#exogamic

[kenromewound]

I think Logan wants Roman in relationships to get over (what Logan perceives as) his weirdness (I don't think he feels guilty about that, like the father in Festen who also told Christian off because he was unable to consummate with women, but he's definitely aware of it since Roman was little -to add to this, imo Logan never molested Roman or any of his kids but it's iffy, the show clearly wants you to consider it-) and to give him grandchildren, whereas Kendall is useless for him in relationships because he's not fertile and, grandchildren ruled out, he wants him knocked down a peg or two to show him who's the boss in the company and the family, so he doesn't want him flaunting his masculinity and getting all happy and big-headed.

Though maybe he doesn't care that much either way and it's optics because he didn't ask Roman about Tabitha until the dick pic happened, and Ken was married for years and sure, Logan must have been overbearing but Ken was problematic as a husband and as a father. Then there's Naomi Pierce who was a member of a rival family, he obviously hated that... Very Romeo and Juliet of them lol.

Jennifer was considered a bimbo, just someone to have fun with, because she wasn't educated enough and she was nobody. While Roman had Logan in mind when choosing his girlfriend, Kendall didn't.

In any case, he wanted the power to decide over his kids' lives. It's all very narcissistic dad keeping control of his kids to make sure none of them believe they're better than him or can replace him before it's time, and Kendall was much more dangerous than Roman, who never wanted the power in the first place (no exhibition of independence anywhere to be seen, no dominating stance, no real aspirations no take over Logan). Besides, per the show itself and the scripts, Kendall is a narcissist too and Roman has BPD and he's clearly codependent, which tells you a lot about how they all relate to each other too.

Shiv's case is a bit different. Knowing her chauvinistic family would never take her seriously she decided to defy her control-freak, conservative dad by pursuing a career in progressive politics, but she was baited back by being included in the company (which meant being empowered in the family) and then she was kept down by being ignored again, treated like a token item, etc.

Connor doesn't even count because he has no active associations with Waystar and he's an obedient son.

Logan was nothing if not somebody who knew how to play the game. There could only be an alpha dog in his company/family, and if you wanted to be one, you had to take him out or leave.

[acertifiedmoron]

what do you think about the argument that the incest and dragons make the targaryens so much worse compared to the other houses that the comparisons between them are basically useless?

i will address the incest first, but i'm not interested in any argument arising from disgust. disgust has no moral value and should not be the basis for any ethical/political positions. incest is often predicated on abuse which is the material reason for why it's bad.

so, the argument is that targaryen incestuous marriage is innately more harmful than your average westerosi non-incestuous marriage. the strongest point in favour of this is: when your in-laws are also your natal family, there is no possible recourse for the bride in the event of abuse. i agree with this, maybe ned and brandon would've aided lyanna against robert, but that's one isolated (hypothetical) example. this is not the reality of many women in the main series. not for cersei and not for lysa. in fact, i don't think there is a single instance where the bride's family moves to interfere with a lawful marriage. the martells couldn't do much when rhaegar humiliated elia at harrenhal and then again when he disappeared with lyanna. hoster did nothing when catelyn's new husband returned from the war with his bastard son and shamed her with his decision to raise jon at winterfell. one can hold up margaery as the exception to this, olenna seemed certain that loras would've been outraged enough on her behalf to immediately kill joffrey and to avoid this eventuality they poisoned him beforehand. which was good for her, but why was margaery in such a position to begin with? because she was used as a commodity by her family in their political maneuvering, first with renly and then again with joffrey/tommen. and understand that the tyrells' chief worry here was loras becoming a kingslayer, any concern for margaery's prospective abuse was still secondary.

and this is why the argument doesn't work for me. because within the culture of westeros all women are a commodity, valued entirely for their reproductive capabilities, exchanged by men to maintain the male line. this is the very basis of patriarchy. which is why the real evil here is the institution of marriage. yes, we've established that targaryen women are trapped within their endogamous marriages, but noblewomen in exogamous marriages also have very little hope for recourse. they don't have anywhere to go but pray for their family's aid (which happens rarely or never, as i've pointed out) or their husband's death. this is not me going to bat for incest, just that there really is no significant material difference between targaryen incestous marriages and other westerosi marriages. but to speak of the former as a unique kind of evil, one has to tacitly go to bat for normal westerosi marriages. and that obscures what the text is communicating. the targaryens are not an abberation. westerosi society as a whole is built on gendered violence perpetuating systems of gendered oppression. rarely is anyone not brutalising their daughters. the targaryens do it by keeping daughters within the family structure for consolidating dragon power and the other houses do it by trading their daughters for political power. both cases involve using young girls to bolster male power. and as i've said before, intergenerational violence is an overarching series theme.

now, the dragons. and inevitably this notion of 'valyrian supremacy'. incendiary take, but i don't think it's a useful concept. the targaryens are obsessed with their bloodline, but it's not a fundamentally different type of obsession than that of the starks, the lannisters, or the baratheons etc. they all believe in the inherent superiority of their bloodlines, it's impossible not to when their inheritance is dependent on a continuous line of ancestry which they can trace back to remote times. yeah, then what of the doctrine. the doctrine of exceptionalism is actually doing something else. the doctrine is in-universe propaganda. (most) these people aren't simply egomaniacs with delusions of grandeur, they're shrewd political actors. this is a conscious play to deify themselves in the eyes of their subjects, as royalty is wont to do. there is historical precedent for this with the ptolemies whose sibling marriages were equated with that of zeus and hera and isis and osiris. grrm is very interested in exploring power structures and how they derive their legitimacy. giving his crown family dragons (and then taking them away) is a fantasy extension of that pursuit. see, "dragons are fire made flesh and fire is power". this is a world where the kings are in possession of terrible magic which they claim is their divine mandate.

grrm is using the targaryens to investigate the realities of kingship in his fantasy world, not to make a didactic point about this one noble house being the enemy. as the crown family they must be narratively distinguished from the rest, this he does by introducing the dragons, and as a result of that the incest. both simply heighten the violence already present within feudal power structures. devastating war campaigns for the benefit of the nobility have always existed, the dragons just make it possible to spread that devastation on a more massive scale. the dragons in itself aren't the problem. if that was true, dany—the last targaryen wouldn't have had her entire arc based around recontextualising them as a means of liberation. the power which previously served the authority of kings, now serving the dispossessed.

[goodqueenaly]

Why do you think Aemma Arryn never claimed a dragon? She was half Targaryen and when she married she was officially part of the Targaryen family, so there wouldn’t be any dynastic/political reasons for her not to have one. Do you think it was cultural differences from being raised in the Vale, health issues from her constant pregnancies, or worries about Viserys being seen as weak because his wife had a dragon and he didn’t (a la Rhaena and Aegon), or a combination of all of these reasons?

Number one, Aemma spent her first 11 years of life not just as an Arryn, raised in the Vale, but specifically as an Arryn of the Vale whose connection to House Targaryen was ancestral and dynastic rather than contemporary or draconic. Because Daella died almost immediately after giving birth to Aemma (thanks to her shithole husband Rodrik), Aemma almost certainly experienced no direct Targaryen influence in her infancy or childhood. To the extent young Aemma understood her place in the Targaryen family tree, she may only have known that she was the daughter of a younger daughter of King Jaehaerys and Alysanne, a cousin of the royal line more akin to whatever paternal relations she herself may have had among the families of the Vale (through prior generations of Arryn daughters’ marriages) than to a core member of the Targaryen royal family (and indeed, that extended Targaryen connection would go unmentioned, somewhat historically inexplicably, when Rhaenyra made her claim). Consequently, Aemma may not have expected or believed she was entitled to a dragon in the same way, say, her cousins Daemon and Rhaenys, and to a lesser extent her future husband Viserys - all growing up at court as male-line Targaryen princes (and a male-line Targaryen princess) - may have done. 

Number two, there was very little precedent in the royal Targaryen family for its princesses being married to Westerosi aristocrats, much less how dragons might be distributed to a princess' children in such a scenario. While such marriages do seem to have happened to some extent prior to the Conquest - see for example that claimant at the Great Council of 101 AC, who cited his descent from “a younger daughter [of Gaemon Targaryen] and the petty lord she had married” - the royal Targaryens before the Dance celebrated very few exogamous marriages for Targaryen princesses. Princess Rhaenys was the only case where the children of a Targaryen princess and a non-Targaryen had dragons of their own, and this situation was quite specific: Rhaenys, who herself was a dragonrider and had a significant claim to the throne, had married not just a Valyrian relation, but the most powerful Valyrian relation the Targaryens had, at the acme of his own authority and magnificence. Conversely, while Rodrik Arryn was certainly no hedge knight or commoner, he did not boast any of the same Valyrian credentials Lord Corlys did; too, Daella herself had no dragon of her own, and so no experience on dragonriding to encourage in her daughter (even if she had lived to do so, which of course she did not). 

