#middle sib posting

[orneryblogs]

thinking about a clicker training post I saw but as the sibling trio

the oldest using the clicker to stop their siblings from fighting during sex

the middle using it to shut everyone up when their annoyed and

the youngest just trying to figure out how to get their grubby little paws on it because they want power but their older siblings won't give them an inch

[crispyjenkins]

(AC wip) The Savage Price of Piety

it's desmond's deathday and i wrote like. 9,000 more words to this wip (first two parts here) last week and i want to brag about it, so happy deathday you wet bastard (mostly gen but with a surprise rarepair, time travel/reincarnation, found family, william miles’ a+ parenting, accidental subterfuge, desmond goes by miles mostly, inspired by study of flight by @esamastation but with a twist!, only somewhat historically accurate swears by which i mean probably not at all but leonardo had some Opinions alright) have some (three) chronological but scattered bits of scenes

  “Oh,” Claudia says as soon as she opens the door, seeing Ezio’s rather wretched expression, “you’ve figured it out, then.”

  “You could have told me,” he growls, following her into the entryway and closing the door behind himself. 

  Claudia scoffs, spinning on heel to lead the way further into the building for the kitchens. “I had one conversation with the boy, brother, I was hardly sure of it myself. Wait,” she halts and points a finger at him accusingly, “how did you figure it out?”

  Ezio, quite graciously he thinks, ignores the subtle insult to his intelligence. Sighing, he pushes back his hood before their mother sees him with it on indoors, and runs a hand over his beard. “I had Leonardo visit.”

  Claudia’s face slackens, before twisting into a rage that has Ezio stepping away warily.

  But she punches the wall instead of her brother, a shouted “Gods damn it!” echoing in the narrow space. Then she spins on her heel and hollers further into the residential part of the bordello, “Mother! We forgot about Leonardo!”

  Horrified by his sister and concerned for his mother’s current mental state, Ezio reaches out to put a hand on Claudia’s arm, but he doesn’t get the chance before Maria de' Auditore is shouting right back, “God damn it!”

  Grumbling, Claudia stomps down the hall and leaves a very confused Ezio hurrying to follow; she ignores all his pleas for explanation until she’s stomped into the kitchen, where their mother is pouring two very large glasses of wine, with very little water to cut down the potency. She passes one to Claudia silently, and then they both drink, though luckily they aren’t attempting to down it all at once.

  “I can’t believe we forgot the Maestro,” their mother mutters to herself as she comes over to kiss Ezio on both cheeks, before shoving the still mostly-full glass into his hands.

  “Forgot him for what?” Ezio wants to know, clutching the glass like a mother clutches a babe.

  “To test if Miles really is an Auditore.” It’s said so flippantly, like it doesn’t affect Claudia at all, but she also collapses into one of two chairs at the little tea table under the largest window. Their mother takes the other, massaging her forehead and looking like she’s grieving their family all over again.

  It occurs to Ezio, as he moves to stand next to the table, that she probably is.

--

“It’s all up to you now, Seventeen.”

  Desmond opens his eyes to the dark of the dormitory, faint moonlight cutting over the floor between his bed and Nino’s, and he can’t bring himself to move — even to roll off his arm that is very much still asleep. 

  Clay still haunts him.

  Five hundred fucking years, and his current twenty-four besides, and that fucker still won’t leave him alone. If Desmond were not so familiar with what an actual Bleed feels like, he’d almost think Clay is stuck in his brain the same way as his ancestors. Thank fuck he stopped Bleeding Ezio’s memories and feelings, while still retaining much of the training.

  Fuck, time travel is so weird.

  Or, reincarnation? He’s not sure of much, but he’s sure he was dead, he’s sure he burned, and he’s sure that though his 15th century mother had affectionately called him [redacted], his name is Desmond Miles.

  Or just Miles, he supposes. Sue him, he panicked when Adele first approached him, and the best aliases are ones you know you’ll respond to, right? If only he’d have had the forethought to divorce himself from his... future family’s surname.

  It sounds different enough with an Italian accent that it hasn’t caused any problems, yet. Like making him flinch. Or snapping that he hasn’t been a Miles since he was sixteen.

  Granted, he still has no idea what he would go by instead. Altaïr and Conner would feel weird, while Sef or Darim are just a bit on the nose, and does he look like an Edward? Malik, maybe. His grandmother here, now, is actually from the Levant, so his skin is certainly dark enough that people wouldn’t be surprised by the name.

Except that feels almost akin to naming himself Leonardo.

--

  So instead, Leonardo spends every spare moment with his best friend, sometimes to brainstorm, sometimes to simply be there for him. It’s during one of these visits, he and Ezio once again observing the youngest assassins in the training ring, that he hears Miles laugh for the first time, and it’s as if ice water has been poured directly into his veins.

  Oh fuck. Oh Saints, oh Holy Father, oh fuck.

  “Leonardo?” Ezio asks quietly, head tilted towards him in concern, but Leonardo ignores him to stumble for the bannister to lean over it and stare down at Miles learning a little jig from Tullio, laughing all the while.

  He had only heard it once, truth be told, and it had been Salaí that had caused it, but even three years later, Leonardo remembers the laugh of Rodrigo Borgia’s sinister little shadow.

  Below, Miles doesn’t stop smiling, but his golden brown gaze yanks up towards Leonardo as if knowing his thoughts are about him. His eyes narrow, then widen slightly in realisation, and then he winces and looks away, which is all the confirmation Leonardo needs.

  Turning around, Leonardo grabs a confused Ezio by the arm and drags him from the training room, ignoring his protests until they find the nearest empty room.

  “Leonardo, what—?”

  “Romulus.”

-

[melodiclune]

Dear Nami,

I receive your document amidst great workloads, and yet it brings with it pleasant feels of camaraderie. I would be honoured to join your family. I will refrain from posting my witty quips within the official letter, but they shall be enclosed in the tags.

Thank you for the kind, lovely invitation. I do hope you and the family are well.

[acourtofquestions]

A Maasverse note because I think sometimes characters get poorly judged both by other characters, plot lines, & fandom reception (of course this is all fictional… so this post is also purely fiction… and probably has some “fictional world differences” or “rules” to apply… but still😂)

This started with the *sarcastic* “lovely” talk with Darrow about the “people of Terrasen” because the idea of blaming Aelin — who, btw, let the record show was ONLY an EIGHT-YEAR-OLD CHILD!!! — for “abandoning them” when she WAS A CHILD really got on my nerves. Especially as even this conversation is taking place with a 19-year-old… while not 8, and “old enough” in her own right; SHE IS STILL NINETEEN… and if you ask me IF ANYONE did any “abandoning” it was the people of Terrasen who simply went “hmm… we can’t find our queen… oh no! She must have drowned! No need to think further!!! MOVING ON!” meanwhile she was KIDNAPPED, after having her ENTIRE family assassinated IN FRONT OF HER (at EIGHT) and nearly drowning to outrun the assassin trying to KILL HER, & Arobynn was NOT much better; she couldn’t escape (cause SHE WAS EIGHT and with an ACTUAL ASSASSIN) and by the time she had “learned” (been forced into & through traumatic, abusive, horrifying, painful experiences for YEARS) enough to be “allowed” to leave the keep and at all able to even possibly run far enough to somehow get to Terrasen it was already GONE there was nothing left for her to go back to or save, and (even then) she was STILL A CHILD. She came back in under 10 years, barely an adult, she SURVIVED, give the girl some CREDIT PLEASE!!! And yeah, she was an assassin, no it’s not the most moral of jobs (but this is fiction) it was that or death, she went to hell & back (this was NOT some pampered upbringing) and YOUR queen endured it FOR you (and YOU damned her to it, or is it not fair to blame you? Oh, so it isn’t fair to blame y'all… yet the EIGHT-YEAR-OLD is fine?!) and to be honest, from her lineage (which kind of doomed her already) to the state of their world, they may actually NEED/want to have an Assassin as a Queen. Like yeah, she did that, she SURVIVED that, she is capable and smart and can actually lead a war. Can any of you old men gawking at her say the same??? Hmm??? No, you can’t because even though you all saw horrors, we all know the CHILDREN of Terrassen endured the worst; Aedion fought your wars, Elide was also kidnapped (not that any of you care; but it did keep her alive—I guess?), so can we just be glad you all are alive?!? AND LEAVE AELIN BE FOR ONCE, PLEASE! (I’m sure Darrow “has his reasons” and a backstory, but as a general point & issue I really can’t stand it).

wow sorry don’t know what got into me there maybe it is a lil personal?😅😂

Then into one that keeps popping up and bothering me: the argument & anger towards Nesta & Elain. Now while it does have its place (and I have been there too during points of my first read), I also am taking it all into account, and while I’m sorry that they let her go into the woods they were children. Nesta was a CHILD. Elain was a CHILD. (Maybe I don’t know exact ages, but they can’t have been in their 20s & 30s😂). THEY WERE ALL CHILDREN TOO. While Feyre was the youngest, while Feyre deserved safety & protection, while Feyre truly did go through a lot (and the fact she didn’t feel loved is absolutely gut-wrenching and wrong) some of which she may have been able to be spared from… she also wasn’t the only child, freezing, starving, losing parents, and terrified. Even Nesta as the oldest was still a kid. Elain is not that much older than Feyre, and she was a kid too. And yes, Feyre was a child, she was FOURTEEN, she was their little sister, and she was a child too even more. But honestly the truest guilt relies on not the sisters (THREE CHILDREN) but on the ACTUAL ADULTS; their father; who did have his issues & eventually redemption (and yes parents aren’t always capable that does happen; disability, pain, grief, depression, they are beasts), but also he still remains FAR more responsible than Nesta or Elain or even Feyre EVER should have been in the first place. It lies on THE ENTIRE VILLAGE that abandoned them; CHILDREN, whose mother had DIED, whose father was CLEARLY UNWELL, who were freezing & starving (& while the village may have been struggling they COULD have struggled TOGETHER and NOT LEFT CHILDREN to their own); THEY should have been the ones to step up. Not Nesta. Not Elain. Not Feyre. The three sisters were all children. And while any oldest sibling knows we are capable of filling roles, that doesn’t make it right; nor does it make anyone’s brains fully formed… so… like… they literally couldn’t think beyond more sometimes. And yes, while I can’t imagine sending one of my siblings (older or younger) off into the woods alone for any reason (I also could understand going off before they could stop you; I can understand why & how Feyre might’ve without them even knowing; because if it were my family it wouldn’t matter I’d do it, even if someone older was there), but I also can’t pretend it would be oh so easy to keep all four people alive by yourself (to a certain extent Nesta needs to be alive because she is the only “semi-adult” in the first place) and still as a child abandoned by the world (she had her issues too) she was a daughter so sure her father would save them begging for it in agony over it and lost in the world. While I in Nesta’s shoes would NEVER have let Feyre be near anyone during a break in, we don’t know the full story, Nesta may not have had options; she may have just run, grabbed Elain who was close by, and hid because at least she could keep them alive; and she was also a terrified child. And while Elain “went along” in Nesta’s shelter without protest; WHY WOULD’NT SHE? All children crave & deserve protection, safety, kindness, love, she has that in Nesta; why would she run from the only stability she has; especially as the child that lost something else (where Nesta was the favorite & simultaneously resented their mother, and Feyre was the “forgotten” child who never got to be a child or know such a kind of safe love, Elain did which means she knew the loss of it she had a mother to grieve) she was young and terrified and holding on to the only thing she could? And what happened to Feyre was terrible, she was forced to shoulder a burden alone, she also took it on (not blaming her, just saying she also didn’t say anything; because it was survival) and yes, it was wrong. But what happened to Nesta and Elain was also wrong. The three of them were children, and they could have done better, but they did their best and survived. As adults, they have begun healing those wounds. What else can we expect other than accountability from the ACTUAL adults at fault?! *and by actual I mean fictional😂*

The past is past. (To some extent in this context side at least)

So I guess all I’m saying is WHY ARE ALL THESE YA NOVELS BASED ON BABY’s AND TEENAGERs AND WHERE ARE ANYONE's PARENTS (oh wait their all orphans that tracks now) CAUSE I GUESS IT'S THE TROPE 🤦‍♀️ and the next character that gets all political & sexist & “my way or the highway child” during the middle of a WAR by blaming Aelin (or gods forbid poor the more I learn) Aedion for what they did to survive as children during Empire of Storms is going to get my wrath😅😂🤣 and don’t you dare Darrow EVER talk to Lysandra like that again!!! *thank you, Rowan, for protecting them; your family; with pride* (at least the 200-year-old stepped up to the plate😅😅😂… too soon?)

Shoutout to iwantavaldezinator for fandoming with me about the Terrasen issue😂

[akajustmerry]

anyways, deeply enjoy the way connor's comic relief is embodying the eldest sibling complex of fully believing they're the one doing eVeRYtHInG despite that literally not being true in the slightest.

[swiftfootedachilles]

i love imagining what tiktoks the gallaghers would make with/of each other

[professionallydeadinside]

Nothing is worse (better) then looking at old documents and realizing you forgot a part of oc lore that you really enjoy wasdfghgfd

[honeysorwell]

a ring and the (Super Bowl's) ring

pairing: Restaurant!AU Melissa Schemmenti x fem!Reader

Super Bowl's prompt by anon + Valentine's Day idea by me.

Synopsis: When the chef and owner of the traditional Italian Restaurant Schemmenti’s Cucina says that she will never get married again, few people really understand and respect her. Y/N is not only one of the people who understands her, but she is also the one who matters the most to Melissa. And the ring she gave the redhead on Valentine’s Day is just a bonus.

Tag list: @janeyseymour @italianaidiota @chloeelou02x (I tagged you all because you are all on my tag list for my other Melissa's fanfic, so since this is also a fanfic for Mel here you are!) (and if you want to be tagged too just let me know.)

Warning (for Melissa mainly): marriage proposal!!!

Words: 2,3k

Synopsis of the story + Chapter 1 + Chapter 2

Link on AO3

The inspiration for this is also the fact that: no one writes AUs for Melissa even tho our lady has a lot of potential for AUs thanks to how many interests she genuinely has; the fact that she thought Gary was buying her a replica of a Super Bowl ring; no one writes fanfics about Melissa finding someone who genuinely accepts that she doesn't want to get married at all and is happy with her just like that; and Valentine's Day is just around the corner;

and yes! part two will be posted tomorrow, because I wrote two parts (one where the Eagles win and one where they lose) so just stay tuned for the game hahaha… (I won't be tho, and that's why I'll only post this part two tomorrow.)

Enjoy!

“Chef! Chef!”, the young waiter called loudly as he entered the kitchen looking for the red-haired woman, keeping a smart distance from Melissa when he found her amidst the chaos of the pens in the hot stove where she was browning some onions.

The kitchen that the redhead had dedicated her time, heart, and soul to, and that until seconds ago was vibrating with the nervous energy of the orders in her restaurant but that now stopped completely, was just taken over by the nervousness that transformed the energy there into a pressure cooker ready to explode.

Although she was in her element, Melissa found it strange that her waiter had called her directly, and her restless feeling was, justifiably, mirrored by all her workers. Some dish was wrong? Was the poor waiter there to inform her of a client's complaint?

