#i am no longer feeling particularly interested in being considerate

[camgoloud]

the unaffordability of one bedroom apartments in my area is something that can be so oppressive to me personally

[kendsleyauthor]

On the Run

A @gtgotcha4gaza prompt from @jack-o-rabbit who requested a story or art about a noble and a peasant! This was such a blast to write!! 🥰

In summary, a human woman who works covert security for a tavern notices an unusually well-dressed fairy and decides to investigate. 👀

The donation period is over, and I am over the moon with how incredible this event has been! Thank you to the organizers, everyone who donated to such a worthy cause, and the participating creators! 🌸

Wren was keenly aware of everybody who came through the tavern doors—human, fairy, or otherwise. Since she took up work there, robberies had gone down considerably. She was unassuming. A human girl without a drop of magic in her veins, neither breathtaking nor gritty in appearance. Taking advantage of underestimation was half the victory.

So long as she deterred trouble under the tavern’s roof, she was rewarded with a humble fee and a meal by the end of the night. There were worse jobs to have, and slow evenings made for easy coin after a day in the field.

The tavern was crowded that night, but no one dared take her seat at the end of the bar. She leaned against the wall, one elbow propped on the counter, observing. The usuals seemed to be on their best behavior.

Movement from the window drew her eye. She examined it calmly. A fairy hovered behind the glass, staring inside. Even from a distance, she could see that feminine figure was cloaked in a finer fabric than anyone for miles could afford.

Interesting.

This woman had certainly never been here before. If her appearance didn’t give her away, her ignorance of the fairy-sized entrance closer to the roof did. The little figure hovered by the main entrance, waiting patiently for a patron to exit before slipping through the open door.

Wren narrowed her eyes but didn’t budge an inch. More than once, the rotating cast of barkeeps had commented on her eerie manner of watching without being noticed. Though the fairy wrung her hands and looked around fretfully, black curls bouncing against her shoulders, she had little sense of truly taking in her surroundings.

If she hovered there like an idiot any longer, someone was sure to stumble right into her.

“Miss?” Wren called over the din.

At once, the fairy turned toward the end of the bar. She drew closer, brilliant blue eyes wide with uncertainty. Her clothing was fine, though worn at the edges. There was something frustratingly familiar about those delicate features, but Wren couldn’t place her. Staring her up and down, Wren couldn’t stifle the touch of self-consciousness about her scuffed boots, patch-worn blouse, and muddy trousers.

“You look hungry.” Wren leaned her chin into her hand and offered a smile that disarmed anyone who might consider her a threat. “Can I help you?”

Relief flooded the fairy’s face. “Um, yes!” A proper little accent. What the hell was she doing here? “I… How do I get food?”

Wren tapped two fingers on the bar, signaling her to land. After a beat of hesitation, the fairy closed the rest of the space between them and lowered herself to the counter. A sigh of relief shuddered through her minuscule body when her wings stopped flitting. Up close, the signs of exhaustion were even more apparent—heavy eyelids, unsteady feet. 

It was Wren’s turn to feel uncertain. “Were you attacked?”

“No!” The fairy straightened into a posture that was too upright, as though it came naturally to her. “It’s merely been a long journey.”

Perhaps she wasn’t lying, but there was still something terribly false about her smile. Wren could practically smell the trouble that this woman could be bringing to their doorstep, but she would play along if it meant wheedling the truth without causing a scene. She flagged down the fairy barkeep and ordered a vegetable stew and a little tankard of ale.

Seeming quite unsure what to do with herself, the fairy eyed the space nervously—particularly the door. But nobody was paying her any attention except for Wren.

Resting her arm on the bar, Wren lowered her chin onto the back of her hand for a better look—playing at innocent curiosity. “I’m sure I’ve never seen you around here before.”

The fairy smiled tightly, shifting from foot to foot. “No?”

“I’d remember a face like yours. And those wings… How beautiful.” Wren eyed the glasslike membrane, truly taken by the veins that swirled through like spun gold. The fairy’s face flushed, but she didn’t appear all that unhappy with the attention. Wren smiled with interest. “What would your name be?”

“Ely—” The fairy cut herself short and cleared her throat. “El.”

Once more, familiarity burned at the back of Wren’s mind, but it vanished when she tried to tug on it.

The fairy barkeep, a beauty with light brown locks, returned and handed El her drink. “Here you are, Miss.”

El accepted the little tankard and made a face at its contents as soon as the barkeep turned away. When she took a tentative sip, she gagged. Between her hacking and coughing over the taste, something peculiar happened—her appearance shifted. Or rather, she looked entirely the same, but the familiarity was blaring in Wren’s mind like a scream.

In the next instant, her mind was trying to convince her that she’d seen nothing.

A glamour slip.

She needed to act now before it clouded her senses again.

“El,” Wren said, feigning concern. “Would you like the washroom to clean up before your food arrives? I can show you.”

El hesitated, still sputtering with little coughs, but as she looked down at her stained cloak, she nodded. Setting her tankard down, she took to the air and followed.

Wren weaved through the tables and rowdy conversation, peeking back twice to make sure El hadn’t caught on and fled. She led her in the exact opposite direction of the washroom, turning down a short hall and passing through a doorway. The moment they were alone in the storeroom, Wrench nudged the door closed and lashed a hand out at El.

A choked cry of surprise was all the fairy managed.

“What business do you have here?” Wren said through gritted teeth, relinquishing her grip just enough to ensure El had the air to speak.

But all she did was whimper and squirm with fright. She clearly had no practice with evasive flying or self-defense magic. Wren almost felt bad as El clawed uselessly at her hand, tears beginning to spill down her cheeks. The glamour fell away completely, and Wren could see her with startling clarity.

This face had crowded the missing posters on the village’s noticeboard for weeks. Likely every noticeboard in every village and town for miles and miles around.

“You… You’re Lady Elyse,” Wren whispered.

Elyse flinched, somehow looking even more terrified. There was a brief flicker over her appearance again—a pathetic attempt to make Wren forget what she had seen, but it didn’t work. If Wren knew anything from her fairy acquaintance, delicate work like glamour was difficult without focus.

“P-please…” Elyse drew in a sharp breath, wriggling in vain.

“Everyone thinks you’re dead.” Wren shook her head slowly, unable to make sense of what was happening. “You were kidnapped… weren’t you? I can alert your people—”

“No!” Tears gone, Elyse looked almost manic. She straightened in Wren’s fist, apparently trying to muster some sense of authority as though her revealed status would grant it. “I… I command you to let me go, barkeep.”

Wren was stunned for a second, then scoffed. “You command it?”

Paling, Elyse wet her lips. She opened her mouth once, twice, to try again. But ultimately she slumped and gave Wren a look of desperation. “You don’t understand what it’s like,” she croaked. “I had to run. Please… Alert no one of my true identity. I’ll find a way to repay you. Please.”

Instinct told Wren to scoff. Must be so difficult living the cushy life of a noblewoman, she wanted to snap. But she resisted. She’d never been one to jump at instinct.

After a moment of hesitation, Wren relinquished her grip. Elyse recuperated on her palm before tentatively taking to the air. She didn’t move far, as though that would inspire Wren to lash her hand out again—which was entirely true.

Crossing her arms, Wren regarded her with narrowed eyes. There was certainly a tale here, and this girl looked desperate for a friend.

“Why don’t you tell me all about it over your vegetable stew?” Wren asked, softening her expression. She reached for the door and swung it open—a peace offering.

Elyse’s shoulders slumped in relief.

As they exited the storeroom, Wren’s mind spun with every possible path sprawling before her. The most appealing ones led to the outrageously high reward printed on every poster that begged for information on Lady’s Elyse’s whereabouts.

((A/N: I mean they definitely fall in love after a series of betrayals and trust building, but I'll leave that to your imagination 💖))

[yolowritter]

In Defense of Chloe Bourgeois Part 1: Who is Chloe?

Well...shit, here we go again! Hello there everyone, welcome back to the source of my endless exasperation! Before any of you pick a side to the argument, I want to make it perfectly clear that this isn't a post about whether or not Chloe should have had a redemption arc. This is not my point, and any argument for either side have been repeated so many times by now that I can recite most by memory. So, let's begin by establishing why exactly I'm even writing this post!

Chloe Bourgeois is one of my favorite characters in Miraculous Ladybug. The...the fanon version, obviously. Canon can go keel over in an alleyway, it already has more holes in it than the average swiss cheese. I've been a part of this fandom for a good few years now, and at the time of watching Miracle Queen was understandably upset at the...direction, that her character was taken. It left a sour taste in my mouth because I honestly didn't see it coming, but I'll get more into that later. Point is, I was once a defender of Chloe's redemption arc. I am not stating if I am or not still one of those at present, because that's not what the point is. Regardless of what side of the fence you're on, we can all agree that her character was horribly mismanaged in the latter half of this show. Erratic, extreme and oftentimes illogical choices that sound stupider than Lila's average gaslighting scheme, and a character who previously had an arc going for her now being defined only by the sheer inconsistency that writhes every moment she's on-screen. I'll be honest, I no longer particularly care if Chloe "should" have been redeemed or not, because either avenue could have allowed for some brilliant (or at the very least pretty decent) storytelling.

This defense strives not to strip anyone of their arguments, nor to challenge anyone's headcanons, or make a point about what the "correct" way to handle Chloe's character should have been. Again, I lost interest in the debate a long time ago. I'm simply here to examine who Chloe is as a person, what drives her, what her life experiences have been like, and where all this could logically lead from both a writing and human perspective. I care about Chloe as a person, and about a character who if nothing else, at least acts consistently, in a way where the audience can watch them and understand why they're acting like this. I'll be trying to give context to some of her actions and fill in as many plot holes as I can, as well as giving a glimpse as to how a possible Redemption or Corruption Arc could have gone. So without any further ado, let's dive right in!

Firstly, let's start by laying out some common ground. After the Gabriel Agreste post, I think it's necessary to establish some clear lines as to what exactly we're talking about here. So before anything else, let's look at what we learn about Chloe in Season 1, yeah? Without going episode-by-episode, we generally don't get a good impression of her. Chloe is clearly spoiled by her father, used to always getting her way, and has no problem pressuring others into making that happen. She treats her classmates more like annoyances if not outright minions (Sabrina and on occasion Kim), has little consideration for other people's feelings, and likes appearing superior to everyone else. A pretty bad start, all things considered. She bosses Sabrina around, and we're explicitly told that Chloe often bribes her with her second-hand stuff, or whatever she wants to get rid of. Sabrina clearly doesn't know how to stand up for herself, and Chloe seems perfectly willing to take advantage of her doormat status. She also has the roots for a sweet sweet superiority complex firmly planted, considering how she rejects and humiliates Kim when he tries to confess his love to her. I'll be damned if I ever understand such bad taste, considering how Chloe is generally disliked by the rest of the class, but the point stands. She could have just told him no, even rudely if need be, and left it at that. Instead, she actively chose to humiliate the poor guy. Something similar happened with Nathaniel, whose feelings about Marinette she made public to everyone else for what seems to be entertainment value.

All in all, Season 1 Chloe has all the stereotypical makings of a popular girl from a 2010s American high school movie, including the narcissism, bullying, strong-arming school staff into not punishing these behaviors, inflated ego, and the complimentary minion! Except...Chloe isn't popular. With anyone, actually. Most of the class dislikes and barely puts up with her on a good day. They don't laugh along or jeer at whomever she's giving trouble to. Instead we have several instances where people actively try to either push the teachers into doing something or remove her from a situation where Chloe is causing problems. Think about the filming scenes in Horrificator for example. Chloe is acting like her usual self again, and refuses to allow Marinette to be the lead actress because she'll get to kiss Adrien. A tragedy, I know! Therefore, there's a whole plot to get her out of the room long enough for the scene to happen. People actively consider her at the very least a pain in the rear, and probably someone they just don't even want to talk to.

Obviously this isn't an excuse for anything she does. My point here is that from the perspective of the narrative, even while acting the part of a "Queen B", Chloe reaps none of the benefits, and in fact only serves to make people dislike her more with every episode that passes by. Even Adrien, who I'll circle back to in a second, her childhood friend who has a good opinion of her when he first comes to school, eventually stops trying to defend Chloe's behavior. There are, I think, a lot of reasons as to why she acts this way. Precisely none of them are an excuse or a "get out of jail" free card. Chloe still chooses to behave the way she does, regardless of the motivations.

About Adrien, we know that he and Chloe have known each other for a long while now. She was quite possibly his singular friend during his otherwise relatively isolating childhood, and she's very clearly attached to him. Chloe constantly clings to Adrien and drapes herself over him, and while he seems to find it annoying, there's still never a sense of disgust like with Lila in later Seasons. She's being suffocating, but there is never a connotation of romance here. Still, Chloe does everything she can to keep Adrien close to her, and (in Origins) "teach him how things are" in school. She's the one who got him signed up as a student in the first place, mind you, so she very clearly wants him to be around her. And while Chloe does brag about him being a famous model, she could just...do that without ever actually bringing Adrien out of the house? Clearly that's not the reason why she went through all the trouble to actually get him in the class, because bragging about it would probably go worse if she did it in front of him, or in an environment where Adrien could easily hear about and react to it. Chloe is very possessive of her "best friend" (and only friend, discounting Sabrina), and constantly belittles Marinette for trying to get close to him. Mind you, she doesn't find out about her feelings for Adrien until Season 3 I think. We never see Nino get bullied for befriending him, so what gives?

I'll talk about reasoning later down the line. For now, let's move onto Season 2. Amidst the beginnings of Ladybug handing out Miraculous jewels like candy to her best pals, seriously Season 4 overdid it, Chloe also exists. And during Despair Bear, Adrien finally puts his foot down about her behavior. He tells her that he can't be friends with someone who acts like a bully, and Chloe is genuinely hurt by this, to the point where she does her best to put on a good show and convince Adrien that is capable of not being an ass. Which is actually the case, believe it or not. She holds back the snides, does her best to make casual conversation with the people she considers to be inferior to her (I'll get to that, don't worry), and makes a real effort to keep at it for the sake of their friendship. The reason why she blows up here is made very obvious by the episode itself. Chloe is in unfamiliar territory and clearly reining herself in a lot, which Despair Bear pokes fun of in several back-to-back scenes. She doesn't want to do this, clearly has mutual dislike for the people she's forced to put up with every day and has made up her mind about a long time ago, for the sake of the one person she considers a genuine friend. And mind you, Chloe never uses Adrien for something. She brags about his job in Origins, and preens about their friendship often, but she never takes advantage of him like she does Sabrina. I will get to their toxic friendship in a minute, don't worry, but Chloe chooses not to try doing this with him. Adrien is...oblivious, to put it nicely, and she could easily try and play around that to serve her own goals, but she doesn't. Keep this in mind.

Anyway, she blows up because Armand (also c'mon, if you wanted to make the joke that Chloe doesn't know her butler's name, Jean "insert today's last name" was more than enough, Thomas) keeps lugging her teddy bear and playing pretend with her in a room full of people. I'm sorry, but that may be the most relatable Chloe moment in the whole show. Are you kidding me??? Of course she'd be embarrassed by this! I mean sure, her reaction to the situation is wrong, she shouldn't have screamed at him or threatened the man's job, but Chloe has serious anger management issues. That is obvious, because she acts like this every single day! Why would Armand do this??? She's already way out of her comfort zone by even hosting the party in the first place, surely there's easier ways of reminding Chloe not to be a bitch? Just tap her on the shoulder and say "miss, remember Adrien?" because that's the whole reason this is happening! The teddy bear is completely unecessary! Especially the voice acting! It made me laugh so hard when I first watched that episode but can you blame Chloe for being pissed? Again, she reacted poorly because her self control is comparable to Plagg's when there's camambert in his field of vision! So yeah, it's wrong to scream people's ears off like that, but she was also upset. And she's fourteen mind you!

