#but also i checked and i didn't exceed the character limit they gave??

[crispyjenkins]

@malcontent-crow

#i have been thinking about this all day#im loving this peek into Qui-Gon and Satine's heads!#Qui-Gon conveying these rumors to the council and then its like hes dug his feet in#which feels extremely in character for him#and now every time he hears the gossip it just fixes the idea more solidly into his head

#and Satine! she went from having somebody her age that took his role so seriously that she felt like the center of his universe#and then she isnt. in the middle of the fight she can suddenly see what he either truly is or what he could be#and it terrifies her! rightly so! shes built up this image of the jedi in her head and Obi-Wan was knowingly or not playing right into it#and then she see that he isnt just a peace-keeper hes a peace-maker#be it by smooth words and soothed egos or the strike of his fist and the cut of his saber#her romantic ideal of a jedi is absolutely crushed and tossed out the airlock#she has no idea if this is what he really is like and he got tired of humoring her until she can check with Qui-Gon#and the harsh realty that her core-world education doesnt actually mesh that well with the local culture and lifestyle#and shes shocked! how can these people not understand that if they lay down their arms so will the enemy. and then there will be peace#but then the adult jedi tells her to stop#tells her that her views are just as fanatical sounding to these people as death watch's views but only in the other dorection

#the gut punch of the healers knowing Obi-Wan better than Qui-Gon...#and the shadows saying that they would know best but really trying to say Qui-Gon is too close to the sitation to be rational #i LOVE Obi-Wan being just a little spooky and too-knowing when he isnt paying attention#i want the old guard to interact with him and get a little bit of heebie geebies#because he knows them even if its just through their future actions from the perspective of the clones#and they see this kid barely past his verdgoten and then he opens his mouth and they just have no idea how to handle this.

#would Obi-Wan tell them about meeting up with Jango? would he keep it to himself?#he doesnt need the backing of a self-declared dar'manda. or would it give him some extra weight to throw around?#not that i think he would need to throw around any weight.#i feel like if somebody disagreed with how he wants to do something he would just nod then turn and do it anyways#maybe thats how his involvement starts with the rebellion?#does he look at the disjointed mess of clans and individuals and politics and just tell them to keep up?#or would he actually sit down and work out battle plans with them hoping rhey know how to work in teams and crews theyve never trained with?

#once hes returned to mandalore whats his first goal? is it to meet up with the old guard or does he just head right to pre viszla?

(this one is long y'all, just a heads up)

*points at all your points about Satine* YEAH YEAHHHHHH YOU GET IT. except I don't think Qui-Gon would actually take the time to breakdown her arguments at this time, or really tell her more than "you need to stop antagonising the people giving us shelter". he's too caught up in tracking Obi-Wan and trying to figure out what's going on to remember/realise he has another teenage charge he should be taking care of beyond feeding and sheltering. this tunnel vision, specifically when caught between someone he cares about deeply and someone he just doesn't, is going to be the crux of my characterisation of Qui for this fic, and explain (not excuse) his rather fucked up choices in legends.

Satine, for her part, isn't going to get redeemed, so to speak, she's meant to be a minor character in this fic at best. travelling among those that would and/or will end up following Obi (not everyone is someone Obi-Wan would want following him, he just knows he's the middleground between civil war and the new mandalorians) will give her better, broader perspective, and remind her of much of her roots that she's been ignoring, but it won't be enough to change her views completely. and it isn't fair to say she's the only voice that made Mandalore what we see in tcw canon, we know she only succeeded at all because many many clan heads agreed with her, or came to agree with her, or made compromises in order to stop the fighting. she's just the most radicalised voice we see, so even if her views have shifted slightly, or toned down a lil, I don't think it would actually have much bearing on her faction as a whole, especially since she's so young and her council would be largely if not entirely adults not-insignificantly older than her