"Yes, kid?"

“The table reserved for a party of 20 in the center of the restaurant! They’re here and they’re asking for you.”, the waiter, whose name she refuses to remember since they always give up, smiles at her as he explains, so the redhead imagines that no one was exactly asking to talk to her because of a bad thing, “Oh... And the guy with the mustache told you to take off your apron before talking to them.”

It wasn’t common for Melissa Schemmenti (the talented chef and owner of the traditional Italian Restaurant Schemmenti’s Cucina, who delighted the clientele with her dishes every day) to leave the kitchen to greet ordinary customers. Only the most famous, or food critics, or those really kind people who waited until the restaurant closed had the privilege of meeting her, but when she looked out the kitchen window in search of who was sitting at that prominent table in the middle of the restaurant, a sweet smile painted her lips when she saw all those sitting there.

Her family is there.

At least a good part of it.

Her mother, Marie, Mary Camille, Maria Cristina, boy Tony and John Anthony are all looking at her expectantly as she goes out of the kitchen to stand next to Gary. It's rare to see her siblings looking at her with such happiness, and for just a second Melissa wonders if she's forgotten something important.

Looking closer, the redhead notices that even two of her cousins ​​are there. Rocco, with his wife and two children, and Annette with her husband. Wow.

But, some part of the table was empty and the redhead couldn't be more confused to notice that three of her siblings are not there – Seamus, Toni and Kristen Marie – but as she approached the table in question, the thought just slipped from her mind. After all, not even she knew why they were there so maybe it wasn't that important.

"You know you don't have to book a table when you come here, right? Especially when all these parasites are here almost daily.” Greetings and complaints begin to sound throughout the table instigated by her arrival, but the talented chef of Schemmenti’s Cucina just ignores everyone’s words with a smile, placing a loving kiss on her boyfriend’s lips before reprimanding him affectionately, “You just need to show up here and we’ll find a table for you, Gary.”

“I know.”, the man in question says, delighted with the fact that even on a busy Tuesday night for the restaurant, Melissa still looked as beautiful as on her days off, “But I wanted this one today.”

Before the redhead has time to question him why, Gary stands up from their table with a nervous smile, gently tapping the inside pocket of his leather jacket that held a small velvet box, not wanting to draw Melissa’s attention to it after all, he was just checking to see if the precious thing he handpicked himself was still there.

Leaving behind a distraught redhead with her hip propped against the wooden table, Gary made his way to the restaurant's small stage, where musicians played softly in the background. All the customers' eyes turned to him curiously as the man positioned himself under the soft light. And there, Melissa panicked.

Neither of them could say whose heart was beating faster.

"Sorry to interrupt," Gary began speaking into the available microphone with a shaky voice, "I just want to say a few words about the wonderful person who graces not only our stomach but also our sight tonight."

When he looked at Melissa, and although her eyes were already glued to his, the head chef's mind could not be further away.

Her mind was in denial, working hard to remember if that day was their anniversary, or perhaps the day they shared their first kiss, unable to accept the need to realize the trap that was unfolding dramatically in front of her.

The tension in the air was palpable, but with a gentle and loving gesture, Gary asked for Melissa to come closer.

Confused, she looked back at her family, just lost and confused, but the eyes of those who shared her surname shone amidst smiling faces, and there, as she walked carefully toward her boyfriend, her heart raced, not with happiness, but with apprehension.

He wouldn't do this.

He can't.

Right?

“Melissa,” Gary said, taking her hand and finally kneeling down, to Melissa's desperation, “You are the reason I wake up every day with a smile on my face. You bring color to my life and I can't imagine a future without you. I know you told me you don't intend to get married again but I just need to know if you would do me the honor of being my wife?” His words echoed through the space, full of love and hope as a deep silence momentarily settled in, where everyone there awaited the chef's answer.

But Melissa, with her hand being gently caressed by her boyfriend, for the first time in his own restaurant, felt like she was going to vomit.

The desire and expectation in his eyes were palpable, but she had been clear so many times.

She didn't want this. Not again.

She didn't want marriage or the commitments that it entailed.

And he knew it.

She made that clear to Gary again and again. And he knew how painful her divorce had been. The redhead remembered nights when painful memories would eat away at her mind until she shared them with him. How could he have the courage to ignore her feelings so easily? In the midst of her clients? In her restaurant? And invite her family to watch?

But then, only then, she recognized the looks in their eyes.

They knew. Her family knew.

The same ones who had heard her say over and over again how much she didn't want to get married again.

Ever.

The feeling of being disregarded took over her. A weight that made her wish, even if just for a second, that she had burned herself in the kitchen the day before so she could have stayed home instead of going through that.

She was so embarrassed.

Her boyfriend didn't listen to her. Her family didn't listen to her. No one listened to her.

When Melissa opened her mouth to respond, her words failed to come out. She fixed her gaze on Gary's anxious, hopeful smile, trying to find a way to express the turmoil that was forming inside her. But she knew that only one word would be enough.

“No.”, and when she finally said it, her voice cracked.

She knew that her answer had hit him like a crash.

The murmur of the audience grew around them, mixing disapproval and empathy. Gary stood still for a moment, the ring box slipping from his hand as he searched for some light in the eyes of the woman he loved. And Melissa was also on fire, but with pain and guilt for disappointing him.

“I understand,” he finally murmured after a while, forcing a smile that definitely didn’t reach his eyes. “I just wanted you to know how I feel… And maybe you…”

“I understand. But I can’t. I’m so sorry. It’s better if we end it here,” she interrupted, her voice firm, despite the pain.

The thick tears began to slide down his face, and Melissa felt her heart break inside her chest, but she knew there was no going back.

It was necessary, she knew it was. And she also knew she would cry herself to sleep that night.

Looking around the restaurant, feeling the eyes of her customers burning her back as some of them left their tables, overwhelmed by the weight of the scene they had witnessed that night, she wanted to disappear.

But instead, even when she heard her name being called by her entire family, especially her mother whose voice sounded more enthusiastic than all the others, Melissa silently returned to the kitchen. After all, she still had a kitchen to run.

Only after the end of the workday, when everyone had left and the redhead was drinking a worrying amount of wine in the closed kitchen of her restaurant, footsteps were heard by the redhead in the dining room.

Melissa had made it clear to everyone in the restaurant how much she didn't want to see anyone. But maybe her words also didn't mean anything to her employees too.

"Does everything I say just turned meaningless now?" she shouts towards the dining room, but when her eyes find the three people who were missing earlier today, her voice softens even amidst the confusion of alcohol, "How did you all get in here?"

Seamus, Toni, and Kristen Marie are moving too fast for the redhead to see with the amount of alcohol she consumed, and if Melissa were a little more sober she would notice how all three of them are looking at her with a huge amount of sadness. So maybe it was for the best.

“You’re almost cute when you think a few well-done locks can stop a Schemmenti. Imagine three!”, Toni says softly with a sweet smile as she approaches the redhead, gently placing a kiss on the chef’s forehead and looking for a clean, dry glass to fill with water and force her sister to drink.

Irritated by the unsolicited contact, Melissa thinks about greeting her by calling the owner of the brown eyes Antoinette, but oddly enough, the touch of the younger sister caresses not only her temple but also her soul.

“Hey Mel.”, Seamus says, but he doesn’t lean in for a proper greeting. The middle brother of all the women, whose existence was discovered only after everyone was adults just approaches his older sister to confuse her. The man's clumsy approach makes the redhead focus on the tall, blonde figure who is now once again trying to put the hairpins she used to break down the back door of her sister's restaurant back in place. Knowing that the mere sight of Kriste Marie being the one responsible for invading her property would cause enough distraction, Seamus takes both the bottle and the glass of wine away from his older sister while Toni replaces it with water without her noticing. At least not now.

"Kristen Marie.", is said with as much disdain as affection, which makes the blonde one let out a small smile at her older sister before responding with the same intonation:

"Melissa Ann."

The three Schemmentis who have just arrived gently sit down next to the redhead, who strokes the rim of the glass of water in front of her with the tip of her index finger after rejecting it.

"You're late for the shit show, ya know? It was during dinner.”, she says stammeringly but is quickly cut off by her brother.

“I guess we arrived just in time then.”, he says softly before directing a particularly disappointed look at Kristen Marie when he sees that the blonde one has taken the glass that used to belong to her sister and is now drinking the wine left there by her.

“I knew you would say no! We all knew!”, Kristen says angrily, as if ripping off a particularly stuck band-aid on the redhead’s skin, but one that everyone there knew needed to be changed.

“He warned us a month ago, sent a message in a group with all of us and asked us to be here for the proposal.”

“I said it wouldn’t work out, which obviously started a fight with Ma. Antoinette agreed with me and Seamus here said he would let you know.”, Kristin says again, monopolizing everyone’s attention for a few seconds, but as soon as she finishes, Melissa can see out of the corner of her eye that Seamus lowers his head in shame.

“Mom got really furious, she said we were rooting against your happiness.”, Toni says in a soft voice, but the redhead knows better.

She knows that “we” is not really “we”, but it is Seamus. Ma probably told Seamus that he was rooting against her happiness, and that’s probably why he didn’t tell her, and when she realizes it, the head chef gently stretches her right hand toward her brother.

He, in turn, gently kisses her fingers, still in silence.

“As if Kristen wouldn’t love to see you get engaged just to plan which white dress she’ll wear to your wedding.”, Toni tries to make a joke with a nervous smile, but she quickly regrets it when she sees the tear that runs down her older sister’s right cheek.

“What if… if…”

What if no one wants me?

What if no one accepts me on that condition?

What if I’m alone forever?

“No.”, Kristen interrupts Melissa almost like a growl, as if she can understand all the horrible questions that are going through her sister’s head right now, “Eventually they will understand this too. All of them.”

“Promise?”

“We promise.”, is said in unison by all three siblings, and this sound alone is capable of softening the redhead’s mind and heart.

[snek-of-eden]

intro post <3

greetings, beautiful motherfuckers !!

about me: hi, i'm max. they/them, gen-z, bisexual and nonbinary. i'm an artist, fanfic writer, and silly little guy. this blog is my main. i have adhd and anxiety but i generally find life whimsy and none of my content is very dark. i try to be kind to everyone ^_^

children: @gremlinunderyourbed1 (og chaos child), @shatnerihardlyknowher (middle drag queen child), @r3ad1ng-is-punk-rock (baby whimsy child), @mylu (absent but loved child), @sweaty-toothed-mad-woman (sweet lil child), @sd2006 (adored and responsible child), @riddlingabout (big sibling child!), @luckygreeenblogsss (artsy child), @more-mousebites (cool house md child), @lavaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa (funky lil child), @neil-perrys-glasses (goofy ahh child), @ace-misplaced (dreamy child), @thequeerforest (cute lil bean child), @arson-mushroom (epic n chill child), @that-one-greml1n (smol cheeky child), @dreadedwhim (scrumply big sis child), @inezrable (lovely ineffable child), @1mlostnow (bouncy lil guy child), @pingunaa (slaying the day away child), @the-undead-poets-society (poetic cool child), @stargazer-luna (fantastic flouncy child), @littlegayduck (suave and tweedly child), @thegayfoxboy (chaos puppy child), @starving-marauder-lover (coolass awesome child)

family: @madsgellertisnotdead (amazing wife), @vampire-rodeo (sib, uncle to the kids and all-round funky guy), @songs-of-leonardcohen (real life blorbo, silly little dude), @wisteriawyvern big bro and the coolest uncle), @caramello-koalas-for-feminism (hella awesome friend)

fandoms: wicked, shoot from the hip, star trek, arcane, good omens, miraculous ladybug, our flag means death, house md, ted lasso, the owl house, dps, and kotlc.

tags: i tag everything that i post (including asks) with #max's mind, and my original posts (excluding asks) with #my posts. my art is under #max's art and #my art, and fic is under #my fic. if you just want to see asks i've answered, they're under #whimsical mutual interactions.

socials: i'm on AO3 as snek_of_eden

previously known as neil-perrys-reincarnation

[red-carter]

Giving Thanks

Now, I've seen my friends and their posts and replying. I wanted to make my own because I know that this one is going to be pretty long. At least, I have an idea that it's going to be pretty long. I won't be able to tag everyone, seeing as I don't know everyone's tumblrs and such like that. There's also going to be some not tags because I'd be too scared to actually tag these people.

I'm so very very thankful for everyone who's come into my life in the last year. I'm thankful to those who've been in my life for several years. My bestest sibs who won't likely see this for the many years that I've been with them, since first grade, middle school, beginning of high school and everyone in between. Those who I call family (not blood related), because you, and everyone I'm about to mention, have helped me in so many ways. As well as just because I'm so happy to have met you. Even if this is just for a season, long or short, I'm so glad to have made the friends and family that I've come across. Who've just been chill, or been there for us.

Thank you @imaginethat0327 for being an inspiration and being the person who helped me step out of my scared and anxious lil bubble I'd created around myself. You're such a lovely person, and I really look forward to our talks, no matter how long apart they are from the last one. Also big thanks to Livie because they've also been such a joy to have met and chat with. Always look forward to our chats <3 Through them I've also met @nyxcentury who's just as lovely. Though we've not talked too much, always love seeing you around. Same goes with Tipthewaitress (dunno their tumblr, so I hope that they see this), and the other lovelies of the Rescue Fire discord server.

@cat-in-the-desert .... I... There's so many things I'm thankful for from you. I'm so thankful that we got to meet, and that you've been such a wonderful friend to the point I consider you one of my closest friends. Genuinely. You're such a lovely person, always looking forward to our chats and hangouts <3

Really quickly, I'm so thankful to have come across @\nightdreamdraws art and animatics, and her AUs... They're so cool and I always look forward to any new art or ideas that they share. Cherrifire with seeing her creative take on the life series, and the amazing things they've done in this community. Magnifique! (Wish I could properly spell that word, apologies if it's wrong, or has no accents, I'm just trying to be wholesome here.... :)) There's so many others, their animatics, art, animations, edits, that I'm so thankful that I've gotten to see because everyone is amazing! I swear-!!! <3 <3 <3 <3

@ezzriin stares and blinks with an ever growing smile You're a lovely lil guy that I'm so grateful to have met. I wanna squish you /pos. I might have to DM you another paragraph I swear— So lovely, and a wonderful chaotic gremlin that I hold dear in my heart.

@foxhunter350 I would write a full paragraph if I could right now, but I'm trying to keep these short.... I'm thankful to have met you. Getting to write ideas and such with you has been such a blast, looking forward to more with you mate. So very grateful to have you in my life. /gen

@nine-of-diamonds, @1watermelontea, @crabbri stares blankly at you three You're all so amazing, I'm thankful that I came across Chasing The Horizon Line and got to meet you. The butterfly affect is something I think about constantly, and so thankful for in this situation. The chaos and fun that we've all had, I cherish it with my whole heart. Thank you for the amazing series to read and the fun times we've had and will have in the future. (please leave me out of this big ass polycule, not professing my love to you lot just yet, again.... /vsilly)

@writingwithaglassquill Quilly, Eilly, my beautiful darling of a muse? /silly /lh /p Lmao, sorry, that was a weird way to start this. I'm thankful to you, and I know I've told you this many times, but I'm forever grateful for coming across your story IHTH because it really gave me the urge to want to write again. You've done so much, you're a fabulous person, and I'm so glad to have met someone like you. A steady head to keep me from just completely sinking. (this is me professing my love /vsilly /j /p) Genuinely so thankful to have met you when I did, looking forward to the future ahead.

