oh also can we talk about how wicks sexually harasses jud for nine months? can we talk about that? the fact that it’s confirmed he’s LYING the whole time, because he’s unable to even get an erection, but nonetheless makes Jud sit through countless stories of detailed descriptions of his masturbation during confessionals. like. why have i not seen anyone talking about that yet. maybe bc the film doesn’t make it a super firm point to question Jud’s innocence (i mean it does, but we’re meant to believe his innocence) but like. if you had a reason to kill someone, NINE MONTHS OF SEXUAL HARRASSMENT might be up there on the list of reasons for “hatred in your heart”. idk
I want to talk about Vox in incompatible frequencies by @elsa-fogen and speficaly Vox at this point on the timeline. I will be talking about sex but in a ideological way not in a explicit way. (Also I'm not here to be sympathetic. I'm here to study him like bug.)
The way this is the first time I've ever thought. "wow Valintino would make him better." Like he would though. In the 15 ish years between Vox breaking up with Al and geting with Val had to been quite possibly the darkest time in Vox's life. More importantly for us this is the time where Vox's ideals from the 50s would go most unchallenged.
Purity culture especially in America is so werid about sex. Especially if you have the misfortune of geting to hear older conservative people talk about it. It is talked about in literal magical terms. This idea is much less common in younger generations but I have hurd the idea that haveing sex ties your souls together in a permanent way. Normaly this is to be like so only have sex in marriage because outherwise someone could run off with a peice of your soul. Also a reason for them to be anti divorce. Also the idea that if you have stright sex now you have to marry that person shotgun wedding style.
This kind of thinking besides being obviously false on it's face would be destroyed by Vox meeting Val. By the time we get to present Vox he has likely caught on to the fact that sex is just a thing people do.
Which Vox is using magical thinking about the deal. I wouldn't put it past him to be thinking in explict terms of soul binding especially scence here Vox has recently learned thay souls not only litterly exist but can be bought, owned and even gambled. Why wouldn't that superstition be true when so many outher ones where.
The irony is that Alastor from the roaring 20s would in no way share this viwe and would probably see it as the bold face misogyny that if is. Why do Valentino and Alastor likely have similar views on sex as a consept by virtue of being more sexually liberated decades. Means Vox in the 50s was in the mists of some of the most agressive sexual oppression ever. Also some of the strongest anti gay laws to have ever existed. Shout out to the lavender scare.
Speaking of misogyny sexual and demistic violence was extreamly comon if not borderline encouraged. Just because Alastor happends to be a guy doesn't undo a life time of being trained to see your partner as your property. The masculin urge to kill your romantic intrest.
Also the idea of consent in the 50s as much as there was one was based on the idea of ownership. Either your married and your wife is your property or she's still her dad's property. Men mostly didn't get any consent protections from my understanding and if they did in theory it would be less so in pratice.
I'm going to chew his wires and spit him out. This comic has put worms in my brain can you tell.
𐂥 𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒 · · · the value of your life depends on the value of his words, and that is the only certainty in this world, though the meanders of his decisions are as serpentine as the ones of a river. what he wishes to say, he says. what he wants to see, he sees. but a fool he would be if he did not treasure what others dreamt of owning — you.
𐂥 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓 · · · set in semi-canon semi-realistic period of his rule in uruk, depending on the source, so perhaps historical au (???), hurt/comfort if you squint, misogyny, objectification, vague mentions of an attempted sexual assault (not by gilgamesh, but he is a bit mean and mocking despite comforting you), threatening women to humiliate their husbands, sort of exhibitionism, softer approach in the later part of the fic, he does care for you and his people — he’s just very harsh lol
𐂥 𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑’𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄 · · · i promise this is a very tame fic!!! it’s just… intense. like he is. the title comes from his gift of clairvoyance “the omniscient omnipotent star” (sha naqba imuru). there’s genuinely no smut or any explicit descriptions, but there are subtle implications. thank you and please enjoy! btw the divider is a line from the original inscription of the epic!
The summoning comes like a thunder from the sunlit heavens, a call sent through the scorching wind running along the corridors of the palace.
