#obligations and inheritance

[serpentface]

Question about Couya! Since she is a bastard what are the reasons about her being brought into the main family by her father. Was it genuine care for his child or a way to save face politically/socially? Is her birth mother alive? Do you think she would have had a better life growing up anywhere else?

This is in large part due to how cultural perceptions and legal punishment of adultery varies between male and female citizens, looped into the very strictly patrilineal kinship system.

By legal definition, the word for 'adultery' applies only to situations where a man has an affair with a married woman, or a married woman has an affair with any man. Other forms of affairs (eg a married man having an affair with an unmarried woman) are wrapped into a broader set of sexual misdemeanors and aren't often charged or punished in practice, and the punishments are comparatively minor (if an unwed woman's father pursues charges, the man in the affair is likely to just pay a fine). On a social level, extramaritial affairs in general are certainly not Approved of and seen as lowly and dishonorable, but the average response is significantly less harsh/more willing to entertain Nuance with men than with women.

In this society there's differentiated shades of bastardry depending on the contexts of the child's birth, as well as a distinction for 'nameless bastards' (has not been claimed by their biological father or maternal grandfather, or claimed in adoption).

a) A child born to an unmarried woman via an unmarried man: non-issue for father, potentially serious social harm for the woman (especially if she has never been married and expected virginal, much less severe as a widow or divorcee). The child will not be notably disadvantaged in of themselves (their status will depend more on whether they are claimed and thus provided the social security of a family patriarch), the father will experience no hard disadvantages in claiming them.

b) A child born to an unmarried woman via a married man: mild sexual misdemeanor for the father carrying levels of social shame, even more serious social harm for the woman (often framed as not just loose but a manipulative Seductress of a married man). The child might experience minor to moderate social disadvantages, the consequences of the father claiming them are purely social and will not typically be severe. (Couya is this)

c) A child born to a married woman via an unmarried or married man: both man and woman have committed a crime and can be severely punished. The biological father can technically claim the child but will be disincentivized from doing so. This is the form of bastardry most comparable to the conventional definition, in that it is heavily stigmatized and has effects on concerns of kinship and inheritance.

In addendum to this, if the adulterous wife's legal husband claims the child, this may be punishable if determined to be active concealment of adultery (which is also a crime), and has EXTREME social consequences either way. (Either you're a cuckold too stupid to notice that your wife has been skipping out on you, or you're a MEGAcuckold adultery-accessory willingly rearing another man's child after being horribly shamed by him).

(This is separate from adoption- a man who marries a woman with an unclaimed child after the fact (whether it was a product of adultery or just a general out of wedlock birth) and claims the child is an adoptive father, he is not concealing adultery or being cuckolded.)

A child born in an affair can be considered an heir to their biological fathers (descent and kinship is fully patrilineal and on a Basic level it doesn't matter who the mother is), and can very smoothly and legally be claimed when the affair was not considered criminal adultery. The concern on that front is social perception rather than material legal consequences or kinship issues.

Couya's birth mother was an unwed servant working as a housekeeper for her father Saizen, so the Crime of adultery did not take place. It would be considered a minor sexual misdemeanor, and the woman's father was not about to pursue charges against a nobleman who could Ruin him (and had also formally expressed that he would claim the child, which meant he would not be saddled with a nameless bastard granddaughter). So the concerns here were entirely social.

The affair might have started beforehand but the pregnancy that produced Couya occurred after his wife's third viable pregnancy ended in the premature birth of a underdeveloped boy deemed necessary to euthanize (and tbr would Not have survived either way). This was after Livya Haidamane had a couple early term miscarriages, two viable but very difficult pregnancies wherein one child was very weak and sickly for the first several years of life, and struggled to conceive every time. A lot of people are going to be at least a little sympathetic to a married man having an affair and claiming a bastard in this context. It's definitely ideal and practical to have more than two children, and his wife (while not outright infertile) clearly could not reliably bear healthy children. (The average response is going to be "Well he shouldn't have done it but like, I get it")

Couya being claimed by her father was a mix of genuine care and saving face. Initially it was MUCH more the latter than the former. Saizen made attempts to hide the servant's pregnancy and to keep his own wife out of sight during the late term (to prevent the baby appearing after his wife had been seen Extremely not pregnant). But there's some levels of care involved, he could very easily have fired the pregnant servant and had nothing to do with his bastard and she would have no recompense whatsoever. The choice to keep and claim the baby and ensure its entrance into the world bore as little social scrutiny as possible is an act of care for his own progeny.

