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crispyjenkins · 5 months ago

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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.

#prequel trilogy #time travel au #obi wan kenobi #star wars #crow i love the way you breakdown everyone's characters and expand on what i'm putting down #like in the two blocks of tags that i've italicised #they make me feel all warm and fuzzy that you're getting so much out of what i'm doing and also they're just a DELIGHT to read #and have informed later characterisations and changed how i've thought about stuff i've already written #mandalorans #world building #vhonte tervho #will be pulling many characters from repcom obv #but fuck karen traviss as both a person and an author so there's that heads up #also!! anyone can ask questions or comment or reply #would love to hear y'all's thoughts and ideas and i LOVE answering #this au would not exist without crow asking me all these questions. just straight up wouldn't exist #malcontent crow #still trying to figure out if i can work in luminara in a way that doesn't feel shoe-horned #several people have voted QuinObi which i am very much not against #it would be SO easy to have Quinlan just. book it to Mandalore #at first to convince Obi-Wan to COME BACK but then he sees what Obi is actually doing and realises he can't do that to Obi or to Mandalore #does Quinlan... STAY on Mandalore with him?? 👀 👀 does he accept he needs to let Obi-Wan go?#does he stay as a Jedi Shadow and help out or does he leave the Order too??#many questions many thoughts

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momentomori24 · 1 month ago

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[This has been sitting in my draft for a while lol]

When it comes to Curly's failings, I always see people bring up his obvious failure to protect Anya and him prioritising Jimmy, who was the rapist in that situation. Which is completely valid btw and we should rake him through the coals for that alone even more. But I also see too many people saying that Curly "didn't enable Jimmy" or playing softball for his actions. And I could maybe see where that comes from if that incident was the only thing we had to point to-- but that wasn't all he did, is it? Curly being indifferent or not taking Jimmy's mistreatment and belittlement of Anya seriously was hinted at so much earlier than that.

Namely, the very first time we play from Curly's point of view. Let's just skip the fact that Curly was putting everyone in danger by not taking his psych evals seriously and simply giving the same answers to pass them even tho he was shown literal minutes after this scene being clearly not-sane, and go straight to the point I actually wanna get into. Which is this:

These scenes in isolation wouldn't be that bad. From his pov, it's played off as comical and it is. Jimmy being a brony (not really lmao) and getting playfully dragged over it is funny. But unfortunately this is the first example out of many for Curly's complacency. Anya is complaining about Jimmy not taking his psych evals or her seriously, which is easy to believe considering how much he rags on her for "not being a good nurse" (she kept Curly alive on hopes and dreams how dare you). So he keeps making her do silly and inappropriate reports she clearly doesn't wanna do, which is kinda shitty (also borders on harassment). But rather than actually saying something about Jimmy's behaviour or even acknowledging how it sucks he says this:

Mate, that's not a good thing 💀 He's clearly aware that the problem is Jimmy's lack of respect for Anya specifically. He knows that if he, his friend and a man in power, were the one doing the evals Jimmy wouldn't try that disrespect. But it's Anya, a meek woman who ranks lower than him so he thinks he can get away with it (which he DOES), and Curly's shown as comfortable in knowing that. He doesn't chew Jimmy out for making Anya uncomfortable nor does he reassure her that he will do something about it. All he does is take it off her hands this once and helps Jimmy power through it to get a good diagnosis (even tho we know he's DEFINITELY not sane either). He doesn't even mention Anya's discomfort or confront him on his inappropriate behaviour, just teases Jimmy in good fun instead because he doesn't think of it as anything serious. It's subtle and pretty minor in comparison to everything else, but I think it's worth pointing out. Especially because this convo takes place after Jimmy had assaulted her, which makes this so much worse.

If you need any more evidence of Curly being an enabler you need not look further than Anya herself. And I'm not just talking about the way he failed her here-- I'm talking about Anya's own view of Curly and the way said view influences her actions.