Some may say that the word of what happened to you has reached King Gilgamesh himself; some would guess it was Siduri or another priestess. But anyone who had the chance to meet him in person knows that just one look into his eyes, carnelian, blood in colour, reveals to him all the hidden truths. One-third human and two-thirds god, no insolence passes by in his kingdom unnoticed, like a prey hunted by those very eyes.
You are whisked away from the courtyard by silent attendants, your robe hastily adjusted over the sticky imprints pulsing with disgust on your skin, your heart pounding a frantic rhythm against your ribs — a mix of dread and fragile hope, a confusion of scenes transpiring too quickly.
What will the King of Heroes decree? Will he see you as sullied goods, unworthy of his divine gaze, or something entirely else?
The thought coils in your mind like smoke from a brazier, for you are no one, really, maybe but a vessel for the gods’ whispers if you try hard enough at the temple — like everyone else, you still bend to his will.
In the throne room, you dare not look up from the floor, following veins of lapis cutting through the stone that mimic the rivers of Sumer. The guards, these wretched dogs, stand assembled before the dais, their bodies glinting dully from perspiration from the afternoon heat (and you know that also from the interrupted game only they would’ve enjoyed), faces pale and slick with the sweat of impending judgement.
Before you can even cling to Siduri, your mentor and the current head priestess of one of the temples, you are positioned at Gilgamesh’s side, brought despite reluctance, close enough to feel the warmth emanating from his perfectly proportioned body, like the sun’s own fire veiled in flesh. No wonder priests call him the very personification of Shamash’s seed.
Your heart is but a wild bird trapped in your chest; he could have cast you aside like a cracked bowl, replacing you with any untouched maiden from the temple groves or a silken courtesan from the hanging gardens. Yet here you stand, in his shadow, your body still humming with the memory of rough hands that dared trespass, not far, which is all, merely, you can be thankful for.
Without preamble, his arm snakes around your waist, other fingers clamping your arm. The world tilts as he yanks the folds of your robe downward in one fluid motion, exposing your breasts. The linen whispers against your skin like a lover’s sigh turned cruel, falling away to bare the soft curves, the same ones that the guards tried to possess.
You gasp, cheeks burning with a shame that floods your body like the inundation of the river; the faint scent of labdanum from your morning bath now mingled with fear and sweat.
Oh, merciful gods, why this public unveiling?
“Look upon her, you mongrels!” Gilgamesh’s voice booms forth, laced with the arrogance of one who views the world as his birthright, forcing the guards’ gazes upward. His crimson eyes pierce like bloodied spears anytime someone dares to move.
The men flinch, confronted with the sight of your half-naked body — the soft flesh yielding under his grasp, pliable, and the faint tremor in your breath that betrays your doubt. Their discomfort is palpable, their earlier courage crumbling like dried clay or burnt incense ash.
What will Siduri think of all that? Your thoughts reel, tumbling like scattered offerings. It is utter mortification, your silhouette reduced to a spectacle before men who sought to claim you, and you’re too afraid to even search for the only pair of eyes that could bring you comfort now, any of the fellow priestesses now hiding in the shadows of the columns.
But Gilgamesh has not discarded you.
You are his, after all, a possession in the king’s vast treasury, and that knowledge wraps around your humiliation like a silken cord, binding gratitude to the sting of objectification.
“You have dared to lay hands upon what is mine,” he snarls, his irises narrowing, each word dripping disdain of a demigod for lesser beings.
His hand gestures dismissively, golden rings catching the light like captured stars, then descends with a sharp smack upon your bare breast. The impact blooms fire across your skin, a stinging heat that radiates inward. You bite your lip to stifle a cry, futile, and you still whimper like a wounded animal, tasting tears of your own restraint and embarrassment.
Exposed, marked, utterly owned. But that’s different from being at the mercy of those crude guards.
This is his way of bringing justice forth, raw and brutal.
Your mind pleads for the earth to swallow you whole, the shame spilling from within in the form of salty droplets. But he has chosen to intervene, to pull you from the jaws of violation, even if his methods strip you bare in body and spirit.