ALRIGHT SO i was doing some refreshing of my memory on this era (which led to me making that post the other night, which i think some people misunderstood but i'm not up for arguing [/neutral] about it) and it somehow completely missed me that like. Pre Vizsla? is very very very new to leading DW during Obi's mission on Mandalore, and isn't a known instigator?? for his reveal in tcw, people can't have known he was DW aligned at all, much less their leader, yet we know he was Tor's direct successor? SO. here's a quick write-up for the timeline based on what I could glean from legends and disney canon, and what future!Obi-Wan will know as truth when he's punted back in time. linking it 'cause it's a little too wordy for this post; comments enabled if y'all have questions

so i'm gonna jolkien rolkien rolkien tolkien a lil and make the retcon/misunderstanding a part of the story, so to speak.

i think it'd be really fucking funny if Obi-Wan just. forgets that people don't know Pre Vizsla (and by extension DW) are the ones sending bounty hunters after him and Satine, forgets people see DW as a political non-entity after Tor Vizsla's death a year-ish before. he calls anyone in Vizsla blues and grays Death Watch, tries to unite people to face a "common enemy" and most people are like "what". we'll come back to this in a sec but this MASSIVELY plays into his otherworldly-ness and heebie jeebie-ness, though will definitely make some people doubt his sanity, which i think ties in quite nicely to your idea "#i feel like if somebody disagreed with how he wants to do something he would just nod then turn and do it anyways" where he's like "sure i'm insane, that's understable, brb while i go start taking down DW hideouts that definitely don't exist and i shouldn't know about"

but we'll come back to that in a bit

to answer your question, the FIRST thing Obi does after getting back to Mandalore after failing to recruit Jango is have a minor mental breakdown, because he can feel Mandalore breathing. he can feel all the different clans stretched too far by distance and bad blood, can feel the way the Manda and the Ka'ra cocoon the planet lovingly, and the fact that specific force presences/souls/whatever can both choose where to go but also stay there has massive theological and cosmological implications Obi-Wan doesn't even remotely know how to begin to deal with. if he doubted being chosen, he doesn't doubt it now. (might take some inspo from Familiar Elements by What_the_Sith? love how they describe Obi's connection to Mandalore. also it just got updated and i'm very excited about that)

the SECOND thing he does is find a proper goran. i definitely subscribe to the headcanon that armorers are spiritual and historical education leaders, and have a lot of power in communities though cannot hold the position of a clan head. Obi-Wan needs his won/stollen armour reforged and properly blessed, he won't wear it anymore unless it is, he can feel that it isn't blessed now that he's connected to the Manda, that the last person to wear it was dar'manda.

the armorer is a little surprised by how knowledgeable Obi-Wan is about the smithing process, especially for his age (maybe they even suspect he was briefly an apprentice before the breakout of hostilities). Obi-Wan doesn't tell them that one of the few Cuy'val Dar that helped train the Alpha clones was a goran, and Alpha-17 had taught Obi-Wan as much as he knew in exchange for Obi-Wan teaching him Jedi hand-to-hand. Obi-Wan doesn't tell them he never got to teach Alpha much of anything before Jabiim and Rattatak and Alpha being forced to retire to Kamino.

the armorer doesn't realise until he's already out the door that Obi-Wan is the Kih'Manda everyone is talking about that they personally don't understand the hype about, and the armorer goes back to their clan like "i've only had our Little Mand'alor for three days while forging his armour and i would lay down my arms and pick them up for him, so our clan is going to stop fighting other clans until he tells us to".

he's already been causing this before now, on his first romp through the sector for Keldabe. outright fighting has gone down significantly, but because individual clans are tentatively pausing hostilities to wait and see if Obi-Wan is actually going to become a leader and what he plans to do. obviously there's clans that won't ever follow him, and certainly some clans that don't even believe he exists, and as i said there are clans that would follow him but Obi-Wan would never let swear to him. oh, individuals from those clans, for sure, but like. he would never let clans Vizsla or Priest or Kryze as a whole swear to him. not that he's thinking that far ahead just yet