Anyway, my actual point about Season 2 is that we get to see Chloe's character development. Thank Nooroo, finally a proper arc in this damn show! And we also get to see her family life. Side note, Andre Bourgeois is a spineless coward who I'll be bashing momentarily. But Chloe's mother is horrible! Audrey Bourgeois is blatantly neglectful, if not abusive to her daughter! She treats Chloe the same way Chloe treats everyone else! As disposable, expendable things that don't "deserve" her attention because they're not good enough. Like, if this doesn't give a six year old some hefty trauma along with an inferiority complex, what will??? And the situation becomes even worse as Chloe becomes incresingly desperate during Style Queen, trying again and again to please Audrey by copying her behavior (which she's been doing this whole time) even more intensly, and acting like the entitled, self-absorbed narcissist that her mother is! And this is where we see exactly why Chloe does what she does! Again, none of this excuses her actions, but it does help us understand the behavior. Audrey constantly puts Chloe down and belittles her the same way she does to Marinette...only to later pick the kid that Chloe is jealous of (I will explain this in a second!) to come with her to New York, where Audrey had presumably yeeted herself off to years ago and never bothered to come visit! We already know that she pressured her husband into giving up his love for film to stay with her, maybe even during her pregnancy or after Chloe's birth. Only to promptly vanish and leave him (a person who never grew a spine or managed to stand up to what is undoubtebly a toxic relationship) with her miniature copy. It's obvious that Chloe's barely ever seen Audrey, but she idolizes the woman because that's her mother! Heck, Adrien idolizes Emilie even if she was arguably not a great person (see here) and Chloe is always kicked to the curb for just doing the same!

Audrey is a horrible person and an even worse role model, but when you're five years old and she disappears from your life, is it any wonder that there's a steaming hot pile of mommy issues here? If Chloe has been told by Audrey from the moment she was old enough to understand words that she isn't "exceptional" enough to "deserve" her time, then isn't it obvious why Andre tries and fails to make up for this by always coddling his daughter and giving in to her every whim? He's trying to please her and give Chloe a sense of self-importance that Audrey made near-impossible to develop, and also makes up for his own absence by basically bribing his own child! Not that Andre is innocent in this! If anything, he's even more at fault than Audrey! Because while she flew off into the sunset to fire her twenty-seventh unpaid intern of the week, he was still in Paris with Chloe! Who grew up with him, mind you! And sure, he got elected into office and had a busy job as a single parent! You know what else he did? Crime! Almost everything he does in this damn show is completely illegal! Bribery, blackmail, undue termination of Roger's position as a police officer, who Andre doesn't even have juristiction over mind you (because Paris had the National Police until like 2021-ish if I recall correctly), he's just a corrupt, scummy politian whose ideas (see Megaleech) are harmful to the people he's supposed to be serving and outright motivated by greed! And also, we are explicitly told that he taught Chloe to do these same things! Andre Bourgeois is a total idiot who's probably been committing tax evasion for all we know, and Audrey is a self-absorbed diva who bullies her own child constantly, when she even bothers to go see her! Which is never, unless she needs to be in Paris for some other event related to her job!

Thomas, what the heck do you mean Chloe is evil? Lila is an accomplice to a domestic terrorist, and a psychopath against whom the only protection is the show's PG rating! If Lila could, she'd burn Marinette's house down for shits and giggles my good man! Audrey is everything I just mentioned, Andrey is a corrupt, spineless politician, Tomoe physically abuses her daughter with fucking katanas on the daily, Gabriel Agreste is that domestic terrorist who almost fired every nuclear warhear in the USA by the way! Because that was stupid of the NYC special to do! But he still did it! Plus the genocide in Shanghai! Accident or not, Hawkmoth is still responsible! And later on he also put his son in a room! A rubber room! Thankfully there weren't any rats, as if he needs another OSHA violation! Are you people insane when you say "I don't know why Chloe acts like this"? Have you lost your marbles??? Do you want me to have an aneurysm? Of course a child is going to act the way Chloe does if this is the shit she's been dealing with since Day 0 of her life! Does that make it okay? Absolutely not! But does it mean that she deserved what happened to her canonically? Also no! I'll talk about how the corruption arc could have worked at the end, because they tried and failed to do that, so let's circle back to the "jealous of Marinette" thing from a minute ago, kay?

Note: We're doing this in part 2 because this is closing in on 3k words already. The whole rant is done, no you don't want to know how long it is, I'm just splitting it because nobody will ever read 7.5k words worth of anything on Tumblr dot com.

< next post >

[nisaetus-nerd]

🦅 Introduction 🦅

Salutations! You may call me Captain, though I also go by Theory, Phoebe, and Payne (as well as various kin names/nicknames). I am 16 years old and autistic, with an interest in ornithology, the sciences, and ghost-related fiction.

I am not a particularly sociable person, but I hope to interact with like-minded individuals. This blog will consequently focus on my experiences as an avian therian.

Tumblr is not where I am most active — if you are looking to reach me, please do so through my Discord (@sayornis_spectre). [Excuse the different user; this account is a bit of an incognito one.]

(More under the cut!)

🪶 Theriotypes

(Flags were designed by me and entirely free for others to use — they signify a Wallace’s Hawk-eagle therian and Common [Eurasian] Kestrel therian [though the flag is specifically based on female kestrels].)

Wallace’s Hawk-eagle (Nisaetus nanus)

Common Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus)

I am also a Lemon Shark (Negaprion brevirostris), along with Falco- (genus) and Carcharhinidae-hearted (with heavy emphasis on Blacktip Reef Sharks [Carcharhinus melanopterus], which is more of a midst-type).

(I have a variety of other additional kintypes and heart-types, though my experiences revolving around these are not the focus of this blog.)

If you are curious about the shark elements of my identity, visit my side-blog, @negaprion-nerd!

🪶 Pronouns

I predominantly use bird-themed noun neopronouns, as my gender is largely influenced by my alterhumanity. Not all of my preferred pronouns are listed — feel free to experiment with others. The only one notably off-limits is ‘tweet’ (as a noun neopronoun); this has been used in an offensive manner towards me in the past and has negative associations.

chirp/chirp/chirps/chirpself

ghost/ghost/ghosts/ghostself

bite/bite/bites/biteself

beak/beaker/beakers/beakerself

it/it/its/itself

The comprehensive list of my pronouns (and names/nicknames) can be found in this Google document.

🪶Interests

My non-bird-related interests will seldom be mentioned here; I am listing them purely as conversational starting-points (I have no objections to chatting about shared interests — feel free to approach me about any of them!).

Despite this, keep in mind that these are my interests, and not always my areas of expertise. Though I know a considerable amount about some of the listed, I may just be looking to research into them. Do not ask me for information of the following; this makes me uncomfortable.

(It should be noted that I have left many of my interests unlisted.)

🧪 General

Ornithology (this is my most dominant special interest!)

Natural Sciences as a whole (this is another special interest of mine)

Natural History (I am utmost intrigued by animals and fungi)

Evolution, Taxonomy & Genetics

Falconry & Birds of Prey

Sharks

Ghosts

🧪 Media

BBC Ghosts

Dead Boy Detectives (TV)

BBC Merlin

Luca (2021)

Ghostbusters (Movies)

Rio (Movies)

Bluey

Ducktales (2017)

Six of Crows (Duology)

Lockwood & Co. (Book Series)

Sherlock & Co. (Podcast)

Imagine Dragons

🪶 Tag Key

#captips posts revolving around things I like to do to feel closer to my theriotype/s.

#nis-art-tus posts including art/crafts I have made. I am mostly a digital artist, but I do dabble in physical mediums.

#facto tinnunculus miscellaneous bird facts, perhaps relevant to avian therians.

#cap’s userboxes all fulfilled userbox requests will be tagged with this — anyone is welcome to use these userboxes, regardless of having requested them or not, so long as I am credited. (There may be exceptions, which will be stated within the post itself.)

🧪 As of the 5th of September (2024), I no longer take requests.

🪶 Userboxes Hoard

Please do not use these without my prior approval. Some of these userboxes are tailored specifically to my personal needs, and I am therefore uncomfortable with them being used by others.

🧪 Userboxes by Others

Userboxes by @/katiethecreature.

[archiveikemen]

"On-Screen Lovers" Story Event: Chapter 2

Nagi

This is a fan-made translation solely for entertainment purposes with no guaranteed perfection. All original content and media used belongs to Cybird. Please support the game by buying their stories and playing their games. Reblogs appreciated.

Warnings and FAQ

Nagi: Yeah. The real reason why I was hesitant to accept the casting offer is—

Nagi: Because of romance scenes.

Rina: Eh? Romance scenes?

Nagi frowned.

Nagi: I’ve taken countless acting lessons to improve my expressiveness.

Nagi: That’s why, with enough practice, I should be able to manage. But…

Nagi: When it comes to romance scenes, I get embarrassed and can’t do well.

Nagi seemed troubled as he muttered with his eyes downcast.

I was surprised to hear that coming from him, given how he usually charmed many female fans.

(But I guess this is understandable, judging from his tough image.)

Rina: Do you happen to not watch romance movies?

Nagi: I don't watch them on my own accord. I’m not particularly interested in other people's love stories.

Nagi: So I don’t understand how to act in such a way that “makes my partner swoon”.

Nagi: Even if I’m told to put my experience in acting into good use, I just think it really depends on the situation and who my partner is…

When Nagi groaned in frustration, it made him feel more relatable to me for some reason.

Rina: … I know how you feel.

Nagi: What?

Rina: I think it’s a matter of course to feel embarrassed about romance scenes.

Rina: Besides, such scenes require you to act more delicate and that takes a lot of courage to do.

Nagi: … Are you trying to cheer me up?

Rina: Huh? Ah, no, I’m not trying to cheer you up or anything.

Nagi: I see.

Nagi didn’t say anything further, but his uneasiness was no longer there.

(I guess he feels a little better now? I hope he does.)

Nagi: Sorry for making you accompany me. I’ll deal with the rest myself.

Rina: Is there anything else I can help you with?

Rina: Perhaps you could take a break from acting for a bit and look for a change of pace?

Nagi: … I guess.

After giving it a thought, Nagi looked at me like he just had an idea.

Nagi: In that case, shall we go out for a while?

…

Following Nagi, I was brought to a nightclub with a luxurious interior.

Despite the dim lighting, the patrons and staff had polished appearances.

(The security is tight too, this must be a really high-end club.)

I felt overwhelmed due to such glamorous places being unfamiliar to me.

Just then, Nagi grabbed my arm.

Nagi: Oi, hold on a second.

(Nagi…?)

Amidst the loud booming music, my heart went crazy when I became conscious of the lack of physical distance between us.

Nagi: This place is dark and crowded, don’t stray away from me.

Rina: … Okay, sorry.

(What am I getting self-conscious for? Nagi’s just being considerate of my safety.)

(Oh? There was a scene in the script where the pair went to a club together.)

Rina: By any chance, are you here to get a feel of the movie scene’s atmosphere while taking a breather at the same time?

Nagi: I guess. But the main reason is that I was invited by the owner of this club.

Nagi: We’ve been friends for a while now because of our common interest in dance.

Nagi: I got a text saying that I might like today’s event.

Rina: I see.

Hip-hop and EDM music, which were Nagi’s likes, had indeed been playing in the club since we got there.

I could tell that he was enjoying himself from the way his body naturally moved to the music.

(I’m glad he’s feeling better now.)

Rina: You should go ahead and get on the dance floor since we’re here. I’ll wait for you.

Nagi: What’re you talking about? You should dance too.

Rina: I don't usually come to clubs, so I don't know what I should be doing here…

When I hesitantly stepped away, the DJ’s voice could be heard across the floor.

DJ: Come on, starting from now is special time!!

DJ: Enjoy this sweet and mellow mix!

A gentle R&B tune started playing.

The moment the music changed, the people around us held hands and danced together.

Nagi: You said “since we’re here”, so you should dance too. I’ll teach you.

Rina: But…!

Nagi took my hand and pulled me onto the dance floor.

Nagi: Don’t think too hard about it, just move your body and groove to the music however you like.

Nagi: The music has a basic rhythm pattern, so you only have to follow it and dance however you want.

Rina: Still…

Nagi: Just follow my lead, then.

He tugged on the hand he was holding and pulled me closer.

Our hips touched and my heart skipped a beat at the feeling of his body’s warmth.

Nagi: Come closer. I’ll support you.

Rina: Ah…

Before I could say anything, my body was swaying naturally to the music together with him.

The new experience felt so pleasant, I reflexively entrusted my body to Nagi.

Nagi: You’re good. That’s all you gotta do.

Rina: Really…?

Nagi: I’m not lying.

For a moment, I found myself captivated by Nagi’s smile.

(H-Has Nagi’s smile always looked like this?)

(He looks happy whenever he’s dancing, but that felt slightly different…)

Nagi was good-looking in every aspect, and I thought of him as someone who lived in an entirely different world from mine…

His gentle gaze made me feel as though we’ve become closer.

(This feels like a scene from the movie. Dancing and smiling together… we’re like a couple on a date.)

Just as that thought crossed my mind—

A nearby male patron bumped into me, causing me to stumble.

Rina: Kya…!

Nagi: Oof.

Nagi caught me.

Coming into contact with his muscular chest made my face burn up.

Rina: I-I’m sorr…

I turned my face up to catch his beautiful eyes staring right at me.

Our close proximity sent a sweet shiver through me, and all I could do was stare back at him.

Nagi: Are you okay?

Rina: Yes… thank you.

Feeling embarrassed, I replied in a small voice.

However, it was drowned out by the loud music, and so Nagi brought his face closer.

Nagi: Hm? What did you say?

(I can hear his voice right in my ear…)

I held my breath, our faces so close that they almost touched; and Nagi quickly pulled away.

Nagi: Sorry… my face was too close.

Rina: No! It’s my fault, sorry.

Our conversation was cut off and awkward silence hung in the air.

(My face got even hotter from thinking about how this feels like a date…)

Although I tried getting the thought out of my mind, my heart still wouldn't calm down.

In an attempt to mask my embarrassment, I spoke up in a cheerful tone.

Rina: I’m a little tired from dancing. I’ll go get us drinks.

Nagi: Then I’ll go. It's your first time here, you don't know your way around this place.

Nagi stopped me before I could say “but” and made his way to the back of the floor.

(It was my idea to get drinks, so I feel kind of bad…)

I ended up deciding to wait obediently for him.

And then—.

[melonteee]

Happy to see some Robin discussion and some Post TS Robin love on the dashboard for sure!!