A different kind of asserting dominance.
The guards shift uneasily, their eyes darting to the floor, cheeks flushing with the guilt of witnessing their king claim what they coveted — his fingers cupping the swell of your breast with an intentional possessiveness, a confusing tangle of degradation and divine favour.
“Avert your eyes no longer!” His words cut through the air like blades. “Earlier, you circled her like starved beasts, seeking to intimidate my possession — my priestess. You dogs, thought to soil my treasure with your unworthy grasp? To waste her prospects on the rut of lowly mutts? Face the humiliation you have wrought upon yourselves, for in touching what belongs to me, you have invited my wrath!”
You feel a cursed sort of relief that he has named you his, even as the exposure leaves you not your own person, your mind melting in gratitude laced with the erotic undercurrent of his authority, your body burning away the disgust from the guards’ earlier behaviour.
“Mark this well, mongrels,” Gilgamesh continues, eyes sweeping over them like a scythe through ripe barley. “The next trespass shall demand a fiercer approach. You will summon your wives before me and bear witness as I claim them, gifting them with the seed of a demigod, siring heirs that eclipse your own spawn. No longer shall your lineage fester in the shadows, ha! I will supplant it utterly, leaving you to mourn upon the fruits that take over your bloodline!”
How your skin prickles at the image he conjures, how you battle the tempest in your chest, how you want to fall to your knees and beg him not to involve others, not other women, not hurt them over their husbands’ wrongdoings, but you only shudder in his grip like a withered desert rose.
Mercy, great gods, have mercy, and teach the great king how to use it!
The gathered crowd recoils as if scorched; courtiers and attendants press against the walls, fingers grazing the columns like roots digging into the ground. The women, especially — priestesses with their hennaed hands clasped over amulets of lapis and carnelian — shrink back most keenly, their eyes wide with dread.
“My king, I—” you start, but a mere whisper, but your voice dies in your throat.
“Begone from my sight, and let this lesson carve itself into your marrow,” Gilgamesh says to all, ignoring the way you clutch to his arm. “The rest of you return to your labours. This spectacle ends.”
With a disdainful flick of his wrist, golden bracelets clinking like temple chimes, he dismisses the guards who slink away like whipped jackals. The crowd disperses in a murmur of hurried steps and rustling garments; the chamber empties like a river receding from flood.
Then his eyes lock upon you. “Veil your dignity first and wait near my chambers.”
“Y-yes, my king, as you wish…”
(Only yes, yes, yes, so insistent that you doubt if there’s anything else to your voice, any other quality that it could be used for.)
You clutch the fallen folds of your robe, drawing it tight across your chest as if you wish to make sure this time no one pulls it down from you; the remnants of grace, scattered like little beads and crystals, come back and line your muscles, every tiny movement regaining your usual pace and rhythm.
The corridor swallows you as you flee the throne room, bare feet slapping against warm tiles inlaid with tiny stars that gleam under torchlight. Servants part before you, eyes averted, whispers dying on their lips as if your haste carried the king’s own blaze.
You know you cannot face him in a state like that, for you must bathe first. Just fortunate for you, near his chamber is an adjacent one with bathing supplies. You take fine sand in your hands, brush away all sweat and anything disgraceful from your skin; it feels harsh, not scraping you, but enough to make you burn a little.
Busy, locked in the palace of your own mind, you don’t even notice Gilgamesh entering the room in the meantime and observing you from under the columns. He watches, still as stone, the crimson of his eyes tracking each sweep of your hands across your skin, each desperate attempt to scrub away the shame that clings tighter than any dust.
He comes closer, footsteps silent despite his stature, and dips the cloth in the bowl with water. For a moment — brief, almost grudging, as if his hands move against the very nature of his divine blood — he washes specs of sand from your shoulder, the touch neither gentle nor harsh, simply there. He would never lower himself so far as to bathe you or anyone else, never demean his station by playing servant to mortal flesh, but that single gesture is enough to make you understand something you hadn’t dared hope for. That he cares, in whatever strange, twisted manner befits a king who acknowledges no equals. But before you can melt into that gossamer compassion, before you can lean into the unexpected warmth of it, he tosses the cloth into your open palms with a flick of his wrist.