Just look at her choice of wording. "What would you have done". This is in response to him saying that she could've come to him if she were feeling stressed, which she-- in his eyes-- didn't. The question itself implies that she had no faith in Curly to actually help despite his insistence that he would've, which I think is significant because it shows that she's very much aware of Curly's shortcomings when it comes to her situation AND it's one of the first (or the first time) she actually verbalised her lack of trust towards him or anyone directly. Prior to this scene she had told him about her rape and the rapist, presumably because she trusted him to handle it. And he dismissed her because the rapist was his best friend, and that evidently deeply scarred her. Enough so that she secretly took the gun and hid it someplace else and didn't even tell Curly were that was, because she knows that if Curly has access to it there's a so much greater chance Jimmy will have too, insinuated by the line "the least I can do is make sure he never gets it either". Speaking about the gun:

It sucks so bad that this perception of him isn't even inaccurate nor unjustified. That despite everything Jimmy had done to her and everything he could still do to her, he'd very likely still not allow her access to the gun for protection. Because that's exactly what he didn't do anyway. He didn't attempt to keep her safe from Jimmy, instead he just pretended that nothing was wrong and still let Jimmy's belittlement of her pass. He didn't give her the gun after the incident, because she wouldn't have hid the case if he had. Despite his desperate reassurance that he'd do anything, he did nothing but make it worse for her and she KNOWS that. It's so frustrating knowing he entrusted the axe to Swansea when he needed it but not the gun to Anya when she needed it too. Also this:

The fact that his knee-jerk reaction to her admitting that she's pregnant was "Who would you--" is so fucked, especially considering she's already told him what happened. "Who would you" what? Who would you fuck? Who would you have sex with? That choice of wording drives me up a wall-- SHE wouldn't and didn't do anything or anyone. That was JIMMY. The potential sentence implies that she had any choice or agency in her pregnancy. She didn't. And the fact that Curly had to ask "who" insinuates that he's been putting Jimmy's action out of sight and out of mind the whole time, choosing to not think about them or what happened to Anya at all. And considering he still made her do Jimmy's evaluations despite being able to do them himself and literally didn't even think of making sure she gets psych evals done too--especially AFTER getting sexually assaulted--that might actually be the case (I haven't seen anyone make a stink about that piece of info so I'm going to because what kinda colossal fuck up IS that??).

I vaguely had a post like this in mind but seeing so many people be like "well Anya did some wrong stuff too like leaving Curly alone with Jimmy but you don't get mad at HER for that so why is Curly not doing anything about Jimmy being alone with Anya so different??" actually makes me want to blow some people up. Jimmy's an abuser, sure, but Anya has no real reason to believe that he'd actually harm Curly. From her perspective, they were close, close enough that Curly would not only let Jimmy continuously disrespect her but also get away with assaulting her too. That, and she knows that Jimmy was closer to Curly than anyone and more likely to be civil around him than he ever was to her. She has barely any reasons to suspect Jimmy would harm Curly when they're alone. Curly, on the other hand, has every fucking reason on the planet to think Jimmy would harm her when they're alone. He knows he raped her (likely in her room at night too). He knows that he sexually harasses her. He knows that he doesn't respect her at all. And that was BEFORE the crash. Anya tried insisting on giving Curly his medicine, only for Jimmy to keep aggressively insisting that he'll take care of it despite her protests. Curly didn't try to keep them separate at all even though he was the Captain and had the power to do so. And this should go without saying, but leaving your rapist alone with his best friend that he was close to and enabled/protected him and leaving your friend alone with the woman he raped (and might have repeatedly assaulted given his free access to her) is NOT THE SAME and I'm going to start chucking some people down a waterfall because what the fuck is that argument 💀 Actually leave it to the fandom of the game where the rape of a woman is the catalyst for the events that unfold to use her trauma to defend the guy that enabled it in the first place. Bloody hell.