for now, he's got his armour, his Manda, and even a pretty good plan of attack for stabilising the system, he just needs to like. find fighters first, because he knows his future memories will only get him so far, and he isn't that good. he thinks about all the Cuy'val Dar he knows of that were loyal to a Mand'alor, those who at least attempted to act with honor during the Kamino contract, and those he could... compromise on, and/or that he could hopefully steer to a less violent future, since he, y'know, isn't big on punishing people for crimes they haven't committed yet. Obi-Wan met quite a few of the trainers in legends, and a good handful remained on contract with the Republic during the war or left and came back, so he does actually have an alright understanding of what he's working with

he doesn't think he and Kal will ever get along, but he knows he was a good solider, a good leader, someone with loyalty, and did right by at least some of the clones. Kal was close with Walon Vau, he knows, and oh does Obi-Wan have some fuckin thoughts about Walon Vau, but at least his harsh treatment of the clone was in an earnest attempt to make sure as many of them survived as possible, at least he wasn't like Priest.

so Obi-Wan is pretty confident that if he tracks down Kal, he'll track down Vau, and he's pretty sure they'll both be on the side of wanting to end the clan wars, not continue them. so Obi does just that, managing to find them and much of the Old Guard already gathered, at a summit to decide whether or not they're actually going to ally together. like, fifteen plus clan heads and verd'alor'e, and Obi-Wan is shocked to see any many of Jango and Jaster's old supporters in one place.

they're certainly surprised to see him, and many are indeed shocked at how young he really is, they'd maybe thought others were exaggerating, or that his nicknames were just because he was younger than expected. but no, he's young, though not quite as young as Jango had been when he'd become Mand'alor, and many are unsure if that's a relief or not. because like I said, most of these people fucking loved Jango, as both family and as their Mand'alor, but it's all too easy to blame the leader for massacres like Galidraan.

meanwhile Obi-Wan has just literally walked into a big serious meeting, in armour painted white (fresh start), gold (vengeance), gray (mourning), and green (duty), and is just standing in the doorway looking out over this mass of adults all armed to the teeth like "uhh.... hello there" knowing full well he's old enough not to be protected by the previous Haat Mando'ade's disinclination for attacking children.

(actually, would they even recognise him immediately, now that his armour has changed? i was imagining Kal had met him, was one of the ones who had asked him what his plan was. i liked the idea of Kal not necessarily meeting him and deciding he's leadership material, but still being inspired by him and his devotion to Mandalore, and is what convinced him to put this lil summit together in the first place)

and listen. our boy is maybe seventeen at this point (he can't remember if he's already had his birthday yet), and he certainly isn't perfect, and he has rather too many memories for his too-small head right now. he forgets he knows more than he conceivably, realistically should know at this point, and fumbles introductions to the Old Guard, but not really the way he expects, nor does he really realise he's doing it 'cause everyone is so surprised and just sort of letting it happen without calling him on it

'cause he like. knows everyone's name without asking for them, even those that have different armour in the future ('cause of force signatures; and now that he's connected to the Manda, beskar isn't half as much a hindrance as it was before) but he doesn't just know their names. he seems to know most of them on some level, and it's disconcerting as fuck, and no one can tell if he's just like. really fuckin lucky in guessing things like their personalities or how they fit in with everyone else. wait im gonna go make a list of everyone that's there

okay so i just did actual maths and clan building for about an hour and uhhh i really gotta do that for dha kar'ta probably. i however have dyscalculia and also know nothing about waging warfare so it is an understandably intimidating undertaking.

anyway, i'm not sure how much i want to play with the Manda and if it connects all Mandalorians that aren't dar'manda. ages ago i had a prompt (pt. 2) where Mandos could sense their Mand'alor's soulmate, and i could go that direction sans the soulmates. like there's this sixth sense (maybe nothing big, maybe just an instinctual trust that disconcerts some?) around the one Chosen by the people and the Ka'ra, they can just feel they're connected to this person, the same way the Mand'alor can feel their connection to their people, like i've set Obi-Wan up to feel here. i hesitate 'cause that does make the whole. Tor Vizsla thing a little hard to justify, but i do think it would be SO INTERESTING if these Mandos can feel Obi-Wan is picked by the Ka'ra and the soul of the people is behind him, but they aren't actually sure if they follow him yet. like this kid just shows up in Mandalorian space, starts calling anyone in Vizsla colours Death Watch, starts leaving a swath of destruction in his mad dash towards something, helps literally anyone who will ask and many who don't get the chance to, disappears for two weeks, shows up again in brand new armour and talks to the Old Guard like he knows exactly who they are, and they're just... supposed to rally to him? supposed to trust him? he's unsettling and weird, and many don't think he has a clan at all. he neither confirms nor denies it. so they're just supposed to rally behind an outlander?