Number three, once Aemma married Viserys, she seems to have had little opportunity to pursue dragonriding, even if she herself had wanted to (which we have no sense of - more on that below). While Viserys did apparently wait two years - massive eyeroll - to consummate his marriage to Aemma, she was still pregnant a number of times between 95 AC (when approximately the marriage was consummated) and 105 AC (the year she died, following the birth of the short-lived Prince Baelon), with “several miscarriages and the death of one son in the cradle over the course of her marriage” (plus the births of Princess Rhaenyra and that same Prince Baelon). If we don’t know exactly how many times Aemma was pregnant (as we do with, say, Queen Rhaella, and can speculate with Lysa Arryn), I would guess that Aemma was pregnant roughly at least six times in these 10-odd years, at least three of which pregnancies went to term and ended in the births of children - quite an exhausting and physically taxing schedule for Aemma. Whatever her interest level in actually having a dragon of her own, Aemma was likely not in a position physically to try to claim a dragon in these years. 

Of course, the problem inherent to the conceit of Fire and Blood Volume 1 - and I mentioned this the other day - is that we’re almost always kept at arms length from the interior thoughts and feelings of any given character. This problem is compounded for Aemma by the author’s unfortunate penchant of using some of his female characters as little more than walking wombs, who exist solely to give birth to more important characters. Aemma might have been given a name (more than can be said for some of her narrative sisters), but her role in the story is limited to being married off as a prepubescent child bride, enduring seemingly (if not actually) annual pregnancies (including more than one pregnancy loss), and then dying in childbirth. Did Aemma have any sense of her own (at least theoretical) draconic inheritance? Or was she, as GRRM via Gyldayn frustratingly portrays her mother, infantilized to the point of almost total inaction, unwilling to engage in any pursuits except marriage and childbearing? We’ll never know, because neither the format of F&B nor, I would guess, GRRM himself seems interested in the answer. 

(Again, I need to emphasize that I am not talking about That Other Show and will block any discussion of That Other Show.)

[holly-mckenzie]

For the Navajo people, introducing yourself is about more than just telling someone your name, it's about sharing where you come from.Where you "come from" isn't just the location of where you live, but more what defines you. For the Navajo people that comes from their clans.The Navajo people's way of life revolves around kinship or K'é, which arises from familial and clan relationships. (x)

When it comes to clans in Navajo, there are a few things to keep in mind. For one, Navajo clans are exogamous, meaning members of the same clan cannot marry one another. Additionally, each clan is associated with a particular animal, plant, or geographic feature, which is considered to be that clan’s ” protector.”  (x)

[binomech]

in which @medusaesque and I ponder the Kim skill tree (under the cut because it's long, as usual) ft. en dehors (a psyche skill from her latest comic)

medusaesque: i was really proud of en dehors.. human interaction is a complicated dance but if you listen to the music learn the chirography and practice your moves MAYBE you can reach out and dance

binomech: yes yes yes

binomech: ponders. god i didn't realize you meant the ballet meaning

binomech: i don't know if you care about what my brain thought en dehors was mentioning but i concocted a whole string of bullshit as the philosopher in me is wont to do

medusaesque: do tell 👀

binomech: so en dehors is a legal term in french as well as many other things but. it's the term that is used to separate criminal charges for military officials -- the punishment is different whether the crime was comitted in the line of duty or as a civilian (en dehors de l'armée). it's also a concept in contemporary queer theory in francophone circles that lines with the theory of marginality which tl;dr is an utopian proposal talking about whether or not it is possible to live a full life in the margins of society and when does a margin stop being a margin. marginal both as in a footnote in a book margin and as an oppressed group of people. en dehors is a way to describe emotional detachment. en dehors is synonym with en coulisses, is what happens in the backstage, the dirty unrewarding work that no one ever will see unless they look for it. an exogamous marriage -- an union that happens outside of the socially expected bounds of the group, is also called mariage en dehors. the marriage that isn't approved by the church is also a mariage en dehors. en dehors, paumé, a vagabond who can't find a place that will take him in.

binomech: anyway.

binomech: it literally did not occur to me to think about the classical dance thing i was like Lost In The Sauce

medusaesque: WOW i knew the queer theory thing its part of why i chose it for kim (and of why i even know a classical ballet term lmao) but i did Not know the legal term! thats fascinating

medusaesque: goddamn

medusaesque: you made my thing much cooler

medusaesque: i just thought of kim living in the margins and the way he might approach venturing out of them and reaching out- calculated and measured but passionate like dance

binomech: it's very GOOD

binomech: i'm like wow... this reading... is so flavorful!!!

binomech: my approach was so devoid of warmth and i like that... idk how do i put this

binomech: en dehors position in ballet is precarious and precise much like kim's demeanor towards his existing is precarious and precise but like you said it is rewarded with the potential of a group dance

binomech: his composure and poise being the only chance to be part of the in-group

binomech: and also of course the marginality of a queer racialized experience at large but specifically the exhilarating bravery of dipping your toes into the main text

medusaesque: yeah!! thats how he literally dances but also how he navigates any other social situation

medusaesque: i imagine every time he puts his hand on harrys back or shoulder its an en dehors check

medusaesque: not too light, not too tight, definitely not too gay

binomech: man every time i think about this i'm like fully cognizant of my biases because i am white and i know race is crucial to kim's embodiment and exitence but all i can do is washed out analyses based on secondhand recountings of friends and theorists. so i focus way too much on queerness and disability

binomech: like the disability in text is so fucking blatant to me but it's like 3 lines so it could be easily dismissed and i'm scared of getting fanon-brained about it

binomech: so when conceptualizing skills i'm like. am i being true to canon kim. what would canon kim do bracelet

medusaesque: nah it's defiantly there

medusaesque: the disability i mean

binomech: like... yes he has a 7/10 shooting score (unbelievable that this is High to people) and he can drive and he can do fucking crosswords but I just... i think a lot about my own experiences and about how people normally conceputalize the spectrum of blindness and i pick a comically large hammer and squash the world

medusaesque: well first of all its really meaningful to find that kind of connection in fiction even if you arent 100% accurate to the source material and secondly kim canonically has really bad eyesight and it affects his relationship to vulnerability and lack of agency

medusaesque: so id say ur good

medusaesque: like dealing with being thought of an a spy, with fetishization, with the whole model minority thing..

binomech: yeah!!!

binomech: anyway yeah disclaimer of the bias that permeates these takes

binomech: a lot of people with visual impairments (moderate, severe or total sight loss) share this experience of the internal and external existence of the body being severed

binomech: something that i have experienced a lot, for example, is people telling me my face is overly expressive. something that a friend of mine who is fully blind since birth gets told a lot, is how stony faced she is.

binomech: they both have the same source: i struggle enough to see facial expressions on other people, to match them with a topic or tone of voice, as she does as well obviously. for me that has resulted in making my face move in what i can sort of glimpse from the motions and shapes of other's faces, to my friend it has resulted in her having been told how to move her face into smiles and frowns and gestures that are a mask to her and that do not come naturally

binomech: it's an act for the benefit of others and it's calculated

binomech: it's a very jarring feeling, to become aware of just how big the space between how you exist in the world and how others see you exist in the world is

binomech: and i think this is true for kim for disability reasons and for asian guy in a predominantly white environment reasons

binomech: and the moment you understand this gap is very traumatic

binomech: i think about kim's expressions being described as unreadable, subtle, sometimes not entirely matching his tone and i think about his face being the mask of composure to harry

binomech: there's also the precision that permeates all of his being: the orderly environments, the tailored clothes, even the color choices of his belongings

binomech: clutter is a hazard for bvi people on a practical level. having control over your appearance is a way to increase your chances at respect. all the important things must stand out because you Cannot lose them.

binomech: a bright orange jacket, a blue car and notebook, halogen square reflections to remind you who is safe and who isn't, who is a pothole and who is a tree shade

binomech: also if it is indeed severe hyperopia that he has, it does get worse with age

binomech: i suspect it's something more on top of that; i am nearsighted and have astigmatism but my actual disability comes from glaucoma, not from those, which are what i wear glasses for

binomech: anyway, it's really disheartening in general to have a degenerative condition but it's even worse when you base your personal value on how much of an asset you can be to the police

binomech: when i was a teenager i would study the visual clarity text charts so that i would score higher and they wouldn't tell my parents that my eyesight was getting worse because then i might not be allowed to do things i liked

binomech: i imagine a straight up adult kim lying to keep his license and the immense frustration of realizing that your best is a 7/10 when handling a gun

binomech: and knowing it's all downhill and the issue was never the words on a paper slip, that it DOES have consequences on your life and sense of self

medusaesque: god that really got me in your fic. kim and the way he tries to hold on to things that are slipping away

medusaesque: to be capable and power through. return from the sea. fight another day

binomech: shoutouts to the crushing weight of wanting to be a pilot for a commune that no longer exists, with an airforce that no longer exists, that wouldn't even take you in because you're a seolite crip

medusaesque: glory to the ghosts of us (or who we wanted to be)

binomech: howling

binomech: but yeah i do think Clinging is a big character trait of his

binomech: clinging while refusing to admit that's the only thing keeping him from falling off

binomech: again i think kim is both fully aware of how he's one misstep from his life falling apart and to some extent knows that it's a structural issue, but if it's a structural issue then it means he can't fight it alone, and you can't fight with others when the only thing you can trust is yourself

binomech: so he's got this stupid ass cognitive dissonance that has him listening to speedfreaks fm in a police issued vehicle when he should not even be allowed to drive

binomech: he plays with risk because a part of him knows that it's not a game

medusaesque: but he would never let anyone take away from him or even touch

binomech: EXACTLY

medusaesque: the thrill of danger.. from a man that the first thing you learn about him is that he would hurl himself in death's way for you

medusaesque: who outlived everyone

medusaesque: it's a dark game

binomech: not to bring quotes from other places but: "you will die for a cause, but you won't fight for one?"