This was Not an act of care for Couya's birth mother (beyond the fact that concealing her pregnancy would benefit her in hiding that she is not only Not a virgin prior to marriage but had a child). She probably would have been about 17-19 at the time and was fired a few months after giving birth, and most likely never saw Couya again after this point (if she did, it would most likely be in the context of seeing her as an adult Odonii in public and noting her to look Scarily familiar). She has an Okayish chance at still being alive, she'd be around 50 (and a person who survives the high infant mortality and birth casualty rates stands a good chance of hitting their 60s), though she could very well be a casualty of the drought+famine.

Whether or not Couya's life would have been better is kind of a mixed bag. She had an awful fucking childhood in large part because her adoptive mother Livya Haidamane hated her. (Livya was ultimately a pretty horrible person but not just like. An Evil Bitch. She had A Lot going on and Couya was a living breathing insult to her and reminder of like, every one of her dashed hopes and dreams). Couya is also autistic and presented very intense symptoms as a child in a society that is Not equipped for a mass-understanding and support of cognitive differences. But she still did have an immensely privileged life with profound physical/economic levels of security inaccessible to the vast majority of people in this region, including her birth mother. Saizen also actually Liked her and cared about her, he just wasn't a routine physical presence in any of his children's lives.

Had she been left with her biological mother, she would be in a very disadvantaged situation as a nameless bastard to an unwed mother. Her biological grandfather may or may not have been willing to claim her, and her mother would have great difficulties in finding a husband (which is ultimately necessary for the security of women in this society). I think her mother was a relatively kind person but not like, a perfect angel. She would probably have complicated feelings about her bastard daughter, especially one whose very existence materially disadvantages her and was very, very difficult as a child. So this probably would not have been a good situation for Couya either.

If you broaden the question to ANY other family completely divorced from the circumstances of her birth, yeah it definitely could have been better. But in her case it's like either "Life of grotesque socioeconomic privilege but in an abusive household" or "Life of profound socioeconomic disadvantages in a household that Probably wouldn't have been this abusive but certainly wouldn't be healthy". There wasn't really a good option for her.

[thatswhatsushesaid]

i just think jin guangyao's expression while looking at nie mingjue's severed head in the jinlintai treasure room speaks volumes about the depth of his unhappiness regarding, well. everything about this situation. about the circumstances that brought them both to the point where it was nmj's life or jgy's; about the decade of deception required to hide the evidence of this crime; about what he knows this revelation would do to lan xichen, if he found out.

some points for context:

1) he believes he's unobserved, save for nmj's resentful spirit. qin su is incapacitated (which, yikes, but this post isn't about that), paper man wei wuxian is still hidden from view; he has no one to perform or pretend for;

2) this is not an expression of triumph or satisfaction. this is the expression of a man who is both sad and frightened;

in other words, this isn't cruel, heartless, self-satisfied villain behaviour. this isn't zhao jing from 'word of honor' pissing on the memorial plaques of all his murdered sworn brothers while laughing maniacally about outwitting them. this scene has the weight of a graveside visit, if that grave was maybe also a nuclear warhead.

--

this meta has been added to my dreamwidth meta archive: https://thatswhatsushewrote.dreamwidth.org/560.html

[good-morzan-inheritance-cycle]

Been a while since I’ve rambled so have this idea of if Murtaugh became an official dragon rider and teacher with Eragon

I’d imagine they’d have group classes and training, but some senior riders would take personal apprentices. Mostly ones that showed promise or some who needed the extra help, or even ones they just vibed with.