@gildedmicah18 Meka-Meka... Darling Micah. /vsilly /lh /p You're such a wonderful person to chat with, always looking forward to our chats. Thankful to have you in my life you amazing cutie you! (Really really wanna squish you and also may or may not see you as a little sibling.)

@nyxtheeclipse Hai. You're a cutie. <3 .... Yes, I was tempted to just leave it at that. My bad XD Anywooooo!~ Thankful to you Nyx for everything you've done. You're an amazing person, love you lots mate! Very creative, and always looking forward to what you make and share!

@yourfavouritevigilante (hoping this tags.... it's being funky) You're such a lovely individual, along with your system. We all love you. You're all like siblings to us and we're so very very thankful to have met you Tobes. Genuinely, we're always looking forward to getting to chat or hang out with you lot. So fun to joke with, or pick fun with each other or stopping fights (like earlier XD). Genuinely though, and I may say this far too much, we love you so very much. See you like a little sibling for reals. Or child, depending on if it's us, or Impy, Skizzy, and Jess. So grateful to have gotten to know you and hang out with you lots, squishing you all. (except those who don't like getting hugs which is a-okay)

@peridot-the-kitten .... Okay, I genuinely forgot the words I was going to start off with XD. I love that I've just confused you in CTHL hahahahah. I'm so thankful to have met you Lain. You're a lovely and creative individual that now? I can't believe you scared me before XD. Grateful to have met you, and gotten to know you. So many jokes and fun has been had, and you've been a wonderful grounding point in lots of stuff that's happened as well. Always looking forward to our chats and hangout sesses.... sessions.... Love you lots!!! (totally professing my love /vsilly /j /p)

@moonstarsongs You're a darling sweetheart of an angst lover. You've been such a wonderful friend and lovely individual to chat with. So very thankful to have met you and that I get to chat with you whenever we can (since different time schedules and whatnot). <3 <3 <3

@archaic-dragon You're very lovely, so glad that we've gotten to chat and whatnot. Seriously, so very thankful. You're amazing, got so much creativity, it's been wonderful to get to hang out and whatnot. Always looking forward to chats with you or gaming and such. Thank you Arcy!

@will-falling-fell Haven't chatted with you too much, at least that I'm thinking back on. But you're a sweetheart from what I can remember. I see you chatting with the others in CTHL and stuff, and it always brings a smile to our face. Grateful to have met you, even if we don't talk much right now, hoping to get to chat with you more in the future. <3 <3 <3 <3

@tinydekuscrub Hai darling! Love you lots. So very grateful to have met you. Pretty sure I say this almost anytime we chat really. You're a lovely person, and we love chatting with you and everyone else. Thanks for dealing with our smart and dumbass XD, and looking forward to all future chats and hangouts. (Guys, I swear, I'm too gay for this person, I really really wanna write more XD)

There's still many more people I could write out thanks for, but for now, I think it's best that this be it for a bit. Again, thank you to everyone who we've gotten to meet, who's given us ideas, given us new life and fun things to look forward to. Lots of good times in the future. Here's to another year of fun and laughter and even in the not-so-good-times, love you all so much!

[orneryblogs]

There's something about the way middle sibling moves that makes the other two jealous, the way they're so comfortable in their body, so soft and pretty and fuckable.

He's so pretty when he's domming that they have to know what it's like when he subs

-

"Oh come onnn big brother, can't I eat him out a little longer?" Little brother asks with a devilish sort of smile on his face. middle sib moans, the sound rattling the room, trying to fight out of his brother's grip as he sobs.

"go ahead baby," Big brother croons, "eat his cunt as long as you want to." there's a pause, "And brat, stop squirming or I'm gonna make sure you can't sit for a few days."

[crispyjenkins]

1/2

lots and lots to get to in this one, so it's heckin' long. so long in fact that it will actually be divided into two parts! next one will be reblogged immediately after this. it's so long, my guys, but i'm havin an absolute BLAST so like!! 🧡🧡

( @catamaranthenonnewtonianfluid i'll be answering your questions in part two!)

@malcontent-crow

#i love how you are tying all these characters in!#a politcal movement is not made by a single person even if it can be inspired by one!#the absolute pain and resolve obi is feeling when he decides that there is no going back no matter what happens next#so he erases himself. as completely and thoroughly as he can. in ways that the jedi didnt realize was actually possible!#he had seriously considered tendering his resignation and it would have been a piece of cake#then he remembers how the republic was so determined to place blame on people (esp the jedi) during the war so he just decides#that a cin vhett might be the best route for everybody else even if its not for himself#the jedi get a clear pass and the chance to dig into their own systems a little more to find those vulnerabilities #and maybe even catch something not-so-good going on with the senate after they realize he wasnt gone just from their system but#every system. the republic the mission rosters the flight plans the mission reports#nobdy should have that kind of access much less be able to do it while out of the system AND without being noticed in a very short timeframe#i know you said it would be a lot to go into the greater political scene for this story but i cant help but think about it

hadn't put much thought into that throw away line about the Jedi upping cyber security, but you're absolutely right that it would have far more reaching consequences than just Obi-Wan erasing himself. even just surface level, they'd realise he used High Council codes he shouldn't have known, and Shadow techniques he could theoretically know, but both Quinlan and Tholme would corroborate that they hadn't taught Obi-Wan that much. it makes them wonder how long he'd been planning on doing this, and how fast he'd managed to do it, because as far as they know, it happened in minutes (i imagine Obi-Wan spent that week between Outland Station and Mandalore setting it up so he could delete everything all at once, developing programs/having a droid help him develop programs [i'm now thinking about giving him a droid friend like BD-1 or Lola oh no] to wipe out all the data in as close to one swoop as possible, so no one could catch onto what he was doing and stop him) and the Jedi only noticed something wrong because Qui-Gon on the other side of the galaxy called them in a panic about a broken training bond

love your inclusion of flight plans being deleted, i definitely wouldn't have thought of those, and i can imagine Garen hoping that Obi-Wan hadn't thought of them either, but nope, Obi-Wan was very thorough. i now think he absolutely needed to have a droid's help to do this, though that droid doesn't necessarily need to become a companion...... but what if they were already on the ship he stole.... and at first is very R2D2 in Not Putting Up With Nonsense but then they bond...... oh no..............

#so obi gets his cin vhett with the mandos and just goes full tilt into this. he accepts his responsibility to the system for a mix of#his own guilt and sense of duty to the stability of the galaxy. he looks at it from the perspective of the future and weighs the lives#lost in the future (civilians killed in the war) and lives to never be created (the clones) because of what he is about to do#did he mourn the clones once it really sank in? has he given himself time to mourn and grieve for everything he lost and is loosing now?

short answer: no, he hasn't given himself time to mourn, not properly, not now that he's decided just how direct a hand he'll have in Mandalore

long answer: he has been allowing himself to grieve on his way to Keldabe, and definitely spent quite a bit of time meditating before meeting Jango, to both prepare to see his face again, and to quell any anger and blame he has for the progenitor of the clones. he isn't like, fully repressing feelings about the clones, and the fact he'll be preventing their creation, but he hasn't felt he's had the time to properly break down about it, even knowing grief is far more than one single breakdown.

he does spend some time post Jango-chat deciding what parts of the clones he'll be keeping with him, as discussed in the last "update" of this, but he doesn't start adding actual names to his remembrances until Vhonte asks him why he doesn't seem to do them. it... takes a long time to get through all the names, and he has to sort of just go "and all those in the 187th, and the 148th, and–" because he doesn't know their names, but he does like focus on the overall presence of each battalion that he would feel when around them, the collective feel of them in the Force, so gives each battalion a spot in his remembrances this way, though he names as many clones personally as he can which is. a lot. Vhonte doesn't eavesdrop because wow is that disrespectful, but does of course clock how long it takes him, and starts to wonder if he didn't renounce his clan so much as lose it, all of it. if she thinks about it too hard, he seems to have lost an entire planet (just think how much longer his remembrances would be if he was from post-purge)

#ohhhh him sending letters to those that matter most saying the most heartful and hurtful things he can to the people he has just resigned#himself to never seeing or interacting with again. that hurts! but he needed that as a way to close the books on his life as a jedi #i bet he was sorely tempted to leave some kind of detailed cultural report for Nu to find on mandos and how their society has changed from#the last time they had reliable reports out of the system. i can see him chewing over how to write up ths differences between the Force#the Manda and the ka'ra with side notes on how its different to the Ka'ra like you wrote out. she wants to strangle him and hug him for it#because he deleted information from her archives (and the backups! how did he even do that! she doesnt know how to do that!)#and hes also giving her valuable data on a very real living and changing culture that is not happy to share anything with outsiders

hadn't thought about him leaving Madam Nu info on Mandalore in apology, but wow am i all about it now. her having a soft spot for initiate and then padawan Kenobi is a headcanon i hold VERY dearly, and she would absolutely be devastated by him leaving (again). and Obi would ABSOLUTELY spend maybe too much time trying to figure out what he's going to tell her and how, because yeah, he can probably consider himself of both cultures now, but he's still like. a convert. so he absolutely has to consider what he should be allowed to share, and what could be considered a closed cultural practice, or as closed as such a thing can be

i agree he'd do the Force vs the Manda vs the Ka'ra thing, because that is both relevant to the Jedi and something Obi-Wan was taught, directly, rather than just learned or researched on his own. haven't decided just how he learned, but if i go the "he can see (or dream) Ka'ra ghosts" route, he'd definitely be taught by Tarre Vizsla and another Manda-touched Mand'alor.

(love the idea that Madam Nu is flabbergasted that he'd deleted stuff from the backups 'cause even she doesn't know how, that gave me a good chuckle, and allows me the idea that she did learn how, after Dooku deleted Kamino, so she is in fact the one that taught future!Obi-Wan, but past!Nu won't know that)

#and the force senstive mandos! what a fun idea. i love that the gorane are more likely to be stars touched out of every possible career#and to have number 8 just watching and waiting for something to happen and emphatically NOT speaking up at the summit#hilarious. and vhonte seeing this little pipsqueak that looks like hes in the middle of a growth spurt and definitely needing#to eat and sleep and have somebody watch his back and simply nodding and going “thats my job. clearly im the best choice here”#and just up and follow him out of the summit. does she try to sneak out with him or does she just plant herself at his side and bully him#into accepting her help? after all he went there hoping to gain allies. surely he wouldnt be surprised by walking out with one (or more)?#and how quickly does he recognize she is kin to the goran that refot and blessed his armor? does he do his creepy too knowing thing?

(misunderstood slightly what you meant at first, but couldn't figure out how to reword it once i understood, so here's that response anyway)

lolol the idea of them all being at the summit at once is hilarious, i LOVE the visual of them all sitting back watching the rest of the Guard make fools of themselves when their Ka'ra-chosen Mand'alor is right there. but alas alak, no goran is actually at the summit, though they are represented by Swart Swifto, who isn't an armorer but is representing their guild and the educators guild (i did a lot. a lot a lot of thinking about this summit. i have clan numbers.) at least one of the Manda-touched goran'e is under House Vizsla, me thinks, which puts them in an interesting spot because they can tell that Pre Vizsla is backed by neither the Manda nor the Ka'ra, he's not even clan head (my headcanon), though this goran maybe has hope that Pre will gain support, eventually

oh Obi is absolutely doing his creepy too-knowing thing with Vhonte, but doesn't actually put her together with the goran that reforged his armor, because Oyia Vha had never given him their clan name. Vhonte feels... familiar to him, maybe, but he isn't sure if that's future-memories, or perhaps interference from his new connection to the Manda as a Chosen Mand'alor. and Vhonte won't bring it up for a while, definitely not until after their first lil mission together. i do think she clocks Obi-Wan hasn't made the connection, and she'll admit she had been encouraged to be at the summit instead of her clan head because her ba'vodu had recognised Obi-Wan as the little firestarter stirring things up in the Mandalore system. Obi-Wan will be surprised, not that he was recognised, and not that Oyia Vha was Manda-touched, but maybe about the trust and power goran'e have, especially Manda-touched ones. that isn't an aspect of the culture he got to experience in his past or future, aside from what he learned from Alpha-17, who also didn't experience it firsthand

-

#i am chewing and feasting on your breakdown of the force alignments! so much thought how each tie into one another and interact#how every jedi has a natural inclination but they are not bound to this aspect. the force is in everything and everything is the force#why limit themselves to just a little when the entire galaxy is brimming with energy and ephemeral threads tying it all together?

😭 thank you, i did put a lot of thought into it, especially with how sparse canon meta is about it in easily-accessible places. and so much is simply IMPLIED in canon that it leaves so much up to interpretation! which is obviously par for the course for Star Wars, but it lends itself especially well to such philosophical concepts that have such varied interpretations in canon. it was good to finally sit down and define them all for myself since i really hadn't done that yet

#luminara is going to be a very fun addition to this plot! ive always liked the idea that she was a couple years older than obi and maybe#agemates with quinlan. theres a (nearly) whole clan and a couple extra people that recognize something is happening before they#have any right to do so. lumi might have pointed it out but i bet they are more sensitive to their clan mates shielding themself off because#of what has happened with their group before. between bruck shutting down and following xanatos then dying#and obi closing them all out whenever his missions go pear shaped (and his non-mission on melida daan) might make them#notice the little cold and numb spot where somebody is supposed to be. the ribbon of their bond is still there just dull and quiet now#in a way that terrifies them all for good reason. who do they go to? do they each express their concerns to their masters?#do they trust they will be listened to or do they think they will be dismissed since obi had done this before? how can they express the#urgency and severity of this situation to outside parties? do they try or decide to keep it between themselves for now?

