#This was all written out of order

[expelliarmus]

[finchers-ipad]

my Fincher magazine collection (so far)!!

[crispyjenkins]

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.

[writeouswriter]

The curse has lifted (finally wrote more than like 10 words on something)

[greenerteacups]

oooh please someday tell us what you think of GOT

oh, no, it's my fatal weakness! it's [checks notes] literally just the bare modicum of temptation! okay you got me.

SO. in order to tell what's wrong with game of thrones you kind of have to have read the books, because the books are the reason the show goes off the rails. i actually blame the showrunners relatively little in proportion to GRRM for how bad the show was (which I'm not gonna rehash here because if you're interested in GOT in any capacity you've already seen that horse flogged to death). people debate when GOT "got bad" in terms of writing, but regardless of when you think it dropped off, everyone agrees the quality declined sharply in season 8, and to a certain extent, season 7. these are the seasons that are more or less entirely spun from whole cloth, because season 7 marks the beginning of what will, if we ever see it, be the Winds of Winter storyline. it's the first part that isn't based on a book by George R.R. Martin. it's said that he gave the showrunners plot outlines, but we don't know how detailed they were, or how much the writers diverged from the blueprint — and honestly, considering the cumulative changes made to the story by that point, some stark divergence would have been required. (there's a reason for this. i'll get there in a sec.)

so far, i'm not saying anything all that original. a lot of people recognized how bad the show got as soon as they ran out of Book to adapt. (I think it's kind of weird that they agreed to make a show about an unfinished series in the first place — did GRRM figure that this was his one shot at a really good HBO adaptation, and forego misgivings about his ability to write two full books in however many years it took to adapt? did he think they would wait for him? did he not care that the series would eventually spoil his magnum opus, which he's spent the last three decades of his life writing? perplexing.) but the more interesting question is why the show got bad once it ran out of Book, because in my mind, that's not a given. a lot of great shows depart from the books they were based on. fanfiction does exactly that, all the time! if you have good writers who understand the characters they're working with, departure means a different story, not a worse one. now, the natural reply would be to say that the writers of GOT just aren't good, or at least aren't good at the things that make for great television, and that's why they needed the books as a structure, but I don't think that's true or fair, either. books and television are very different things. the pacing of a book is totally different from the pacing of a television show, and even an episodic book like ASOIAF is going to need a lot of work before it's remotely watchable as a series. bad writers cannot make great series of television, regardless of how good their source material is. sure, they didn't invent the characters of tyrion lannister and daenerys targaryen, but they sure as hell understood story structure well enough to write a damn compelling season of TV about them!

so but then: what gives? i actually do think it's a problem with the books! the show starts out as very faithful to the early books (namely, A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings) to the point that most plotlines are copied beat-for-beat. the story is constructed a little differently, and it's definitely condensed, but the meat is still there. and not surprisingly, the early books in ASOIAF are very tightly written. for how long they are, you wouldn't expect it, but on every page of those books, the plot is racing. you can practically watch george trying to beat the fucking clock. and he does! useful context here is that he originally thought GOT was going to be a trilogy, and so the scope of most threads in the first book or two would have been much smaller. it also helps that the first three books are in some respects self-contained stories. the first book is a mystery, the second and third are espionage and war dramas — and they're kept tight in order to serve those respective plots.

the trouble begins with A Feast for Crows, and arguably A Storm of Swords, because GRRM starts multiplying plotlines and treating the series as a story, rather than each individual book. he also massively underestimated the number of pages it would take him to get through certain plot beats — an assumption whose foundation is unclear, because from a reader's standpoint, there is a fucke tonne of shit in Feast and Dance that's spurious. I'm not talking about Brienne's Riverlands storyline (which I adore thematically but speaking honestly should have been its own novella, not a part of Feast proper). I'm talking about whole chapters where Tyrion is sitting on his ass in the river, just talking to people. (will I eat crow about this if these pay off in hugely satisfying ways in Winds or Dream? oh, totally. my brothers, i will gorge myself on sweet sweet corvid. i will wear a dunce cap in the square, and gleefully, if these turn out to not have been wastes of time. the fact that i am writing this means i am willing to stake a non-negligible amount of pride on the prediction that that will not happen). I'm talking about scenes where the characters stare at each other and talk idly about things that have already happened while the author describes things we already have seen in excruciating detail. i'm talking about threads that, while forgivable in a different novel, are unforgivable in this one, because you are neglecting your main characters and their story. and don't tell me you think that a day-by-day account tyrion's river cruise is necessary to telling his story, because in the count of monte cristo, the main guy disappears for nine years and comes hurtling back into the story as a vengeful aristocrat! and while time jumps like that don't work for everything, they certainly do work if what you're talking about isn't a major story thread!