The reason why this whole Curly discourse pisses me off is because it-- from what I can see-- ONLY brings up his failures 1-0 days before the crash and the Dead Pixel scene (or all the discussion around other points are drowned out by those two). Those scenes, while important to talk about, are not the only things he's done, and focussing on those as the only things is a mistake that comes short of understanding the issue. When it comes to Curly the main defences I see for him are "he was trying not to escalate the situation" and "he was trying to keep things under control the best he can" and "he was waiting for the right time to help Anya", but those don't work when you look at the bigger picture of everything he's done.

He half-assed through his psych eval despite clearly not being sane (and KNOWING he's barely sane, he literally admits it to Jimmy's face). He still continued to task her with Jimmy's psych evals. He brushed over Jimmy's sexual harassment of her as a joke. He didn't think about making sure she got psych evals done herself after being raped. He gave Swansea the axe but didn't give Anya the gun despite it being for "unrest amongst the crew" (whatever the hell THAT means). He let her assault slip his mind that she had to remind him. He's literally a blond man. He took no action to hold Jimmy responsible for anything, and prioritised how his violation of Anya would affect him rather than her. He ignored her demands for him to get rid of Jimmy. He still allowed Jimmy free reign of the ship as co-pilot even after he was openly fantasising about killing everyone and had a major motive and the means to do just that. He was potentially thinking of making her miscarry to cover up what happened. He was so accustomed to her sucking up being disrespected and disturbed that he didn't even notice a difference in her behaviour until she hid the fucking gun. There's so much other shit he's done and hasn't done, and not talking about them or glossing over them makes it so easy for people to argue that he isn't actually an enabler or just minimise the severity of his neglect.

And while I'm already dragging Curly through the mud, I might as well just drag Swansea too. I've seen too many people being like "Anya should've told Swansea instead" and "Swansea was the one that actually took responsibility". Like, y'all realise he's not that much better than Curly, right? He already knew about what happened to Anya-- he admits it to Jimmy's face-- but he didn't do shit. He knew, but he still got completely shitfaced for months despite her earlier protestation to that (for very understandable reasons). He knew, but he still let Jimmy have the axe AND be alone with Anya while having it. He knew, but when Anya locked herself in the Medical and Daisuke and Jimmy asked for his help he didn't budge nor really showed any care. He knew, but the reason he finally decided to do something about Jimmy wasn't Anya, it was Daisuke. Her suffering and her eventual death weren't enough for him to take action either.

This game, on top of everything else, is a great depiction of rape culture. It doesn't just include the rapists, but the people (mostly men) that stay silent, do nothing, make excuses for and protect the perpetrator for whatever reason, and Swansea and Curly (Curly way more so than Swansea) are both active contributors to the environment that allowed for evil to flourish and continue unhindered until it destroyed them all. And while that arguably doesn't make them evil themselves or as bad as Jimmy, they are so much more a part of the bigger problem than the fandom likes to admit.

[Ok since this is kinda gaining a bit of traction please consider helping these guys out here, here and here. Thanks!]

#mouthwashing #mouthwashing game #curly mouthwashing #captain curly #anya mouthwashing #jimmy mouthwashing #swansea mouthwashing #do not come for me curly fans i'm one of y'all i promise. kinda #if i had a nickle for every time i made a post dragging a blond man i'd have three #which isn't a lot now but that number will likely increase in the future lmao #seriously tho i'm so sick of seeing people be all “there's no evidence that he's an enabler” and “he did all he could” like screw you guys #the point of the whole story is that his inaction is what allowed for everything to happen #that his willingness to do nothing put him in a state where he can only watch the horrors without being able to do anything if he wanted to #it's about TWO captains who kept going on about taking responsibility and did anything BUT that #he's not as horrible as jimmy obviously but he doesn't need to be to do damage and be awful #you know what i very well may just be a lot meaner and uncharitable to him than i should be here #but i guess tumblr can be the judge of that. i still rest my case. now time to continue avoiding curly discourse like usual XD #normally i wouldn't care enough to make a post about the way the fandom treats him because it's nothing unique or anything #but something about this game and him being blond specifically made me unable to resist. i just can't be nice to him for that alone #pardon the typos i whipped this up in a hurry and am too lazy to go over everything right now #momento rambles

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