hadn't considered that before but YOU'RE SO RIGHT that the Saberjowls (+ honorary members) would be sensitive to changes in their personal and crèche bonds, like that is SO on point. and i hadn't even considered how the Bruck situation would have affected that, you're so right, and now i'm absolutely enamoured by the honest panic the Saberjowls+ would have at their shielded bond, that i don't think future!Obi-Wan would have thought to be worried about, since it had been so many years for him; i think it wouldn't even occur to him that his friends would be more than simply worried (he's of course emotionally intelligent enough to know there would be some worry, though maybe shielding such bonds is far more common for Jedi during the war, to protect bondmates from too much backlash during battles and death, so Obi-Wan is even more disconnected from what is usual for the Jedi of this time)

you've also reminded me that this all means the Saberjowls+ will know something's up with Obi-Wan before Qui-Gon does. oh he'll notice the extra shielding, but he'll think less of it, because at this point they're separated in Mandalore space, so it isn't surprising at all to him that Obi-Wan will shield off and on. it'll start being more suspicious because then Obi-Wan doesn't stop, and he'd never kept it up for that long before, and Qui-Gon will look closer at the bond and wonder at its masterful construction, and wonder if he'd somehow missed more of Obi-Wan's learning and accomplishments. there will be guilt there, but not nearly as much understanding of the direness of the situation as the Saberjowls+ will have

as established, this is less than two years after Obi-Wan returned to the Order after Melida/Daan, though probably even closer to one than two. his friends would still be worried about him in direct relation to Melida/Daan, which he's told them bits and pieces of, but not everything. maybe they'd been unhappy at the prospect of the Mandalore mission in the first place, and then they hear it's gone sideways, and they're pissed 'cause no one had listened to them about their worries and now look at what happened

i think at first, they keep it to themselves, but not because they don't trust their masters or any of the councils. maybe they don't want to believe the situation is as dire as it seems, even though Luminara knows something is up, something more than they've ever felt before. it's partly also that they don't want to like. out anything about Obi-Wan before he's ready to talk about it, because the only information they have at this point is a lack of information, and they worry about drawing attention to something Obi-Wan might not want others and/or adults to know, but the longer this Masterful (capital M) shield is in place, the more uneasy they get, and the less Luminara understands of what she's seeing in the Cosmic Force. but then he's leaving the shields up for so long, and it's like Melida/Daan all over again, and i think each Saberjowl independently goes to their masters with their worries, and then all the masters individually go to the council to ask if there's any news on Obi-Wan they can possibly give their padawan to ease some of the worry. the high council asks each master if they had like. got together to organise this, and they're all like "wait so Obi-Wan's other friends are all concerned too?" and the council realises no, this isn't some organised thing

so they're taking it seriously almost from the get go (as soon as they're aware, of course), partly because Obi-Wan has shielded his bonds before: the council knows this is something he does when things have gone even worse than normal, so they're trying to get a hold of Qui-Gon, when he contacts them, with Satine, to explain the sudden change in Obi-Wan right before he'd abandoned Satine to Qui-Gon

the Saberjowls+ are vindicated, of course, but they're not happy about it. they all feel a little guilty that they didn't say anything sooner, but can acknowledge why they didn't, and absolutely part of it was anger/betrayal/frustration for how Melida/Daan had been (or not been) handled. once all parties have acknowledged and admitted to the urgency, though, the padawans are CLAWING at the walls to be able to go find and/or rescue Obi-Wan, and Qui-Gon has to admit that he's trying and failing to do just that

in that lil scene I have written, Quinlan is the most like. unhappy with Qui-Gon, even knowing he's been doing better, but all the Saberjowls have a grudge, especially since Obi-Wan wasn't holding one even after Melida/Daan. even Bant is frosty around Qui, though that also has to do with how things went down with Tahl, and her displeasure with him was actually something that helped kick Qui-Gon into gear about being a better master, because if Bant is pissed at you, and stays pissed at you, you know you've fucked up

Lumi doesn't hold a grudge, per se, but is definitely aware of and salty about the differences between how Qui-Gon handled/handles Obi-Wan's prescience and alignment than how her own master does, how she had been supported since literally the crèche about her alignment, and Qui-Gon had only very recently even acknowledged Obi-Wan's. I think because of the nature of her own powers and what she sees, as well as her and Obi-Wan simply bonding about their similar powers, they have secrets with each other that they absolutely do not share with the other Saberjowls+, so I think she's more aware of things with Qui-Gon than any of them. this makes her feel extra guilty that she hadn't pushed about Obi-Wan's shielded bonds sooner, though she starts to accept that there isn't much she or the other Jedi could have done even if she had

#lumi deciding that the best course is to go and track down obi herself is delightful! i can see her carefully deciding that yes this could#very well end in a disaster but obi is her friend and one of the few people that she feels truly gets her and she cannot imagine#what he could possibly be doing that he thinks is best done alone and without his support system (friends)

she (and the other Saberjowls+) can all too easily see Obi-Wan thinking he doesn’t deserve the help, which isn’t exactly correct, because it is much more like i have him in Dha Kar’ta: he knows he can’t have the full support of the Jedi, that literally no party involved would be okay with that especially the Mandalorians. and well, he isn’t a Jedi anymore, so while he knows if he asked they would help, it would be because of their friendships with and obligations (/neutral) to him, which could be possibly be even worse than if they tried to help as an institution.

also, he has a secret to keep!! his closest relationships are literally psychic!! he’s SO worried about being able to fool literally anyone with a bond to him!! not actively worried, of course, he has better emotional regulation than that, and once he made his decision to leave the Order, he simply labels the worry as unfounded and unhelpful now. and then Luminara shows up lmaoo

#how much did the council share about the state of their newly non-existent ex-padawan? they made the choice for quigon to not follow obi but#who else knows? did anybody come to his friends and flat out tell them that he is no longer a member of the jedi order (again) and will not#be coming home after this one? or do they let it go knowing they need more information before spread that kind of thing around?

at first, when Obi-Wan drops Satine off with Qui-Gon and runs off, they don’t tell anyone not involved with the mission that anything is wrong, for opsec reasons, and the Saberjowls+ don’t tell anyone else about Obi-Wan shielding, and then he starts shielding even more, and the Saberjowls+ all go to their masters and then their masters to the Council, and then Qui-Gon calls the Order in a panic about Obi-Wan breaking their training bond, and then those select people (Qui, Quinlan, Yoda, Madam Nu, Feemor, Bant, Luminara, Garen and Reeft, Mace, his old crèchemaster) get their “anonymous” messages, and then someone tries to pull up Obi-Wan’s file in their systems and finds everything gone. the Saberjowls+' masters are all around for this reveal, so they do tell their padawans in hopes it’ll curb some of the worry and/or stop the miscommunication train that would lead to one of them booking it after Obi (not knowing Luminara already has). however, they sort of have to take all this as Obi-Wan’s resignation, especially based on his private messages to people; they’re quite clearly goodbyes, after all. even if Obi-Wan were to come back to them, they aren’t exactly sure how to re-induct him.

so they do, quietly, start telling those closest to him that he’s left. again. his friends don’t believe it because this is, what, the third time he’s done this? so the council has to reveal his little hacking spree, because that is absolutely intent, and the Saberjowls+ are more or less shell-shocked

hmm timeline-wise it makes sense that Luminara is the only Saberjowl+ that doesn’t go to their master after Obi-Wan shields even more. i’ve established that her master is currently in the Halls of Healing, so as soon as the Even More Masterful shields go up, Luminara is like: nope fuck this i’m going after him. the reveal of his fucking with the data systems helps IMMENSELY in covering for her when she sneaks out, because everyone is running around trying to figure out that clusterfuck that not even the Saberjowls+ notice for a few days that she’s missing. haven’t figured out exactly what he does, but i LOVE the idea of Sifo-Dyas helping cover for her, without her asking or knowing

the Council assigns Tholme and Quinlan to follow her as soon as they realise she’s missing, and Quin is the one to message her about Obi-Wan’s hacking and his resignation, and she’s the only Saberjowl that doesn’t deny it immediately, because she isn’t surprised. she’s spent days in hyperspace meditating on it, after all, it just makes sense that this was his next course of action

#lumi heading to madalore and not knowing what to expect but knowing she needs to be there to maybe help guide the chaos or point it in the#right direction for whatever the desired results are for obi? because i cant imagine her not backing whatever play obi has#and the council recognizing that and having to send shadows out after her. and knowing that quin was going to go even if they ordered him#not to is a very nice touch. the jedi know their people and recognize where they will stand their ground and where they might bend#and putting them into play where it most agrees with their drive and skills and temperaments

"cant imagine her not backing whatever play obi has" YEAH THAT that's how i view most Jedi friendships but especially the Saberjowls+, especially at this point in their padawanships. they are down for each other no questions asked, and very little concern for the consequences. they'll grow out of this eventually, will have better understanding on tempering themselves and of attachment clouding critical thinking, but there will still be very little they wouldn't do for each other

since most of the Saberjowls+ aren't even canon anymore, i think i'll have Quinlan and Luminara being the only ones other than Obi-Wan still alive by the end of the Clone Wars, at the time Obi time travels. so he hasn't forgotten the lengths they'll all go to for each other, but it definitely isn't at the forefront of his mind while on Mandalore the second time around. and maybe it's good that it's Quin and Lumi that end up there, because Obi-Wan would not be able to hide the time travel-thing from Bant and Reeft and Garen, not when he's already mourned them, not when that's why he avoided Qui-Gon in the first place

#i love love love when obi has to take a hard look at himself and realize that to make the changes he needs to that he cannot be a jedi#to enact those changes. and in that way embody what it really means to be a jedi. making those hard choices that benefit the galaxy#and the jedi mourn the loss of one of their brightest up and coming padawans even if they believe he is doing something that will benefit#the galaxy at large. this boy that keeps making these hard and costly decisions that align with his morals as a jedi and can only be proud

y'know what's extra fucky?? at this time, the Order doesn't know what Obi-Wan is doing, what his end goal is. they have Qui-Gon and Satine's side, where they've been watching Obi-Wan incidentally inspiring/rallying people, but when Obi-Wan resigns from the Order, he hasn't started purposefully enacting any sort of change yet. those that know Obi-Wan on a personal level will think he does have some sort of goal, because he's an incredibly driven individual, but for the Jedi at large? they think he's left to become a Mandalorian. those with less kind opinions of him probably hold some level of contempt, even, leaving them (again), this time to join their ancient enemies

haven't sorted the timeline for it just yet, but it will be a significant amount of time before the Order is made aware of Obi-Wan's actual involvement in the War and in the leadership. Lumi and Quin certainly aren't going to say anything, and Tholme will be convinced of secrecy, for the moment, because of the whole Time Travel Thing. and also because he trusts Obi-Wan, trusts his movement and what he's doing and why he's doing it, and trusts this isn't just some grab for power

Tholme is reminded of Xanatos, because he has to be, but oh, does he look at Obi-Wan and his earnest kindness and galaxy-ending grief, and he'll trust him

#vhonte following obi and obi looking at it as a test and a challenge to earn the support of the rest of the old guard is very on point#and listening with ever growing horror to this child speak like a well seasoned general and she can tell he is adjusting plans to include#her on the fly. hearing him lay out goals and objectives and im betting he even charts out the needed forces for each campaign

oh you know this boy has CHARTS, especially if i end up giving him a lil droid friend. droid friend is just a touch neurotic, with a passion for numbers that goes beyond simply them being a droid, and you know Obi-Wan has some tasty coding updates that lets them go above and beyond their primary functions, so not only does Obi-Wan have years and years of experience battle-planning, with all the paperwork and number-crunching that comes with it, but he also has a lil droid friend who LOVES putting all those numbers together in pretty, collated, organised, and colourful presentations

Vhonte knows only some of it is the eagerness of the droid, that Obi-Wan would have laid out all his info just as succinctly and thoroughly. and she's just so fuckin concerned why, and more importantly, how he knows how to do what he does. even training by the New Mando government wouldn't explain it, or perhaps Death Watch indoctrination, no, this is all too advanced to have been allowed under Tor Vizsla, because he certainly hadn't wanted his mindless soldiers able to outsmart him. Vhonte can only guess Obi-Wan taught himself, because even a Mando mentor wouldn't explain his comfort with like troop movements, not just anyone was trained for that kind of combat planning after all

perhaps she has the wild thought that maybe Jango had been mentoring him, but she can never give voice to that, because she very much still feels abandoned by her Mand'alor (and she isn't exactly wrong about that, either), and she also can't imagine Jango getting along with Obi-Wan's flirty mouthiness, his critiques that aren't disappointed but cut to the quick even faster than anger, his earnest kindness and apparent love for teaching. no, Vhonte can't imagine Jango would have given him the time of day in the first place, much less that Obi-Wan's personality would have survived such a mentorship

-

#gah. i had a full 15 tags and i went to check the spelling on the dukes name and came back and they were all gone. lets try that again#vhonte following along after obi and nodding her agreement to his plans knowing that if she doesnt agree he will just do it by himself#and he could! but it might end up costing him more than he is will to pay for those victories. and he knows it too.#she trails along behind him and watches as he lays out a plan on infiltrating an enemy compound and shes biting her nails wondering#how exactly are they going to bust a full compound on their own? and he says they arent. we are going to be sneaky#and has she ever tried to be sneaky in the way that would allow her to infiltrate an enemy base strip them for intel then get out without#sounding any alarms? and she looks at him and realizes that he clearly has and expects her to do so as well. how nerve-wracking!

Obi being sneaky is a massive part of his characterisation for this fic, and a very large part of his strangeness and interest for those around him. i even have a note that all his armour paint is matte, that he has these like dark cloth attachments to go over his white armour for missions, and even his weapons are filed to hide any sort of shine.

not that Mandalorians can't be stealthy, but it certainly isn't like. standard, even for bounty hunters. when you wear your armour for something like 70% of your lives, especially while on a job, it definitely eliminates any sort of undercover work, and i think the general Mando philosophy of battle would encourage head-on confrontations above all others, especially when against other Mandos. now, i don't think they'd see stealth and infiltration as dishonourable or anything, but like i said, it isn't standard.

so no, i don't think Vhonte has perhaps any experience with the sort of infiltration Obi-Wan is asking of her, though she can figure out how to apply skills she already has to make it work. and that'll be the thing about Obi-Wan, you know? he doesn't ask you to give more than you can, doesn't ask you to become someone you're not, and he doesn't put you in any danger he isn't confident you can get out of. so while he doesn't expect Vhonte to follow him, to match him, she can see he clearly believes she can, so by the Manda, she's going to do her fucking damnedest to live up to the quiet confidence her future Mand'alor has in her. he makes you want to live up to what he believes you can be, and Vhonte will absolutely only be the first to feel that way

#but then they do and he seems much too aware of the whole base and everything that is happening in it and she still cannot quite get over#the fact that this overly competent and driven teenager in too large beskargam that he moves too easily in is somebody she will follow

ooh ooh ooh this would also be his first like “mission” after his connection to the Force has changed, so it would be a massive learning experience for him, testing how this is different than what he’s felt his whole life (and it is!! different!! the Manda is a roiling, ash-dark sea, it’s marching boots, it’s a collective, where the Force was a singular whole, was deep and dark as space, was the deep ocean where there are currents not waves. he knows that beneath the Manda, deeper than the Manda, he will find that ocean just like he always had, but what need has he for going deeper? he is the waves now, not a creature on the currents)

#and she cannot wait to introduce him to her clan and maybe get some meat on those bones! somebody needs to feed him and#it doesnt seem like he pays too much heed to his own body beyond what he needs to give it to complete his missions#and the idea that he could be adonais bastard isnt terribly unfounded. look at bokatan after all! red hair and light skin and eyes#isnt that far out of line. and when he just lets her roll with whatever assumptions shes making it certainly doesnt help any rumors#but hes cin vhett! he doesnt need to tell anybody who he is or where he came from. thats the whole point. he is a clean slate.

very early in my consumption of star wars fan content, i absolutely believed Obi was bad at taking care of himself physically, especially during the Clone Wars, with it bordering on purposeful as some sort of self-flagellation. the more i learned about Obi-Wan, the more i felt that was out of character to a rather extreme degree, even at his lowest points, and i no longer subscribe to that woobified version of him at all. nowadays, my view of him (when he's at those lowest points, like during the Clone Wars) is much more like you've said: he keeps himself functioning, because to not take care of himself is to put himself and others in direct danger, but that care is taken with a utilitarian view. he does it because he has to in order to keep functioning, and he isn't actually suicidal or anything close to it (except some spots while on Tatooine, but we're not dealing with that era here soo), but i do absolutely believe there are times when Obi-Wan forgets to care for himself, usually when he's trying so hard to care for others, like his troops. i think, even with Obi-Wan's Legends background, the Jedi were too good at teaching self-care and self-maintenance and the necessity of it for Obi-Wan to drop the ball on it often, especially as an adult and a master. SO yeah, i agree absolutely with you, especially from Vhonte's perspective: Obi-Wan is caring for his body just enough to get through missions, he's just as much on war footing as the rest of the Mandalore system, and while Vhonte understands and respects him as an adult and a seasoned verd, he's still a minor in most places, is still growing, and she wants him to keep growing thank you very much.