kriff whatever the Manda is saying, the Manda had abandoned them for years, and now it wants them to follow this... clanless aruetti that literally none of them know personally? no, this fucker has to prove himself first, and they hope the prospect scares him away so they can elect a real Mand'alor

meanwhile Obi-Wan hasn't even presented himself as the Mand'alor yet, hasn't even hinted at that being his intention, he's just over here like "hey so i can't take Death Watch on by myself and I know you're all here 'cause you want the fighting to stop just as much as I do, can I maybe join the little resistance thing you've got going on" and the Old Guard is very much "Death Watch is dead, idiot" and Obi-Wan is having flashbacks to trying to tell the High Council that Maul was a Sith. maybe he doesn't know they can sense the Ka'ra around him, he wasn't taught much directly by traditional Mandos, after all.

he initially doesn't head straight for Vizsla because he knows that it won't end the conflict, not with so many different factions, and he isn't confident enough that destabilising DW won't just make things worse. too, he knows his people need someone to rally behind, but also something to rally against. how can he deny what a perfect shared enemy DW gives them? narudar, enemy-of-my-enemy and all that?

but then the Old Guard isn't giving him any time of day much less one where he could convince them to follow his plans, so after some squabbling, is like "right. well, it's been real. if you're not going to help, i'm gonna go destabilise Death Watch on my own" and doesn't say it out loud, but wonders if that would be enough to prove himself to them, even though he's pretty sure he already did, if he's this connected to the Manda, and connected to the Ka'ra at all. maybe he slips out of the summit hall or whatever while everyone is arguing, partly exasperated, partly resigned, partly even relieved that he only has to worry about himself still. he's still relearning how to do that after years of war, and even more years of dedicating so much to Anakin that he rarely left any care for himself. not that he regrets that, but he does regret not getting to establish himself as an adult and a knight before needing to raise Anakin.

on the Jango front hmmmm. no, i don't think Obi-Wan tells anyone, at the very least not yet. he'd considered it, but then realised it wouldn't exactly prove anything. as far as anyone knows, he'd been missing for two years, presumed dead, but then suddenly showed up back in the bounty hunter spheres a year ago, but has yet to contact literally any of them. many probably suspect he'd been the one to kill Tor Vizsla, but then why hadn't he come back after that? if i go the Manda-sensing route, can his old follows feel he isn't Mand'alor anymore? regardless, Obi-Wan knows mentioning Jango will probably just incite anger, especially when all Obi-Wan would be able to say about their meeting is that Jango considerings himself dar'manda, and isn't coming back.

gonna stop here 'cause this one is even longer than the last whoops

*white-knuckled and grinding teeth* do not start a time travel fic where obi-wan lands near the beginning of his mandalore mission. do not think about him landing mid-battle with a death watch patrol he struggled with by virtue of being sixteen and run ragged, do not think about him freezing mid-attack and being flooded with future memories and satine freaking out and the death watch commando gets a few hits in but then obi-wan unfreezes and fucking obliterates the commandos. do not think about how disturbed satine is, how obi-wan can suddenly move in his stollen death watch armour like he was born in it, how he looks down at his saber like an old friend he no longer gets along with, how he barely looks at satine when he says they’re going back to mandalore to keldabe. crispy im serious dont think about him single-handedly raiding death watch's main holdout in the keldabe ruins and stealing all the info pre vizsla had about galidraan and using it to track down jango and forcing/convincing him to come back to mandalore to end the clan wars crispy im serious you don’t have time to write this stop thinking ab