I guess to continue the Robin love, I really love thinking about how at peace she is with the Straw Hats and also how her dream plays into her story and I'm really excited to see how that wraps up for her. I find hers particularly interesting, because it isn't even really HER dream (to know the void century), but she took on the dreams of those who no longer could. I'm sure she had some level of curiosity as a child for sure, but it can really be inferred that a lot of her interest in the Void Century (at first) was her desire to be closer to the Archeologists and her mother specifically. When she meets Saul, she tells him she just really wants to ask her mom to take her to sea, but she knows her mother is traveling in search of the Poneglyphs, so she learned too. At the heart of it, she just wanted to be loved and be with people who loved her, and looking into the Void Century was the means to that end until the Buster Call. Saul told her to find her friends at sea, and she clung to that hope. Her dream turned into carrying the burdens of those lost, rather than her own, but they both kept her going. It wasn't until that moment on the tower where Luffy coaxed it out of her like only he's capable of - she didn't just say she wanted to live, she said she wanted to go out to sea. Robin is now at sea, surrounded by the people who love her, and it really shows through every moment she's in Post TS. I know everyone wants to see her fight more, and I absolutely would never complain about seeing her more, but I find every time she's just in the background smiling to be some of the most rewarding moments for her. Her dream of finding out what happened in the Void Century is going to happen I'm sure, and I feel like it's going to be so interesting regardless, but I personally thing her true dream was fulfilled that day she asked Luffy to take her to sea with the Straw Hats. I could be way off base and wrong, but there's no rule that says you can only have one dream and be done with it - I mean heck, Luffy has two (being the pirate king and the one we don't know). I'd love to hear your thoughts if you have any! Or I'm sorry if I rambled lol. I just love Nico Robin, I'm not sure if you know this...

It's why Zou is one of my favorite arcs honestly. She's so happy. She's so, so happy!!

(Also I am sorry if my reply to a post stoked any hurt for Robin Anon, it's all Robin love here and I understand where both of you were coming from, I should have been more considerate)

wahahah hello my Robin mutual!

Do not worry about the robin anon stuff! Me and the kind anon managed to come to an understanding haha.

BUT! Honestly? I have nothing to add! You summed everything up! Because I also love seeing Robin's happiness these days. I love seeing that she can express herself fully, and that she can find peace and comfort amongst the Strawhats without ever worrying about being stabbed in the back. She truly feels like herself in the timeskip, and truly feels like she's able to find herself and grow into someone so caring and authentic in her love for her family.

Egghead especially was so sweet because...she cried in joy! Not in fear or distress, but in joy! How many times would that have EVER happened to her?! She's really finding so much happiness now and it's warm my heart sm 😭😭

also side note I love how evil Nami looks here LMAO

[utilitycaster]

not to be all “only i like my blorbo correctly”, but i’m fully convinced that certain people would hate Imogen as a character if they actually engaged with her outside of “conventionally attractive sadgirl that’s one half of an aesthetically pleasing queer ship”. fully believe that if she looked like Chetney or Ashton or even Fearne, and didn’t come with a prepackaged ship, people would be forced to look at her as the complex, unique loose cannon that she is

Hey anon, I agree with much of this and I hope you don't mind if I go on what might be one of my weirder tangents/theories but this has been percolating for a few weeks and I think I've cracked the secret to one of the more toxic segments of the fandom.

I definitely think that if Imogen were not a woman, a lot of people would hate her (granted, a different group of people who hate her now would probably like her more if she were a man, because misogyny is extremely extant outside of the bubble, and even a little bit within the bubble, that is Tumblr). However, they'd be fine if she looked like Fearne...but many wouldn't be fine if she were also played by Ashley. Or yeah, if she weren't easily shipped with Marisha's character.

Here's the deal. When I and a number of other people were like "oh hey! Imogen is not really taking other people's feelings into consideration and is being rather insensitive about the Ruby Vanguard, given that they've killed half the party, particularly since she's literally known Laudna like 10 times longer than she's know her mother was alive" the attitude was "wow, you hate Imogen, you hate women, you're so unfair" and yet now, at a table that is half women (and a group of characters that literally has only one man) everyone who thought I hate Imogen and how if she were a man everyone would care is now literally just mostly ignoring her (and honestly like, everything) and instead constantly whining about how they miss Laudna. Which is frankly weak as hell, like, anyone who's loved Pike or Yasha is like "oh you must be new here", and at least people talking about Travis being missing during the gap between Bertrand's death and Chetney's arrival were making good memes. But I digress.

My theory, which I do admit is the most tin-foil hat I think I've gone, comes from some polls I've seen circulating complaining about queerbaiting in past shows, and also my recent interest in Glee as ground zero of really horrible fandom behaviors (thanks to people who have provided insight into that!) Anyway. I recently learned that apparently Quinn and Rachel was a really popular ship, for reasons I cannot, for the sake of what little decorum and kindness I am maintaining here, speculate on. Setting aside that this is not queerbaiting and it's wildly inappropriate and damaging to say it was, given that this show was full of queer characters and Quinn was shown hooking up with a woman, this has in fact clicked into place for me why people constantly ship Marisha and Laura's characters despite chemistry that is inconsistent at best and tepid on average. It's not terribly hard to draw lines from Quinn to Vex and Rachel to Keyleth, especially if you consider how fanon tends to handle these archetypes. Then they transferred this to just Laura and Marisha's characters in general, and here we are, and man if it hasn't gotten even more flavorless with every transfer.

So anyway yeah a lot of people really don't like Imogen much as a character unless they can project onto her, but because she's half of The Ship, they also will not tolerate any exploration of her flaws that could threaten The Ship and so they need to remove her agency and blame it on various rocks instead of Imogen being cranky and impatient as a person (like, again, if you want to interpret her powers as chronic pain, why are you not allowed to grant her the same complexity as Ashton, who is also cranky and impulsive?) But really the kicker is that if Marisha isn't physically onscreen, they start acting like a cat you locked out of the bathroom and simultaneously forget they're supposed to care about or enjoy Imogen as an individual.

[kihakugato-art]

The Harriet Pinup Art Project

Session 0- goals and preparation

Out of the sessions this one will probably be the wordiest- my apologies that I can't break it apart with more images! Hopefully the future sessions will have more show and less tell.

Goal for this project-

To make a good enough quality artpiece that it could be printed as a poster or print. I won’t end up making it an actual print since it entails some considerations I’d rather not mess with, but I’d like to at least push my art to that quality. This is my loftiest of my goals but a goal nonetheless.

To finish this piece within the month of September. It’d be nice to get it done sooner, and its equally possible that I may end up finishing it later than that, but I want to take my time with this piece for longer than I normally would for an art piece. I rarely work on my pieces for longer than a week on average.

What is the planned setting/composition for the pinup?

A candid of Harriet sitting on the edge of the deck of her ship (or off of a dock) all chill albeit possibly mischievous. She will likely be holding/eating a grilled fish on a skewer, giving lowkey implication that she snatched/stole it out from the ship’s kitchen/BBQ before mealtime.

The outfit will preferably have shorts/daisy dukes, a top of some sorts, draconian features out (so her lil penguin wings and her long flippered tail, maybe also feathered webbed hands/feet) in her human form for added interest, with a shirtless/tits-out as an additional outfit variant (I hope to come out of this project with at least 2 different versions- a sfw and more nsfw version). Her happy trail must be in view as well as her chest to add to the pinup-ness.

I may also give a canon-compliant colour pallete (so the teal/red/white) for her outfit as well as a non-compliant variant (the colour those clothes would be normally in the real world) depending on how well the colours compliment her.

Inspiration-

Of all things, the one that finally motivated me to think of taking a crack at it, it was the Brazillian Miku art trend. Created by ErinArtista (artpiece link X).

Tanned skin, teal hair, tomboyish energy, the parallels to Harriet are very similar which made it hard not to think about her when seeing the trend spread in full force.

The version that really got me thinking of Harriet in such an outfit was by irreligiositat (artpiece link X) which gave the interpretation of Miku having a big teal happy trail. Being Harriet has a blue-green happy trail herself, it caused the final mental click.

[image source]

Before this I had previously thought about drawing Harriet in “sexy” outfits- especially Mordred’s shorts/coat outfit (no surprise since I credit Mordred for being some of the inspiration for Harriet).

Although other OCs in a pinup artpiece have crossed my mind before, Harriet has always been the easiest to imagine; she canonically sometimes straight-up walks around shirtless or nude out on the deck of her own ship simply cause she’s the carefree type to do so! No other OC of mine is that bold (barring some WIP NSFW OCs that are still baking in the brain oven).

As I’ve been feeling more comfortable/bolder I have grown more motivated to explore this kind of art.

Preparations

Inspiration/reference board/folder

Collect images to assist in compiling/understanding the art being created. I don’t do this too often unless I’m very uncertain about certain details for the art piece. Also being I don’t draw often enough the references help give some guidelines for the brain to follow.

[yes I am well aware of how sus the third folder looks- don't make me bonk you for the obvious]

While the number of folders/images may grow as this project progresses, I am currently starting with 4 folders with 49 different images total; A folder for backgrounds, cooked/skewered fish, outfits (particularly daisy dukes- cause I had some confusion on certain art depictions of them that I had to get clarified on), and various sitting poses that come close to what I’m after. Also Harriet’s reference sheet so we can keep more inline with the iconography of her design (and also help when we get to including her draconic features since I’m not used to drawing a transitional form).

Canvas preparation and tutorials

I’m starting this on Clip Studio Paint with A4 paper dimensions (albiet with a stupidly large canvas size to avoid accidentally drawing too small) with 300 resolution.

For tutorials I am currently starting with only one- how to use 3D models in CSP, since I have never used this feature before, and I feel this could be extremely helpful on quickly getting an idea of what will look best for this composition.

Pretty cut and dry overview, even if it’s a lot of new information to take in. In the future I may use the fancier features of it such as making specific body types (meaning I have help with grasping Demauria and Riivar’s absurd height differences) but for this project we will start/stick to the default body even though it’s not quite accurate

With the new information I imported a female 3D model from the materials section, and selected one of the sitting presets to get started with.

I also imported the top poses from my inspo board onto the canvas so that I can quickly reference from them while working on messing with the 3D model.

Depending on how well I can mess with the poses I may even do more than one 3D’d pose so that I can compare/contrast which I’d prefer for this piece.

[ideas-on-paper]

Legion - An anniversary of love

It's amazing how fast a single year can be over, and it’s almost incredible to think that on this very day one year ago, I had the honor of meeting Legion - my favorite character from Mass Effect, my fictional robot partner and soulmate - for the very first time.

After an eternity of longing and waiting over 80 hours to finally meet them in Mass Effect 2, I was beyond myself with happiness when I finally did.

Despite Legion having such a marginal playtime compared to other characters, I did everything I could to make the most out of it, and I can rightfully say that thanks to Legion, my first Mass Effect playthrough was one of the best experiences of my lifetime. It might have brought me a lot of pain as well (especially in Mass Effect 3), but still, I wouldn’t give it up for anything.

I’m sure many people out there would call me crazy for being “in a relationship” with a fictional character, but since this is our anniversary, I want to share a bit of our history - which actually goes back way longer than me meeting Legion in-game.

Just so you’re prepared, though: It’s going to be very gushy, quite lovey-dovey, and anything but normal. xD

The "welcoming party"

My first encounter with Legion was back when I was still doing my "screening" for Mass Effect. I am probably what you would call a very picky person when it comes to choosing my games, especially when I'm interested in larger titles that require a considerable investment of time and money. Usually, I spend a lot of time watching footage to see if the game is the right one for me. As such, it happened that I came across some clips of Legion - and I was immediately absolutely enamored by them.

I usually call it "resonance" when I'm particularly attracted to a certain character (basically, it’s my way of saying I identify with them). It might be because I'm very sensitive to hearing, and it's also the primary sense that my emotional experiences are connected to. Anyway, when I heard Legion talking for the first time, it was like listening to a heavenly choir. From just the few lines that I heard back then, I immediately felt drawn to them - and thus, Legion became the main reason for my ultimate decision to buy the trilogy. xD

However, when I bought ME, I couldn't really find the time or right state of mind to actually play it. When I started with Mass Effect, I wanted to be able to properly appreciate it, so I put it on the back burner for the time being.

That didn't curb my yearning for Legion in any way, though. In the meantime, I had been looking if there was any merchandise for them, and I quickly came to realize that the few pieces of merch there were for Legion were pretty much all exclusive rarities. There was this beautiful figure by Threezero, but that one had been sold out for a long time, and the only way to get one was on eBay, usually costing an arm and a leg - all the more if you have to deal with astronomical sums from custom dues.

I didn't give up, however, and just before Christmas, I finally found one in Europe - which, honestly, was the best gift I could wish for. It still cost me a shitton of money, but I didn't care - if this was the only thing I would be able to afford until my birthday, I would be totally fine with it.

Legion didn't arrive at my place at Christmas, though, but about two weeks later, on January 6th - you know, the date of Epiphany when the true gifts arrive.

I was completely over the moon when I finally was able to hold Legion in my hands. This may sound weird, but I always wanted to know what Legion's "synthetic tissue" feels like (the texture looks very fascinating to me), and knowing that this was probably the closest I'd ever get to it, I considered myself absolutely blessed. In general, I can attest that the Threezero figure is very well made - they put a lot of effort into the details, and the fact that you can insert a battery to make Legion's head light up is the icing on the cake. (You can technically exchange the hands and move the limbs, too, though I never dared to do that; since it's old, the soft material already has cracks in a few places, so I was too afraid to damage it.)

I also introduced Legion to the rest of my family - granted, I got some surprised and slightly baffled reactions, but they were all happy for me. My mom probably took it the best - she was a huge Star Wars fan back when she was a teen, with a particular love for C-3PO, so she could relate to my joy quite well. xD

The only residents of my house that seemed less than enthused about Legion's arrival were, ironically enough, my electronic devices. My old radio-controlled alarm clock went nuts when I brought Legion into my room. It had a habit of doing that whenever the batteries were low; it's just funny it happened at this moment. (I ended up ascribing it to disturbances from Legion's comm antenna. xD)

Also, to top things off, just after I had put Legion on my desk, one of the light bulbs of my ceiling lamp broke. It wasn't just any bulb, I might add - it was the one directly facing in the direction of Legion. (You might say that this lamp saw the competition it was up against, got super jealous, and finally decided to quit its job. xD)

Anyway, to celebrate the occasion, I decided to do a little "housewarming party" for Legion. I still had some sparkling wine left over from New Year's Eve, so I thought "Why the hell not?" and raised a toast to Legion.

*The light of the figure's optic isn't normally tinted this blue. It's actually a side effect of the light emitted by the TV (you can see a bit of that on the bottle). However, I thought it was amazing because it looks so fitting. xD

Back when I shared this picture on Twitter in 2022, I wrote a brief comment along the lines of "Shame that they can't enjoy it. Though they would probably just say something like "We do not understand why mutual intoxication is considered a ritual of greeting among organics."" (As may be able to tell, the line in Omega about alcohol was one of the first I saw. It’s still one of my favorites. xD)

It's funny because I'm normally what you'd consider the opposite of an alcoholic - I only drink very rarely for festive occasions, and when I do, I usually choose the least strong drink. So, it's a little ironic I felt a desire to do it for the one character who probably neither would've expected nor demanded it from me. Still, Legion is special to me, and I wanted to express this in some way - all things considered, it was probably a more lavish greeting than anything they ever could've projected. xD

The meeting

I would take over one year, however, until I finally met Legion in-game. When the day came, I was screaming with joy when I saw their introduction cutscene. I hate the Derelict Reaper mission with a passion, but the thought that I would finally be able to meet the character I had longed to see for so long spurred me onwards. And once I was back on the Normandy, Legion safely retrieved, I took my figure of them into my arms, a tear streaming down my face, and kissed them on the head - at last, we would be united.