now put aside whether or not all these meandering, unconcluded threads are enjoyable to read (as, in fairness, they often are!). think about them as if you're a tv showrunner. these bad boys are your worst nightmare. because while you know the author put them in for a reason, you haven't read the conclusion to the arc, so you don't know what that reason is. and even if the author tells you in broad strokes how things are going to end for any particular character (and this is a big "if," because GRRM's whole style is that he lets plots "develop as he goes," so I'm not actually convinced that he does have endings written out for most major characters), that still doesn't help you get them from point A (meandering storyline) to point B (actual conclusion). oh, and by the way, you have under a year to write this full season of television, while GRRM has been thinking about how to end the books for at least 10. all of this means you have to basically call an audible on whether or not certain arcs are going to pay off, and, if they are, whether they make for good television, and hence are worth writing. and you have to do that for every. single. unfinished. story. in the books.

here's an example: in the books, Quentin Martell goes on a quest to marry Daenerys and gain a dragon. many chapters are spent detailing this quest. spoiler alert: he fails, and he gets charbroiled by dragons. GRRM includes this plot to set up the actions of House Martell in Winds, but the problem is that we don't know what House Martell does in Winds, because (see above) the book DNE. So, although we can reliably bet that the showrunners understand (1) Daenerys is coming to Westeros with her 3 fantasy nukes, and (2) at some point they're gonna have to deal with the invasion of frozombies from Canada, that DOESN'T mean they necessarily know exactly what's going to happen to Dorne, or House Martell. i mean, fuck! we don't even know if Martin knows what's going to happen to Dorne or House Martell, because he's said he's the kind of writer who doesn't set shit out beforehand! so for every "Cersei defaults on millions of dragons in loans from the notorious Bank of Nobody Fucks With Us, assumes this will have no repercussions for her reign or Westerosi politics in general" plotline — which might as well have a big glaring THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT stamp on top of the chapter heading — you have Arianne Martell trying to do a coup/parent trap switcheroo with Myrcella, or Euron the Goffick Antichrist, or Faegon Targaryen and JonCon preparing a Blackfyre restoration, or anything else that might pan out — but might not! And while that uncertainty about what's important to the "overall story" might be a realistic way of depicting human beings in a world ruled by chance and not Destiny, it makes for much better reading than viewing, because Game of Thrones as a fantasy television series was based on the first three books, which are much more traditional "there is a plot and main characters and you can generally tell who they are" kind of book. I see Feast and Dance as a kind of soft reboot for the series in this respect, because they recenter the story around a much larger cast and cast a much broader net in terms of which characters "deserve" narrative attention.

but if you're making a season of television, you can't do that, because you've already set up the basic premise and pacing of your story, and you can't suddenly pivot into a long-form tone poem about the horrors of war. so you have to cut something. but what are you gonna cut? bear in mind that you can't just Forget About Dorne, or the Iron Islands, or the Vale, or the North, or pretty much any region of the story, because it's all interconnected, but to fit in everything from the books would require pacing of the sort that no reasonable audience would ever tolerate. and bear in mind that the later books sprout a lot more of these baby-plots that could go somewhere, but also might end up being secondary or tertiary to the "main story," which, at the end of the day, is about dragons and ice zombies and the rot at the heart of the feudal power system glorified in classical fantasy. that's the story that you as the showrunner absolutely must give them an end to, and that's the story that should be your priority 1.

so you do a hack and slash job, and you mortar over whatever you cut out with storylines that you cook up yourself, but you can't go too far afield, because you still need all the characters more or less in place for the final showdown. so you pinch here and push credulity there, and you do your best to put the characters in more or less the same place they would have been if you kept the original, but on a shorter timeframe. and is it as good as the first seasons? of course not! because the material that you have is not suited to TV like the first seasons are. and not only that, but you are now working with source material that is actively fighting your attempt to constrain a linear and well-paced narrative on it. the text that you're working with changed structure when you weren't looking, and now you have to find some way to shanghai this new sprawling behemoth of a Thing into a television show. oh, and by the way, don't think that the (living) author of the source material will be any help with this, because even though he's got years of experience working in television writing, he doesn't actually know how all of these threads will tie together, which is possibly the reason that the next book has taken over 8 years (now 13 and counting) to write. oh and also, your showrunners are sick of this (in fairness, very difficult) job and they want to go write for star wars instead, so they've refused the extra time the studio offered them for pre-production and pushed through a bunch of first-draft scripts, creating a crunch culture of the type that spawns entirely avoidable mistakes, like, say, some poor set designer leaving a starbucks cup in frame.

anyway, that's what I think went wrong with game of thrones.