"but hes cin vhett! he doesnt need to tell anybody who he is or where he came from" ur SO RIGHT. i can’t recall what fic i saw it in first, but some have the armorers being the ones to “grant” cin vhetin, and that makes absolutely nothing but sense to me, so i’ll definitely be having Oyia Vha formally grant it to him when they adjust his armour. i like to think that it doesn’t have to be granted by a spiritual or governmental leader, since similar rituals like adoption and marriage and such seem to be very individual, private, and small-ceremony, but obviously there will be some that would try to abuse something like cin vhetin, criminals trying to go into hiding, etc, so having the hmm sponsorship? vouch? of an armorer or other leader will actually help in any sort of legal dispute, while someone unsponsored won’t have any sort of protection. now i do think Oyia Vha would have a mischievous streak like many many Force sensitives seem to, so do they TELL Vhonte that they’re sponsoring Obi-Wan’s cin vhetin, or even that he’s undergoing it at all?? not likely lmao. obviously his white armour will tip anyone off who simply looks at him, but some Mandos keep white armour their whole lives, too, so it doesn’t have to mean anything. and Obi-Wan will have some idea of what cin vhetin actually means, and that isn’t NOT what he’s doing, exactly, but the white armour is infinitely more about his old troopers, and i really don’t think he’d ever outright claim to be undergoing cin vhetin. likely, he wouldn’t think to, and i doubt he has enough awareness of sponsorship, outside of Oyia Vha simply seeing him paint his newly-refitted armour and going “Ah. I will sponsor you”. since Oyia Vha doesn’t realise who Obi-Wan is until he’s already out the door, it’s only in retrospect that they realise the full implications of Obi-Wan’s paintjob. which, of course, they don’t, can’t, but it really does give more weight to Oyia Vha’s ~vibes~ about this verd’ika so close to being their new Mand’alor (people just need to swear to him now)

#how about when lumi gets in system she hears two calls from the force? one seems a little out of place (and time not that she knows)#and the other feels more present. so she follows the present one and finds his buried lightsaber and takes it with her. then she follows#the one that feels out lf place. and that leads her to obi! an obi she doesnt recognize and cannot See and even right there its like he isnt#she sees a young man with eyes old beyond his years in foreign armor and with his hair just a prickly fuzz growing back out and an ease#in how he carries himself both physically and mentally and morally. she looks at him and gets this bizarre feeling that shes looking at a#stranger wearing the skin of her friend. but he recognizes her and welcomes her even if he doesnt lift the shielding on their bond#and she vows to follows his lead in this becasue while he might not be what she remembers she also knows that dire circumstances#can dramatically change people. she just hopes that this is for the better of everyone involved including obi.

been thinking about the lightsaber thing since you first said it, because i love it, but i'm not sure it fits what i'm going for, for this fic. part of me wants Obi-Wan to give up lightsabers completely, like to the point he'll win the darksaber but never actually use it (have some ideas about him being challenged for it at some point, getting accused of and made fun of for not knowing how to wield it, and then him just. whipping it out and fuckin decimating his challenger. the holovideo that circulates of the "duel" does much more for securing his place as Manda'lor than anyone, including himself, would have expected, and people stop questioning the fact he only carries the darksaber around). not because he feels unworthy of it, or that he feels he isn't Jedi enough for it, or that Jedi are the only ones that can have them, but more just... because he's different now, his connection to the Force is different now, his purpose is different now. he loves kyber, is loved by kyber, just as he always has been, but he doesn't need it the way he once did, and he is especially disconnected from the kyber he'd buried. he thinks that perhaps one day he'll go on another Gathering, maybe to Jedha, but he never actually gets the calling to

part of this is just that i've never seen anyone do this before. it's always Obi-Wan running from himself, or hiding post-ROTS, or cutting a part of himself off. a kyber and/or a lightsaber does not a Jedi make, and we have Jedi in Legends that don't use them at all (Master Fay), and i just think it'd be interesting to explore Obi-Wan no longer using a lightsaber not as a tragedy, not as any sort of failing or hiding or repression, just... a function of his circumstances and how he's changed as a person.

all that being said, he absolutely uses a beskad like. being a swordsman is sort of intrinsic to Obi-Wan's character, it's borderline foundational, something i am loath to nor will strip him of. also!! it's something new he can learn!! on a Doylian level, needing to learn a new/adjusted skill curbs some of his OPness, and on a Watsonian level, Obi-Wan is first and foremost a teacher and a learner, because you cannot divorce one from the other, and i think learning something new will be unspeakably important to him adjusting to and processing his new reality, as well as working through his grief and Clone Wars-related PTSD. and!! it gives him opportunity to bond with the Mandos that'll teach him!! i'm thinking Walon Vau and Silas specifically for beskad teaching, though i think Rav Bralor would do a bunch of training and brushing up on other weapons with him, specifically getting him up to date on blasters (he'll pass his lack of knowledge off as having little access to contemporary weapons while on Melida/Daan)

and then of course Vhonte will be his mentor for pretty much everything. i don't want an exactly sisterly relationship, because i think we on the internet forget friendship doesn't have to equate to or parallel familial bonds, and i want Obi-Wan and Vhonte to be first and foremost friends

#tholme and quinlan following behind lumi just enough days behind that they can simply follow her straight to obi is fun!#because here we have two masters and two padawans and an ex-jedi all running around and only 4 of the 5 seem determined to keep their#identies as a jedi secret. so when tholme and quin show up where does that leave the mysterious 8th force sensitve mando?#watching from the sidelines absolutely gobsmacked at the blazing stars that all seem to rotate around their mand'alor?#does the 8th come to the conclusion on their own that he was a jedi first? or do one of the padawans spill something on accident?#maybe lumi tries to give him his lightsaber back because it misses him and she cant stand the thought of him giving up everything jedi

hmm i suppose i really have to decide what Qui-Gon's doing now, don't i? have been avoiding thinking about it 'cause it's just not as fun as Luminara and Obi and Vhonte lmao and i also don't want him to be a major part of this fic, but i do gotta know where he is and if he's going to cause any problems lol

oooh well now he's certainly going to be there when Obi-Wan treaties with the New Mandos (sometime after dealing with Death Watch, me thinks)

ANYWAY i like to think Quinlan didn't tell Lumi that he and Tholme are following, partly for opsec, but mostly because he's salty she didn't even ask if he wanted to join her when she snuck out, so he's pettily withholding that info. and their bonds aren't shielded, so she knows immediately when Quinlan gets close enough for that bond to register and is like "oh shit" because like. logically she'd known the Jedi couldn't just let her stay gone, but she's like seventeen or eighteen y'all, she hadn't actually thought they'd catch up so soon nor send someone who can so easily find her. doing math on the exact number of days is making me regert living rn, so for now I'll just say that Luminara has been with Obi-Wan enough days that he's either already told her about the time travel thing or has decided that it's inevitiable that he will

and as soon a she feels Quinlan, she like immediately apologises to Obi-Wan for leading Jedi right to him, that it's Quinlan and Tholme, and of course Obi-Wan is immediately like "of course they're on their way and of course it's Quinlan?" like a little genuinely confused that she's surprised, and Luminara is confused that he isn't surprised, and together they decide to go out and meet Quinlan and Tholme to catch them up on the situation before they meet any of the Mandos

oh dear now i need to come up with a cover for Lumi and Quin and Tholme while they're with the Mandos; it's not like Obi-Wan can just claim that they're clan or anything, and he certainly doesn't trust them to pass as Mandalorians. hmmm i mentioned in some tag ramblings on an earlier update, that Quinlan had the possibility of sticking around like as a Shadow in order to help Obi-Wan, so maybe Obi-Wan convinces his Mandos that he and Tholme are Obi's like informants? maybe he doesn't introduce Tholme to them at all, knowing it might be a little unbelievable to have such an older man at his beck and call

okay so how about this: Luminara shows up, gets too close to Obi's Mandos before he realises she's there that he can't hide her from them, but she's smart enough not to blow his cover (not that it is a cover, but he certainly hasn't told anyone he used to be a Jedi), and she's smart enough not to dress like a Jedi in such a place. to his Mandos, Obi-Wan says Lumi is his ori'vod, but not clan, not even Mandalorian. he admits he didn't grow up around other Mandalorians, but because of cin vhetin, doesn't have to explain further than that. he gives Lumi a crash course on Mando things she would have known from growing up with him, though asks her not to lie outright, because these are his people, and he won't lie to them. he says he'll explain everything she wants to know once Quin gets there

then when Quinlan and Tholme show up, they both go and head them off before they get too close to Obi's camp or whatever, because Obi-Wan does understand that Tholme really does need to check if he's Fallen or possessed or something (he doesn't know the Jedi suspect any of these things, he's just dealt with a lot of Sith fuckery in his life, especially during the Clone Wars), and because he knows he needs to tell someone about the time travel: he isn't so arrogant to think it won't come to light in some facsimile, and having some Shadows to help him out on Mandalore would be a boon beyond quanitfying. though maybe he isn't thinking that just yet, because i do stand by him not expecting nor planning on aid from the Jedi, he's more counting on not having it, because he doesn't think they can or will or should give it. Tholme and Quin and Lumi of course call him an idiot

too much lying to the Jedi would need to happen to do what i want with Tholme, so i'm gonna deus ex machina a SMALL bit, and have all communication in the system cut off as part of Obi-Wan's campaign against Death Watch. or maybe Death Watch is the one to do it, finally realising just how much of a threat Obi-Wan is? anyway, sometime very soon after or maybe even just before Tholme and Quinlan get to the Mandalore System, there's a communications blackout, even between planets in the system, so Tholme can't check in with the Council or Qui-Gon, which I'm certain would be part of his mission

now as for the 8th Manda-touched Mando goes (feck it, they need a name. they are now Worro Wren, head of the Wrens that schsimed from those that supported Death Watch and are still under House Vizsla), no, i don't think they'd ever think "Jedi" as an option for any of Obi-Wan's weirdness, because, well. how many Mandalorians have ever even met a Jedi, these days? they actively avoid each other as peoples, especially post-Galidraan, and well. Obi-Wan is just. so mandokar, you know? he knows too much about the culture (as maybe strange and incomplete as it is), that i really don't think it would occur to anybody that he's a Jedi? maybe if he did something big like stop a spaceship with his mind or smth, something bigger than regular Manda-touched Mandalorians usually ever acomplish (i'm a firm believer in training increasing Force ability, regardless of Midichlorian count. stretching and stregenthing a muscle, and all that)

now Luminara. i think there'd be some suspicions, especially because Luminara obviously doesn't have much practice pretending not to be a Jedi, so that would cast some suspicion on Obi-Wan too, but it just seems to far fetched to the Mandos to think their almost-Mand'alor is one of the very very very few Jedi in the whole galaxy? pity that no one that does suspect ever actually asks Obi-Wan about it, because he won't lie to his people, and would have admitted to it outright. this'll be important later!!

#how does quin feel about this stranger in his friends skin? he doesnt know it but theres now a lifetime of experience different between them#obi has raised a padawan and has a grandpadawan. he he been fighting and leading in a galactic war. he is a councilor!

if i'm looking at the canon timeline correctly, the episode of the Clone Wars with Quinlan has already happened by now, and he's never mentioned again lmao so i'm thinking it's been at least two years since future!Obi-Wan has seen Quinlan, and now he's seeing this teen version of him, so young and Light and who can't get a read on Obi-Wan just like Luminara can't (i'm alright with the Asajj/Quinlan plotline, but good lord do i hate Quinlan's "Fallen" plot. like. your examples of Jedi toeing the dark and Falling and coming back and those that struggle with rage are really gonna be Mace Windu, Quinlan Vos, and Bariss Offee?? like. alright, star wars writers, we get it, you're racist)

SO how does Quinlan feel about all of this? not fuckin well. he saw Obi-Wan like six months ago, and Obi-Wan had been doing better, had been genuinely recovering from Melida/Daan, had been getting closer with Qui-Gon who was being legitimately more understanding and a better Master, and then things went to hell like they always seem to for Obi-Wan, and now he looks at Quinlan like he barely knows him, like he's shocked to see him, like it hurts to see him, for some reason. Quinlan can't read him in the Force, can't read him from their Force bond, but he knows something's happened, something so much bigger than anything the Jedi are expecting, because Obi-Wan fucking walks differently now. he glides like a Master, he speaks like a seasoned diplomat (so much more than the illusion of it his accent used to give), his eyes are hardened like a veteran Shadow, and Quinlan knows he doesn't mean to but Obi-Wan speaks to him like a Master speaks to another Jedi's padawan. he talks Tholme in circles like a High Council member, and hmmmmmm maybe Quinlan actually suspects something like time travel before Obi-Wan even mentions it

(responses continued in the next reblog [by me] of this post!)

mandalore the young cont.

original post/discussion here! it was just getting really long and i for one hate scrolling so far, so. here's this. have also added this au to my masterlist in my pinned post!

@malcontent-crow

#i had a whole wall of tags and it didnt save! lets try this again#i am loving this. the potential for world building and the consequences of knowing more than you should (literally)

#i had forgotten that DW wasnt in peoples thoughts as a threat during the Clan Wars#and the idea that Pre was so far underground with the movement is a very good thing to remember as well! #on one hand you have this driven and spirited young verd that is inspiring Clans to start reassessing who they are fighting and why#on the other you have this clanless outsider that knows waaaaay too much about all the potential major players and is saying#that this major threat isnt really as gone as everybody thought and hoped. sith parallels out the wahoo for ppor obi#and hes standing there watching them all argue over his head about this threat that he KNOWS needs to be dealt with#he is seeing himself as pretty on par or above with the Old Guard in terms of mental age or prowess or large scale battles#so he sees them doubt him maybe even to his face and knows he'll need to get things started on his own

#and becauae everything in the galaxay has at least one person watching it from the outside... how quickly does the news of a jedi padawan#going off the rails on this mission get out? whos keeping track and who points fingers at the jedi for attempting to control the outcome#of the war of their historical enemies in their favor? the senate (read sith) want mandalore defanged before their war but what does it look#like the jedi want? how does the council answer for his actions? do they condemn or condone him? do they try to stay out of it?

#the world building potential of the Manda and the Ka'ra is delicious.#what does it mean to be a mando or darmanda? can you walk around and have people look at you and know you have failed in your oaths?