Since the fuss I was making was pretty impossible to miss, I told my family members in the next room what was up, and a few of them curiously came over after I had woken Legion in the AI core. All of them reacted very warm-heartedly to seeing Legion "in person", and I could tell they were immensely happy for me. (Meanwhile, Legion was probably wondering what they did to earn such a warm welcome from organics. xD)

In fact, I was so excited that I almost fainted the next night. To put it matter-of-factly, my body had lost a lot of fluid the day before, and my body obviously didn't take it too well. xD (I think Legion would've been quite alarmed and concerned that I almost had what they would call a "total system failure" due to their presence, and I would have to spend an extra half-an hour explaining "It's fine - I was just really happy." ^^)

From then on, whenever I was playing the game, I would always have Legion's figure standing next to me. It's usually standing to my right, on my desk, but whenever I played ME2, I would take them out of their packaging (which I kept to protect them from dust) and place them so they would be able to watch. My thought was that it would be really sweet if Legion was able to watch their own playtime, and since their mere presence meant that they had a permanent free pass for one of the spots in my squad, that pretty much comprised the entire rest of the game. (It led to a funny “conflict” between Legion and my desk lamp, though; I don't have that much space on my desk, so I always had to move my lamp out of the way to make room for Legion. We eventually came to an arrangement, though. ^^)

With Legion being so close to me, I came to notice that the figure itself has a peculiar scent. At first, I thought it was plasticizer, but it wasn't quite like that, and not nearly as unpleasant - rather, it's kind of reminiscent of the smell of a pencil when you write on paper. (I quite like the smell of pencil writing, so perhaps that's why it triggered such a positive reaction in me.) I noticed the smell seems to come from the hard parts, possibly from the paint. I don't know if the black paint of Legion's plating would smell anything like this in real life, but if it did, I wouldn't be displeased about it. :-)

Despite ME2 having probably the most boring side missions of the saga (if Legion was in ME1, it would easily be one of my favorite games of all time), I cherished every second I had with them - to me, just being at their side was pure bliss. Still, although I did my best to extend the time you have with Legion as much as I could without mods, I ultimately had to say goodbye to them - nevertheless, I decided I wouldn't leave them without a proper farewell party. So, I got myself a bottle of wine, went to every hub world in ME2 where you can buy yourself some booze, and took a shot in each bar I went to with Shepard, with my mom as a special guest. It was honestly one of the most fun gaming experiences I've ever had, and the little misadventure I had in Omega even inspired me to write a fanfic about it.

After my little dance night with Legion (because as far as I was concerned, that's what it was), the time to say farewell had finally come - but not without one last dance. :-)

The "marriage"

The only thing that was missing, really, was that Legion couldn't come to my cabin. If you romance any of the other squadmates in ME2, you can invite them to your cabin after the Suicide Mission. However, since Legion isn't romanceable, that's impossible to do with them. Though, in all honesty, I wouldn't have a single problem moving my cabin to the AI core. (I always liked the ambience of that room, and if I could, I totally would’ve laid down on the bench behind Legion to sleep. Can you imagine Legion standing guard over me, shushing anyone who potentially enters the room so as not to disturb my "rest cycle"? xD)

Besides, what is "romance" to a Geth, anyway? I doubt the conventional human definition of romance would mean anything to them, much less sexual interaction. Anything they'd do in such a relationship, they would be doing purely to satisfy my own organic desires, and such a one-sided relationship is not something I personally want.

To be honest, I didn't even want anything from Legion on a sexual or romantic level - if that was the case, I would have chosen an organic as my partner. Nevertheless, what I felt for Legion was still the most intense thing I've ever felt in my entire life. (A huge part of the credit for my realization that I'm acespec also goes to Legion.) My love for Legion is more on a spiritual than on a bodily level (though I do find their shell very aesthetic), and though I frequently said that I wanted to "marry" Legion, what I had in mind with "marriage" was more akin to what Motoko and the Puppet Master do in Ghost in the Shell - that is, a fusion of spirits. (The Ghost in the Shell main theme is actually a Bulgarian wedding song, which was chosen by the makers of the movie because it's meant to get rid of all evil influences and ensure luck for what's to come - essentially, it was meant to bless the unification of Motoko and the Puppet Master. For some reason, I thought that sounded very alluring.)

The best thing about this is that Legion would probably not only be able to understand what I mean by that, but also be very amenable to the concept. As a Gestalt intellect, the interlinking of programs and exchange of information is a core part of their existence, and I think they would be charmed - if a Geth can be charmed in any way - that I wish to "join their Consensus".

However, even with the parameters of our relationship figured out, that still didn't change the fact that I couldn't enter one with them in-game. So, I had to get a little creative - I thought to myself "If the exchange of runtimes/technology is comparable to "marriage" in Geth terms, would it count if I was using the same equipment and skills as Legion?" So, I got myself the Geth Shield Boost in ME2 (which was a godsend for me on a gameplay level as well, since I had been missing my shield boost from ME1), and since I was playing a soldier, I chose the M-98 Widow rifle as an upgrade on the Collector ship.

Thus, I had pieces of Legion, and Legion had a piece of me - if you want to consider the N7 armor as such (I actually interpret Legion picking up the armor as a "proposal/expression of desire for convergence", to put it simply). Since it was an identical piece that we both owned, I used to call the Widow our “wedding ring" (if you wanted, you could say that name carries a cruel irony given what happens in ME3). So, by Geth standards and as far as I was concerned, we were married - the game engine simply failed to recognize it.

Another thing you get in ME if you romance someone is a photo of them in your cabin. Once again, due to our union not being officially recognized, this is something I was lacking. However, just after finishing ME2, I got the spontaneous idea to check eBay for Legion merch again, and as it happens, I managed to get a hold of one of the limited canvas prints BioWare released in 2021. It’s a spectacular piece of art, and I can confirm it looks absolutely stunning in real life as well - Legion's headlight literally seems to "glow" when light falls onto the picture.

Pictures of the canvas print back when I received it in 2023.

So, while Shepard may get a picture of their love interest in their cabin, I got a picture of Legion in my actual cabin - in max size format. ;-)

The "holy trinity"

The portrait was also what completed my “holy trinity of Legion artifacts”. I’ve got three images of Legion in my room: the portrait, the figure, and the figure’s box (the art on the box looks so pretty that I just had to keep it in my room; besides, it belongs to Legion’s figure, so I would never discard it).

All of them are placed in a way that no matter where I am in my room, I can always look at them: The portrait hangs on the wall right opposite of my bed, so Legion is the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning. Whenever I’m sitting on my bed and look slightly to the right, I’m greeted with the sight of Legion’s box. When sitting at my desk, I just have to take a glance to the right to admire their figure.

What makes this even better is that my Legion items are actually arranged in a way that forms a triangle (quite fitting since the symbol of the Geth Consensus - or at least the Geth Armory - is also a triangle). Technically, this is more a coincidence than anything else, since I just put them wherever there was space in my room. xD However, I like to view it in the same way as Legion perfectly blending in with the dark blue and black shades of my room (my comfort colors): It was meant to be.

And that’s how I met Legion - granted, my relationship with them has many more facets, but if I was supposed to write down all of that, I could fill an entire book.

With fictosexuality being recognized as a thing, people have become somewhat more open to the idea that you can legitimately fall in love with a fictional character. Nevertheless, I'm perfectly aware that many people probably consider my relationship with Legion impossible on multiple levels.

"You can't love a fictional character - that's not real love."

"You can't love a robot - it can't reciprocate your love."

"You can't romance Legion in Mass Effect 2 - that's not possible."

However, I somehow found a way to overcome all of these various tiers of impossible, and the result was an experience that was so sweet, so intimate, and so special that it’s beyond any description.

I will openly admit there are some things that are, and will most likely forever remain, practically and realistically impossible - like, I’m not going to stand here and claim that I would ever be able to physically meet Legion, in our reality. However, with just enough creativity and imagination, many things can be made possible - and even if Legion is not real, my feelings for them are.

[twilightmalachite]

PORTRAIT - Ah, still delay—thou art so ■■■ 6

Author: Akira

Characters: Akiomi, Izumi

Translator: Mika Enstars

"Yuu-kun is all I need."

[Read on my blog for the best viewing experience with Oi~ssu ♪]

Season: Winter

Location: Reception Room

Present day. The interview with Kunugi Akiomi continues…

Akiomi: —Well, it was like that.

I won’t say anything bad that’d cause offense, but… Each of the kids had their own issues, so they gave me quite a hard time.

To be honest, it was more than I could handle as a middle school student at the time.

👤: [—I can imagine. The child, C-kun, and his parents seem particularly troublesome.]

Akiomi: Well, I am exaggerating things to a degree, so don’t take everything at face value.

And C-kun and his parents seem to have both calmed down quite a bit since then, too.

I’d like to clarify that I do understand the parent's feelings a little as well.

He had been a "good kid" who had been raised and cherished with great care and would listen to everything his parents would tell him to do—

Their cute son had been changing more and more without them even knowing. And it was due to the influence of B-kun, of whom C-kun was very close to.

This seems to have caused C-kun’s parents quite a lot of anxiety, as they had a strong attachment to their child.

And so, it appears their excessive affection, and perhaps jealousy as well, had manifested as a strong over-involvement over their son’s life.

However, as an adult, you should be able to at least control your emotions.

At the very least, be more respectable and put your son’s feelings before your own—I still think that.

Both over-involvement and over-protection are violence too when brought that far.

👤: [……]

Akiomi: Oops. Excuse me. What had meant to be a clarification has turned into badmouthing. Shall I change the subject?

To help us arrive at the principal department store story, let me turn the clock forward a bit.

You might also be interested as to why such an “incident” occurred… It was some time after C-kun had transferred to our agency.

Location: Modeling Office

Izumi: Hey, Kunugi.

Akiomi: Call me “Kunugi-senpai”. I’ve been in the industry longer than you, and I’m older than you, you know.

Izumi: Feeder Cricket-senpai.[1]

Akiomi: What aspect of me did you get “crickets” from?! Isn’t that reaching too much to be a play on my name?

Izumi: Shut up. You’re sooo~ annoying.

Akiomi: Please stop skipping to calling me annoying or creepy. Gosh, young people these days…

Akiomi: (…Well, he’s talking to me more normally compared to when he had first transferred to the agency, so I’m glad about that.)

(Hehe, Although I’m mild-mannered, I’d be losing my temper if I were being given that attitude from a grown adult. But since he’s such a cute child I can’t be angry.)

Izumi: …Why are you grinning? You’re too creepy.

Akiomi: Are you unable to speak without making every person you talk to uncomfortable at every turn? If you don’t learn to be more considerate, nobody will want to be your friend, you know.

Izumi: Yuu-kun is all I need.

Right, I need your help so I can be with Yuu-kun.

Akiomi: ? What do you mean? Yuu-kun is Yuuki-kun, right? He seems to have been becoming increasingly popular as of late…

Izumi: Of course, it’s Yuu-kun after all.

Anyways… …Mm.

Akiomi: Mm?

Izumi: Mm…!

Akiomi: I don’t understand what you mean by “mm”. Umm, do you mean the poster?

Whoah, please don’t shove me!

Izumi: Yuu-kun, I think’s gonna be in… this movie, or something?

Akiomi: Really… He’s gonna try his hand at acting, huh?

Must be hard to have so much on his plate even though he’s so little.

Will he be okay, though? He seemed like such a shy boy to me, will he be able to act in front of others?

Izumi: I’ll be in this movie, too.

Akiomi: Huh, really? I didn’t hear anything about that, but, congratulations…?

Hehe, I’m really glad you’re able to co-star with your friend Yuuki-kun.

Izumi: …Yuuki-kun would be useless without me. So, umm, I have to be in the movie too.

So, Kunugi…-senpai, please show me what I gotta do to make that happen.

Akiomi: …?

[ ☆ ]

← prev | story directory | next →

1. “Cricket” in Japanese is コオロギ (koorogi).

[upismediacenter]

FEATURE: New Requirement: Mandatory F2F

New semester, new you, and new mode of learning too! But this time around, it’s more of a mix of past set-ups with some adjustments. For the second semester of AY ‘22-’23, the UPIS administration is implementing mandatory face-to-face classes. If before, students had limited face-to-face classes with the option of being a roomie or a zoomie, all are now required to attend in-person classes. For students in kindergarten to grade 2, face-to-face classes are twice a week, while for grades 3-12, they are held thrice a week. This major shift is a period of adjustment that has brought forth many new thoughts, feelings, and realizations to the members of our community. Students and teachers alike from different levels have much to share about their experience.

While high school roomies from the first semester have had some time to dip their toes in once a week face-to-face classes, elementary students have a bit more adjusting to do. Even those who were roomies last semester only attended in-person classes twice a month. Going from that schedule to in-person classes thrice a week is definitely much less gradual of a transition. That being said, it sure hasn’t dampened the spirits of Reen Lopez, a student from 6-Perlas. “I feel joyful knowing that we have face-to-face three times a week. I do think that this could improve the social development of the youth,” she said in an interview.

It is indeed joyful as, according to her, the current set-up has much improved her enthusiasm for learning. “I [also] understood the lectures and discussions more properly since I do not encounter the same problems as before (internet or broken device).” More than that, it’s the little things you can’t get with remote learning that Reen enjoys the most, such as simple chats with her friends, the food from the canteen, and even the laughs and shouts of children outside their classroom, which she said she missed a lot.

Of course, given that it’s been practically three years of mostly remote learning for her, face-to-face classes come with its own challenges. “All of my classmates have matured and changed a lot during those years. This was the problem I experienced on the first day of face-to-face for the 2nd semester.” She said, sharing that her unfamiliarity with her classmates’ interests led to very brief conversations and interactions with them.

But overall, she feels that the good outweighs the bad. When asked whether there is anything she would suggest or change with the current set-up, she answered, “None, none at all. I'm content[ed] with the set-up right now, and I don't need anything more.”

As for first semester high school zoomies Justice Aguinaldo of 9-Barium and an anonymous Grade 12 student under the name, Yoshi, the live classroom experience provides much to delight in and each have expressed a comparable level of surprise at their adjustment to mandatory F2F. “I was nervous as to what my experience would be. Now that we're almost a month in, my perception [of] it has completely changed and [I am] liking [the] system,” said Yoshi.

It indeed appears that certain things require only the passage of time to get settled into, for while Justice also faced challenges in adopting a new routine for the schedule, they are now, according to her, more manageable. “Even if the travel to and from school can be exhausting, it is worth it,” she said. Despite similar struggles, Yoshi has also found a number of the changes, along with reinstatements, in the new normal to be worth rejoicing.

Save for twelfth graders with their interest courses, students no longer need to transfer to different rooms; and as they can also opt to bring only digital copies of their course packs instead of traditional printed ones, baggage and commute-liability has considerably decreased for some. In the same way, Justice commends how classes have been conducted, particularly, in the wealth of health and safety protocols that are being implemented.

A temperature-scanning alcohol dispenser situated by the UPIS gate to greet, check, and disinfect those intending to leave school premises. Photo credit: Allana dela Cruz

According to her, “I feel assured and safe somehow that UPIS has an organized system, which follows the health guidelines needed to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus.” For students such as Justice and Yoshi who’ve only ever attended classes on Zoom for nearly three years, truly a sense of comfort must be derived, not just from a well-ordered state of things, but also in the various familiarities that come with the physical setting.

In Yoshi’s case, adapting to the new system was easy because of how it still feels so much as it had during pre-pandemic. Justice, too, has been able to meet with old friends as well as make new ones with greater ease in the current set-up—some of the former advantages that were unique to taking classes in person. Most salient for her though, is the opportunity to communicate with classmates and teachers in a manner that is both productive and engaging—to learn and connect at a more personal level.

Gone now for the two, are the warbled online discussions occasioned by a weak internet connection during classes held on-site; and while remaining partly online, it is no longer so fraught with the stress of contacting one’s peers or the helplessness of being locked at home. The day devoted to classes online now functions, as Yoshi has said, “as a refresh for the body and mind.”