“Do it yourself,” he commands. “You are an independent adult. Never again rely on me for what you can accomplish with your own two hands.”
(Isn’t he the one who moved first before you could even realise?)
“Yes, my king. Of course…!”
Yet he remains, lets his fingers rub oil into your neck, applies perfume that immediately takes over your senses, thick like syrup, something akin to balsam and rose clinging to your throat with every breath. You feel guilt bloom fresh in your chest, a different kind now — not worthy of his attention, dirty and soiled despite being clean again, despite the sand washed away and the sweat scrubbed from every limb. How could you possibly face Siduri or even dream of standing right next to her as one of the main messengers between the gods and the people? And then there’s the king, the golden one, higher in position than anybody else, proud above all, now expecting you to follow with the conversation when all you’d rather ask of him is to bury you underground, not touch you.
“My king, that’s—”
“Still valuable,” he interrupts, his voice an absolute certainty that brooks no argument. “I would be a mere idiot, no better than those dogs who pawed at you, if I wasted a lovely being such as yourself.”
“But your speech…” you venture, the protest weak on your tongue. Your behaviour, too, you wish to add, but bite your tongue in time. Treating you like his possession (which you are, you cannot deny), the sensation of his palm against your breast not quite gone, now deeper than a surface contact on your skin, seeping inside.
“An amplified performance, if anything,” he says, circling around to face you properly now, those inhuman eyes boring into yours like a snake approaching an unsuspecting bird. “And you had better learn the ways of it if you wish to take over the duties of the head priestesses one day. I do not tolerate what is average; I do not suffer what is mediocre. I scold because you can be better. Because you must be better, if you are to serve me.”
You nod, gathering what remains of your composure. You beg silently, you pray that your mind plays foul tricks on you, that he doesn’t mean what you normally would assume hearing a man talk to you in such a way. The robe clings to your body where it drank rivulets of poured water, wee uncomfortable around the seams, but you refuse to adjust it. Any movement might shatter this peculiar equilibrium, and you dare not do anything that wasn’t explicitly asked of you.
Gilgamesh rolls his eyes, a gesture so profoundly human it startles you more than his divinity ever has.
“Stop that,” he commands, gesturing at your rigid posture. “Your spine will crack if you hold yourself any tighter. Relax.”
“My king, I—”
“I will not expect from you any close company when you’re still shaken by the beastly behaviour of those mongrels,” he says, settling himself upon a low cushion with the casual authority of one accustomed to being obeyed. “Your nerves are frayed like old hemp. It would be pointless.”
You exhale slowly, attempting to soften your shoulders, though the effort feels absurd under his gaze. The tension merely shifts rather than dissolves, pooling instead in your chest where your heart still flutters in an uneven rhythm, where the ghost of his hand still remains.
“My king, in the throne room... your threats to those men’s wives...” Your voice trails off, barely above a whisper. The words taste like soiled copper on your tongue.
“What of them?” He doesn’t even glance your way, examining his golden rings with apparent disinterest, mocking you.
“Did you... did you mean it?”
“I already told you. A performance.” He waves his hand dismissively. “Amplified for effect. Do you think I waste my divine seed on mongrels’ mates?”
You should feel relief. You do feel relief, but it mingles with something you cannot digest. The stories surface unbidden in your mind — events from years past when the king walked through Uruk like a lion among sheep, taking what he pleased, crushing resistance beneath his heel. Before Siduri. Before Enkidu. Before whatever changed in him softened certain edges whilst sharpening others.
A shudder runs through you despite the warm air.
His eyes snap to yours, that maroon gaze missing nothing. “You doubt my word.”
It’s not a question.
You shake your head frantically, but tears already prick at your eyes, hot and shameful.
“Please, my king, I only—” Your voice breaks. “I beg you, don’t frighten those women for what their husbands attempted. They’ve done nothing wrong.”
“And why,” Gilgamesh leans forward slightly, eyebrow arched in something between curiosity and challenge, “should I listen to your pleas? What claim do you possess that grants you the authority to question my judgement?”