#and ouch! Obi-Wan considering the fact that he has never been allowed to be his own person.#from padawan to knight/master and then a general and councilor and sheesh. hes really never had the chance to see who he is as a person#outside of his responsibilities to everybody around him and right now hes a war worn adult in a war worn teens body#hes always had somebody else there. as a battle companion a teacher a student as somebody to protect and guard and guide#and now he has this entire culture looking at him and waiting for his next move. and im guess it still feels like less than a burden than#the care and raising of an entire child on his own. sure he had the temple resources and other jedi to lean on but anakin always looked to#him first to solve any problem or teach him something new or cuddle him after nightmares as hes trying to hide his own dreams#and grief and flounding to find his footing as an independent adult

#so right now hes looking around at the entire mando population and realizing thats he might need to reshape himself again for somebody else#to make himself what others need and knowing he can and will do it if it means saving somebody else

#and when exactly did he come back from the war? did he have satine die in his arms and see the ruin that is madalore after a pacifist reign?#does he see the potential for that ruin to happen right now if he doesnt succeed? where does he see himself in regards to the jedi?#has he considered the consequences of stepping up to be the Mand'alor to this culture he has never seen as his own?#has he let himself think about the choices he needs to make and how some things you cant always come out the other side the same as before?

(following the trend of each of these getting longer, this has hit just under 5,000 words, so just a heads up lol? so much world building is happening in this one)

sorry you had to rewrite so much! that last exchange was cursed, it seems lmao

it's so easy to write Obi-Wan as prescient, or the route I'm going with in Dha Kar'ta, so i think it's a fun change-up to have him knowledgeable for completely different reasons! I'm actually going to avoid visions almost at all for this Obi, but everyone else certainly won't know the difference, and he doesn't tell them otherwise (though he won't encourage it either. I do actually have a Naruto time travel where Nart pretends to be psychic à la Shawn Spencer, so that isn't the route I wanna go for this Obi). the consequences of knowing too much, indeed

hmmm many of these questions depend on how deep into Jedi and galactic politics I wanna go, and I'm not sure it's very deep at all. or at least, not very dragged out. i'll explain in a mo

SO first: yes, this Obi is from after Satine dies, in 19 BBY, maybe a month or so after, but before the bombing of the Temple so before Ahsoka left the Order. He was back on the front, no time to properly mourn, though he was doing his best, and was meditating on the whole war, but especially the Sith and their hand in everything that happened on Mandalore. It went deeper than Maul, he knew, had been going on longer than Maul and even Dooku, and it occurred to Obi-Wan that the Sith either wanted a Mandalore that will side with them but not be too much a threat, or they wanted them not a threat at all. He realised his hand in that, in helping put the New Mandalorians on the throne that led to the demilitarisation of the entire sector. Obi-Wan had practically teed Mandalore up for Dooku and then Maul's interference, and if the Republic won the war, he could all too easily see them doing another excision. won't get too much into it to save it for the fic, but he is mediating with something beskar, and he gets a lil too deep into the Force, and of course this is post-Mortis so...... 👀

so this Obi-Wan, back in time, is helping Mandalore to prevent any more Sith machinations in the future, to change the future for the whole galaxy, but even before he's Chosen, he realises he's also doing all of this for Mandalore. for his own hand in its destruction, for the Jedi's hand in the Excision, for his personal connection to Satine drawing Maul to it. it's for atonement, for reparation, and also because Mandalore deserves to be saved, and Obi-Wan is in a place he can help do that. it isn't just about the health of the galaxy, anymore.

I usually shy away from having Obi-Wan leave the Order, no matter what AU I'm throwing him in because I believe in the fundamental goodness of the Order and the people in it, and Obi-Wan is fundamentally a Jedi, one of the best, one of the best. however, in this case, I don't think he can have his cake and eat it too. if Dooku had to leave the Order to accept his countship, then Obi-Wan would have to leave to become Mand'alor. Jedi are (supposed to be) politically neutral, and Obi-Wan is all too aware he'd nullified his own neutrality the moment he decided to go for Keldabe to find Jango.

one of my favorite... tropes? in time travel fic is Obi using his future fellow councilmembers' access codes to get into things he shouldn't, and he certainly knows how to work the Order's internal systems in his favor, so he

wait so i was gonna have him go in and tender his resignation from the Order directly into the systems, and backdate it for before the Mandalore mission, so that anything he's done on Mandalore so far cannot be blamed on the Jedi BUT WHAT IF he just. deletes himself. like completely. from admin to the Archives to the crèche's own internal systems to the Shadow's private servers, Obi-Wan Kenobi was never a Jedi, was never a Temple bastard, was never Qui-Gon Jinn's padawan. his mission records are all in Qui-Gon's name now, his medical file simply doesn't exist, his crècheling clan is listed as simply having been a person short compared to other clans that year. he goes so far as to delete comm histories with him or mentioning him, it's like Obi-Wan Kenobi just doesn't exist anymore.

he does this first thing after leaving Jango, he spends the entire week back to Mandalore ensuring he's been completely erased from absolutely anything relating to the Jedi, and then uses his future councilmember knowledge (and lessons from Quinlan) to erase himself from Republic systems, too. any planet he'd helped as a padawan will suddenly have no records of him as having been there with his master, so the senate or Order can't subpoena them for the info, though Obi-Wan knows he can't have gotten everything (such as any planet not in the Republic, or who don't have holonet access to their files, or both, like Melida/Daan), but he figures he's done enough to absolve the Order if anyone comes knocking about what he's doing.

he buries his lightsaber in the deserts of Mandalore, not knowing that in his old future, he'd have done the same on Tatooine.

so as far as the Jedi are aware: Obi-Wan went on a mission with Qui-Gon that (predictably) went to hell, got separated from his master for weeks to months, then suddenly changed, at the same time their Jedi with the highest prescience collapsed due to his visions, which have also changed. Obi-Wan left Qui-Gon behind to hightail it through the Mandalore sector, and Qui-Gon couldn't catch up or find him, and then Obi-Wan disappeared from anyone's radars for two weeks. then Qui-Gon senses him reenter the Mandalore system, right before breaking his training bond with him, and the Order wakes up to Obi-Wan completely erased from their systems like he never existed in the first place. everything is going so so wrong, and yet. and yet.

and yet the Force is telling them all that this is right, that this is the least Dark course of action, that whatever Obi-Wan is doing is indeed the Will of the Force

so the Order mourns one of their own, and tells Qui-Gon to let him go. and then the Order ups their cyber security because what.

i think he leaves an unsigned letter/comm message for a few people. Bant, Quinlan, Mace, Feemor, his old crèchemaster, Yoda, maybe Jocasta Nu. it's short, basically thanking them for their hand in his upbringing (Feemor hasn't even met him before so is very confused by this), apologising for leaving abruptly, but to follow the Will of the Force, he had to leave; the first part of the message is all the same, but ends with little individual notes. he apologises to Madam Nu for fucking with her archives and hopes she can one day forgive him; he asks her to keep her friends close and to mend the tension between her and Dooku, that Obi-Wan should not know about. He tells Yoda that the future is always in motion but they must move with it; he asks Yoda to meditate on his dwindling lineages and learn to accept all that he cannot control. He reminds Quinlan to wear his gloves and asks him to thank Tholme for looking out for him when Qui-Gon wouldn't or didn't; he thanks him for their years together, and asks him to check in on Feemor every now and then. He apologises to Mace for all the shatter-points he likely caused and will continue to cause, and suggests he put a permanent reminder in his comm to remember to refill his migraine prescription that sixteen year-old Obi should not know about. He asks Bant to look out for a young Togruta initiate that will join in seven years, and suggests Bant might like the healer track rather than the knight corps; he thanks her for being his longest and most dearly-held friend. He thanks his crèchemaster for realising his visions were more than dreams (which will inadvertently lend credence to that theory for why Obi-Wan changed so suddenly), for supporting him when Bruck was at his nastiest, and for always being someone he could turn to even after he became a padawan. For Feemor, Obi-Wan apologises that they hadn't had the chance to meet before then, and for the relationship they won't have anymore; Feemor has no idea who this message is from, until he starts hearing the gossip that Obi-Wan Kenobi has left the Order again. He too mourns never getting to know his padawan brother.

and Obi-Wan sends Qui-Gon a message, of course, thanking him for his teachings, apologising for "leading him on" as an apprentice, leaving and coming back so many times only to permanently leave this time. he reminds Qui to reach out to his friends and his support system, asks him to at least consider talking to a mind or soul healer about Xanatos (knowing that once it gets out that Obi-Wan is a planetary leader, it will likely badly trigger Qui-Gon), and asks him to at least try and mend his relationship with Dooku, though understands if that's not something Qui-Gon is willing to do. asks him to keep Satine safe, but to deeply think about why the Republic is so intent on helping her faction, and why Qui-Gon had questioned so little of the New Mandalorian ethos.

so by the time Obi-Wan finds the Old Guard, he's broken from the Order completely, has buried his saber, has broken his training bond, has cut his braid. I think he shaves his head entirely to let it grow out at the same rate, because the padawan cut is *Eliot Spencer voice* Very Distinctive. he paints his armour white for, yes, his men, his vod'e, but also for cin vhetin. he can't be the man he was before, nor the teen he was before, neither are who Mandalore needs, and as long as he can stay true to his morals and upbringing, he will be what Mandalore needs him to be.

okay now onto the Manda vs. the Ka'ra vs. the Force. the Force is a scientific concept of an energy connecting absolutely everything in the universe, and the Jedi have a religious view on the scientific concept. for both purposes, the Force just is. I really like the idea of other non-Jedi ideas just being different aspects of the Force, different religions and cultures based on the same scientific concepts. for Mandalorians, their "aspect" of the Force is the Manda, the collective souls of every Mando'ade that's ever marched on. just what it means to be Mando'ade has varied greatly through history, and is varied between different groups even now, but none of that changes what the Manda is, which is an aspect of the Force only Mando'ade can touch. sort of like their beliefs of it being separate from the Force have made it so?

now I haven't really talked about this before, but from the beginning of me writing Mandalorian related things, i've separated Ka'ra from ka'ra, which was a little bit me misremembering there was another term for "stars", and then it became it's own thing. kar, meaning "star", with it's plural kar'e or kare, to me, means physical stars, the way we'd call our sun a star. ka'ra, uncapitalised, is the more poetic and/or spiritual "stars", the way we might say something is "written in the stars", which actually aligns with how jate'kara is spelled; for my writing, i've used this form for Mandalorian Force-sensitives being Star-touched ka'ra-touched. Ka'ra, capitalised, is that "ruling council of fallen kings", the Mandalorian myth and it, the way I've always interpreted it, is a separate part of the Manda made up of specifically the souls of every Mand'alor already marched on. So, Tor Vizsla could have joined the Manda after death, but not the Ka'ra; make sense? all that ka'ra vs Ka'ra worldbuilding was done very early in my writing for star wars, and has since expanded to include the idea of the Manda as something separate, and I would now actually consider Manda-touched over Star-touched to describe Force sensitive Mando'ade, because that's really what I think Mandalorians would consider causes their supernatural powers: ancestors rather than the stars.

so what does that mean for this fic? the Manda is directly influenced by all those that consider themselves Mandalorian, Force-sensitive or not. it is, however, not affected by New Mandalorians, unless they worship the Manda in some facsimile, and I think many, many, many do not, not the way they were raised to. this worship looks different for every clan and every individual, and I've always interpreted it as more of a broad spiritual practice across the whole culture rather than a religion, per se, the way a real-world broader culture might pray at shrines at New Years even if individuals themselves or their family aren't religious. this is what I'm referencing when I say the Will of the People: the alive Mando'ade and their choices and emotions affecting and influencing the Manda, the collective amalgamation of every passed-on Mando'ade, and it's when these two are in tandem that they "pick" a Mand'alor. HOWEVER, such a pick is also up to the Ka'ra, the Mand'alor'e that have all marched on; to one day enter the Ka'ra themselves, a Mand'alor must be "picked" by both the People/the Manda, and the Ka'ra. Tor would be "picked" by a significant part of the People and the Manda, and so would Jaster have been, but (according to me, myself, and i, obviously), only Jaster had been chosen by the Ka'ra. Pre is "Mand'alor" only in name, only in a tenuous loyalty existing in House Vizsla and Death Watch, not even by the Manda; just simple human (et al) loyalty. Jango had a weaker "pick" from the Manda than Jaster did, but was picked by the Ka'ra, meaning if he did not declare himself dar'manda (even just internally; I don't think he's ever said it out loud), he would have joined the Ka'ra after death; if he ever reconnects with himself as a Mandalorian, I like to think he'd have that chance again. Canon Jango, though, who went on to make the clones? Absolutely not.

what does this all mean for Obi-Wan? he'd spent weeks inadvertently drumming up support in the people and therefore the Manda, and maybe most haven't really looked at him and thought "sure I'd follow him as Mand'alor", but they have looked at him and thought "that one has mandokar, that one wants what's best for Mandalore, that one is touched by destiny". I dunno, man, like. Obi-Wan is their hope before he is their leader. That will make all the difference when he does end up uniting them. His searching out Jango had made Jango finally confront that he feels dar'manda, until then he hadn't really lost the Ka'ra's support, but that severs that connection. and now the Ka'ra are without a Mand'alor, but look at that, there's a mandokar'la little idiot right there, already strong in the Manda, already rallying hope and purpose, already so invested in the nurturing and the future of Mandalore, how could the Ka'ra not choose him?