Murtaugh wouldn’t have many apprentices, but I like to imagine he has at least one that’s a complete little weirdo, absolute goblin, a little goofy ghoul.

Like, this kid would be so quiet and weird, and this pasty little stick of a brat everyone is surprised he can even stand in sunlight. Probably sees the future or something, they don’t know if it’s that or he’s just weirdly observant.

And he’s just super quirky. he walks the halls at night, half the time he’s just sleep walking, or standing in shadowed alcoves to tell another student that their shoelace is untied.

And Murtaugh is completely unfazed by this. That’s his boy, his son, his little baby bean! he isn’t creepy just eccentric! He put up with Eragon, nothing bothers him.

A student could go up to him and be like “sir, Odie is doing rituals on the toads again.” And Murtaugh would just reply with “ah, I told him not to do that! The salt is so hard on the grass.”

Kid isn’t evil or anything but Eragon is just constantly concerned.

[useless-catalanfacts]

Btw if you come on holidays and stay at an AirBnb instead of an actual registered hotel I hate you personally. Not "I hate the gentrification and touristic massification and the way we can't live in our homes and are forced to move away because of tourism" in an abstract way- No, not just that. I hate you.

[kresnikcest]

Love the homoeroticism of feudal lords and kings but I also want Windor to become a democracy so the party can just chill together.

[modern-inheritance]

I’m still trying to banish this headache to the shadow realm BUT.

There is a point in MIC extended war timeline where Brom needs to go somewhere across the country and, because he is a Rider (and because no one else can get through to him sometimes), Arya is assigned to be his guard for the journey. Galbatorix learns of this and Murtagh and Thorn are dispatched to track them down and capture or kill them. Easy enough, right?

Well, Arya is just as feral when on Brom protec duty as she is when on Eragon and Saphira duty. And Brom is the OG, the Forsworn Slayer, He Who Wears Many Capes, master strategist and tactician. Goddamn Odysseus of Alagaesia, hoot hoot motherfuckers oh my god the painkillers are kicking in

So Murtagh and Thorn keep getting into these skirmishes where Murtagh is forced into 1v1 with Arya because Brom picked up on Thorn’s claustrophobia early on. They keep ducking into forests, caves, high walled valleys, city/town ruins, and it is driving Murtagh and Thorn nuts because it shouldn't be this fucking hard!

During the fights Arya is mostly just buying enough time for Brom to get himself away and into a new route/track/populated area/hidey hole and throw off any hopes of tracking before she peels off and goes some other direction and does the same thing that Brom did in a different area. They wait for Murtagh and Thorn to pick whatever direction they choose to try and hunt them down and then backtrack and meet back up to keep going.

A few times, Murtagh does manage to get an upper hand in battle. He's bolstered by the Eldunari Galbatorix gave him, and even though Thorn is a (relatively, aka not tail slapping range) good distance away, he can still contribute. Murtagh has seen Arya fight but he never got a chance to spar with her before he was kidnapped, but even so, his quick thinking and adaptability on the battlefield is very similar to Eragon's and he learns her general battle flow.

Unnnntil he metaphorically backs her into a corner and Arya activates 'Fuck You I'm Feral' mode because he tried to warn her away from engaging with them at the start by saying that he had orders to capture any elf he defeats 1v1 to take them to Uru'baen.

None of them, not a single one of them, Arya herself included, quite understands just...how she did it. But it was on that day, after getting beaten black and blue and having to reactivate his wards with energy from Thorn and the Eldunari time and time again, that Murtagh was rather painfully reminded of all the jokes Arya made while traveling with him after the escape from Gil'ead.