[cluescorner]

I cannot imagine being a Damian stan right now. You've got both Zdarsky's bullshit (where he clearly doesn't give a shit about your boy) and The Boy Wonder (where Juni Ba clearly gives so many shits about your boy) coming out on the same day. The whiplash must be insane. I hope y'all get some nice warm soup for your efforts jfc

[s0fter-sin]

last thing i’ll say; people aren’t owed free content but creatives aren’t owed financial compensation either

[dukeofthomas]

"Angry robin" "violent robin" "misbehaving robin" shut up and accept my alternative; spunky Robin. Determined and head strong, can out-stubborn the Batman, has a strong moral-backbone and does what he thinks is right regardless of what anybody else says, Robin. Jason who was sassy and quippy and made crude jokes with a smile on his face. Jason who hid in Bruce's cape and whispered gossip to him. Jason who, if Bruce refused him something, could keep bothering endlessly until Bruce caved. And also dramatic Jason. If Bruce tells him no, it becomes a whole theatrical show; a monologue, a narration, embellishments, and falling onto the floor in his grief upon the fact his cruel father has denied him once again.

(Jason who has suffered through abuse and homelessness and poverty and starvation, who is the Fight out of Fight or Flight, who's built up defenses and walls and when pushed and triggered responds with the thing that's always protected him; anger. He's sweet and kind and funny, and when he sees a pimp hitting a prostitute he gets furious and responds with violence.)

[bigskydreaming]

The thing that kills me about the Star Wars prequel trilogy and why I will die on my hill that my problem is not that Star Wars is a tragedy, its that its a badly written tragedy, is that Anakin Skywalker was at his closest to being a good Jedi when he was ten years old.

[kirby-the-gorb]

if you eventually want to see the crochet lace work I struggled all day on fixing I am now sporadically posting my crafts on @sleepy-princess-craftery

[netherese-blorb]

ngl I'm really proud of the passage I just wrote (´ ᴗ｀✿) preserving it here in case I need to sacrifice it later to the editing gods.

Snippet of the boat scene in act 3 with Gale and my tav, Cerela.

[brown-little-robin]

Dimple continuation because I can't stop thinking about him as an asymptomatic zombie

When Ritsu gets dragged to a cult meeting by someone who thinks he's the second incarnation of Lord Ekubo, trailing a slightly unsettled but mostly docile zombie behind him, Dimple's "unique, divine" ability to calm zombies suddenly is called into question. especially because Ritsu is completely willing to explain to whoever will listen that zombies are actually just sick people and there's nothing special about getting along with one, so can they both leave now? which leads to something a little like the canon clash between Dimple and Mob, except—

this time it's a fight over Mob. between Dimple and Ritsu. To keep his followers in awe, Dimple is forced to try to "wake up" Mob's "soul".

And Dimple can't get Mob to react. Like. at all.

Mob has planted his feet and Is Not Going Along With This, Thanks. He can tell that the laughing guy and the rest of the people are making Ritsu scared, so he refuses to play along.

When Dimple tries to coax Mob into laughing—remember, most zombies instinctively chuckle a little when Dimple gives his infectious belly laugh—Mob actually growls. He's annoyed at this guy who drew Mob's attention and now won't quit trying to push Mob around. He doesn't want to laugh. He wants to go back to wandering around peacefully with his brother.

Ritsu, scared, puts his hand on Mob's shoulder, and Mob gives a snap of his teeth at Dimple and then goes watchfully silent.

Dimple senses that this is not a safe situation but he's in too far to stop. His followers are watching.

When Dimple announces that Mob is the most far-gone zombie he's ever seen and he'll need to use holy milk to wake up this poor thing's sleeping soul and make him laugh, Ritsu snaps. Dimple doesn't even get to pull his milk trick before Ritsu is screaming at him for patronizing zombies and trying to poison his brother. Dimple's followers are unsure who to side with. Dimple's authority is slipping away (bad news for your local half-turned zombie!!!!). Dimple announces to his followers that Mob actually doesn't have a soul, and that Ritsu is also this new kind of soulless zombie in the process of turning, and unfortunately, Dimple and his followers are going to have to kill both of them to keep humankind safe.

But when Dimple goes for Ritsu with a knife, Mob goes for his throat, and it's only Dimple's residual zombie strength and panicky speed that allows him to block Mob's mouth with his arm.

Dimple's followers scatter at that point. No one wants to be around this soulless zombie who even their brilliant Lord Dimple couldn't prevent from going on a rampage.

Dimple, with Mob's teeth closing in his arm, collapses to his knees and keens loudly, partly on purpose (loud human vocalizations are one of the few things that reliably get through to zombies, which is why Dimple uses laughter so much,) and partly out of pain. Mob pauses for a second, re-evaluating. Dimple makes a throaty throbbing sound, making Mob falter even more. He reaches for Mob's face to calm him the rest of the way down, and then Ritsu belatedly shouts "Nii-san!" and Mob bites the rest of the way through the meat of Dimple's arm.