I posed the question previously whether or not Mando'ade can tell who has been chosen to be Mand'alor, and I think I've ironed out what that'll mean for this fic. non-Force sensitive Mando'ade will have this sense when near their Mand'alor, a subconscious and inherent trust in them, and indeed, some will be disturbed by this and fight it. that's alright, that's their right. Some never clock this extra sense, some are aware of it always, some just chalk it up to "gut feelings" and the like. The more spiritual or religious Mandos maybe put a little more stock in this feelings, I think especially goran'e and other spiritual leaders, but the fact that the Manda can technically pick more than one person at a time (like Tor and Jaster, and then Jango), this extra sense isn't a perfect indicator of a properly chosen Manda'lor.

now. what about Force sensitive Mando'ade? Well, the Manda is an aspect of the Force, and is in fact how said Force sensitive Mando'ade connect to the Force, by going through the Manda, first. their relationship with sensitivity is inherently different from others in the galaxy, at least those that connect to it directly. they are the ones that can sense or see if someone is chosen by the Ka'ra, depending on their sensitivity. Some see the ghostly line of previous Mand'alor'e stretched out behind them (like the Avatar cycle lmao), some see a wavering crown of stars around their head, some just sense there is a duplicity (/neutral) to their Force presence that doesn't exist in anyone else. how common is Force sensitivity in Mandalorian space? not fuckin very. Jaster had three in his entire faction of aprox. 2 million (fanon number), at least that were aware they were sensitive. Jango only had a few more, and only because he had gained a couple hundred thousand more followers before Galidraan. so i'll make the nearly-arbitrary number that Force sensitive Mandos are 1 in 1,000,000, across the entire sector. by some calculations, in the whole galaxy at around the time of the Clone Wars the number of Force sensitives is 1 in 5,000,000 but these calculations do not generally include societies and species with a near or 100% chance of Force sensitivity, because we simply don't have the data for it. does this all make Mandos slightly more likely to be Force sensitive than others, by my own numbers? sorta. which i'm making an issue of underreporting, based on Mandalore not being a part of the Republic, and also contention with the Jedi and Sith; they don't consider those Manda-touched to be Force sensitive, and with the way I've built this, they aren't exactly wrong.

for the purposes of this story, there are maybe eight Manda-touched Mando'ade in the Mandalore system at this time, and all but one are goran'e. that single non-armorer is part of the Old Guard. I have the roster for the Old Guard decided, so I'm debating whether the Manda-touched one is Cort Davin (a journeyman protector), or one of the women. Instinct wants Vhonte Tervho, but I have plans for her to be related to the goran Obi-Wan got his armour done by, who I wanted to be one of the seven Force sensitive armorers, soooo. lmao how fucked would it be if Isabet Reau is the Force sensitive one? I like the angst of that, since I definitely do not plan on redeeming her, but I kind of want the only Old Guard that can sense Obi-Wan is Chosen by the Ka'ra to be really quiet and accepting of it, while everyone else is arguing. hmmm I have an unnamed Wren as part of the Guard, that I haven't fleshed anything out for yet; perhaps them?

okay I think I've solidified what it makes a Mandalorian, at least for the function of this fic. it is tied to the Resol'nare, and following it, which does allow those who had Chosen Tor Vizsla as their Mand'alor to technically still be following the Resol'nare, and are therefore not dar'manda. at least not for that. but part of the reason the Resol'nare is even able to determine who has a Mandalorian soul, is because they believe it does. Those alive and those dead influence the functionality and reality of the Manda, which also allows for those pre-Resol'nare to still exist in the Manda. What causes someone to become dar'manda, if they are technically following the Resol'nare?

maybe it's reductive, or over-simplified, or maybe even too broad, but it makes sense to me and allows for many many different types of people to still fail, and this is obviously not the only way to become dar'manda, but one thing that will always strip someone of their Mando soul? treatment of children. caring for children. not harming children. this allows many of Death Watch to still maintain their Mando souls, but still be fucked up awful people in other ways. It allows even True Mandalorians to have lost their souls and not realised it because they otherwise adhered to the Resol'nare, because they'd chosen to interpret "defending oneself and family" and "raising your children as Mandalorians" to not include other peoeple's children. Or maybe they were abusive in the belief they were caring for their children. This would also make every single one of the Cuy'val Dar dar'manda, which I think is a fascinating concept.

to answer your question directly, no, one cannot look at someone and know they're dar'manda, even the Force/Manda sensitive ones. one will only know in death, whether or not they have a place in the Manda.

NOW what does this mean for New Mandalorians?? well, by technicality and the way I've set the Manda up, one can interpret the Resol'nare in ways that could align with New Mandos. Perhaps they interpret "armour" as more than specifically "beskar'gam", maybe they wear armourweave or other protective fabrics. Maybe they interpret "defending one's family" as putting down arms instead of raising them, in order to create a peaceful future for their children. I think there are plenty of New Mandos that technically tick off all the boxes, and believe in themselves and their fellows so much that the Manda is like "yeah sure why not, we'll make that count". I think some tenants are more easily... bent, like swearing to the duchy in place of the Mand'alor, but I think an easy one New Mandos miss, is "speak Mando'a." I think many New Mandos were all too quick to switch to Basic for everything except religious and spiritual ceremonies, and I think those already in the Manda would find that very hard to forgive. I actually get into this a little in Dha Kar'ta very soon, but for this fic, i'll have Satine not outright outlawing Mando'a, but it is socially heavily discouraged. you're not allowed to speak it in the palace unless in aforementioned ceremonies, you cannot fill out paperwork in anything but Basic, you're not allowed to use Mando'a titles (including Mand'alor), you're not allowed to teach it to your children. no outright like. punishments for speaking it in public, but if your kids are caught, there are repercussions, including investigation into how else you're raising your kids, and if you're found to be doing anything else, they can take your kids from you. not every New Mando agrees with this, of course, and go about adhering to the Resol'nare as best they can in secret, but so many do give up the language by convincing themselves it's not as important as the other tenants and, well, the duchy hasn't steered them all wrong yet, has it?

okay so on the subject of what the outside galaxy is seeing. I like the headcanon/trope/idea of like. the one thing all factions of Mandalorians agreeing on is fuck everyone else. oh, the New Mandos will emulate the Core and the Republic, but they aren't the Republic nor want to be, and this animosity extends to keeping as many internal Mandlorian issues just that: internal. no faction can keep news from leaving the system or the sector, obviously, but there also isn't a lot of interest in Mandalorian news? "oh look all the Mandos are fighting again", except that's been the standard for like. actual thousands of years. I like when fic have people outside the sector not evening knowing there are different factions, so I'll be doing that here, too, and I like the idea of non-Republic sectors having their own holonets, separate from the Republic one. so like, if Obi-Wan happens to go a little viral during his mad dash to Keldabe, that would be on the Mandalorian holonet, not the Republic one, so even if Obi-Wan was visibly still a Jedi (and he wasn't), actual news of him wouldn't reach the Mid and Inner Rims until like. possible years after it happens.

could this maybe be expedited by Sith machinations? absolutely, though I'm not sure I want to go that route, since I don't think the Sith are overmuch interested in Mandalore at this point, at least not in any hands-on capacity. I'm unclear on whether them funding Death Watch is fanon or not, but it is a headcanon I subscribe to, and I think they'd have stopped funding DW after Galidraan, to cause worse infighting and prevent DW from gaining enough power to actually restart their imperial conquering days. Palpatine has been senator for about ten years by this point, but has very little political power overall, and Demask would be looking basically anywhere but Mandalore at this point in time, both of them having written it off until they actively need something from the sector. if anyone had clocked Obi-Wan as a Jedi, this all would have gone very differently, news would have spread much further and quicker and I think undoubtedly would have reached Palpatine, but since I have Obi-Wan just... cutting ties to anything Jedi, news of him remains in-sector. is this perhaps unrealistic? maybe, but I kind of want to focus on Mandalore and not worry about galactic-wide politics for once, lmao, actually very much like Obi-Wan is doing. however, he will clock a lack of Sith interference and thinks That's Very Weird.

haven't decided how he finds Palpatine out yet, but I think it'll have to do with his Manda senses being different than his Force ones, maybe the Ka'ra even gives him a few tips or gifts to sense Sith since they've allied and fought with them so much in the past. regardless, that'll be after he's become Mand'alor and united the clans.

now to actual plot progression! Obi-Wan meets up with the Old Guard, they don't know what to make of him other than "he's kriffing weird. and young. and creepy. and probably Manda-touched." whatever other verd is Manda-touched will see him blessed by the Ka'ra, which causes them to look inwards more closely and realise they trust Obi-Wan inexplicably, which means they're blessed by the Manda and the Will of the People, too. they wonder if Obi-Wan has noticed, if any of the other Old Guard have noticed. they are one of a few that notice Obi-Wan sneaking back out while everyone is arguing.

Vhonte Tervho is another. She's at this lil summit to represent clan Tervho, tho isn't the clan head, because her ba'vodu, a Manda-touched goran, had sensed she needed to be at the summit. said ba'vodu is of course the armorer who reforged Obi-Wan's armour (need to find a name for them hmm), who had told their clan they were to cease fighting until their new Mand'alor called on them. Vhonte sees Obi-Wan, realises at the same time as everyone that he's the Kih'Manda, the Mand'ika that the entire system had been gossiping about for weeks, and she thinks of what her ba'vodu said. she looks inwards, like they had taught her to, and finds, yes, she trusts Obi-Wan, just like she used to trust Jango. And, well, her Mand'alor is obviously leaving to go do something, and she isn't going to let him go it alone.

the Manda-touched verd doesn't go with them, wanting to see what comes of this, but they already know Obi-wan is Ka'ra Chosen. they will come when he calls.

[spotsupstuff]

actually ey fuck it. list of personal headcanons for the main six iterators some of which i might illustrate properly at some point:

Moon: • one of the first 10 iterators ever built. she is grandma as HELL and totally forgot she is that old • Pebbles sometimes asks her to tell him about the older times, because history nerd. he writes everything she says onto a pearl • in the post i've made talkin bout her and pebs' voice, saying that she sounded like Miku, somebody said that they like to think the ancients made Moon a vocaloid. to that i absolutely agree: she has NO fucking clue what do when it comes to putting a certain emotion into a song but god DAMMIT shes so good at singing • she can add effects to her voice, including a glitch effect. she likes that one the least • -HITS DESK- THE DISAPPEARANCE OF HATSUNE MOON. • she doesn't particularly like to sing, especially not to herself. but she does know that pebbles likes music- the first week after the mass ascension was rough and he was working mostly on autopilot, not answering DMs or anything. she called him up and told him they could sing together, if he wants to. he felt much better afterwards • MOON'S SECRET RAP CAREER • i'll put it here too so it's all in one place: her AI isn't developed enough to understand the emotional quality of any form of art • Moon was upgraded a few times in her function. most of the time it was because her citizens loved her too much to let her go too out of date (specifically in the physical sense. they made sure she wouldn't fall too easily) • one of the first memories she designated as a "core memory" was her first upgrade that was a result of her citizens' riot against the Houses- to keep her safe. she noted it down as "Kindness is effortlessly repaid" • she remembers when iterator comms were connected by a cable rather than radio waves • she also remembers when two of the first 10 collapsed and went into coma, with their citizens of course perishing in the fall and crash. she's still terrified of those days and doesn't like recalling them even for Pebbles • Nish was her first little sib and she feels like she can talk with him about anything. she hates it, but she's distant with Suns- they are always so damn polite and skittish around her... and she absolutely adores the other three. her tiny little wonderful siblings • she didn't like to admit that maybe her hardwave wasn't keeping up with her citizens anymore. at that point she did start to emotionally care less for them, but she still didn't want to admit she wasn't able to provide and protect those she was responsible for • i can't get the image of her being the one to actually ensure the family is gonna financially survive in a more chill au where the iterators r just sorta kinda people. Miss Moon From Accounting... • her overseers were originally blue. she swapped colors with Pebbles all on her own accord. having yellow overseers, seeing them, made her feel even more connected to Pebs • this is basically canon but she fuckin Loves animals. she's the iterator version of Steve Irwin. she also don't kno jack shit about the vegetation • city's representative instrument Evolved- first it was a harp, then it went to a nyckelharpa and then to a violin

Nish: • he is built over marshes to the south-west from Moon and she helped with his blueprints! the Gen 1s had their blueprints checked over by the already built iterators to make sure something wouldn't go wrong. she was so so excited to have a neighbour • the scarf is from his main programmer. the Ancient wrapped it around his puppet's neck before he was even turned online so for the longest time he had no idea that the thing wasn't originally in his design. Moon had to tell him • he became a jokester Entirely because the first time he made Moon laugh he absolutely fell in love with it. he told her and she recommended him looking into jokes. baby boy had no idea what the fuck a joke was so Moon had to explain • when the middle gen started being created, the Ancients noticed that these new iterators didn't have... much of emotional skills. so they turned to the older gens to look for the most emotional and empathetic ones. Nish scored Really High on that survey- his empathy and emotion modules were studied and each time they found something new and better, they upgraded him in that one aspect. so now Sig is one of the biggest crybabies ever. you show him a sad movie and this supercomputer will be lyin on the ground wailing like a newborn. oh and also he makes for a great therapist because he can now just Get It • as the most emotionally... mature? capable? he decided he will be the one to keep a real close eye on everyone in the Local Group after the mass ascension • thanks to all that emotion business he gets along with Suns swimmingly. when Suns needs assistence with figuring out their own emotions or what would be appropriate and not too cold towards someone, they go to him • if he could he'd give everyone younger than him a noogie and you cannot convince me otherwise • the Hunter was a sickly pup that was left behind on his roof by a family that came to him which he directed towards the void sea. they were far too weak for the family to keep them, basically on the death's door. Nish took them in, operated on them, enhanced genes and raised them from there • Is half a medical facility. mister veterinarian, baybeee • since he's a sap, he started to view the Hunter like his own kid at some point. he was also the one who pitched to Suns the idea of sending Spearmaster over to him for visits. Spear tried its best to help raise and train Hunter • the whole rot thing happened because Nish did a stupid and forgot that neurons are quite the fuckin reactive things and continual exposure to what is essentially extra macho giga neuron Can and Will fuck up cells. his and Moon's cans have a long distance between them. it was enough time for Hunter to develop the big owie cancer. he noticed it only when they were too far away and it was already too bad • he felt absolutely Terrible about it. again he loses someone so so very close to him. but this time around? there is no one to be angry at for this but himself • Hunter manages to ascend. Nish watched them leave, silently, in subterranean • he used to do his best to play with his citizens. when a kid came to his chamber, he gave them rides on his puppet's shoulders or the umbilical arm. same went for Hunter • his city is called Risio • city's representative instrument was EITHER a PVC instrument or suona i can't decide for the life of me

Suns: • they were built much further away from the planet's equator than most of the Local Group, meaning they experience polar days and nights • the "Seven" in their name refers to the amount of months the unusually timed sunsets and sunrises last for. for seven whole months, the locality gets only about four hours of Somewhat darkness • in return, they have three full months of relatively strong darkness. their city used to shine bright, during this time. post mass ascension those months are terribly lonely and depressing • because of the warmth they produce, there's an oasis for wildlife underneath them • the warmth was also sung about a lot by their citizens. they've seen it as an incredible blessing- Suns used to run hotter than other iterators just for them. nowadays they are mostly normal though • the outside of their can is tinted blue- frostbitten. that much warmer their yellow, orange and red city feels • their and Moon's personalities clash so hard that they sometimes go out of their way to avoid her. they do appreciate her but talking with her is exhausting. she's a stranger to them, almost • the iterators can project/send their emotions through messages/broadcasts. Suns' messages always sound flat, unless they use the ~ • one of their biggest dreams is to sit with Pebbles leaning against their side, all the while listening to old music of their cities • once Spearmaster returns, the walls of their puppet chamber become completely covered in doodles and masterpieces • they end up standing the longest out of the whole Local Group. bright and warm even after everyone else dies • their city is called Solis • city's representative instrument was an armonica (look that shit up its sick)