Your gaze drops below your knees. “I have none, my king. I am nothing. But they—”
“They suffer punishment enough by binding themselves to such vermin,” he interrupts. “Had they possessed any sense, they would have requested an audience, demanded I save them from marriages to dogs masquerading as men.”
The argument rises to your lips before you can stop it — that most fear him too much to hope for such clemency, that approaching a demigod with complaints about their husbands seems as futile as asking the Euphrates to flow backwards. But you swallow the sharp words, reshape them into something gentler.
“They... many believe you unreachable, my king. Too far above mortal concerns to—”
“Then they are fools as well as victims.” He interrupts you again. It’s frustrating. “Though I note you’ve still not answered my actual question.”
You blink, confused.
“Why do you care more about the fate of women you’ve never met than about proper punishment for the men who attempted to violate you?” His head tilts, studying you like a scholar examining cuneiform. “They circled you like jackals. Touched what they had no right to touch. Terrified you. And yet you kneel here weeping for their wives instead of demanding their blood.”
You realise you have no answer that won’t sound either foolish or condemning; the question hangs above your head like the sun burning strong enough to split stones into valleys, too heavy for you to rationalise. It’s just a deeper kind of fear, something unfair and unjust that simply works in this world when it shouldn’t.
“I can give you the means to get rid of them,” he offers, his voice dropping into something almost conspiratorial.
You eye him in shock, the words catching in your throat. Get rid of them? The meaning crystallises slowly, horrifyingly clear. Your mouth opens. Closes. No sound emerges.
“What troubles you?” His crimson eyes narrow with what might be amusement.
“I—” Your voice cracks like dried mud. “My king, I do not wish to— that is, I could never ask you to—”
You cannot finish. Cannot even voice the thought of death, of those men’s bodies cooling in the city’s grounds, of their families wailing. Your hands curl into fists at your sides.
“You fear I would execute them for their transgression?” He tilts his head, studying you as one might examine a curious artifact. “That I would paint the stones with their blood simply because they dared lay hands upon what is mine?”
The words blur together. Yes. No. Both. Your mouth opens and closes uselessly. Again. You’re stuck, unable to escape, unable to decide, the pressure coming from all sides like it’s possible to crack your head open just from stress.
Gilgamesh laughs, rich and entirely without mercy. “This was but a jest, priestess. A mere amusement at your expense.”
The relief does not come this time. Instead, it pools uneasily in your belly, mixing with the lingering dread. A jest! He was testing you, toying with your hysteria like a child with an insect. You nod because nodding requires nothing of you, no words that might further entangle you in the web of his caprice.
“Though,” he continues, crossing arms in front of his chest with fluid grace, “do not mistake my restraint for weakness. Should they attempt such trespass again, I would not hesitate. The guards exist to serve order, not to disturb it. Their usefulness ends the moment they become a liability.”
Your hands remain clasped before you, tingling from how hard you squeeze your fingers. You understand now that his mercy is not kindness but calculation — that you live and breathe at his sufferance, that your worth fluctuates with his mood as surely as the Euphrates rises and falls with the seasons.
“You will remain here tonight,” he says.
“My king, I could never!”
“Ha! Now you’re disobeying me? Over something like that?” He’s genuinely entertained, chuckling under his breath. “Here is the safest place in all Uruk. Sleep if you can, for I know you wouldn’t be able to do so anywhere else.”
You swallow hard, the protest dying before it fully forms. He’s right, of course, of course he is — the thought of returning to your quarters, of lying in darkness wondering if those guards might return emboldened by drink or spite, sends thunder through your veins. Your fingers twist in the damp linen of your robe.
“I understand, my king.”
“Good.” He gestures towards the far corner where thick cushions line the wall, lavish things embroidered with golden thread that catches the lamplight. “There. Not the floor like some common slave.”
You move carefully, aware of his gaze tracking your movements. The cushions yield beneath you as you sink down, softer than anything you’ve ever touched. Gilgamesh reclines on his own bed across the chamber, propping himself on one elbow. He doesn’t dismiss you or turn away. Simply watches, those crimson eyes glowing faintly in the dimness like embers.