See, it turns out, if you try to roll a particular elf over with your foot while she's faking unconsciousness, sometimes, on the rarest of occasions, when she's absolutely just mad with protective instincts, and the threat of a second round in a Broddring prison cell is on the table...

sometimes that feral elf can, and will, out of sheer 'Fuck You' energy, use instinctive wordless magic to shred the fuck out of your wards and bite down on your kindly offered calf muscle and will not let go until that particular piece of it comes off with her. Along with your boot. Which you never will get back. And even after the war, you're a bit worried about what she did with it.

~~~

'Ebrithal Murtagh, I was wondering. If it's not too, um...personal. What's...what's that scar on your leg from?' "*grumblemumbling* Fecking feral– I mean. Ebrithal Arya...bit me. During the war." '...Wh...what?' *sputtered, ill-concealed snickering down the hall* "Yes, yes, very funny, Arya. You still owe me a new pair of boots and a bloody proper apology!" "Heh. Chomp chomp, motherfffiddlehead ferns, you have a student with you." "Go eat some soap." *beat* "Oh, donnae you say et–" "Bite me."

[blackswaneuroparedux]

For the conservative, human beings come into this world burdened by obligations, and subject to institutions and traditions that contain within them a precious inheritance of wisdom, without which the exercise of freedom is as likely to destroy human rights and entitlements as to enhance them.

Sir Roger Scruton

[semi-entropy]

god i love medieval clothing

[lisiya-gori]

I've been thinking a lot about julie karagina lately, and one of the enduring mysteries is why tolstoy decided to call her that. why did our great man of history take this one side character and give her a name that is one letter off from kuragin. of course in real life people have names that sound similar and it doesn't necessarily mean anything, but this is literally a novel. he could have given her any last name in the world, and yet he chose to do this. it would be like if you wrote a book that has three separate guys named nikolai—hold on, I'm getting a call—

[marlowethelibrarian]

I need you to tell me all about Project Cannibalism actually

Okay! So I have like 10 pages of worldbuilding just for this project, so if you wanna know something more specific, feel free to send me another ask!

Project Cannibalism is currently still in the planning stages.

The story takes place in Suya, a theocracy dedicated to cult of Suyo, a cthonic earth goddess, ruled by hereditary priestesses. Suyo was founded by exiles from the lowlands, banished to the steppe where most of them were killed by the harsher conditions at higher elevations, or by the nomads that lived on the steppe.

All living creatures have some kind of magic inside of them. Life itself is an energy that can be bent towards magical working. Usually this is expressed through alchemy- creating effects by brewing potions and later, by runesmithing. It can be a labor intensive process and biomes with more biodiversity have more options when it comes to alchemy. It is a useful technology that underpins most the engineering accomplishments on the peninsula.

The exiles discovered a way to use the magic of human life, amplifying another's energy through their own bodies to do bigger magic, bypassing the need for the process of alchemy. Other creatures can serve as batteries, but the closer the battery is to human, the more efficient the process. It is with this magic that they created arable land out of the rocky steppe and drove away the nomads.

You couldn't light a candle with the life of a cockroach, but with a another human, you can break up boulders, divert rivers, raise shelters, and only take a few years off of their lifespan.

The story for Project Cannibalism centers on a pair of identical twins, separated by birth. One raised in the temple of Suyo as a talented priestess, the other a genius alchemist that has run out of luck and time and realizes they have an uncanny resemblance to the up and coming priestess.... However, they find themself with more than they can chew, as the aging queen priestess and her heir are at odds with each other, and their twin is being groomed to possibly replace the crown priestess.

[malkaleh]

No actually listen Susan and Lucy and ELROND though. My heart. (Actually can Susan meet Idril and Luthien for reasons). But just like, Elrond.

[hjemne]

u know when u write two completely disjointed parts of a fic and have no idea how to stitch them together and u gotta scrap the whole thing :///////

[arnold-layne]

i love my job. also it makes me wanna kill myself

[what-even-is-thiss]

A lot of rhetoric from right wing people these days is saying that “white children shouldn’t be made to feel guilty” or whatever.