Wind: • Wind's can stands in this giant plain. there's like nothing as far as the eye can see and even further Except her. she just stands there like fucking Slanderman XXL version • the plains are absolutely prime location for a spawning grounds of tornadoes and shit like that. the wind is Constantly strong so most of the rain clouds they exhale are immediately blown away • instead of rain they deal with ginormous tornadoes at the end of each cycle. while their superstructure can take it, the comms can't. so Wind is often absent from iterator chats as a result. after the mass ascension these connection knock-outs become a great source of stress and worry for the others cuz they never know if Wind will come back or not this time • because of these comm blackouts, Innocence took it upon herself to catch Wind up on everything they've missed when they come back online. Innocence started doing this all by herself out of seemingly nowhere. she just cares. silently. • the strangest thing about her is that her city is half built within her structure instead of on top of her. the winds can get sometimes so bad that they manage to affect even the top of her can. so the solution was to put half of the city under her skin as a sort of giant bunker • the ancients, not being ones to waste much space, made sure the city can still be used by Wind's processes, in a way. their neurons fly through the streets, completely unbothered, working as makeshift streetlights. the kids used to love chasing after them- never catching any though • sometimes when the wind storms outside got real bad, the kids that were scared of them were sent to Wind's puppet chamber. she used to tell them all kinds of stories or about what she was currently working on • it was often that their puppet chamber would be full of pillows, blankets and sleeping children. they loved their citizens so so much • nicknamed themself "Chasing" Wind in chats because, just like Moon, they are also quite the dreamer • closest with Moon, too. Wind looks up to Moon Immensely. they really wanna be like her one day • Wind is what some people think of Moon- a too kind pushover that doesn't know how to get angry and defend herself. Wind is the kindest, most sensitive and softest person they have in The Local Group. Nish takes care to keep his jabs and jokes about Wind very mild • has a really beautiful voice • likes flowers :) • her city is called Procella • city's representative instrument was a fujara cuz god DAMMIT i love that instrument i Have to slap it on Someone in here. it fits their vibe in my heart either way

Innocence: • she really wishes her surrounding circumstances were in some kind of way special but actually she's built at the least unique place with basically nothing neat happening nearby. there are strange giant cherry trees nearby, but that's about it • fuckin LOVES lizards. she's the one who made the Cyans and sent some over to Pebbles to fuck him up. thankfully, as we all know, Cyans are kinda stupid and since they launch themselves over edges of cliffs they haven't managed to destroy the local ecosystem • her citizens used to keep lizards as pets. most of the time just for the joy of having 0 braincells creature follow you around but some had 'em as sort of hunting dogs • was the one who created The Rivulet. she was mumbling to herself and a friend smth about how boys only screw things up while engineering Riv's genome • she BASICALLY packed Riv into a cannon and shot them over right into the middle of a scav toll cuz "come on, it's not that far away. this will make your journey shorter and shit". i don't care how goofy it sounds, this is how it went in my heart • in possession of probably the most durable comms ever made • claims she's purple! she's actually fake out purple which means homegirl is Deceptive Blue. she CONSTANTLY fights over this with Pebbles • despite their squabbles she did care for Pebbles. she was very excited to not be the youngest anymore and getting to baby someone • her and Nish always start verbal sparring matches, often consisting of threats that more often than not range on impossible to actually commit. they constantly lead their mock wars in #general. Moon's gonna kill 'em one of these days • trusts Moon the most- which is why she outed Pebbles' rot and sent Rivulet with the instructions to extract the rarefaction cell • her city is called Sermo • city's representative instrument was a shamisen. she absolutely knows how to play it and loves to threaten people with the bachi

Pebbles: • the only people he enjoyed doing group projects with were Suns and Wind. he Could do group projects with Moon and Nish but Only if he could race them. rascal found it fun to challenge the nokias 😔 • now with Innocence though? Never. if they were forced to, they could do a great job with minimal communication but they were not going to be happy about it • latched onto Suns exactly because Moon was overbearingly protective and Suns always seems like they couldn't give less of a shit about anyone. sometimes they'd have a videochat open and not say anything for hours as they worked • with Nish he used to like inventing new things. a lot of times the things turned out to be silly or kind of useless which would normally frustrate him, but surprisingly enough Nish made the time spent worth it • Wind's favorite activity was comparing notes with him and then talking about the differences in their research. they'd hum to him happily while the both of them would be sorting through their stuff • i sometimes imagine him having a slight chinese accent and i blame Steven He for this so hard • second most emotional fuck in the group. his emotions mostly rotate around anger, though • he won't admit this to anyone but he really liked it when his and Moon's cans were connected by bridges. it felt like holding hands. he felt more stable. now all he can do is just miss it quietly • was legit surprised when he found out not every iterator has a build in older sister right at their side • his city is called Literally just Metropolis cuz the ancients didn't bother with properly naming it. depeshioumn. • city's representative instrument was adopted straight from Moon since Pebs' citizens were honestly just hers, so- violin it is • Pebbles HAS attempted to learn how to play a violin himself. certainly was a test of patience and puppet dexterity/camera-to-digits control. almost broke the poor thing a few times from nerves

either way, Wind, at the end of each fucking cycle from day 1 of their life:

[direwolfrules]

Oh my fairy godmother I am so happy you are post about Ever After High!!! Do you have any fanfic or au ideas involving them? Like, what if one character had another destiny or what if they were in the Star Wars universe?! It’s just interesting to think about!

Hey! Glad to see we share another fandom interest!

So, I have this barebones post for what I would have done as a crossover between g1 Monster High and Ever After High.

As for general fanfic ideas I have a few. I shall now list them in varying levels of detail:

1. A Very Charming Groundhog Day Year:

Basically, the Charming siblings time loop back from a bit after Dragon Games but before Epic Winter to the day before the school year started (the day of the Family Ball in the books). While it would be kinda angsty, the best time loop fics are usually crack fics, and this would be no exception (if I ever wrote any of these things).

So Daring, Dexter, and Darling are all initially in states of panic and anxiety. Daring, he was in the middle of a quarter-life crisis and now has to deal with everyone and their fairy godmother thinking he's Apple's Prince Charming.

"Daring Charming, more like Distressed Charming, am I right?"-- Dexter, who should get to exhibit asshole little brother energy more often, as a treat.

Speaking of Dexter, he's panicking cause of all the awful stuff that's going to happen during the school year and also because now he has to go through the nerve-racking ordeal of asking out the girl he likes all over again.

Darling's in hell because everyone and their fairy godmother expect her to be this perfect little damsel, again, which is just- ugh. There are days she wishes she could carry her sword around with her, and they're most days. Also, she never got to talk to Apple about their True Love's CPR, which is just tragic.

The loops go on for a while, some constants in them include: Darling freeing herself and helping little Good-Enough Charming get one of their grandfather's trophies for the scavenger hunt, Dexter and Darling teaming up to kill the changeling and free cousin Charity (sometimes Daring helps but he's content to let his siblings have fun for once), Darling accidentally on purpose flirting with Apple and Apple experiencing several degrees of gay panic, Dexter fumbling asking out Raven for the first time (he's really such a dork, just a funky dude), and the Charming Siblings teaming up to make Milton Grimm's life a living hell.

In one loop they secretly film him playing with his toy unicorns and his action figure of himself and they hijack Blondie's mirrorcast to play it to the entire school.

After several loops a Monster High crossover happens, and so in every loop after that the Charming sibs, who have grown incredibly gremlin-like after experiencing the insanity of the school several dozen times, make sure to drop monster slang when it's just them and Cupid. Like:

Darling: "Wow, Cupid, that top looks clawsome."

Daring: "Totally, it's freaky fierce."

Cupid: "What?!"

Darling: "That top looks nice on you. Anyway, we gotta run."

Dexter: "Yeah, see you later ghoulfriend!"

I have some other half-baked ideas for this one but it'd probably be it's own post.

2. Murdoch Mysteries-ish AU:

This one makes no sense if you've never watched the hit Canadian Detective Show, Murdoch Mysteries. Or maybe it makes some sense, idk. Instead of a modern AU, we have a 1895 detective AU. It's barely an idea, I have no idea if I'd even keep this in the fantasy setting of (an 1895) Ever After or not.

Dexter is the Detective William Murdoch of this AU, the man with no game and beautiful blue eyes who women keep inexplicably falling in love with. He's observant and a little strange but he's also a brilliant detective. One of the major differences though is Dexter is the disowned son of old money parents.

Raven's the Dr. Julia Ogden, the outspoken, independent, and compassionate coroner helping solve cases and being amazing. Her rich, controlling mother doesn't much approve of her life choices but old Mrs. Queen can suck it. Raven and Detective Charming have a clearly mutual attraction but they're both hesitant to act on it cause what's a romance without a good slow-burn.

Hopper's the Constable George Crabtree of this AU. Listen, the everyday George matches Hopper's human side, and writer George matches Hopper's frog side. I will not elaborate, because I really cannot. Just feel the vibes, cause the words aren't coming.

I'm not 100% sure who'd be the Inspector Brackenreid. Part of me kinda wants to make it Professor Badwolf, and then I could make Milton Grimm the asshole commissioner. Coach Gingerbreadman is the Inspector of Station 5, the rivals of Station 4.

Daring is heir to the Charming family fortune. Golden boy, everyone loves him, wants more than anything to be able to talk to his little brother in public, but their parents would disown him as well if he stepped out of line.

Apple is one of Raven's housemates at Sisters boarding house, run by Bella and Brutta Sister. She was once courted by Daring, it was at the point where people were expecting an engagement announcement any day. That's when they suddenly broke it off, with no explanation (the explanation is Daring's in love with another girl and Apple's in love with his sister). Snow White and her husband barely agreed to let her move into the boarding house, I honestly have no clue how Apple managed to pull that off but good for her.

Idk, Darling's a vigilante. She's got the same deductive genius as Dexter, she just doesn't have the same ability to join the police force. Inspector Badwolf is tired of his cops being outdone by the mysterious White Knight (yeah, yeah, I made Darling into Victorian-era Batman). Couldn't the White Knight patrol Station 5's territory? (The answer is no, because Darling really wants to catch a glimpse of her twin and also because Sisters Boarding house is in Station 4's territory and sometimes she likes to secretly crash with her girlfriend).

3. The Destiny Cycle AU (AKA: Ever After High but the Rebel Movement is an actual Rebellion AU):

What it says on the tin. Raven discovers the book is fake before Legacy Day. Her and Dexter, who in this AU is believed to be Ashlynn's future Prince Charming because someone made a good post about the potential dynamics that could cause and I love it, set out to uncover what other secrets those in charge are hiding.

Basically, in this AU Ever After is a dystopia where the Royal Families tied the survival of their dynasties' rule to their stories. Like, magically tied them. The Fates themselves have been bound by the magic of the Destiny Cycle. Ever After's Destiny-bound citizens are forced to repeat the same stories as their ancestors, all because Happily Ever After doesn't include a revolt or the institution of democracy. All stories are repeated as a precaution against anyone figuring out what the ancestors of the Royal Families did.

Taking some inspiration from the SDCC Raven Queen doll's letter from her mother, the Evil Queen discovered the truth about the Destiny Cycle, said "not my kid you bastards", and proceeded to try to break the Cycle's bonds. Her taking over other stories and cursing Wonderland was an attempt to stretch the probability bonds of the Destiny Cycle's magic to the breaking point.

Stuff's gonna go down and basically these kids know time is running out until there's a war, cause the only way to avoid being offered up as a lamb to the slaughter is to overthrow the whole system.

God, I really gotta make this into it's own post as well now. But here's a basic rundown of some stuff I'd include:

Dexter and Raven being young and in love and just all the secret romance feels

Snow White knows about the Destiny Cycle, but Apple absolutely does not know.

Apple being born blonde is a sign that the Evil Queen's schemes loosened the grip of the Destiny Cycle, at least for a moment.

Ashlynn, Hunter, Dexter, and Raven as secret rebel leaders.

The backgrounders will have actual roles dammit! (Looking at you Lawrence Bonecrusher III, aka Orc Boy).

An exploration of artificial Destiny Cycle "True Love" vs. real True Love, featuring Apple, Daring, and Darling.

C.A. Cupid, sent by her godly family to infiltrate Ever After and cure it of the Destiny Cycle, because it's interfering in the domains of the gods.

A unique Monster High crossover idea that I will elaborate on in another post.

These children absolutely end up having to kill someone and it scars them forever.

As for different destinies AUs or Star Wars AUs, I haven't really given them much thought.

I think, in a Star Wars setting (possibly Old Republic?), Raven would be a Jedi padawan descended from a long line of Sith. Instead of Mirror Prison, her mom is dead and her Force Ghost is bound to a giant, mirrorlike piece of kyber crystal. Uh, not 100% sure who her master would be.

Darling would also be a Jedi padawan, and Maid Marian would be her Master. Maid Marian gets into custody battles over this kid with this old Jedi Watchman known only as The White Knight. She'd still have her time-slowing hair flip, in this AU it's just a unique way of activating the Force Slow ability.

[bandsandwristbands]

*slams the door* I SAW YOU MENTIONING OC HI

Do you have any original characters? And do you post them somewhere if that's the case? *O*

Shshhddvjdd I am going to disappoint you lol

Technically I do have OCs but I don't give them a ton of public attention or thought because they're usually some sort of self insert (cringe) or a supplemental character to fill out mundane roles or to facilitate an extremely delusional scenario of mine.

So I don't have fully thought out character sheets but I mention them in passing in fics usually (I don't like *background* characters, in real life you vaguely know all your coworkers names and there are tertiary friends in a group, etc, so I just like mentally filling those in) so you can't find em anywhere but I'll post about a couple Naruto ocs here for you 👉👈

Firstly there's Fazluna who is mentioned in my recent fic snippet and included in the vaguest way in this post

She heads guard/security scheduling, vacations, pto, medical leave for the corps etc

She's really good at her job but she's a little awkward, not shy per se but has a difficult time disagreeing with her superiors because she wants to do a good job but she does it anyways because sometimes your boss is stupid and wrong and she wants to do a good job

Also I just really wanted a Sunan girl with some middle eastern energy and to be visibly religious for my Suna Religion AU

Second Ayana Aburame

Shino's chill younger sister, she hangs out with Hinatas younger sister Hanabi (same age group) she's also trans (and is a little jaded because she faced harassment for it), she's quiet like Shino but she doesn't take anyone's shit, she'll get in your face like "wtf are you looking at" or like "don't fucking talk to me no you can't buy me a drink or sit with us, asshole" she's fun at parties and gives excellent tough love pep talks. (She's really inspired by my most assertive irl girlfriends who I always thought were so cool because I am a people pleaser)

Aniyah

She's a DJ and producer and is the definition of "I listen to every genre", she's the ultimate hype girl and loves pushing people out of their shell and encouraging them to be confident/carefree. A true girls girl. Excellent karaoke friend.

She's from the cloud village, she's friends with Karui and tight with Kankuro after introduction and eventually gets pretty friendly with Gaara too. (Gets him wasted and dancing on tables with her at a random after party once that no one is allowed to talk about)

She thinks everyone is hot all the time and should absolutely be flexing it. Very artsy in general. She's a dancer, and physically affectionate, throws ass on everyone, will kiss the homies on the mouth if you let her.

She was very much inspired into existence when I was planning out my Sand Sib Punk Band AU

[rockhousejai]

when you said you wanted to put a more of toons in Disney Sibs Au i remembered minnie, bendy, boris, mortimer and other else ( i wonder what they look like in Disney Sibs Au )

Funny how you mentioned Minnie and Bendy because I technically already have concepts designs for them if you scroll down far enough (For little Bendy tho, I’ve always drawn him with a scarf since middle school)

A year ago I made a concept for a little version for Fanny and Felix and I think Boris (I’ve never posted the one with Felix tho up until now)

Maybe I might do more since it a fun little concept but yeah hope that answer your question