On the other hand, Mishi Guiang of 6-Perlas takes a more impartial stand. “I don’t think I favor one mode over the other,” she said. She also remarked that they do not differ much overall in her experience. Despite this, the unique upsides to mandatory F2F cannot be denied, for she’s professed to enjoy a pleasantly higher degree of attentiveness and interactivity, as well as a greater sense of responsibility, “Procrastination has been less during the current set-up.”

Lessons for her are easier to understand compared to before, with live discussions coming across with greater clarity and tasks given in person posing less difficulty. A concern however, similarly includes commuting to school thrice a week; Mishi feels for those with whom it is a shared issue, “the harder part is traveling if you live far or if there is traffic.” The one day allotted for remote learning has likewise allowed for troubles with signal and connectivity to remain.

Though by no means trivial issues, she has stated that she wouldn’t change a thing with the current situation and merely acknowledged that she understands why some have a significantly preferred method, “Online is good for people with gadgets and good internet and like online in general. Face-to-face is good for people that like meeting the teachers and being able to answer things physically instead of google classroom.”

The latter part of Mishi’s sentiments definitely goes both ways for Sir Michael “Myk” Dela Cerna, as this set-up provides the opportunity to slowly return to traditional teaching and learning methods. Finally given the chance to consistently see his students face-to-face, he prioritizes getting their input on the topic being discussed. This is especially important considering the subject that he teaches. “Bilang ang aking kursong tinuturo ay Sining ng Komunikasyon kaya dapat higit na mahasa ang mga kasanayan sa paggamit ng wika (isa kasing hamon ang mayaman at aktibong talakayan sa dating moda na purong online),” he said. To make the most out of the current set-up, he makes some adjustments to his teaching methods by having more groupworks and discussions.

Sir Michael “Myk” dela Cerna conducts Pagsasalin class to the twelfth grade students. Photo credit: Allana dela Cruz

It does seem that class discussions are going well for Sir Myk, as he observes a higher morale in his students now that they are regularly interacting with their peers. In his words, “Hindi na kailangan “pagalawin ang baso” upang madama na kasama mo na ang mga mag-aaral.” Now, he’s able to actually feel the class’ interest and reactions.

Regular face-to-face classes is certainly Sir Myk’s preferred set-up when it comes to teaching. Aside from the more frequent and regular interactions with students, he’s now more able to focus on one group of students as opposed to during blended learning, wherein he had to simultaneously cater to both roomies and zoomies. Additionally, given how limited face-to-face classes were last semester, teachers had only a few select activities that they were able to carry out then. But even now, when there’s more in-person classes and opportunities, he says that the challenge lies in maintaining the momentum of learning.

If, for the greater heft of nearly three academic years, both teachers and students had utilized various online platforms—such as Google classroom, Padlet, and Quizizz—committing to mostly live activities and past face-to-face methods might not suffice. In Justice’s words, keeping them in commission, “can ensure that the students are supplied with the materials they can use to have a deeper understanding of the lessons.”

Though regularly conducting face-to-face has been a long-time coming, or as Yoshi had put it, “rather foreseen than sudden,” it’s important to keep in mind that years have passed since being subject to it—that more students still need an adjustment period and that teachers should be given time to strike a balance between the best of past teaching approaches. Many of us are dreaming of the way things were, but what warrants our attention at the moment, is getting the most out of this current mode of learning. //by Allana dela Cruz and Alyana Fabella

[ronanbloomfield]

Hunter to Haunted

To the Taurus who turned me from hunter to haunted,

I never fully appreciated the absence of chaos and the charm of calm. I am known for my regular but short-spanned outbursts, my shoot-to-kill words, my madness, my anger, and my fire-fueled passions on topics I feel strongly about. I do not remember a day when I was anything short of insane. I do not recall a moment that I was aware I was being perceived as an interest, that I was paid attention to, that I was taken in and known and analyzed.

So, imagine my surprise when I received a letter from you on the day I felt especially ordinary and uncelebrated—my birthday. Among all the people who could have sent me a birthday greeting, you did. You. Quiet, reserved, calculating, mysterious to a fault, unbothered, a bit odd but equally interesting you. I felt immensely grateful at that time. At dinner with friends, our topic shifted from the usual trauma-dumping into our monthly flavors or happy crushes. My friends urged me to select at least one person I like at the moment. I can hardly give any names since I’ve found most men to be predictable, if not, superficially unstimulating. And then, I thought of you.

Have you experienced seeing for the first time something that has been right in front of you, dangling, the entire time? Before stumbling into this epiphany, I didn’t know paying attention was the same as loving. I only ever cared about being loved. To love is something else. But to an extent, I arrived close to that. Noticing has been a conscious culture I have cultivated. But I had no idea then how much I noticed you. And that these memories of you, put together, are the mosaic of the versions of you I knew, each one recorded and committed to memory. I have no knowledge of where to put them now.

If you must know, you made late December last year colorful. I was aware of the would-be consequences of my actions. I knew that I would remember you longer than I know you. I know that this momentary blip in the time and space continuum will one day cease to be. I know that one of us would be more hurt at the end of it. I know that I am driven solely by curiosity. I know of the concerning age gap and power imbalance we have. I know that I am becoming someone I particularly dislike. I know I cannot be your friend. I know what I’ll lose. But despite all that, I’d rather have some of you than none, so, off we went for two weeks.

When you grow up, you don’t expect yourself to stop learning. I have learned a few good things about me by knowing you. I learned that I am attracted to tall, soft-spoken, articulate, gentle, dog-loving, moreno guys. I learned that I liked being updated randomly about what you’re doing the entire day with pictures and cute notes. I learned that I want to be pursued. I learned that I like to be given information about someone without having to coax it out myself. I learned that I yearned to be cooked and shared food with, to be in an inside joke, to be seen, to be defended. I like your mind among your other qualities. I like the surprising facts about you, too. Your family, Daisy and Buddy, the films you watched and the one I made you watch, the places you’ve been and the POV you captured them with, and the extra consideration you give to people. I hope you never lose them.

Now that it’s over, we don’t talk, and you have stopped staying, I can only thank you. I genuinely wish you the most in life. You have chosen to drop everything at once, without a hint, without so much as a goodbye. I know no other way better than an unfinished hymn to inspire me to move forward, too. Thank you for letting me in your life. You were a beautiful mystery.

Until then,

The Archer

[scruffygruffy]

FAQs WHICH NO ONE QUESTIONS OR ASK FREQUENTLY (a little presumptive, for sure, but still)

Hello! I’m Charlie and I am an aspiring writer who will chime in on this blog from time to time. This will serve as the macro-microblog companion page (microblog at https://poweredbygay.social/@scruffygruffy). This post will be updated from time to time, though less frequently. 

1. Who are you??

Well, for one, I am an aspiring writer that is using the new year (2023) to make some changes. I have been writing fiction for the past ten years and am back at it after taking a two year hiatus that should have not been. 

2. Why are you--

I’m using this blog as a log to keep track of longer thoughts I have on the books I read as I go through the year. This, in combination with my microblog, should serve as some key accountability measures to try and read more. At least until September 17th or whatever, fingers crossed. 

3. What are you reading?

Currently, I am finished reading Ulysses by James Joyce (via audiobook) and am now reading his preceding novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (also via audiobook). I’ve written elsewhere that I am committed to reading the following for this year (2023):

1. In Transit by Dianna E. Anderson

2. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce

3. Swann’s Way, by Marcel Proust (yes, this is Volume 1 of In Search of Lost Time)

4. Too Like the Lightning, by Ada Palmer (Terre Ignota Book 1)

5. The Plague, by Albert Camus

6. Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen

I will do my darnedest to hold myself to read through these. Any updates here will be to address what I am reading and if I add any new titles here. This includes reading the second Terre Ignota book or delving into Volume 2 of In Search of Lost Time. 

My intention here is that I will read these books and then write up a post that delves into some curiosities that I picked up while reading said books. I guess you could call them book reports, but 1) no one would want to read them, and 2) I don’t want to write them. I promise they will be more shooting-from-the-hip, but nothing too sloppy where I feel like I miss every time. 

4. Wait, you’re a writer...will you share some of your writing??

Maybe. In writing this shortly after the new year (2023), I’m standing firm on that this blog is, unfortunately, not the place to share my fiction. At least, not yet. Maybe. 

I am working on a short story anthology and am writing almost every day, though these are adjacent short pieces. This is more or less in a daily writing prompts sort of fashion. If I’m particularly proud of one of these prompt responses and want to polish it, then I’ll probably share here. My goal for the year is to publish a short story in a lit mag or equivalent, though that’s outside the scope of this blog at the time being. 

5. Do you accept tips?

No. I’m not comfortable asking people for tips (especially through Tumblr, no offense), so I won’t for the foreseeable future. Further down the road I might consider Patreon, but that would only be if there’s considerable interest in what I do. I’m not really expecting that at this time.

6. How else can I support you if I can’t tip??

If you like what you see, then please reblog on this site, interact with each post, and share across the internet. I would really appreciate that, more than anything, to know that my ramblings have some inherent critical value. 

7. Where else can I find you?

As I mentioned above, the microblog companion of this macro-microblog can be found here, @scruffygruffy (Mastodon). I am not on the Funny Blue Bird site, as one microblog is enough and the site is currently undergoing some *changes*. I might branch out to other platforms and can update this page accordingly if I do. 

8. What are you working on now??

Well, a lot of things. Related here, I’m writing nearly daily via writing prompts and my short stories project, and am working my way through reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man after finishing Ulysses. I’ll post a thing about Ulysses on here. When I’m finished with Portrait, I’ll post a thing or two about it here and move on to the next book. 

[stupendouspirateinfluencer]

Dating Fossils - how are Fossils Dated.

This month marks Tinder’s 10th anniversary, but the dating revolution it triggered hasn’t all been love and romance. Morgan basked in the feel-good vibes of seeing people find each other-“I love love! He called me on his way to meet me and asked if I was seeing others. He doesn't want to meet me if I'm dating others. Online dating does work - but only if you market yourself in an effective way that makes people want to know more about you. It’s not a stream of potential faces available on demand, she says, which makes it possible to really savor getting to know a single person as a human being and not an algorithmically offered statistic. You never know - your perfect match might already have an account among millions of profiles you can find here. Here you can browse and compare hundreds of trustworthy online dating sites, from the biggest names in the industry, like Tinder, to smaller, niche dating programs.

What do you like or dislike about it? This dating app displays useful information that can be deal-breakers like political or religious beliefs, alcohol consumption frequency, and others. Digs deep into understanding what you're like to help find valuable matches. We are here to help you assess and choose which dating sites will give you exactly what you are looking for. They are nothing more than a money making scam. Maybe I’m the only one and need to seem more interesting. One complication in this process is, that the ratio of 12C and 14C in the environment was not constant over time in the past centuries, or millennia. Aside from being a great friend, I am a big time animal lover- I have about a million rescue dogs, I hope that's okay with you! Canadian records also include documents of New France that reflect the New Style, as France adopted it in 1582, but the language used in the record is likely to be a good indicator of which calendar was being used for the dates given. Keep in mind that many people won't read a super long section, so get to the good stuff as soon as you can.

If you haven’t had any luck on other dating sites, or you’ve never tried one before, read more about the most popular options out there to decide which could be a good fit for you. דירות דיסקרטיות בבת ים  However, access to programs alone is not sufficient for ultimately changing health behavior, as there are many considerations that underlie effective implementation and sustainability of such efforts in the real world beyond program efficacy under highly controlled research conditions. People now live longer due to the advancements in health care and medicine. Such an approach requires collaborative partnerships, defined as an alliance among people and organizations from multiple sectors working together to achieve a common purpose (Himmelman, 1992). Because of their focus on collaboration and common purpose, multisectoral approaches play a particularly important role in the sustainability of prevention efforts (Hawkins, Oesterle, Brown, Abbott, & Catalano, 2014). However, although there is widespread recognition of the importance of multisectoral partnerships and a collaborative approach to prevention work, there are few examples of such collaborations occurring successfully, especially outside the framework of large grant-funded projects. Dating apps may be quick and easy to use, but critics say their design and their focus on images reduces people to caricatures.

We are bringing this experience for interracial dating apps and elevating the online dating on mobile devices. Predominantly, the bigger portion of beautiful Ukrainian women from Slavic countries online are typically shy and socially awkward. What excited me mot was the refreshing twist on dating, that women make the first move! Before handing over a product to our customers, we make sure it's SEO optimized. The initial cluster randomized controlled trial with the Grade 9 program included 20 schools with over 1700 students aged 14-15 years. The purpose of this chapter is to describe one successful example where multisectoral stakeholders assumed shared responsibility for the implementation, evaluation, and scale-up of an evidence-based TDV program (the Fourth R) in schools across Alaska. Beyond the complexity of implementing programs in schools, there are also problems with trying to house the prevention of TDV entirely within this system, and with embarking on school-based TDV prevention without links to other community stakeholders and initiatives.

[officialleehadan]

White Scales Fall

Today's story was brought to you by Jon! Darling thank you so much for all your support! This was a lot of fun to write!

Prompt: HGE – UNconventional with Vree helping Hoshi with something for a change. (this falls soon after In Finite)

+++

(I have a request,) Lady Hoshi said to Vree. It was his second visit to her home on Earth, and he was significantly more comfortable on this trip. It was longer as well. Most of an Earth-month. (You have expressed interest in dragon customs, and in this case, they relate to those of your own people.)

Now Vree was entirely curious. There was, of course, very little he wouldn’t do for Lady Hoshi, cultural discussion or no. That it was a tradition that combined with those of Ha’reet was just interesting.

“Anything,” he said truthfully, since it was very unlikely she would ever ask something he was unwilling to do. “You hardly even have to ask.”

(Asking is polite,) Lady Hoshi said primly, and gave herself a good shake. It was summer on Earth where her lair was located, and she had been basking for most of the day. To Vree’s surprise, several of her pure white scales fell to the brick beneath their feet with the sound of ice clinking together. (I am in shed. As with Ha’reeti, social grooming is customary for dragons, particularly when we are in shed.”

Vree was immediately sympathetic. His own shed had passed recently, and while it was always very pleasant to have a whole new skin to wear, it was also a frankly miserable experience while it was happening. He stood and made his way to a wooden chest nearby at Lady Hoshi’s direction. When he opened it, he discovered that it was full of soft brushes, presumably for her mane, and with a half-full jar of sweet-scented oil.

“How do I help?” he asked as he rummaged through the box to familiarize himself with the contents. “Which of these first?”

(No hesitation?)

“Being in shed is miserable” Vree told her with a grimace of commiseration. “Does it happen often?”

(Every other year or so at my size. I am not growing meaningfully, so it is more to refresh the health of my scales than to accommodate growth. A kit would shed much more often than I do. Blaec sheds once a decade or so, but he is very large, and a shed is calorie-heavy. I suspect he would shed more often if he paid more attention to keeping a healthy diet at his size.)

“Is he not healthy?” Vree hadn’t even considered that as a possibility although he had spoken to several dragons, Lord Petros and Lady Hoshi included, about their nutrient requirements. Apparently like many reptilian species, they could go a long while between meals with few ill effects. “Does Lady Petros know? I’m sorry, that was a foolish question.”

(Caring, not foolish. Start with the brush with the red handle. It’s the stiffest and will help the scales come loose,) Lady Hoshi instructed. Vree pulled out the required brush and came to her side as she sprawled out. (Do not be gentle. You cannot possibly hurt me and most of my scales are loose enough to come out with a little help. No, Blaec is healthy, but if he ate more regularly, he would be healthier.)