binomech: kim doesn't realize he's not a sprinter, this is a fucking marathon

binomech: he seeks the thrill and the danger because going out in a blaze of glory is easy, having to apologize for all the wrong you've done and the principles you've betrayed is Hard

binomech: it's humiliating

binomech: and he won't be taken for a fool

binomech: he has a mask that is both keeping others from seeing him and him seeing himself

binomech: if his body isn't him, then he isn't lowvis, he isn't seolite, his body is a tool for justice through the RCM

binomech: and it's fucking hard, he sometimes feels the full extent of his humanity and limited individual power

binomech: so he sublimates his hopes and needs for the city that he loves. he's not a moralist but he still hopes to be a forget-me-not and a piece of the sky

binomech: an indistinguishable part of a whole

medusaesque: to be a part of anything

medusaesque: an unquestionable, necessary part

binomech: if a piece falls from the sky the sky just crumbles

binomech: he's necessary even if no-one notices

binomech: he has to be. otherwise, what is the point?

medusaesque: its all would be for nothing

medusaesque: people are more valuable than machines, it's always darkest before the dawn, sunrise parabellum, after the pale the world again, a blue forget me not a piece of the sky...mantra after mantra of this will eventually be worst it. there's belonging and worth at the end of this road

binomech: anyway all this meta was CONTEXT for skill talk -- i think that kim's mask is not a dramatic one but a folding screen, a blind (haha) to protect himself and to isolate himself. i think the ability to Spot the Beacon (both visually and emotionally) would also be very important. the flawlessly crafted cog in the machine. en dehors, as established. something full of desire that could be fulfilled if you reached out 5 centimeters to the left. dogged perseverance in the face of loss. thrillseeking.

binomech: honest to god give kim o&m aids i beg of you. he would hate a guide dog but. a fucking pocket magnifier. a light cane even if it's just for checking or social visibility (he would Despise it). a fucking psychic beam that tells harry to tell him minutiae about the world. anything

binomech: i feel like that is also a skill that i cannot conceptualize succintly - the awareness and fear of the unknown-to-you

binomech: be it the pale be it all these troves of information everyone else gets just by existing that could just pass you by i feel like that is also a skill that i cannot conceptualize succintly - the awareness and fear of the unknown-to-you

medusaesque: working together with volta do mar maybe?

binomech: absolutely

binomech: i think that volta as canonically physique tracks with my impression of kimskills

binomech: which is that they are uhhh

binomech: god anytime i try to say anything about kim it just turns into a 5 levels deep rabbithole context

medusaesque: the jacket descriptions fucking kiiled me

medusaesque: 'distant eneny of himself' howling....

binomech: in the constructed language toki pona, which is a language that is meant to be able to express everything in the world in an extremely limited amount of terms, there is a core word: selo

binomech: i promise i'm going somewhere with this bear with me

binomech: (quoting lipamanka's semantic space dictionary)

selo describes the outer layer of an object. It doesn't matter what the object is. For example, skin can be selo, and bark can be selo. This can get extended into the metaphorical. What are outer layers for? Usually, they protect that which is inside. perhaps an attempt to ignore bigotry could be described as a selo. But in doing so, you're framing it as an outer layer of your mind. selo for "protect" has a different vibe when compared with awen's protect meaning. With awen, a protection is an act of maintaining, perhaps from afar with no risk to yourself, but with selo, protection always puts something at risk, be it the skin of an apple, the walls of a castle, or the case of a guitar. selo don't always have to contain anything important, even though they usually do. Balloons are usually empty (save for air) and they can still be selo. In fact, a vaccum chamber's walls could be selo, even though they literally have nothing inside of the (save for "dark energy" or whatever don't @ me I'm not a physicist). As a verb, selo can mean "to surround fully," or "to become the outer layer of (something)." Some people use this for hugging, which is very fun.

binomech: selo, then, becomes: a shell. a protective layer. a barrier. a surface level understanding. a cover.

binomech: volta do mar as a physique skill AND as an associated trait to the jacket

binomech: your traitorous race. your traitorous job. your traitorous parents. your traitorous senses. distant enemy of yourself: seolite, communist, cripple, faggot.

binomech: and you wear it as armor

binomech: those will take the hit

medusaesque: GOD. thats so...

medusaesque: yeah

binomech: everyone associates it with the pale because of the canon references to volta and the voltas being poems and other artforms that can... filter the pale, as it were, to protect the mind

binomech: to put a net between the unknown horrors and the known horrors, to make the incomprehensible palatable to the mind

binomech: to make the harm from the Other match the harm from the Self

medusaesque: the kind of compartmentalizing kim excels at

[nanshe-of-nina]

Favorite History Books || The Daughters of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Comparative Study of Twelfth-Century Royal Women by Colette Bowie ★★★★☆

This study compares and contrasts the experiences of the three daughters of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. The exogamous marriages of Matilda, Leonor, and Joanna, which created dynastic links between the Angevin realm and Saxony, Castile, Sicily and Toulouse, served to further the political and diplomatic ambitions of their parents and spouses. It might be expected that their choices in religious patronage and dynastic commemoration would follow the customs and patterns of their marital families, yet the patronage and commemorative programmes of Matilda, Leonor, and Joanna provide evidence of possible influence from their natal family which suggests a coherent sense of family consciousness. To discern why this might be the case, an examination of the childhoods of these women has been undertaken (Part I), to establish what emotional ties to their natal family may have been formed at this impressionable time. In Part II, the political motivations for their marriages are analysed, demonstrating the importance of these dynastic alliances, as well as highlighting cultural differences and similarities between the courts of Saxony, Castile, Sicily, and the Angevin realm. Dowry and dower portions (Part III) are important indicators of the power and strength of both their natal and marital families, and give an idea of the access to economic resources which could provide financial means for patronage. Having established possible emotional ties to their natal family, and the actual material resources at their disposal, the book moves on to an examination of the patronage and dynastic commemorations of Matilda, Leonor and Joanna (Parts IV-V), in order to discern patterns or parallels. Their possible involvement in the burgeoning cult of Thomas Becket, their patronage of Fontevrault Abbey, the names they gave to their children, and finally the ways in which they and their immediate families were buried, suggest that all three women were, to varying degrees, able to transplant Angevin family customs to their marital lands. The resulting study, the first of its kind to consider these women in an intergenerational dynastic context, advances the hypothesis that there may have been stronger emotional ties within the Angevin family than has previously been allowed for.

[horizon-verizon]

How are we not supposed to root for the Targaryens when Daenerys performed a miracle of resurrection and is using her power to free enslaved people across Essos ? Even though we are told in the prologue of the first book that the true enemy is the cold and Daenerys is a dragon queen who birthed fire-breathing creatures ?

Daenerys is the ONLY character that is using her power to benefit more than just themselves or their family’s power. The emphasis on her fertility is not because the Targaryens are doomed to die, it’s just another aspect of the way she consistently defies reality and achieves the impossible, Mirri Maz Dur told her a flowery statement about the nihilistic situation Daenerys had been cast in but Daenerys rejected it, birthing dragons and healing herself.

Thank you, anon, for the Mirri thing, I esp appreciate this point bc I've last talked abt how Mirri attempts to deceive Dany concerning her son's death in the womb, how Mirri tries to "gaslight" & confuse her and very likely could have also tried to make sure she at least instills a seed of doubt in Dany even after death HERE.

And I agree, this is one of the early instances of Dany defying the expectations and machinations of both out-world and in-world; as the once-ozymalek/Phoenix-Ashes once said, in a conventionally written fantasy work, Dany would have been long-killed perhaps in her first married night or by Viserys or in childbirth. And despite her brother's and Illyrio Mopatis' and yes, even Mirri's, plotting and intentions for her, she manages to defy them all and survive but also work towards her people's wellbeing and safety anyway she can. Her brothers & husband die for her rise instead of the other way around. Through that fire that birthed her dragons, she is also passing through a inner transformation she herself triggered & orchestrated after doing away with her enemies, Mirri one of the first, turning Mirri's deception into something useful for herself even though it was never her intent to use her husband for said dragons. It's truly a beautiful and well written thing!

As for her ancestors, I favor them bc they simply are the more interesting party whoever you put beside them and that's because they are fleshed out for Dany's sake to contextualize her arc and character and role in Planetos history, past, present and future. While being very entertaining.

