uruk…, p. 230-244). As a curiosity I feel obliged to point out that in one case a necklace belonging to Usur-amassu was loaned for a festival of Dumuzi (The Pantheon of Uruk…, p. 335-336). Alas, this evident prominence is not really reflected in publications aimed at general audiences, let alone in popculture. Last attestations of Usur-amassu come from the period of Seleucid rule over Mesopotamia. She retained a degree of importance in Uruk, as expected (The Pantheon of Uruk…, p. 227). The Eanna actually didn’t exist anymore, but like other deities associated with it she was simply moved to the freshly built Irigal instead (The Revival…, p. 90). Regardless of whether the shift in her gender had anything to do with the primary denizen of both temples, evidently their association was close enough to keep Usur-amassu afloat for the final few centuries of the city’s history.

Postscriptum

This article was initially intended as a pride month special in… 2023? Possibly earlier? I ended up abandoning its original form for a time, and eventually cannibalized its two most major sections, dealing with Shaushka, Ninsianna and Pinikir, for the recent article about Inanna, deities associated with her, and gender. I couldn’t just discard the rest, though, and now you can finally read it all. Much of the information is already on wikipedia through my long term efforts, but now it’s also accessible here, with some extra speculation as a bonus. While this is ostensibly a pride month special, technically none of the sources discussed are really focused on lgbt matters, unless you squint really hard at the two unusual passages I brought up in Dumuzi-abzu’s section. However, I still think the topic of deity gender changes is interesting - if nothing else, it shows that gender was no less malleable than any other aspect of a deity’s character under the rain circumstances. And the process cannot always be neatly explained.

Furthermore, nothing really prevents one from trying to rationalize the changes as a reflection of the respective deities’ identities in a work of fiction featuring them. It’s important to remember that Mesopotamian gods were reinterpreted to meet the needs of new audiences many times, with contemporary institutions, social phenomena or geopolitical developments projected back into the mythical past, especially in literary works (attributing downfall of legendary rulers to insufficient devotion to Marduk is particularly funny, seeing how late his rise to prominence was). Trying to condense Lisin’s puzzling history into something coherent and making him a trans man in the process would thus, arguably, be just a modern example of a similar phenomenon. As long as you don’t alter the content of the actual historical sources, this sort of playful engagement with the material seems more than fine.

#mesopotamian mythology #sumerian mythology #mythology #inanna

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