Dimple wisely books it out of there, and the only reason Mob doesn't chase him down out of instinct is because Ritsu throws up and something in Mob's brain recognizes the vomiting sound as Bad. so he stops, looks at where Dimple went for a moment, then turns around and touches Ritsu's back gently with flesh still hanging out of his mouth.

(Dimple shows up the next day with a bandaged arm and a feverish light shining in his eyes. He's never met a zombie who's loyal before. He's never met one who could pause in the act of biting to think about what to do. He's fascinated by the emotional intelligence he senses in Mob, and maybe he sees a little of himself in the kids. "Us zombies zombie whisperers gotta stick together, right partner?" ...or something!)

[hannah-heartstrings]

“I promise you’ll be OK again, but it’s OK that you’re not right now.”

[sonknuxadow]

im a sonic 06 defender but one of the things about that game that i absolutely cannot defend is its handling of blaze . literally one of the coolest sonic characters ever yet they had her do almost nothing of importance other than die at the end to make silver sad . she interacts with nobody other than silver and on the rare occasion she appears in a scene with someone else she just stands there and says nothing while the other character doesnt acknowledge her existence at all . the only thing she really adds other than dying is making everything way more confusing than it needs to be because her being from the future and seemingly not knowing sonic contradicts what we already knew about her. overall it just doesnt seem like they put much thought into her inclusion and i wouldnt be surprised to find out she was a last minute addition. blaze youdidnt deserve this bestie

[kuruk]

oh my god I know like it sounds weird to say this when it's just avatar but the original show has aang go back to the southern air temple to show katara and sokka his home only to find evidence of the genocide of his people and the loss of his loved ones and it's quiet until you see his grief and his rage but you just see the aftermath a hundred years later and the netflix adaptation makes it feel like they wanted it to be a cool action movie with an epic scene showing the fighting and running of the airbenders like that side by side with aang running away and it's like ??? okay it's "darker" congratulations I can see that's what the goal is based on the differences in firebending and early on screen deaths go and focus on every bit of violence for the audience's lazy sadistic pleasure instead of any of the characters personal narratives especially the women that can all be taken right out + the discovery of different places all over the world in the earth kingdom and outside of it. put everything in omashu so they don't get to meet people and see the diversity of the world and each town and SEE what life is like for them under war and have these experiences with all these people build up to something bigger at the end

[seriousbrat]

im literally so obsessed with the post saying peter pettigrew would never be a traitor… that’s like basically The first thing we truly discover about him. right there from book three. like that is The Basis of his role in the narrative, that he was the traitor and sirius was not. that he was willing to bow to the winning power rather than risk dying for his friends and values (which is. the one issue the narrative never flinches on. doing the right thing rather than the easy.) like these aren’t real people, they are characters with narrative functions. peter is everything harry doesn’t respect, everything characters like ron and neville defy, when they doubt their places among their friends and still fight for what they believe in, and a foil to snape — snape’s love for lily causes him to make a good choice, peter’s lack of dedication to his friends causes him to make a bad choice. a bad choice that KICKS OFF THE ENTIRE PREMISE. like. yes these are characters and you can choose to play with them like dolls. but hp is a very tight narrative, and it’s silly to claim they are somehow at heart the antithesis of the space they fill.

I know like... if there's ONE detail about him then that's it. It showed up as a recommended post on my dash and I was so baffled for a moment haha. I could understand an attempt to defend his reasoning (I certainly like to understand it) but like... his character is nothing without that moment, it literally defines him as a character, so to say it's bad writing is so silly.

It's like if I made an impassioned post claiming that Voldemort would NEVER kill Lily and James. It moves past headcanon into just... outright denial of the basic facts of the characters and the story. Harry would NEVER have green eyes!!!! Tbh though Peter Defence Movement in general is the last thing I'd have expected a few years ago.

Recently just before I really started getting back into marauders fandom on tumblr, I posted in a discord asking for people's views on Peter, explaining my own interpretation and wanting input. And I was legitimately SO confused when EVERYONE replied in the vein of "hmm well that's not how I see him but ok. he actually was a poor little meow meow who took care of his friends and rubbed their shoulders after a battle, he was a scared little boy and he couldnt help it."

I was VERY taken aback by the complete 180 that peoples views on Peter seemed to have done, since I assumed my portrayal was controversially sympathetic. Fandom used to largely just ignore him, and when he wasn't ignored he was reviled. It once would have been heresy for me to imply Peter had any sympathetic qualities at all lol, whereas here I was pretty solidly shouted down for saying he had the unsavory characteristics we're shown in canon, such as enjoying watching James and Sirius bully others.

It's honestly so fascinating, like when did this happen lmao