Truly, I think some people also hate the Targs as a group/collective bec EITHER bc:

they just cannot get behind who they see as enthusiastic/complacent participants of feudalism/exploitative structures when Dany is right there to be the opposer to any sort of exploitation, reevaluating and working against the legitimacy of absolute for its own sake

they hate how they make the injustices of Westerosi feudalism that much more obviously unjust in myriad of ways

Of course some Dany stans dislike or hate the Targs before her, and that makes sense precisely as you say abt her being the only one who is not trying for power either for themselves or for their house at the expense (or simply not centering) of lower classed people. Participating in their exploitation. I don't have anything to really say about that except for sometimes that comes at the expense of understanding the value of some Targs's stories--like with Rhaenyra's particular histiographical and personal experiences with sexism and how while she herself is nothing like her, her experiences and the themes there do connect with Daenerys and other F&B women [acertifiedmoron]:

within the culture of westeros all women are a commodity, valued entirely for their reproductive capabilities, exchanged by men to maintain the male line. this is the very basis of patriarchy. which is why the real evil here is the institution of marriage. yes, we've established that targaryen women are trapped within their endogamous marriages, but noblewomen in exogamous marriages also have very little hope for recourse. they don't have anywhere to go but pray for their family's aid (which happens rarely or never, as i've pointed out) or their husband's death. this is not me going to bat for incest, just that there really is no significant material difference between targaryen incestous marriages and other westerosi marriages. but to speak of the former as a unique kind of evil, one has to tacitly go to bat for normal westerosi marriages. and that obscures what the text is communicating. the targaryens are not an abberation. westerosi society as a whole is built on gendered violence perpetuating systems of gendered oppression. rarely is anyone not brutalising their daughters. the targaryens do it by keeping daughters within the family structure for consolidating dragon power and the other houses do it by trading their daughters for political power. both cases involve using young girls to bolster male power

[kemetic-dreams]

Why Do So Many Americans Think They Have Cherokee Blood?

The history of a myth. 

BY GREGORY D. SMITHERS

“I cannot say when I first heard of my Indian blood, but as a boy I heard it spoken of in a general way,” Charles Phelps, a resident of Winston-Salem in North Carolina, told a federal census taker near the beginning of the 20th century. Like many Americans at the time, Phelps had a vague understanding of his Native American ancestry. On one point, however, his memory seemed curiously specific: His Indian identity was a product of his “Cherokee blood.”

The tradition of claiming a Cherokee ancestor continues into the present. Today, more Americans claim descent from at least one Cherokee ancestor than any other Native American group. Across the United States, Americans tell and retell stories of long-lost Cherokee ancestors. These tales of family genealogies become murkier with each passing generation, but like Phelps, contemporary Americans profess their belief despite not being able to point directly to a Cherokee in their family tree.

Recent demographic data reveals the extent to which Americans believe they’re part Cherokee. In 2000, the federal census reported that 729,533 Americans self-identified as Cherokee. By 2010, that number increased, with the Census Bureau reporting that 819,105 Americans claimed at least one Cherokee ancestor. Census data also indicates that the vast majority of people self-identifying as Cherokee—almost 70 percent of respondents—claim they are mixed-race Cherokees.

Why do so many Americans claim to possess “Cherokee blood”? The answer requires us to peel back the layers of Cherokee history and tradition.

Most scholars agree that the Cherokees, an Iroquoian-speaking people, have lived in what is today the Southeastern United States—Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama—since at least A.D. 1000. When Europeans first encountered the Cherokees in the mid–16th century, Cherokee people had well-established social and cultural traditions. Cherokee people lived in small towns and belonged to one of seven matrilineal clans. Cherokee women enjoyed great political and social power in the Cherokee society. Not only did a child inherit the clan identity of his or her mother, women oversaw the adoption of captives and other outsiders into the responsibilities of clan membership.

As European colonialism engulfed Cherokee Country during the 17th and 18th centuries, however, Cherokees began altering their social and cultural traditions to better meet the challenges of their times. One important tradition that adapted to new realities was marriage.

The Cherokee tradition of exogamous marriage, or marrying outside of one’s clan, evolved during the 17th and 18th centuries as Cherokees encountered Europeans on a more frequent basis. Some sought to solidify alliances with Europeans through intermarriage.

It is impossible to know the exact number of Cherokees who married Europeans during this period. But we know that Cherokees viewed intermarriage as both a diplomatic tool and as a means of incorporating Europeans into the reciprocal bonds of kinship. Eighteenth-century British traders often sought out Cherokee wives. For the trader, the marriage opened up new markets, with his Cherokee wife providing both companionship and entry access to items such as the deerskins coveted by Europeans. For Cherokees, intermarriage made it possible to secure reliable flows of European goods, such as metal and iron tools, guns, and clothing. The frequency with which the British reported interracial marriages among the Cherokees testifies to the sexual autonomy and political influence that Cherokee women enjoyed. It also gave rise to a mixed-race Cherokee population that appears to have been far larger than the racially mixed populations of neighboring tribes.

Europeans were not the only group of outsiders with which 18th-century Cherokees intermingled. By the early 19th century, a small group of wealthy Cherokees adopted racial slavery, acquiring African slaves from American slave markets. A bit more than 7 percent of Cherokee families owned slaves by the mid-1830s; a small number, but enough to give rise to a now pervasive idea in African culture: descent from a Cherokee ancestor.

In the early 20th century, the descendants of Cherokee slaves related stories of how their African forebears accompanied Cherokees on the forced removals of the 1830s. They also recalled tales of how African and Cherokee people created interracial families. These stories have persisted into the 21st century. The former NFL running back Emmitt Smith believed that he had “Cherokee blood.” After submitting a DNA test as part of his 2010 appearance on NBC’s Who Do You Think You Are, he learned he was mistaken. Among African Americans, as among Americans as a whole, the belief in Cherokee ancestry is more common than actual blood ties.

[grirnoires]

among the omau dokjidh, festivals between neighbouring villages are held every 1-3 years. they are a chance for trade, celebrating harvest, as well as for matchmaking, since marriages in this area are always exogamous. in this picture voh is having a lot of fun dancing with the other young adults, but palim is not interested in joining in.

[athingofvikings]

A Thing Of Vikings Chapter 122: The Politics Of Desire

Chapter 122: The Politics Of Desire

In comparison to many other forms of clan societies found elsewhere in the world, Berk’s society was unusually sexually liberated, being accepting of homosexuality and having a romantic ideal of courtship based around mutual romantic attraction between the courting pair. In most clannish societies, heterosexuality was and is strongly—even brutally—enforced, as the collective unit of the clan would take importance over the individuals that composed it, and is perpetuated through the production of heirs to the clan, rendering romance between the married couple as a secondary—at best—consideration to the production of heirs and exogamous clan bonds.

However, in tribal-era Berk, the low birth rates combined with the temporary marriage structure of their concubinage institution provided a legally and morally acceptable way for homosexual individuals to produce heirs for their clan, even as they remained primarily bonded with their preferred romantic partner of the same sex. This is not to say that the sexual liberation was absolute, however. Bride prices and dowries were still legally obligated, creating an economic class structure that disproportionately affected the poor, and created barriers to marriage, and—barring certain high-status exceptions—intercourse before marriage was seen as a scandal at best, and was strongly policed. But all in all, Berk’s society before AD 1040 was comparatively better in its expectations and restrictions of personal sexual preference than many of its neighbors and contemporaries.

These factors continued into the Imperial Era. While this frequently made for staggeringly complex family trees, requiring special notations between legal and biological lines of descent, the fact that it allowed for the avoidance of scandals and unhappy marriages ensured its general continuation and social acceptance. Indeed, many of the noble families of the North Sea Empire were polyamorous from the foundation of the Empire, as a direct continuation of their practices under Berk’s tribal period, beginning with Emperor Hiccup III of House Haddock and his two wives, and the marriages of a number of his close friends and inner circle. In the next generation, Hiccup’s daughter Valka II and her husband Olaf III both had their own preferred and legally acknowledged same-sex partners, but still married and had children in order to formally and legally unite their realms.

—Family, Fidelity, Faction: A Sociological Study Of Kinship Ties And Political Structures, Kyoto University Press, Ltd.