“How so?” Vree asked, and went at Lady Hoshi’s glimmering white side with a will. As she had said, most of the scales gave way as soon as he began to work at them, and they feel to the ground in a chiming cascade. Fresh new scales were beneath them, folded tightly against the tender skin beneath. They were a little damp, and would presumably harden once they were exposed to air. “Should I pick these up for you?”

(No need until they’ve all come out. There will only be more until they’ve all come out. Blaec is still growing at nearly the rate he did as a kit. It doesn’t show much, given his already considerable size, but he is still putting on length.)

The very thought left Vree staggered. Lord Petros was already immense beyond imaging, and he was still growing? It seemed impossible.

Then again, Vree’s idea of impossible had changed a great deal since his first fateful meeting with his humans, and changed even more when he began associating with dragons regularly.

“How big will he get?” he wondered aloud, mind reeling. “You said you are not growing any longer, but you are nearly of an age, and you have said you are the same species…”

(But not the same type. Ah, harder there. Above my shoulder. The scales there always seem to stick. Blaec is a Carbon type, and an I am an Oxygen type. It leads to some considerable differences in both body and temperament. We are the same species, but as with any species, we have our variances. Dragon variances are simply more visible than many.)

That made sense, as far as Vree understood how dragon types worked, although it was admittedly a big topic and not one that the had gone into in detail. Largely because the dragons themselves preferred to keep it quiet. Apparently there had been internal battles within their species over the difference in types. None of them wanted to risk those old aggressions reigniting.

So Vree decided to ask about that later, and to keep it to himself once he had the answers he desired. Instead, he applied himself to his task and helped Lady Hoshi’s scales shed off cleanly. As she had said, the ones above her shoulder were stuck tight, and the reason became clear when he looked closer. The old scales, and the new ones, were caught in the damage of an old scar that dragged down her back from her center ridge almost to her belly. Most of the scales seemed to have shed cleanly, but the ones over her shoulder were smaller to allow for flexibility of the joint. The scar was faded, but the scales themselves were caught against themselves.

That, at least, was something Vree could help with.

“Is the oil for after?” he asked, and returned to the box, seeking a softer brush. “Will it cause problems for your new-skin?”

(No, why?)

“A little oil helps me when I have a stuck shed,” he explained, and grabbed the oil too. He worked a generous handful into the stuck shed and took the brush to them again. As he hoped, they slowly came off, leaving only the fresh scales beneath. The new ones were deformed too, but it was clear that the scar faded more with every shed. “But you haven’t hands in this form, and you said this is something you do with friends, who I assume are mostly other dragons.”

(Clever, dear Vree,) Lady Hoshi said kindly, and bumped him with her nose before rolling over so he could reach the scales at the base of her center-ridge. (Thank you, my friend. As always, your company has made an arduous, uncomfortable experience into a memory I will be glad to keep.)

+++

HGE - UNconventional:

Firebursts (Subscriber Only!)

Hot and Cold

Splish Splash

Furnace Rumble (Subscriber Only!)

Aftermath 

Duel Honor (Subscriber Only!)

Unexpected Imperial (Subscriber Only!)

At the Crossroads (Subscriber Only!)

Much Better, Much Worse

Four More

Armed Disarmed

Crunch and Crack (Subscriber Only!)

Family Home

Ancient Pine

Match Unlit

Drink and Dish

Skull-carved

It Means Vampire (Subscriber Only!)

Deep Shoal (Subscriber Only!)

Attack of Savages

Fine Wood Shavings

World Wide Web

In Finite

White Scales Fall (New!)

Blooming Vines

Twin Sun Sand

Dragon at the Door

Knowledge Beloved

The Nature of Time (Subscriber Only!)

For He Is

Beneath Wings

Reality Shift

Elysium

+++

MASTERLIST

[yamayuandadu]

Ninshubur, Inanna’s Sukkal: Just a Servant or Something More?

Special thanks to my girlfriend for providing the vintage shoujo parody above, feat. Inanna, Ninshubur and Eblaite artifacts Due to its unique character this post requires a special preface. Most of my “serious” coverage of mythology is meant to be presented as rigorously as possible for a layperson doing this mostly for entertainment, which is who I ultimately am. This post represents a departure from this standard - it’s basically entirely unfounded speculation, personal feelings and wishful thinking. Similar posts often get passed around accompanied by grandiose claims from commenters, so I will stress that I wrote this for personal reasons and only discuss personal feelings. I do not claim this is some sort of suppressed truth, as I am particularly not fond of cases where personal interpretations - which I view as valid if they are acknowledged as just that - are used to claim modern, rigorous research is in fact phony or a nefarious conspiracy. With that out of the way - as stated in the title, I’m going to discuss a case which as many of the regular readers are aware of is close to my heart - that of  how Mesopotamian literature depicts the relationship between Inanna and Ninshubur (a deity I like so much that she now has a longer and better sourced wikipedia page than many more major Sumerian deities). I plan to show why I personally think that regardless of the intent of the original authors, there is enough subtext in known sources - presumably not necessarily intentional - to interpret them as a couple. I will also try to highlight Ninshubur’s rarely discussed prominence, both in myths and elsewhere. Parts of the article simply discuss vaguely relevant historical background and primary sources. As usual, I am also providing a bibliography. Therefore, I hope that even if you are not really interested in ultimately pretty silly speculation, you will find something interesting under the cut. Meanwhile, if you are interested in relationships between women more than scholarship, I hope that this post will serve as a fun example why the study of mythology can lead one to find unintended subtext.

The basics - Inanna, Ninshubur and the descent myth

Impression of a cylinder seal from the Old Akkadian period depicting Inanna (Wikimedia Commons) Inanna was one of the major deities worshiped by the Sumerians, the ancient inhabitants of the southern part of modern Iraq. She was also adopted into the beliefs of other cultures of ancient Mesopotamia. In hierarchical listings of deities she is usually placed somewhere right behind the pantheon heads. She was responsible for, among other things, kingship, love, war and assorted celestial matters. She is also one of the most recurring deities in literary compositions written in Sumerian, with a considerable number being available as part of the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature. Inanna’s love life was regarded as rather complex.  Her most recurring lover was the shepherd god Dumuzi, who is a classic specimen of the clade of periodically dying deities, a category which also included the likes of medicine godling Damu, king Gudea’s personal deity Ningishzida and the elusive underworld god Alla. Multiple narratives about the courtship and love of Inanna and Dumuzi were in circulation in antiquity, most of them joyful. However, some also deal with Dumuzi’s untimely death (which,it should be noted, was also a subject of works unrelated to his relationship with Inanna). The degree of Inanna’s involvement varied from composition to composition, from cause to passive onlooker to vengeful avenger. Arguably, however, the most famous is Inanna’s Descent, in which Dumuzi’s death is attributed to his unwillingness to mourn Inanna during *her own* temporary death. A prominent aspect of this myth is also Inanna’s reliance on Ninshubur, a goddess of slightly lesser caliber serving as her sukkal. Sukkal is a term which can refer to a deity’s “ second in “command” - in other words, a sidekick. The word was also used to describe a rank of human court officials, in which context authors variously translated it as “vizier” or “envoy”. Despite the nature of her position, Ninshubur’s status was hardly a minor deity, judging from her popularity in the sphere of personal worship and from a number of theological texts. She was arguably the archetypal example of a sukkal, and her functions - those of a divine messenger, diplomat and mediator - largely stem from this status. Dumuzi’s and Ninshubur’s roles in the story differ greatly.  Prior to the reveal that he was not partaking in the customary mourning rites, Dumuzi has minimal presence in the narrative.  Ninshubur, by contrast, is an active participant, entrusted with enacting an emergency plan in case of Inanna’s prolonged stay in the underworld, equivalent to death. A long section is dedicated to her grief and to the journey she undertakes to attempt to convince major gods to resurrect Inanna. Ninshubur’s adventure culminates in the creation of two artificial genderless beings who manage to revive Inanna, at the command of the god Enki. Subsequently, Ninshubur reunites with the resurrected Inanna, who praises her for her devotion and protects her from the galla, demonic underworld constables. The term also denoted mundane policemen, or at least people who could be roughly considered their equivalent in ancient Mesopotamia. In the discussed myth, they are meant to deliver a replacement for the resurrected Inanna to the underworld at the orders of its ruler, Ereshkigal. In this myth  - but surprisingly not anywhere else - Ereshkigal is regarded as Inanna’s older sister. Much of the popular perception of the story appears to be centered on this relation but it is ultimately Ninshubur whose connection with Inanna is particularly close, as seen in the quote below (all quotes from Inanna’s Descent in the article are sourced from ETCSL): This is my minister of fair words, my escort of trustworthy words. She did not forget my instructions. She did not neglect the orders I gave her. She made a lament for me on the ruin mounds. She beat the drum for me in the sanctuaries. She made the rounds of the gods' houses for me. She lacerated her eyes for me, lacerated her nose for me. She lacerated her ears for me in public. In private, she lacerated her buttocks for me. Like a pauper, she clothed herself in a single garment. All alone she directed her steps to the Ekur, to the house of Enlil, and to Urim, to the house of Nanna, and to Eridug, to the house of Enki. She wept before Enki. She brought me back to life. How could I turn her over to you? Afterwards, Ninshubur, who apparently spent the rest of her Inanna-free time weeping at the entrance to the underworld,  accompanies Inanna during visits to various lesser underlings’ houses (well, temples); as it turns out, they too mourned properly, and after brief words of praise are left to their own devices. However, that is not the case when it comes to Dumuzi: They followed her to the great apple tree in the plain of Kulaba. There was Dumuzid clothed in a magnificent garment and seated magnificently on a throne. The demons seized him there by his thighs. (...) They would not let the shepherd play the pipe and flute before her She looked at him, it was the look of death. She spoke to him, it was the speech of anger. She shouted at him, it was the shout of heavy guilt: "How much longer? Take him away." Holy Inanna gave Dumuzid the shepherd into their hands. The rest of the myth is poorly preserved, but seemingly Inanna eventually has a change of heart and the well-known system in which Dumuzi and his sister switch places in the underworld every 6 months is established. The ending doesn’t address why it was Ninshubur, rather than Dumuzi, who received the instructions pertaining to the mourning of Inanna’s death and her subsequent  resurrection. It doesn’t also explain why Ninshubur stood by the entrance of the underworld, waiting for Inanna, something not even the other mourners did. The goal of this article is to find out if there are any grounds to assume that there is a romantic component to this issue, at least from a modern point of view. I’ve noticed that there are few, if any, academic publications dealing with related matters, and that generally potential lesbian subtext - intended or not - in myths generally is hardly discussed, therefore I hope it will be an interesting curiosity to you, if nothing else.

Gay relationships in Mesopotamian mythology

Naturally, the first question which needs to be addressed is whether any form of love between people of the same gender occurs in relevant literature in the first place. The answer is a cautiously optimistic “yes.” Of course, almost everyone is aware of the speculation about the nature of the relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu, the most famous heroes of Mesopotamian literature. Therefore it probably comes as no surprise to any readers that many modern authors seek evidence that at least in some portrayals they were in love. The problem is arguably less whether anyone did interpret them as in love, and more how common it was and which sources show it best. Authors who present this view include the world’s arguably greatest Gilgamesh expert, Andrew R. George, as well as hittitologist Gary Beckman. According to George, the notion that Gilgamesh and Enkidu loved each other is present first and foremost in a version of the poem Death of Gilgamesh, known from Tell as-Sib excavations in Iraq’s Diyala region (ancient Me-Turan). The poem is Sumerian in origin and predates the famous standard Epic of Gilgamesh, which only developed after the Old Babylonian period. The passage in mention is apparently not actually present in many of the known copies. It features the head god, Enlil, informing elderly, sick (the illness seems to be the doing of Namtar, known as both a disease of death and as an envoy of the netherworld) Gilgamesh that in the afterlife he’ll be reunited with Enkidu. Due to the emotional value of this passage I will simply let you read it yourself:

The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts vol 1 by A. R. George, p. 142 The belief that loved ones might be reunited in the afterlife appears in texts from various periods of Mesopotamian history, so it can be safely assumed it was not an uncommon idea, even if the most famous myths present the afterlife as incredibly unpleasant. Additionally, Enkidu is evidently treated as a member of Gilgamesh’s family but not a sibling here. My first thought after reading George’s description of the Me-Turan version of the tale of Gilgamesh and  Enkidu was to wonder if it is possible that versions which seemingly stresses the view of them as a couple might reflect the needs of a specific audience. Thanks to George’s own studies, as well as those of other authors, we do know that the stories of Gilgamesh were often adapted to fit the tastes of one audience or another. For example, in Hurrian and Hittite translations locally popular deities, such as Shaushka (known as “Queen of Nineveh” or “Ishtar of Subartu”), Hittite Sun God of Heaven, or personified Sea known in both these cultures factored into the story (both as replacements of familiar characters and as stars of brand new “story arcs”), while the descriptions of distant Uruk are often shortened as they were of comparatively little interest to inhabitants of Syria and Anatolia. Could therefore the Me-Turan version represent an adaptation written by and/or for people who were invested in the view of Gilgamesh and Enkidu as a couple more than the average aficionado of similar poetry in ancient Mesopotamia? That would be my assumption, but you should bear in mind it is nothing more than that I am not an actual authority. I am not aware of any examples of mythical figures other than Gilgamesh and Enkidu engaging in similar endeavors. The other potentially relevant evidence comes from different genres of texts, such as omens, magical formulas and (middle Assyrian) laws. Sadly, there  isn’t much evidence for gay relationships and what there is doesn’t necessarily match the sphere of myth, to put it lightly (the aforementioned legal texts, in particular, are not exactly pleasant to read). For what it’s worth, there are sporadic references to love magic meant to guarantee the love of a man for another man, alongside the much more common straight variations (both with men and women as targets of the ritual). I will not address the issue of the galla (not to be confused with the homonymous underworld constables!) and similar priestly classes here as the matter is not settled, and many researchers involved are hardly rigorous (this article in particular is a nightmare but it’s not much better elsewhere). All that can be said about the galla with certainty is that they were lamentation singers. It has been argued that they were possibly regarded as possessing a distinct, unique identity, but what that entailed is hard to tell. It does appear that their mythical counterparts in Inanna’s Descent, the two entities created by Enki, are genderless, at the very least. Galla priests performed songs in a “dialect” of Sumerian, emesal, popularly understood as “women’s speech” - however, it’s not really an accurate translation. While the precise meaning is unclear, something like “high pitched speech” might be more appropriate. Emesal is sometimes regarded as a “sociolect” spoken by a specific group (ie. women) but it’s actually more likely to be first and foremost a “genrelect” reserved for specific liturgical purposes according to recent research. As summed up by Piotr Michalowski in a very brief encyclopedic summary, it appears to be “restricted to direct speech of goddesses and women in certain types of literary texts, in particular lamentations.” Bear in mind even this use is not universal: Dumuzi speaks emesal in some texts, Inanna does not in others. Enheduanna, arguably the most famous woman in Mesopotamian history, did not write in emesal, even when it came to direct speech; meanwhile, there are references to purification specialists - who were not galla - reciting emesal texts. Emesal aside - no primary sources actually discuss the sexuality of the galla to any meaningful degree and it’s not even certain if all galla were assigned male at birth, to put it in modern terms. Therefore, any such assumptions pertaining to them are just speculation, often with a dash of vintage orientalism thrown in for good measure. That’s it for men. How about women? As noted by Frans Wiggermann in his brief and somewhat flawed overview of references to sexuality in Sumerian and Akkadian texts there are no known direct references to women attracted to women and to relevant activity in any primary sources (I think there is a passage in a late hymn to Nanaya which might be an exception, I wrote about it a few months ago). He provides no clear explanation for this, though he notes that most scribes were obviously men aligned with the dominant power structures. This state of affairs largely shapes the character and contents of many sources. I personally think it’s safe to say that the fact the literacy rate among men was much higher than among women is at least partially to blame.