“You’re still trembling.”
You press your palms flat against your thighs, willing the shaking to stop.
“I apologise! I—”
“Stop apologising.” His voice, tired, almost an exhale, cuts through your stammering. “It’s tedious…”
Silence falls, heavy and strange, a bile in your throat, an ache behind your eyelids. You focus on the rise and fall of your own breathing, on the sounds of the palace settling for the night — steps in far corridors, the low murmur of guards changing watch, distant songs and chatter of the city still awake in the warm light of torches and braziers. Anything but the consequence of his attention. And he is staring, right into your soul, piercing through your heart, luring your gaze to meet him despite your utmost wish to bury yourself under the pillows and shawls.
“They didn’t succeed,” he says suddenly, startling you. “In whatever they intended.”
Your throat tightens. “No, my king.”
“Then you remain untouched. Whole.” He shifts, the movement sending shadows dancing across the walls. “What occurred was an attempt. Nothing more. Do not grant them power over you by dwelling on what might have been.”
The words should comfort you. Oh, how you wish they could. Instead, they feel like an order, as if you could simply command your mind to still, your hands to stop shaking. But perhaps that’s exactly what he expects — absolute control, even over your own terror.
“Yes, my king.”
(Yes, yes, yes— for once, dear gods, let this word disappear!)
“Such a sickening thought to have other men occupy your thoughts more than my brilliance does.” You hear him laugh, soft and quiet, and it almost convinces you to raise your head, but he’s quick to notice your shifting attention. “Come here for a moment.”
Your legs obey before your mind catches up, carrying you across the chamber on unsteady feet. He doesn’t reach for you, simply watches as you approach, waiting to see if you’ll collapse or compose yourself. You stop at the edge of his bed, uncertain whether to kneel or stand.
“Sit,” he says, gesturing to the space beside him.
You settle carefully, the closeness overwhelming — the heat radiating from his body, his golden skin glowing faintly in the candlelight, unmarred and perfect in a way that reminds you he is not entirely of this world, but from somewhere unreachable.
“Your mind races like a startled hare,” he observes, reaching out to trace a single finger along your jawline, neither gentle nor harsh, but simply possessive. “It must be exhausting.”
“I—” You swallow hard. “I don’t know how to be otherwise, my king.”
“Then perhaps you should learn. The head priestess position requires more pride than you currently possess. Fear serves no purpose here.”
“I will do my best. To not disappoint you. To… make sure you don’t have to exhaust your energy on farces below your status.”
“I do not require servitude born of fear. You need to understand the distinction between a fool’s obedience and one’s choice to serve.” His fingers now brush around your nape, where the perfume still clings to your skin. “The head priestess must counsel me, not merely execute my whims like a trained pet.”
Your breath catches. “My king, I’m not certain I’m capable of—”
“Neither am I,” he cuts in with the faintest curve to his mouth. “Prove yourself. Amuse me.”
His hand drops away, and you feel the loss of it like a physical ache. (It’s sickening how easily he bends you to his will — in one moment you’re frightened, in the next leaning towards his touch.)
“Go to sleep now,” he says, settling back against his pillows as if the conversation has concluded.
You remain motionless, uncertain whether to stay or retreat to your cushions.
“Did I stutter?” His eyes snap open, that crimson gaze pinning you in place. “Move.”
(As declared earlier, he does not need you in his bed tonight. A blessing, as rough and cold as it is in its meaning, but for that dismissal, you can be more than grateful.)
You scramble back to your corner, pulling cushions around yourself like a fortress. Your heart pounds against your ribs, though whether from fear or something else entirely, you cannot say. You curl onto your side, drawing your knees up slightly, too sensitive to every tiny sound and move he makes across the chamber, and you wonder how one can possess such even breath while bearing in one’s hands the destiny of so many people, dealing with the annoyance of such lowly creatures as yourself, unable to even fathom the vastness of his confidence.
Sleep feels impossible, yet exhaustion pulls at you like an undertow.
(And you do not want to disappoint him any more than you already did…)