AO3 Chapter Link

~~~

My Original Fiction | Original Fiction Patreon

[donnapalude]

reading sam's experiences as recalling queer narratives is totally feasible to me, i just have some difficulty following when this view is applied by extending the analogy further than the text really allows. his othering within the family has some layers: he does feel different and isolated and john's rejection of intellectual pursuits recalls specific working-class ideas about masculinity. but hunting is also often associated with marginalisation and incest: sam running away is partly an explicit attempt to reject this "freakyness", rejoin society, and obtain the ideal heterosexual exogamous relationship. the demon-blood marking him as corrupted and unclean can also track for a queer reading. at the same time, the show is not exactly making the case there's a fundamental part of him that's morally neutral, but misconstrued as evil. there's not even anything instrinsically monstrous in sam. he was randomly singled out by external actors to be fed an extrinsic substance generating abilities to be used for actual nefarious purposes. his foray into drinking more demon blood was not liberating self-acceptance. it was the culmination of a process of manipulation that made him believe he was inhuman to create a sense of commonality with ruby and other demons and convince him opposition by friends and family was just weakness and bigotry. and, like all the best lies, there was truth to it: dean and (especially) john do exhibit some aspects of a brutal black-and-white, us-versus-them mentality that is criticised at several stages by the show. but the overall framing is not a straight-forward, univocal parallel to homophobic or misogynistic oppression under patriarchal rule. which is to say, regardless of the debate we can have about the hurtfulness of specific behaviours, i have trouble identifying a systemic attempt to distort reality in order to subjugate sam. in this particular show, demons actually do have a plan to destroy humanity and sam consuming their blood does impact his decision-making and it does harm him. both sam and dean are aware of the first and know enough to at least envision the second and third. deciding to try trusting demons and exploring related powers is seen as understandable, but distrust is also not baseless prejudice. interpretations of the text that erase or severely minimise this element read to me like attempts to sanitise sam's otherness from any real negative characteristics in order to create a purer comparison to societal forms of oppression. which is not necessary! a text can accomodate several layers of meaning: sam's feelings of isolation and villainisation can resonate with queer experiences without amounting to exactly the same thing. a lot of spn works on a central theme of external forces imposing frameworks of meaning on sam and dean that they struggle to refuse or redefine, creating questions on the possibility to separate identity from those external influences. sam's issues with demon blood are about an extraneous contagion that forces on him an identity he ends up internalising to his detritment. sam's issues with john are even more complicated. there's a lot to be read into these settings, they offer many possible angles of interpretation, including queer ones. i think it's a shame to flatten them into one.

[cynnvein]

Races: Dwarf

(p): Dwarves

Short and stout, of about four feet tall. Dwarven society predominantly exists in extensive, exogamous clans. If a new hold is formed, a new clan is as well. Dwarves ken single-step relations, father/mother, brother/sister, son/daughter, but consider all other Dwarves in their clan to be two steps away, the uncle/aunt/grandparent/niece/nephew/cousin level. As such, they do not have their own words for these, though acknowledge that others do have them. As they exist in clans, what Men consider to be professions for Dwarves is more considered to be chores performed around the hold.

Dwarves are expert miners and artisans. As such they do not value currency, per se. Sure, it is incredibly useful and necessary for survival, but to them money is simply a product of work and time, both things Dwarves have in abudance. They instead value favours. Many Men have gone deep into debt with Dwarves only to be significantly better off because of it, up to and including the Summer King. Dwarves will always ask for favours that one can provide, and always, to them at least, equal to what they provided. Demanding ruinous favours stops you from asking for favours in the future, and Dwarves view this as self-defeating, (though they will if they consider their own costs worth the trouble they cause you).

Dwarven holds will normally start as mines, and they dig up the side of a cliff, opening up windows for air and light. Their windows are normally left open, because they do not need to worry about warmth as Men do. Dwarves will ornately carve everything in their lives, including their holds, (though this will often take centuries to come to fruition).

Dwarves love their baths. Young holds will normally have two baths, one for each sex, but mature holds will normally have baths in each chambre. The bath is heated with a stone, that Dwarven Pyrans will force heat into. When traveling, Dwarves will bath in whatever river and stream presents itself, as they do not have to worry about the chill that Men would. Most races come to love Dwarven baths as Dwarves do. In truth, much of the Summer King's wealth and influence came from his seating of Dwarves baths across the Empire, and later back to Cynn, where they often became the core of a nacent city.

For magick, Dwarves apply external mana into objects imbuing them with powers. This can be seemingly eternal enchantments, or enchanting the explosion in their firearms as it is firing to change it's effects.

Dwarves are far stronger than Men and can live for over three centuries. Because of this they rarely work to make their own lives easier. This means that Dwarves often have tremendous knowledge and ability to make the lives of others easier, if you become friendly enough with them to help you.

Because of their long life, and their belief that more dangerous professions provides more social credit, male Dwarves die as often as Men, while female Dwarves rarely die of anything other than natural causes. This lead to tremendous amounts of spare females that Dwarves consider a standard and proper marriage to be one male to several females. When the husband dies, the wives grieve, often for decades, and then move on. Widows rarely have to worry for their survival, as the remainder of the clan will take care of them. In truth, any clan they are friendly with will take care of them, at the most this will be considered a favour. At the least this will be considered hospitality.

Dwarves view a friend staying with them as an invitation to stay with them. The reverse is also true, and if you are in an area and do NOT stay in a friendly hold, that can and often is viewed as telling them they are not welcome. The females take care of their males. Males offer hospitality to visitors. If a female offers hospitality to a male from another clan, this is viewed as flirting. Despite it's banal apperance, Dwarves take this with extreme severity, to the point that a male might have to keep his cup covered for nearly an entire meal, as letting an, (often persistent), female fill his cup, is considered flirting in return.

Dwarven females believe that if they aren't getting enough attention from their husband. It's their fault. They just need to put more effort into it. The nacent Summer King, (the fabled Lion of Cynn; once nothing more than a simple knight), had a maid who proved that you simply have to work harder if you want to get a husband. The Lion called her Dragon, for her force, (and her voice). Dwarves, by contrast, call her a Demon. It encouraged female Dwarves to try even harder than they had before when trying to marry a husband.

The traditional form of marriage for Dwarves has a male relative introduce the female to her prospective husband. She does what she can to act as his wife. If he already has wives, they often will not make this easy, unless they especially approve of her. At a certain point, the marriage becomes a betrothal. And once betrothed, the male takes the female to bed, and upon the first seeding, they are married. This can be troublesome for those of other races, (or clanless Dwarves), who do not know the rules, and might have trouble telling exactly what part of the courtship they are. Dwarves react the same way a man would act if a female has her betrothral broken off. Before this line, however, at any time, the male can send the female away, and the relationship is broken off. Sometimes this might happen at what other races would consider an inappropriate time, but the usual response is that Dwarves are as robust as they seem. The females won't take it as an insult, but it will normally prevent a relationship from forming between them in the future.

Partially from wanderlust, and partially from the intensity of their own marriages, males Dwarves will often spend a year or more away from his clan and family. Trading, exploring, learning, etc.

Dwarves are considered adults at 50, at which point it is common for an older male relative to take them on a journey into the lands of another races. One of the older males, (it's impossible to recruit one Dwarf), will take personal responbility for their safety, always watching over them.

Dwarves have classes, which is not a social class, but a unique set of skills and affinities for certain jobs. It does not matter what they are currently doing, they are always considered to have their class. All male Dwarves are considered to be warriors. Females can if they choose, (which they rarely do). Classes are treated like professions. While professions might not be for everyone, they are prestigious, and those who do not find one often find themselves adrift. Not all Dwarves are fit to be a thane, of course. The class is only applied to those that fervently pursue it. Those of casual interest, (by Dwarven standards), are not considered of the class.

Artisan: As economically essential as mining is to not just the hold, but entire kingdoms. Dwarves take artisanry seriously. Males take up the more physical crafts, while females take up the more dextrous ones. Though, this has to be taken from a Dwarven perspective, as beating dough into submission is typically done by their females.

Bee Keeper: This might seem strange, but Dwarves have natural allergies to bees. Bees are essential to agriculture, and honey also one of the greatest foods. Bees, (and other jacketed things), can cause a Dwarven force to rout.

Dragoon: They are experts at firearms, able to enchant the explosion in-progress, allowing them to turn a firearm into something that can launch them into the air, creates plumes of flame, or even explosions.

Mining (m): One of the most essential jobs for Dwarf-kind, especially as most Dwarven holds start as naught but mines. 

Nurse (f): One of the most essential classes, the keeping of the young, and old, and infirm. They wield healing magics, while being skilled at soothing, of saying just what is needed to say to, of aiding those injured to not just heal, but recover.

Pyran (m): Dwarves love their baths. Their baths usually have a bath stone that is manually heated by a Pyran, whom channels a lot of heat into the stone. Other pyromancers can heat it, but it still a ridiculous amount of exercision to force heat into cold stone.