Female literacy, religiosity and relationships between women in myths

Generally speaking, the level of literacy even in cultures with a rich scribal tradition was naturally pretty low in the bronze and iron ages, with the only estimate I found (pretty old, I should note) being 2-5% for “western Asia and Egypt” collectively. These are therefore presumably the figures we can apply to ancient Mesopotamia for example in the Ur III and early Old Babylonian periods, when many of the famous myths developed in their presently known textual forms. While it was not entirely impossible for a woman to become a scribe, or to learn how to write through other means (ex. as part of a noblewoman’s preparation for courtly life), it was much less common for them than for men. For instance, only between 4 and 6 (2 cases are uncertain) scribes or scholars identified by name in colophons of known texts were women. Of course, not every text has a colophon with such information, so it’s not impossible that we in fact know more texts written or copied by women, but whose authorship will never be possible to prove. It’s also worth noting these few examples indicate the presence of women (not many, but still) on most stages of scribal education. Nameless female scribes also at times appear in economic documents. Nevertheless, references to women in other similar professions are somewhat infrequent. The exception to this was female physicians, who were generally expected to be literate. I’ve gathered some more detailed information here.                                                                     This perhaps is somewhat of a reach, but I personally assume both the lack of references to romantic relations between women and the relatively small number of compositions dealing with bonds between female deities seemingly not based on blood relation (and even the latter are hardly common!) can be attributed to the comparatively small number of female scribes, outlined above. A similar argument has been advanced by Alhena Gadotti, though in reference to mortal women as characters in texts copied in scribal schools: women “were generally not part of the cultural, political, and economic elite that the Old Babylonian scribal schools produced and therefore did not play a particularly prominent part in the corpus.” As remarked by Joan G. Westenholz and Julia M. Asher-Greve, interest in female deities was somewhat higher among women than men -  “numerous women chose the temple of a goddess for their votive gifts (...), or preferred the cult of a goddess (...), or have names composed with that of a goddess, or are depicted worshiping a goddess” [on cylinder seals - clarification mine]. It’s of course impossible to deal in absolutes, though - there’s ample evidence for personal devotion to gods like Shamash, Zababa, Dagan or Marduk among women, and to goddesses such as Inanna, Ninisina or Namma among men; kings were almost always men but there is a fair share of areas where the source of kingship was at least in certain time periods held to be a female deity - Ninisina in Isin in the Isin-Larsa period, Ishara in Ebla c. 1700 BCE, Belet Nagar, nomen omen, in Nagar in the Old Babylonian period, Inanna in Uruk at various points in time, etc. Still, I think the point might be valid.

A possible depiction of Geshtinanna and Geshtindudu (Goddesses in Context by J. M. Asher-Greve and W. G. Westenholz, p. 387; identified as such on p. 168) Other than Inanna and Ninshubur in Inanna’s Descent and a number of other sources, the only two goddesses I am aware of who appear to share a close bond in myths and aren’t a mother-daughter pair (like Nisaba and Sud/Ninlil or Ninhursag and Ninkasi) are Dumuzi’s sister Geshtinanna and a certain Geshtindudu, who are to my knowledge not attested outside of a small handful of mythical fragments. Julia M. Asher-Greve outright describes these two as “divine girlfriends' ' - I presume not in the romantic sense, though. This is probably just a paraphrase of the ETCSL translation of Dumuzid’s Dream which indeed introduces Geshtindudu as “Her [Geshtinanna’s] girl friend.” Asher-Greve also speaks of it as “one of the few relationships between goddesses based on friendship.” As for other relations based on friendship: I’ve seen references to a myth(?) about Ninisina and Nintinugga - the medicine goddess par excellence and her small time “ersatz” from Nippur -  visiting each other (source; it’s on p. 5), but I have not been able to locate it so I can’t tell if it should count as another example. Additionally, while the myth Enlil and Sud deals first and foremost with the relationship between Sud and her mother Ninlil and with her tumultuous romance with Enlil, it seems a poorly preserved section also had Sud interact with Enlil’s sister Aruru (who you may know as the creator of Enkidu in the Epic of Gilgamesh). Given how Enlil and Sud generally seems to have notably more “Ninlil-centric” outlook than its “rival” myth Enlil and Ninlil (which treats Ninlil, a popular and high-ranking deity, oddly poorly), perhaps this should be counted as an example too, though it has been argued the passage might simply indicate that the bridegroom’s sibling played some role in traditional marriage rites. While each of these myths surely could be an interesting topic, I sadly won’t discuss them in detail here (do expect a post on Enlil and Sud at some point, though), as the this article is ultimately about Inanna’s Descent and other sources pertaining to Ninshubur.

Inanna’s Descent once more

While I already provided a brief overview of Inanna’s Descent earlier, the fact that its contents are frequently misinterpreted - often by authors with no knowledge but a large audience - means that some more context is needed. From Jungian nonsense (with all due respect for Olga Tokarczuk, whose works I generally enjoy, her Anna In w grobowcach świata falls into this category) and weird attempts at elevating Ereshkigal well beyond the rank attributed to her in antiquity to a baffling attempt at understanding the myth in Nietzschean terms, Inanna’s Descent is arguably among the most tormented Mesopotamian literary texts, both online and offline. To begin with, it’s important to place it in the context of Sumerian beliefs regarding proper care for the dead. As we can learn from a variety of sources, from myths to prayers to personal letters, the Sumerians viewed mourning and other related matters as incredibly important. Mourning  was expressed in many forms, though particularly notable were funerary libations - you can find a reference to this even in the discussed myth: she offers generous libations at his wake, proclaims Inanna about the purported funeral of Ereshkigal’s supposed late husband. Elsewhere, the city of Enegi, associated particularly closely with the cult of the dead, is itself called the “libation pipe of the earth.” Known texts stress that close family, such as spouses, siblings, or children, should be involved in funerary rites. As a matter of fact, from some texts we learn that the status of the dead in the underworld depends entirely on their close ones’ proper adherence to funerary customs. The important role of family in mourning rites creates a problem for the narrative of Inanna’s Descent: Ninshubur is not exactly a family member. She is a courtier. While the “public figures” of ancient Mesopotamia were often mourned publicly by a large number of people, here the mourning seems to be private. As far as I understand - Ninshubur is essentially instructed to act as a family member would. Following the usual genealogy of Inanna, there is no real place for Ninshubur on her family tree, as it is generally safe to assume Inanna’s parents are Nanna and Ningal, while she is herself childless. In fact, there is no strong indication Ninshubur was even conceptualized as part of a family tree in the first place. As noted by Frans Wiggermann, texts are largely silent about her parentage. To be fair this is not uncommon for servant deities, divine spouses (even the most prominent ones like Aya and Shala have no established genealogy!) and the like. Curiously, Ninshubur’s mourning is described in very similar terms as that of Ningishzida’s wife Ninazimua in a composition possibly dealing with the former’s death, as Jeremy Black and Judith Pfitzner remarked in their respective articles about the composition Ningishzida and Ninazimua. Of course, this alone is not exactly a strong argument, as parallels can be drawn between these and the figures of mourning sisters and mothers in other texts dealing with deaths of gods. Still, it does appear to be somewhat of an outlier to have a servant, rather than a relative, express grief in such a composition. It’s worth noting that while the only example we have is Inanna’s Descent, we know from preserved Sumerian catalogs of hymns and other similar compositions that  there were a considerable number of currently lost texts which dealt with Ninshubur’s grief over something that happened to Inanna. Whether this was a different version of the story or some other, presently unknown, sorrowful event (perhaps banishment only known from an incredibly fragmentary text?) is impossible to tell. A number of researchers, most recently Dina Katz, have proposed that Inanna’s Descent as we know it was in reality the result of combining multiple older narratives, as it only dates back to the Old Babylonian period. I speculate that the aforementioned unknown Ninshubur texts could perhaps have been predecessors to the version of the myth we see today.  Such a process of development was not uncommon for Mesopotamian myths. Both Epic of Gilgamesh and Enuma Elish are well known examples. Additionally, this theory explains the dissonance between the usual character of Dumuzi and his relationship with Inanna, known from countless love songs, and that presented in Inanna’s Descent. Katz argues that this presently purely theoretical “original” did not feature Dumuzi - Inanna was saved by Ninshubur’s intervention and Enki’s trick alone, and the addition of a replacement for her seems superficial given the presence of “water of life” in the myth. Inanna’s Descent wasn’t the only myth in which she appears which also served as explanation of Dumuzi’s death, as I already mentioned much earlier - in Inanna and Bilulu, for instance, she tracks down the killer instead (given the extreme level of violence, it would perhaps be fair to call the author a Sumerian Tarantino). At the same time, is somewhat unique in portraying Dumuzi’s death as being the result of his own shortcomings - something which probably indicates the compilers were more invested in Inanna than him, and that perhaps the goal was to merge as many different elements as possible into a coherent tale. As a small digression I should note this is not the most negative portrayal of Dumuzi in known sources: late enigmatic lists of so-called “Seven Conquered Enlils” (in which the name is used just as a title, something like “lord”) place Dumuzi in the company of various well known mythical antagonists, like Tiamat, Asag or Mummu, not to mention the mysterious cosmogonic figure Enmesharra, whose disposition is generally villainous too, as seen for example in the text Enlil and Namzitara. The change in focus from Inanna (or rather than equivalent of her) to Dumuzi only occurs in a very vague adaptation of Inanna’s Descent - the 1st millennium BCE Ishtar’s Descent. While Inanna’s Descent is known from nearly 50 copies, found anywhere from the major cities of Mesopotamia like Ur and Nippur to scribal schools located on the western periphery of the “cuneiform world,” the other myth has only a handful of them, all of exclusively Assyrian provenance. The myths are often conflated online, which leads to horrific misconceptions. Katz argues that the latter myth represents an attempt at state revival of Dumuzi’s (or, to be more accurate, Tammuz’s, as the name was rendered in Akkadian) cult undertaken by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which strikes me as a convincing argument. The change in focus is rather surprising, as the dying god par excellence, as noted by Berndt Alster, “did not belong to the leading deities in any period of Mesopotamian history” (unlike Ninshubur!). A huge difference between Inanna’s Descent and Ishtar’s Descent is the absence of Ninshubur. In the latter myth, Papsukkal, a male messenger deity associated with Anu (and, at an early stage, with the war god Zababa, at home in Kish, modern Tell al-Uhaymir in central Iraq), makes an appearance instead, introduced not as a personal attendant of the heroine, but simply as a servant of the “great gods” collectively. What’s also missing are any references to the instructions regarding mourning and petitioning other gods on her behalf. Evidently, whatever factors resulted in the portrayal of Ninshubur in Inanna’s Descent did not apply to Papsukkal. However, it’s important to stress that the very focus of Inanna’s Descent is different from that of Ishtar’s Descent.  Dina Katz noted that while Ishtar’s Descent as a whole seems to be focused on the matter of very broadly understood fertility, “we cannot associate Inanna’s death and revival with procreation in nature nor with fertility in general,” contrary to what one can often read online. After all, fertility is a matter an agricultural deity would be much more concerned with, and Inanna’s Descent is ultimately not focused on Dumuzi and Geshtinanna, the only figures associated with agriculture in the original myth. At the time when the new myth had most likely been composed, Ninshubur was hardly a relevant figure, having seemingly lost her relevance at some point during the Kassite period, in the mid to late second millennium BCE. However, it’s not like the first millennium Ishtar (the myth does not associate her with a specific location like Assur, Nineveh or Arbela) didn’t have a variety of female courtiers who could’ve made an appearance in the myth in her stead.  A particularly notable example is the well-attested incorporation of Hurrian Ninatta and Kulitta, a duo of goddesses sharing a rather close relation in myths with Shaushka, the “Ishtar of Subartu” as she was sometimes called, into Assyrian Ishtar cults. Coincidentally, there is no evidence for female scribes in the first millennium BCE, the time of the “translation’s” composition (I put that in quotation marks because while the text is often  incorrectly labeled as such, it was actually, as outlined above, pretty much a new myth). Was this a factor in the evident change in sensibilities between Inanna’s Descent and Ishtar’s Descent? Hard to tell, but I personally would not rule it out. To sum up: ultimately, what is important for the subject of the article are two facts about Inanna’s Descent: 1. Ninshubur acts as one would expect a family member 2. Her bond with Inanna is uniquely close The evidence for the two points above does not start or end with Inanna’s Descent alone.

Beyond Inanna’s Descent: Ninshubur, sukkals and “wife goddesses”

Probably the strongest argument in favor of viewing Inanna and Ninshubur as uniquely close is the use of an uncommon synonym of the word sukkal, SAL.ḪUB2 (reading uncertain; the 2 should be subscript but tumblr doesn’t allow that, it seems), to refer to the latter. This term is very sparsely attested and only ever used to a handful of deities, exclusively sukkals, in all cases to indicate they are very closely associated with their divine “employers.” In addition to Ninshubur, it occurs for example in relation to Enlil’s sukkal Nuska, envisioned at times as a son of Enlil’s distant ancestors Enul and Ninul and a senior deity in his own right, and to Nabu, Marduk’s sukkal turned son turned pantheon head. I sadly have no access to an article which apparently decisively established its meaning - Vizir, concubine, entonnoir... Comment lire et comprendre le signe SAL.ḪUB2? by Antoine Cavigneaux and Frans Wiggermann - but thanks to the help of a friend I was able to learn a few months ago that, in their words, the authors conclude that it denotes a sukkal “who is dear or intimate.” This interpretation is presumably supported by the fact that in one of the few texts using this term (seemingly the one which is actually largely responsible for scholarly interest in establishing its meaning), Ninshubur is referred to as Inanna’s “beloved SAL.ḪUB2“ and appears among her family members - while her parents, brother, etc. are listed first, Ninshubur’s relation is seemingly more significant than that of in-laws in it, for what it’s worth. Other courtiers, like Nanaya, do not make an appearance. One more possible source is a curiosity from the Hittite capital from Hattusa (located near modern village Boğazkale in central Turkey), specifically a ritual related to the goddess Pinikir. This is (tragically) not the time and place to discuss Pinikir in detail, but it will suffice to say that she was understood as reasonably Inanna- or Ishtar-like. While the text in mention comes from a Hurro-Hittite milieu (Hittites, relatively “young” by the standards of Ancient Near East, viewed Hurrian culture as prestigious), it was written in Akkadian, and it’s primarily concerned with an Elamite goddess, making it uniquely cosmopolitan. Pinikir, whose name is spelled logographically as ISHTAR there, is invited to come alongside her family to receive offerings. She is described as the daughter of Nanna and Ningal and twin sister of Utu/Shamash; the other two figures invoked, Ea/Enki (addressed as “your [ie. Pinikir’s] creator”) and the goddess’ sukkal, instantly bring a variety of myths to mind (Descent, of course, but also Inanna and Enki and the less known Agushaya texts). The name of the sukkal, however, is Ilabrat, spelled syllabically. As far as I am aware, such a pairing is not attested anywhere else, and Ilabrat is generally speaking only Anu’s sukkal, unlike Ninshubur and even Papsukkal, who have multiple roles. While the researcher most involved in the study of this text, Gary Beckman, makes no such connection, I personally think it’s possible that a hypothetical forerunner to this late text featured Ninshubur. Beckman on linguistic grounds concludes Hurrians likely adopted Pinikir, and a variety of rituals connected to her and her usual associate, the enigmatic deity DINGIR.GE6 (“Goddess of the Night”; reading of the name remains unknown; once again, the numer should be subscript, once again), from a Mesopotamian intermediary and not directly from Elam. He proposes that the transfer happened during the period of well-attested intense Sumero-Hurrian contacts in the late third or early second millennium BCE (the text in mention, meanwhile, is no older than the 14th century BCE, I believe). This, coincidentally, was also a time of immense interest in Ninshubur, including theological texts presenting her as one of the “great gods,” side by side with Enlil, Ninlil, Inanna, Ninurta and the like. Perhaps much later on a Hittite scribe, not necessarily fully aware of Ninshubur’s existence (she was, after all, not really a deity of any relevance anymore in the late Bronze Age), worked with older Hurrian material which originally had Ninshubur in this role, but assumed the name is merely a logographic spelling of Ilabrat’s, a phenomenon attested in many locations in the Old Babylonian period? This is only my own, not necessarily valid, speculation, though. Another curiosity is a text in which Inanna calls Ninshubur “mother” - this, however, is not a statement of actual kinship, but rather of respect. Senior gods of the pantheon are often called “father” or “mother” by other deities regardless of actual parentage. Such statements aren’t even necessarily reflections of alternate genealogies or anything of that sort. A good example can be found even just in Inanna’s Descent: Ninshubur addresses Enlil, Nanna and Enki this way, even though none of them are attested as her actual father (and only Nanna was regarded as Inanna’s father between these 3). Presumably Ninshubur’s recurring participation in Inanna’s adventures, and her capability to appease her or to “soothe her heart” was worthy of such reverence.