It’s not really about avoiding guilt though. It’s about erasing history.

I don’t actually think we should feel guilty for the actions of our ancestors. Here’s the thing though. You inherit things from your ancestors. You inherit wealth, and you inherit debt. You can inherit obligations and mistakes.

I am a white person. I didn’t create the racist system in my country, but I did inherit it. There’s no reason for me to feel guilty for inheriting it, but I do have an obligation to deal with what I have inherited.

Black Americans, for example, have inherited generational poverty from the systems my ancestors participated in whether anybody involved realized it or not. I have a responsibility to be like hey what can I do here to deal with this problem I inherited? Reparations? Using some wealth I get from this racist system to help black organizations? Being active in anti-racist politics?

That’s just one small example. Not ever possible thing this could apply to.

I don’t participate in anti-racism out of guilt. I do it because I inherited a debt. I inherited a problem I need to deal with because if a father won’t pay off a debt then his son must do it.

When people talk about guilt in right wing circles they’re not talking about guilt. They’re talking about trying to get out of their inherited debt. To pull off the same social tax evasion strategy as their fathers. To make more suffering to pass on to even more generations of people. To make BIPOC sit in a mess that was made for them a few generations longer.

I don’t think we should stand for that. I also don’t think we should feel guilty for the sins of our fathers. So your ancestors sucked. Okay. What the hell are you gonna do about it?

[cloudabserk]

the sexism in naruto is actually so crazy and all encompassing. every female character is defined by her relationship to men. the majority are boy-crazy. and it’s constantly remarked upon how weak they are when compared to their male teammates.

not only that but the main male characters actively dislike the women they’ve been paired off with. shikamaru is into temari but his infinite dream is not having to marry her. sai ends up with ino despite finding her ugly. naruto thinks hinata is weird and boring. sasuke’s dislike of sakura is infamous.

adult men’s interest in women is seen as comical and alien. (reactions to the sexy jutsu, jiraiya harassing women). almost all of the adult men are perpetual bachelors or sex perverts (and those who aren’t are stand ins for “mom and dad”).

when boys actually do like girls, it’s to show goofy immaturity and innocence (naruto’s crush on sakura that he grows out of as he reaches maturity, lee’s crush which is dropped entirely, obitos crush on rin which lasts into adulthood just to show he isn’t entirely separate from the boy he once was)

the whole ninja society likes to imagine it is a mostly gender blind world where women can thrive but this is SO obviously untrue. women are almost always healers and support. women make up less than 1/3 of the ninjas even at genin level. girls are almost all desperate to become wives and earn the attention of boys who don’t even like them!

mikoto uchiha was a jonin and presumably directly descended from the uchiha line (based on characters commenting that she/sasuke look just like izuna uchiha), but we only ever see her retired and raising her sons while her husband gets to be clan leader. (why?? if he married into the main family and she is an extremely capable ninja??)

similarly kushina uzumaki is borderline royalty and a jinchuriki, but her husband is hokage. once again the mother carries on the burden of power (for her sons to inherit) but the father has the title and status.

even the backstory of ninja enforces this. kaguya literally ate the forbidden fruit, giving the gift of chakra to all of humanity but also dooming them to fight for eternity. literally womens original sin …

anyway it’s not that all this sexist shit is in the story. it’s that kishimoto seemingly has no idea it’s there and believes the women he writes have epic girl power. how do you even do this by accident. why does every boy hate their wife. why did kaguya commit the original sin ! the girl characters want so badly to be with a boy but they don’t even care that the boy doesn’t like them back!! sakura and hinata are in loveless marriages of obligation and THEY DONT EVEN CARE??? they’re into it??? does kishimoto think men are universally forced to marry women they don’t like? does he blame women for this?WHY IS THE ORIGINAL SIN DRIVING THE BUS ALL THE SUDDEN?

[tonyglowheart]

"he would not fucking say that" -- post I saw that was imagining what the batkids would be like fighting over who gets Bruce in his old age