Shepherd: Shepherds are essential, as sheep and goats are one of the best resource any race can have. It requires a combintion of leadership and pacivity that Dwarves find most difficult. It also requires them to spend much time away from their hold, which most Dwarves find most queer.

Skald: The keepers of their words. Dwarves speak many languages, and never speak their language in front of other races. Even Men who marry into Dwarven holds, although this is as much because it takes 50 years to get decent at it. The tongues of men take far less. They maintain the libraries, act as advisers, and wield Word Magick. These words are all Dwarven, leading to few if anything that can possibly ken their existence.

Viking (m) / Valkyrie (f): They ride the wind and channel the storm. Dwarves do not channel magick through their body, but directly from the environment into objects. Because of this, they can channel lightning into objects. Channeling lightning through the body risks striking the heart, (for despite it's power, lightning is such a fickle thing), which will instantly kill most of the Greater Races. While they cannot fly, they can shunt wind against their bodies, cloaks, and shields. They can use lightning to quicken their limbs, (as the lightning will not seek it's way into their hearts).

Fantasy Counterpart: Scottish / Nordic

Dwarves and Men

Dwarves view Men as a young race that won't have the chance to get old. But, unlike the long-lived Elves, the Gnomes that live slightly longer than Men, and Fauns that live shorter lives, Men do interesting things. They build, they explore, they fight over petty grudges, (the best kind). They can marry into a Dwarven clan, (and several, in fact), though are given only small concessions, such as understanding why they have trouble remembering every fact of every hold they are friends with. Dwarves understand that only the first wife is considered wife among Men, legally, but and that all others are considered concubines, legally. They still expect men to treat them all as wives. Dwarven females who marry men were normally viewed as Mannish ahead of time. It's only a scandal as everyone claims to have seen it coming.

Dwarves use Mannish, and related terms, to mean feminine. They consider swords to be feminine. This means they will lightly insult men they come across by calling them Mannish. When they've earned their respect, the Dwarves will often simply avoid calling them Mannish, and stop making reference to their sword. Men will often take this as as insult instead of the compliment it is meant as.

Dwarves have tremendous physical and intellectual abilities, with fields of scholarship not even imagined by Men, but Dwarves rarely find any need to use this. If a Man can get a Dwarf to aid them, it will be to death. A team of Dwarven bombadiers can change the fate of a siege. Their understanding of economics is so powerful that one of the reasons the Empire never enslaved, as they did with all other non-Mannish races. The other, of course, being that Dwarves often control mountain passes, and once they dig themselves into a hold, they are extremely difficult to remove.

Note: As of this point, only the Summer King has ever invited Dwarves to form a hold in Mannish. They normally form on their own, and once they are established, are too useful and difficult to remove to do anything about. Empire is the Mannish trait, and as such, most lands occupied by most species, are under the auspices of the local Mannigh kingdom. This includes Dwarves.

[transgenderer]

In Hindu culture, the term gotra (Sanskrit: गोत्र) is considered to be equivalent to lineage. It broadly refers to people who are descendants in an unbroken male line from a common male ancestor or patriline. Generally, the gotra forms an exogamous unit, with marriage within the same gotra being regarded as incest and prohibited by custom.

According to the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2.2.4, Kashyapa, Atri, Vasistha, Vishvamitra, Gautama Maharishi, Jamadagni and Bharadvaja are seven sages (also known as saptarishi) and Jambu Maharishi is another sage (also known as Renuka, who belongs to Kashyapa). The progeny of these eight sages are declared to be gotras. This enumeration of seven primary & one secondary gotra seems to have been known to Pāṇini. The offspring (apatya) of these seven are gotras and others than these are called gotrāvayava.

[littlechinesedoll]

Good, Comfortable Life - SasuNaru, α!Sasuke, Ω!Naruto

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/48061807.

Rating: Mature

Archive Warning: Major Character Death

Category: M/M

Fandom: Naruto

Relationship: Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Fugaku/Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Itachi/Uzumaki Naruto

Character: Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Fugaku, Uchiha Itachi

Additional Tags: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Mpreg, Omega Uzumaki Naruto, Alpha Uchiha Sasuke, War, Angst, Marriage Contracts, Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Historical, Character Death, Grief/Mourning

Summary

Naruto at twenty-one springs been widowed twice.

inspired by this art by jenmushroom on twitter: https://twitter.com/JenMushroom/status/1670465629105840129

Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levirate_marriage

Levirate marriage is a type of marriage in which the brother of a deceased man is obliged to marry his brother's widow. Levirate marriage has been practiced by societies with a strong clan structure in which exogamous marriage (i.e. marriage outside the clan) is forbidden.

The Japanese had a custom of levirate marriage called aniyome ni naosu (兄嫁に直す) during the Meiji period.

Only for this fic, Naruto will be marrying the adult children instead of his deceased husband’s brother.

Naruto and Sasuke are 20 at the start.

Good, Comfortable Life

Naruto at twenty-one springs been widowed twice.

Most omegas haven’t lost two alphas to death like Naruto has. They didn’t even live with him long enough, live long enough to bite him. But the first alpha did give him a child.

The masters of the house Naruto serves are all too willing to hand him over to the alpha to asked for him when they hear the alpha is willing to pay such an amount for the bride price. Naruto feels like commodity, thrown aside for money after serving this house for so long, but the alpha, who is much older than him, is kind and was up front about what he will be to him.

A breeding bride. To provide additional children to the head of the family during times of need. There is a need for the Uchiha, the house that needs him, for there is a war. They’re being called to the front, there are not enough heirs, and Lady Uchiha has long passed.

Breeding brides haven’t been brought up for generations, not during times of peace. In times of war, when alphas are sent out to fight, they’re brought out from the pits of the past and tradition to bring forth legitimate heirs. It is about continuing the line, protection, and not about love, but it can be. Not for Naruto, though, whose husbands are sent to war not just to protect the kingdom they’ve sworn to protect and fight for, but to die.

Uchiha Fugaku, makes sure a child is in Naruto’s belly before he leaves for the battlefield.

He is a gentle soul, whispering promises of a good, comfortable life to him and the child. He is given forehead kisses, a warm bed, and a beating chest to lull him to sleep at night. He doesn’t give Naruto the bite, for he knows he won’t return to fulfill these promises but hopes his adult sons will survive him and this war long enough to.

“Itachi will take care of you,” the alpha says, giving his forehead one last kiss.

When he leaves to fulfill his duty to the throne, Naruto nests and surrounds himself with the alpha’s clothes and belongings. Gradually, Itachi’s clothing makes it into the pile as he is the one to care for him.

Naruto’s belly swells, and Itachi makes sure he has everything to be comfortable. His own room, garden, servants, and the best they can afford despite the rationing caused by the war. He is their lady and the future of the grand house of Uchiha. He is showered with luxuries he doesn’t ask for, nor need. What he needs is the alpha who planted the child in him.

He gets no letters from Fugaku and isn’t allowed to send any to him either. He is told letters might get intercepted and endanger him, their lord, and their soldiers.

Itachi sees to it he gets everything he and the child need. He and Sasuke visit him in the morning and in the afternoon and has breakfast and dinner with him. Itachi comes when Naruto asks for him. A healer is always by his side whenever he feels sick. Just when he thinks he’s safe and comfortable, news arrives.

Fugaku dies in battle, protecting the kingdom’s borders until his very last breath, wiping out the enemies as a man with his strength, leadership, and power is expected. But he succumbs to his injuries after a hard-won victory.

A vassal scout arrives to offer Naruto Fugaku’s sword and helmet. The rest of the household and clan turn to Itachi and kneels to show their loyalty to the new head. Naruto looks up at Itachi, cradles his belly, and struggles to get down on his knees to bow, but alpha overlooks this and stops him.

“Let’s get you inside,” Itachi tells him, and the alpha can feel the newly widowed omega shaking in his arms.

The lord’s body arrives days later, pale from death and blood loss, and face almost unrecognizable if not for his strong features, from the bruises and injury. He’s been cleaned and is ready for the wake and pyre.

Naruto, with Itachi’s help, kneels by the body, brushing the dark hair back from his eyes with shaking hands. The man who promised him a good, loved life for himself and the babe. The man who looked at an orphaned, overworked servant and saw beauty, someone worthy of love and luxuries.

“My Lord,” he gasps, tears falling onto the cold, sunken cheeks of his alpha.

Fugaku’s vassals, his underlings, his people, the clan present for their former lord’s arrival, lower their heads, can’t watch his young widow, belly just starting to swell with the deceased lord’s child, wail in mourning. His cries tear their bereaved hearts out of their chests. It doesn’t take much for Itachi to pull Naruto away from the body. Naruto clings to him, as if begging for the lord to rise from his eternal slumber.

The body is cleaned once more, placed in a coffin, prepared for the wake, and then burned a day later.

And Naruto, five moons heavy with Uchiha Fugaku’s third heir, still in shock, mourning the father of the child tossing in him, is again dressed in his wedding kimono, and married off to his firstborn alpha son three days later, to the new head, Uchiha Itachi. To ensure his safety, to keep him constantly in the household of the Uchiha head, to keep the Uchiha clan themselves from picking on him like vultures.

Itachi chooses not to bed his new omega in delicate health, to avoid an importune heat rising to the surface because of a new alpha.

“Sasuke will take care of you,” says his new husband. Itachi does not expect to come back alive.

Uchiha Itachi is sent off to the battlefield, just days after his marriage to his father’s widow, just a week after burning his father’s body. Itachi leaves Naruto a kiss to his forehead as he parts with him.

Naruto grabs his sleeve and pulls his new alpha into a desperate embrace. “Come back, please,” he cries into the chest of the elder brother who took care of him in place of his father. He loves him like family.

Itachi doesn’t answer but returns the embrace just as tightly. Then rides off into the night.

Like Fugaku, there are no letters to be sent nor received.