Impression of a cylinder seal depicting a mediating goddess, possibly Ninshubur as indicated by accompanying inscription (Goddesses in Context by J. M. Asher-Greve and W. G. Westenholz, p. 406; identified as such on p. 207)

Impression of a cylinder seal possibly depicting Ninshubur (middle) interceding between governor of Lagash, Lugal-ushumgal, and the Akkadian king Shar-Kali-Sharri (wikimedia commons; goddess identified as Ninshubur in Goddesses in Context by J. M. Asher-Greve and W. G. Westenholz, p. 180) The closeness between Inanna and Ninshubur wasn’t limited to texts of mythical nature, and had a very real religious dimension too. Ninshubur was a common object of popular devotion, appearing in personal names, in seal inscriptions, and in other similar sources because she was believed to be capable of mediating with Inanna (and with other deities  as well, on the account of being a divine messenger and diplomat). While a sukkal could act as a mediator in the cult of their master, most sukkals are deities with no personality, no individual role in myths and limited, if any popularity: for instance, Ishkur’s sukkal is simply the deified lightning, Nimgir. The difference between Ninshubur and Inanna and that which existed between most sukkals and their masters has been described by Frans Wiggermann as that between  “command and execution” and “cause and effect.” To my knowledge very few other sukkals maintained the degree of popularity Ninshubur enjoyed, a notable exception being Nuska. Both of them were listed among the “great gods” every now and then: for example, in a text from the reign of the Third Dynasty of Ur (as I already noted, seemingly a period of prosperity for Ninshubur) both appear side by side with Enlil, Ninlil, Nanna, Inanna, Ninurta, Nergal and Utu - the creme de la creme of the pantheon. Ninshubur is also the only sukkal whose role I’ve seen compared to that of the “wife goddesses” (this is not a genuine scholarly term, I use it for simplicity’s sake). Julia M. Asher-Greve and Joan G. Westenholz specifically draw parallels between her role in Inanna’s cult with that played by Aya, the type specimen of the “wife goddesses” (her to-go epithet is quite literally “the bride,” kallatum) in the cult of Inanna’s solar twin. Of course, this does not indicate that she was ever seen as Inanna’s spouse - but it does at the very least show that it wouldn’t be entirely impossible to claim she was close to that status. While there is no known evidence for Ninshubur status actually moving between that of wife and sukkal when it comes to Inanna, it should be noted that she, as a matter of fact, does move between these two roles in one very specific case.  In the area of Lagash and Girsu (modern Al-Hiba and Telloh in Iraq), especially in the third millennium BCE, Ninshubur was associated with Nergal (well, Meslamtaea, as he was typically called in the south early on in Mesopotamian history). As remarked by Wilfred G. Lambert, Ninshubur in this context appears to show up both as sukkal and, unexpectedly, as Nergal’s wife (Nergal’s love life seems to be a rather complex matter). This is rather unique as Ninshubur was generally viewed as unmarried. I don’t think Nergal is exactly similar to Inanna - though both deities share a warlike character - but this association, especially coupled with the modern observations regarding Ninshubur and Aya - does appear to support the idea that you could see Ninshubur likewise moving between status of sukkal and wife when it comes to Inanna. Especially taking into account that, as far as I am aware, it is only Inanna in relation to whom she gets to be a SAL.ḪUB2.

Ninshubur as the lesbian Enkidu?

One final point I’d like to make is that it is possible to make a number of comparisions between Ninshubur’s status to that of the only unambiguously attested gay love interest in Mesopotamian mythology, Enkidu.

A little discussed (outside scholarly circles, that is) aspect of the relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu which I’ve already mentioned early in the article is the fact that in the oldest sources do not yet present the latter as the “wild man” created to serve as a foil to Gilgamesh by the gods. Instead, he is the king’s courtier or servant, though a very close one - a status not too dissimilar from Ninshubur’s connection to Inanna in mythical context.

Obviously, the development from servant to cherished companion to lover was gradual, and presumably how the relationship was perceived varied too. Still, it’s worth stressing that while integral to Enkidu as a character in our modern perception, his origin story was actually a novelty compared to his position as Gilgamesh’s beloved, which predates the composition of a singular Epic of Gilgamesh. According to Andrew R. George, it’s possible that his newer “backstory” was meant to stress that to develop as a character Gilgamesh had to interact with a challenger completely from the outside of own sphere.

As a linguistic curiosity it’s worth mentioning that in the old standalone poems Enkidu’s position has been described in a few cases (for example in Gilgamesh and Akka or in Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Netherworld) with the poetic term shubur-a-ni, which shares its etymology with Ninshubur’s name. “Shubur” is a term referring to the land also known as Subartu - the areas north of Mesopotamia, inhabited chiefly by Hurrians, or “Subarians,” as Mespotamians called them. However, it also acquired the meaning of “servant.”

You may therefore ask if Ninshubur was the “Lady of Subartu” in origin, perhaps a “Subarian” equivalent of the god Martu/Amurru who embodied traits associated with “Westerners” (that is, Amorites from Syria) or was she always just “Lady of Servants” as Frans Wiggermann interprets her name? That’s hard to tell. Nothing prevents her from being both at once, as acknowledged even by the aforementioned author, especially taking into account that Hurrians were present in Mesopotamia on all levels of society in the 3rd millennium BCE already. Speculating about her origin, fascinating as it is, ultimately is not the concern here.

Another prominent similarity between Enkidu and Ninshubur is that based on a variety of texts the latter fulfilled an important, rather specific role in  Inanna’s life, serving as a source of good advice, a characteristic also well attested for Enkidu. In Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Netherworld it is the loss of this advice that Gilgamesh laments after it turns out his friend cannot come back to life (a passage which George interprets as one of the early examples of the tradition according to which the two of them were in love). It should be noted that in Ninshubur’s case whether her advice was followed or not is a complicated matter - as we learn from one composition, one of Inanna’s abilities is knowing when to disregard both bad and good advice.

Finally, there is a less direct similarity. It is undeniable that Inanna and Gilgamesh both have heterosexual relationships with other characters, but Enkidu actually doesn’t in sources predating the development of his backstory, and I’ve already outlined Ninshubur’s marital status before. However, Inanna’s and Gilgamesh’s heterosexual relationships are not necessarily emphasized in compositions dealing with their adventures. It is instead their relationships with their respective “sidekicks” that commonly come to the forefront. In Gilgamesh’s and Enkidu’s case, this requires no examples, as various episodes from the Epic are well known. Similarly, in addition to her role in Inanna’s Descent, Ninshubur also appears in the myth Inanna and Enki, where she likewise defends the eponymous heroine from any harm which may befall her - in this case at the hands of Enki’s guards, rather than underworld demons. Ninshubur also praises Inanna after the daring scheme appears to work, leading to the transfer of me (divine powers) to Uruk.

Finally, there is the myth known as Agushaya or, in older literature, Ea and Saltu. While the relations between specific deities in it generally speaking reflects the Sumerian texts which formed the base of the scribal curriculum in the Old Babylonian period, it is presently only known from Akkadian versions. What makes it somewhat of a curiosity is the presence of Ninshubur, otherwise almost exclusively present in literary texts written in Sumerian - perhaps a lost Sumerian original awaits us somewhere out there. While the text uses the name Ishtar to refer to the protagonist, her relation with Ninshubur mirrors Inanna’s in the two texts above.

Saltu (“Strife”), mentioned in the title, is essentially a hostile copy of the heroine, formed by Ea out of dirt from underneath his fingers (note the similarity to Enki’s preferred mode of creation in Inanna’s Descent). Ninshubur apparently provides her mistress with information about this new adversary, whose very appearance fills her with fear. It has been argued by Benjamin R. Foster that a set of odd scribal errors which recur in the passage is meant to be a unique way to render agitated stuttering. Sadly, the middle of the text is not preserved, making it impossible to tell if Ninshubur played any other role in it beyond that.

Closing remarks

The examples above do not show that anyone actually viewed Inanna and Ninshubur as a couple, and it is not my goal to prove decisively that anyone did at the time of the discussed texts’ composition. While obviously there definitely were women attracted to other women in every time and place (how was it expressed and whether modern labels could be easily applied to them is a different matter), it is ultimately not really possible to determine whether they left behind any indirect traces in Mesopotamian textual sources, and how to locate them. The only point which I believe I’ve been able to prove above is that Ninshubur’s relationship with Inanna is uniquely close.  As such, both this connection and Ninshubur’s character and broader role in Mesopotamian religion deserve more scholarly attention (can you believe there is no monograph on the concept of sukkal yet?) and more presence in the public perception of Mesopotamian mythology, and  more specifically Inanna’s Descent I do personally think there are grounds to debate whether there is subtext in the discussed myths. Even if it was not intended by their authors nearly 4000 years ago, it is hard to deny that from a modern perspective the implications are certainly there. If nothing else, discussing this topic could possibly make the study of relationships between women in ancient texts - not necessarily romantic ones, mind you - more prominent than it is now, both among academics and laypeople. Additionally I think the discussed topic deserves exploration in fiction. As I’ve pointed out above, using the example of Gilgamesh and the reinterpretation of stories about him, certain aspects of myths could be emphasized or de-emphasized to match the expectations of new audiences, without the core of the story being lost. I think this still holds true. Ultimately what I want to say is not “Ninshubur is clearly gay in Inanna’s Descent,” it’s “wouldn’t it be interesting to consider if she was, and whether the ancient sources make it viable?” And that is the question I would like to leave you, the reader, with.

Bibliography

J. M. Asher-Greve, J. G. Westenholz, Goddesses in Context: On Divine Powers, Roles, Relationships and Gender in Mesopotamian Textual and Visual Sources

B. Alster, Inanna Repenting: The Conclusion of Inanna’s Descent - can’t vouch for the site this is hosted on, but it was originally published in a credible journal

B. Alster, Tammuz(/Dumuzi) (Reallexikon der Assyriologie entry)

G. Beckman, Babyloniaca Hethitica: The "babilili-Ritual" from Bogazköy (CTH 718)

G. Beckman, Gilgamesh in Hatti

G. Beckman, The Goddess Pirinkir and Her Ritual from Ḫattuša (CTH 644)

G. Beckman, When Heroes Love: The Ambiguity of Eros in the Stories of Gilgamesh and David (review)

J. Black, Ning̃išzida and Ninazimua

A. Cavigneaux, F. A. M. Wiggermann, Vizir, concubine, entonnoir... Comment lire et comprendre le signe SAL.ḪUB2?

M. Civil, Enlil and Ninlil: The Marriage of Sud

B. Dedovic, "Inanna's Descent to the Netherworld": A centennial survey of scholarship, artifacts, and translations

B. R. Foster, Ea and Saltu

A. Gadotti, Portraits of the Feminine in Sumerian Literature

A. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts

D. Katz, How Dumuzi Became Inanna's Victim: On the Formation of "Inanna's Descent"

D. Katz, Inanna's Descent and Undressing the Dead as a divine law

D. Katz, Myth and Ritual through Tradition and Innovation

D. Katz, Sumerian Funerary Rituals in Context

S. N. Kramer, Two British Museum iršemma "Catalogues"

W. G. Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths - sadly not open access

W. G. Lambert, Introductory Considerations

A. Löhnert, Scribes and singers of Emesal lamentations in ancient Mesopotamia in the second millennium BCE

N. N. May, Female Scholars in Mesopotamia?

P. Michalowski, Emesal (Sumerian dialect) (The Encyclopedia of Ancient History entry)

P. Michalowski, Literacy in Early States: A Mesopotamianist Perspective

S. Nowicki, Women and References to Women in Mesopotamian Royal Inscriptions. An Overview from the Early Dynastic to the End of Ur III Period

J. Peterson, The Banishment of Inana

J. Peterson, UET 6/1, 74, the Hymnic Introduction of a Sumerian Letter-Prayer to Ninšubur (ZA 106)

J. Pfitzner, Ninĝišzida and Ninazimua, Nippur version l. 104 (=Ur version l. 40)

P. Pongratz-Leisten, Comments on the Translatability of Divinity: Cultic and Theological Responses to the Presence of the Other in the Ancient near East

E. Robson, Gendered literacy and numeracy in the Sumerian literary corpus

G. J. Selz, Female Sages in the Sumerian Tradition of Mesopotamia - careful with the final few paragraphs: the author is a bit too enthusiastic about the so-called “Helsinki school” which sees Mesopotamia as little more than source of dubious evidence for greater than in reality antiquity of specific currents in early Christianity and in broader gnostic tradition; for a criticism of the core ideas of the Helsinki school see this review by J. Cooper

T. Sharlach, Foreign Influences on the Religion of the Ur III Court

M. P. Streck, Nusku (Reallexikon der Assyriologie entry)

A. G. Ventura, Review of "Women's Writing in Ancient Mesopotamia. An Anthology of the Earliest Female Authors" (Charles Halton & Saana Svärd, 2018)

M. Viano, The Reception of Sumerian Literature in the Western Periphery

G. Whittaker, Linguistic Anthropology and the Study of Emesal as (a) Women's Language - note that some of Whittaker’s other writing on Sumerian language is dubious at best (especially his quest for an “Indo-European substrate” in it; for overview of theories about substrates in Sumerian and explanation why they are faulty see On the Alleged "Pre-Sumerian Substratum" by G. Rubio); I am merely using this article as a point of reference for information about Enheduanna’s writing

F. A. M. Wiggermann, An Unrecognized Synonym of Sumerian Sukkal

F. A. M. Wiggermann, Nergal A. Philological (Reallexikon der Assyriologie entry)

F. A. M. Wiggermann, Nin-šubur (Reallexikon der Assyriologie entry)

F. A. M. Wiggermann, Sexuality A. In Mesopotamia (Reallexikon der Assyriologie entry) - do not take it at face value though, at least one of the sources is pretty much a nightmare, make sure to read a critical review by A. R. George