Naruto becomes a mother at twenty-one to Menma four moons later, and the babe knows no other father than the man, his brother, who took responsibility for him and his mother, Uchiha Sasuke, Fugaku’s spare, who is kept at their estate to run things and protect them. There is a celebration, because Naruto had a safe birth, and Menma is born healthy, and his cries are music to the Uchiha Clan. An heir to secure the future.

Sasuke is a soul just as kind as his father’s and older brother’s.

Like Itachi, Sasuke is at his beck and call. Anything Sasuke does is dropped when he hears Menma cry. His little brother is now adopted into Itachi’s family registry.

He joins Naruto for every meal which for Naruto is always composed of something hearty and good for nursing mothers. Sasuke spends time with him at night having tea and biscuits at the engawa, telling stories of his father, elder brother, and mother, going on walks with him and the infant through the gardens, ensuring his rooms are warm enough at night, and posting guards at his doors for protection.

He gives Naruto gifts of sweets and desserts, trinkets like books, ribbons, and bracelets, and for the baby, new clothes, toys, and swaddling blankets. He holds the babe close to him, kissing the soft head, then his small hands, and whispers his promises of protection, love for him and his mother, all he’ll ever want in life. Sasuke plays with him, relishing in the laughter of a small child bringing joy and color to their bereaved home.

He thanks Sasuke for his care, for standing as Menma’s father, and he hopes that Sasuke will never tire of giving Menma love enough for his late father and uncle in his absence.

Naruto is glad to have Sasuke with him and share his grief. He finds himself and his heart growing closer and closer to the youngest Uchiha, but not once does he wish to be his omega. That would mean wishing death upon his current husband, and this family has suffered enough.

Itachi’s sword is returned to Naruto eight moons later. Shisui, one of Itachi’s closest friends, and his vassals lay the sword down at his feet and Naruto is informed there is no body. Sasuke has to catch him when the shock makes him lose his strength, and his wails can be heard over houses, breaking the silence of the clan’s rest. In the morning, he bows to Sasuke like the rest of the clan.

Twenty-one springs and Naruto has been widowed twice.

A funeral is held once more and like Itachi before him, now the eldest son, Sasuke prepares the funeral. Incense is burned, prayers are offered, and an empty coffin is burned. The again widowed omega holds his sleeping, oblivious child close, both dressed in black. His poor child who has lost his father and oldest brother in such a short amount of time. Fugaku and Itachi were great people, noble husbands who promised Naruto a good life with the child he gave to them.

The whispers of their mourning clan members surround him, pitying, some of derision.

“Poor thing, the babe’s so small,”

“Maybe he isn’t eating right?”

“How awful, to lose alphas so soon after the previous one,”

“It’s probably what happens when you rise to the top too fast,”

Shisui takes him away from the funeral and the people’s cruelty, and places him back in his room, away from the gossiping public.

He didn’t ask for this. He didn’t ask to be married to a lord and bred. He only said yes because he was promised a good, comfortable life, and his servant life will be over. Not all that sparkles is gold. Naruto might be dressed in the finest silk, dines on the finest China, sleeps on the softest futon, but he’s gone through so much pain in such a short amount of time. His heart is so heavy. He can’t seem to stop crying.

He might not have been in love with the lords he married, but he loved them all the same. He loved them for who they are, love in return for their kindness.

He is hurriedly shuffled into his wedding kimono a third time and marries Sasuke, his once son-in-law and brother-in-law, and becomes his wife. Uchiha Menma, is welcomed into Sasuke’s registry. Menma, with his dark hair and chubby whiskered cheeks, looks more and more like a mix of Fugaku, Itachi, and Sasuke every day that passes.

Sasuke, the one who’s been there for him all this time, is the one he falls in love with. If Sasuke dies, the child in his arms is the new head, and Naruto will be thrice widowed and without an alpha, a husband, to help raise these princely children born for sacrifice and leadership.

“My Lord,” Naruto begs as his and Sasuke’s bodies rock and push desperately into each other. Finally, after months of dancing around each other in respect to Itachi as his then husband, their lips and skin meet. “My Alpha. Come back to me, please,”

“I will,” Sasuke grunts, with half a mind pulling his teeth away from the omega’s swollen scent gland, halfway through a heat after months of healing from the first child, aching to be bitten by its new alpha. “And when I do, I will give you all that was promised to you. I will bite and love you so thoroughly, and stuff you with child again and again, and you will be mine,”

Naruto reaches his peak and leaves bleeding scratches on Sasuke’s back, and the alpha spills inside him and the knot slips in. Naruto clenches on it like a lifeline, as if his body knows, this alpha will not return.

“Yours,” he sobs into Sasuke’s shoulder.

The war is about to end, they say, but Sasuke is still sent off to fight, two weeks after burning Itachi’s empty coffin, a week after marrying his father and brother’s widow. He has no time to wait and see if the seed he planted in his new mate has taken root.

Shisui is going back with him.

“My Lord,” Naruto begs Sasuke, in the dead of night, in the soft glow of the lanterns illuminating the gates of the Uchiha compound. “Please,”

Menma, too, sensing his mother’s distress, sheds fat tears and reaches for Sasuke. “Nii!” (1)

Sasuke doesn’t dare take the babe from Naruto’s arms, or he’ll lose his weak resolve. Instead, he presses a kiss to the child’s head, then to Naruto’s temple. He knows his promises of return may turn empty.

“If I return to you, if not whole, then as a spirit worthy of your love, a man who chose the important things in the darkest of times, honor, duty, and sacrifice,” he wraps his arms around them. “Remember, my death will not be in vain for you hold me in your heart, for I laid it first and foremost for you, for Menma, for the child you will give me. And in your heart, I will remain alive,” (2)

There is nothing Naruto can say in reply, so he kisses his husband.

Menma whines, his tiny fists grabbing onto Sasuke’s clothes, as if preventing him from leaving. “Nii!”

“I know, my love,” Sasuke gently lifts the small hands from his clothes and presses his lips to the tiny fingers. “Take care of Hahaue for me?” (3)

“Nii!”

Sasuke kisses his bride one last time. “My love will always be with you, both of you,”

“And my heart, yours,” replies Naruto.

Sasuke rides into the night unsure of his fate, but sure that he will claw his way back to his omega and children. If he must, from the grave.

Naruto doesn’t know how to run an estate, how to make sure these people are fed, protected, led. He’s not here to lead a family. He’s here to birth children and ensure the line will continue; to care for these children, feed them from his bosom, love and care for them until they blossom into their princely selves.

Menma, an alpha, the child he birthed for Uchiha Fugaku, celebrates his first spring and summer. Naruto keeps Fugaku and Itachi alive by exposing Menma to paintings of their likeness. He hopes Menma hasn’t forgotten Sasuke yet, and he tries to delay it by surrounding him in Sasuke’s clothes and belongings.

Naruto doesn’t celebrate his birthday. He doesn’t see the point. He feels like he’s signed his death the moment he accepted Fugaku’s marriage proposal. What is there to celebrate, when he is nothing but a womb to be kept full, to ensure this house receives its next head.

Sasuke is on the battlefield, and Naruto is heavy with his child.

“I’ll not survive it,” he tells a servant during the last days of his gravidity, when he is so heavy and swollen, he can’t tend to Menma who is crying for his warmth and embrace.

“You must,” says the loyal servant, Juugo—Sasuke’s servant nanny, an omega, whom Sasuke entrusted Naruto to. He sets tea down for him, begging for him to strengthen his resolve. “You must, My Lady, for our Young Lord, for the babe in you, you must,”

Naruto cries and screams into the stormy night and births another alpha. Boruto, he names him, as bright as the lightning that slices the dark sky. A babe with a head as blond as the bride who birthed him.

The midwife hands him the child, and Naruto sobs. Wails in mourning for Fugaku, for Itachi, cursing the war that took them. For Sasuke whose death may not have reached him yet. His cries pierce the night together with his newborn, and the dying grand house of Uchiha, and all loyal to them, cries with him.

Menma and Boruto are gorgeous children who are Naruto’s source of joy will to live. He sees Fugaku, Itachi, and Sasuke in both of them, in how much Menma looks like his father and brothers, and the way Boruto looks like Sasuke when he frowns, hungry and demanding milk.

Naruto finds purpose in them, when they call for him, when they need him. When they see him and smile.

He tells them every day. “Menma-kun, Fugaku-sama loves you. Boruto-kun, Sasuke-sama loves you. Itachi-sama loves you,”

These children may have been born from him, but he will have to bow to them one day.

Naruto learns, little by little, how to give audience to their leaderless clan from Obito, a distant cousin from the Uchiha Family Head who is like an uncle to Fugaku, is exempt from service due to previous injury that never healed properly. He joins him during his audiences, visiting their offices and ensuring the food supply is regulated, and that the fields are tilled, the crops are taken care of, and their other trades operating.

As the current Lady Uchiha it is his duty to oversee these activities but doesn’t know how. He apologizes for his incompetence, but the Uchiha clan is giving him more patience than he deserves, he thinks but is thankful, for he knows little else than everyday Japanese, and enough arithmetic to ensure he isn’t cheated from his coin at the market, and how to clean and cook for a house.

But he knows they’re becoming impatient, despite their thanks and bows for his visit with Obito. His ignorance won’t be forgivable much longer. He fears the day they forcibly release him from his marriage and take his children, and his Lord isn’t here to stop them.

Had it not been for this cruel war, tearing family away from their children, wives, and husbands, the Uchiha clan may have had more leaders to keep its people comfortable, happy, and fed, and Naruto can be left to raise his children.

During quiet and calm days no audience is required of him, Naruto sits at the engawa overlooking the garden with tea and biscuits. Boruto is held close to his bosom to feed and Menma is playing in the garden under the watchful eye of his self-appointed nanny, Juugo.

“Sasuke-sama and Itachi-sama were a handful, too,” says Juugo, fondly remembering the carefree childhood days of his charges. “I’m looking forward to watching your children grow, My Lady,”

Naruto hopes he is enough for them to grow into the great leaders their fathers are. “I sincerely wish My Lord can watch them grow, too, with his own eyes,”

“We may never understand your pain but know we will be here to support you and the children. Whatever is it that you need we will provide. It is the will of Our Lord,”  

Every night, Naruto lights incense and prays for the safety of his husband. For his own, so that he can continue to care, love, and raise his children. For his children, may they grow with the same kindness their father and brothers have. That they not resent them and him.

Naruto gets a letter and parcels from the throne addressed only to him three days after Boruto’s fourth moon. The war is won, and the throne thanks the Uchiha Clan for their service. Together with the letter are boxes containing finely crafted commemorative swords, wine, and scrolls containing proof of the Uchiha as a noble house commended by the throne. There are three smaller wooden boxes, and Naruto finds medals awarded to the fallen. Three of them.

The sun is bright and shining, burning golden and intense above the grand house of the Uchiha, and yet.

Uchiha Naruto is widowed thrice.

Menma, a year and ten moons old, sits watching the boxes get taken away, waiting for his mother to gather him back in his arms. Naruto faces him.

“My darling,” Naruto whispers, pressing his lips to the child’s plump cheek. “My sweet boy,”

The boy looks up at him, confused when Naruto pulls away and moves back some paces instead of bringing him into an embrace like he always does. The omega struggles to keep the sob in and bows to the juvenile head of the Uchiha.

“Not yet,” Juugo doesn’t let him bow to the child, and pulls him into an embrace he knows Naruto needs. “Not yet, My Lady. Not without news, without vassals and his sword, and without a body,”

Servants can’t unhear the sorrowed wails of their Lady, crying for their Lord.

A fortnight and a half later, Juugo wakes Naruto in the middle of the night.

“My Lady, His Lordship’s vassals,” Juugo says urgently. “They’ve arrived,”

It’s the only thing Juugo has to say before Naruto is pulling on his husband’s uchiwa crested haori and running to the gates with only socks on.

The braziers and lanterns outside are all lit for him, brightly illuminating the cobblestone lane that leads the gates to the main house.

Obito meets him outside of the main house. He is the one keeping everything afloat in Sasuke’s absence and Naruto owes a lot to him.

“My Lady, please steel yourself,” he offers his hand for Naruto to take as he makes his way down the stone steps. He lets Naruto hold onto him tight.

No sword is presented to him, and Naruto’s heart is trying to beat out of his ribcage in dread.

Shisui, who is leading the cavalcade of what Naruto hopes are survivors of the clan, dismounts his horse. Behind him, a battered carriage pulled by two dark horses. He bows to Naruto first before opening the doors to the carriage to let the passenger off.

“Water. Get them water!” Naruto tells the servants woken by the commotion. They scatter in all directions, surprised by the order and scrambling to obey.

Two more able bodied members of the cavalcade approach the carriage, and dismount what looks like a wicker hammock, and in it, the Uchiha Clan Head, Naruto’s injured husband.

Naruto can’t help the sob of relief that escapes him as he lets go of Obito’s hand and runs over to the men holding up the hammock his husband lies in.

“My Lord,” Naruto cries, kneeling by the hammock propped up on the shoulders of two clan members.

Sasuke, weak and delirious with a fever, smiles weakly up at his omega. “I’m home,”

“Welcome home,”

With Boruto strapped to his front and Menma to his back, together with the family healer and another who specializes in battlefield medicine Naruto takes care of Sasuke.

“Nii!” Menma points to Sasuke fighting off another high ever.

“Yes,” Naruto says, relieved that Menma remembers. “Onii-sama is home,”

“Can Nii play now?”

“No, he can’t play with you just yet,”

The healer again cleans Sasuke’s stump, which is healing nicely, then wraps it again to keep the elements away and help move along the healing.

How awful, Naruto thinks, Sasuke has lost his left arm. But he’s here now, that’s what matters, and Naruto will nurse him back to health.

Sasuke wakes for a moment just enough to get down some porridge, water, and his medicine, then falls back asleep. Fevers fade in and out, and finally, the fever breaks about three days later, and he’s strong enough to keep awake for longer.

“Nii!”

“Careful, my love,” Naruto chides the child who almost jumps onto the injured lord.

A healer is behind him to turn him up right if he falls. The loss of his arm severely affected his balance, and it may take a long time for him to recover.

“Menma, how you’ve grown,” Sasuke pulls his little brother to his lap and revels in the sweet scent of milk from the small thing. How he’s missed his family.

Menma chatters and chatters about everything he’s done so far. He likes chasing after frogs in the garden, noodles with chicken broth, rice cakes with sweet tea, and doesn’t like learning his numbers and hiragana. Sasuke takes it all in, enjoying the boisterous stories of the many moons he’s missed, despite the pounding headache.

The healer notices, and Juugo gently plucks the child away and they let Sasuke rest a bit more.

When Sasuke wakes again, it’s dark, but the numerous lamps in his room brighten the night away, and he’s served porridge with strips of steamed fish, blanched vegetables, some fruit, and tea. When he’s done, his servant and healer fetch his omega, and Naruto enters the room with a bundle to his chest.

“My Lord,” Naruto says as he kneels by Sasuke’s futon.

Sasuke almost freezes. “Is he really?”

“An alpha,” Naruto moves closer to him to present the child to his father. “His name is Boruto,”

“He’s beautiful. Thank you,”

He places the infant in Sasuke’s arm, and Sasuke’s nose is filled with the sweet scent of milk, just like Menma.

“Thank you,” Sasuke says again, and the healer turns around when his lord gives his omega a kiss.

Naruto is no longer a widow.

With the end of the war and the return of their lord, the Uchiha clan pays respects to their fallen, makes do with what they have, and with each other’s help, thrives.

When Naruto’s first heat after Boruto comes, finally he is bitten by his alpha, and he bites Sasuke back. A little girl with dark hair and blue eyes is born nine moons later.

The grand house of Uchiha isn’t dying after all and Naruto loves and is loved by his alpha, and with him and their children, has a good, comfortable life.

---

End Notes

(1) Nii/Onii-sama – Big brother

(2) General Gregorio Del Pilar’s letter to his sweetheart, Remedios Nable Jose, which she received after he died.

I return to you as a worthy spirit, as a man who chose the most important things in a dark time: honor, duty, sacrifice. My death will not be in vain because I died bringing glory to the people, and above all, you. I will never be a hero above the clouds, far away and unreachable, while you hold me in your heart. And in your heart, I will remain alive and worthy of your love.

(3) Hahaue「ははうえ・母上 」means mother. Other ways to call or refer to a mother: okaa-san, okaa-sama.

(4) Chichue 「ちちうえ・父上」means father.

again this was inspired by this art by jenmushroom on twitter: https://twitter.com/JenMushroom/status/1670465629105840129

i just wanted the endgame to be sasunaru still hehe i hope you enjoyed that roller coaster because i made myself cry.

please be kind. thank you for reading 🙇🏽♀️

Please drop by the archive and comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!

[troutfur]

ok so i adore the pfurr dynamics and all that stuff soooo: i was wondering if you had ideas for how things are handled in each clan specifically?

I see pfurr dynamics to be part of the cultural substrata common to all Clans so cultural differences between them are not really a thing! There's WindClan's policy of enforced monogamy during the Onestar era but that was swiftly reversed for a return to status quo.

I imagine that compared to other feral cat colonies in-universe that it is a fairly unique arrangement while still conforming to a trend of cats favoring social structures that are non-monogamous and matrilineal. Therefore all other arrangements will involve some form of privileging maternal kin.

If anyone handles it differently it's probably SkyClan due to their lengthened isolation which led to both internal evolution and adoption of foreign practices/elements thereof. (Maybe a gender-segregated camp? To reflect more accurately the real dynamics of a feral cat colony? Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts.)

The Sisters, The Tribe of Rushing Waters, and BloodClan, and all others would also have their own unique arrangements but they'd deemphasize the role of fathers/male role models a lot more. I feel like probably at least one of the latter two is exogamous, (prefers marriage to outsiders) and matrilocal (husband moves in with wife's matrilineal family).

To be honest with you, other than the Clans and the Sisters I don't really care much about other groups and their social arrangements. So if y'all have ideas feel free to talk about them with me more, but I'm very much not thinking about them much without outside prompting.

[transmutationisms]

Hi! 

Do you have any thoughts re: succession and Emmanuel Todd? 

I guess a material analysis of the family structure would put them square in the absolute nuclear family type, but ive been enjoying thinking  about it in terms of narrative, where a case could be made for the inverse and the family structure read as communautarian (exogamous or endogamous depending on how twisty I wanna feel about it).

the family unit is integrated, insofar as waystar is the father’s roof under which multiple generations still live (which like apart from being kind of an evident conclusion to draw, is alluded to in-text from season 1 with the grey gardens references through to the last season with the siblings playing outside logan’s office etc.). 

secondly we could argue that, in a perverse kind of way, the succession is egalitarian : even though they are valued and treated differently by their father, their is no strict patrilineal heir and the siblings are quite undifferentiated in this sense (right now im the real you, no one is a real person until they’re the heir etc etc) 

Anyway im not the biggest Todd scholar or enjoyer in the world but I do find his framework compelling and your analysis is always very insightful ! Have a great day (and feel free to disregard this ofc :))

so, i don't love todd's work because i think it can get reductive and overly simplistic in its dicussion of family forms as well as political, economic, and religious forms. i'd also disagree that there's no assumption of a patrilineal heir on succession. like, until season 2, shiv is not even in consideration for the position, and even then, logan sort of meant it but didn't really mean it lol. he was never going to be able to hand over the company to anyone, but especially not his daughter.

anyway though, taking todd's family forms for sake of argument, i see where you're coming from with the communitarian family, but i think the more persuasive case would be the authoritarian family, both because the roys are fascistic catholics and because the 'cohabitation' is occurring solely via the company, so it's dependent on the kids vying to become the heir, even though logan would never have actually handed over the company lol. but, again, part of what's frustrating about todd for me is i simply think his categories are overly schematic. like, capitalism doesn't function exactly the same in all times and places (compare 18th-century 'court capitalism' to 19th-century industrial capitalism to 20th-century neoliberal capitalism, and this is like, still mostly just within europe) and family structures can mesh with economic and ideological ones in unexpected ways.