We're messing with the canon and fixing a lot of shit.
This is entirely finished. All that's left is proofreading and editing then it'll get posted.
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If All We Know Is What We're Told Then They've Made Up Our Minds
DC Comics
Dick Grayson/Jason Todd
The Red Hood comes back to Gotham but has to pause his revenge tour when he finds out that Nightwing hasn't been seen in years since the Joker died.
Dick Grayson has given up Nightwing.
Heavy on the ramifications of Blockbuster/Catalina.
This will be bad parent Bruce Wayne.
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Doomed By the Narrative
DC Comics
Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & John Constantine
John Constantine/Zatanna
John needs help to do a ritual to save Zatanna, but he can only use the help of people who have died and been brought back. The amount of people who have done that and that he trusts are extremely low.
Post-Spyral
Bad parent Bruce Wayne
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Gold and Green Through a Different Lens
DC Comics / Marvel Comics
Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Nightwing and the Red Hood get thrown into the Marvel universe where they clash with the Avengers, get mistaken for mutants, and get rescued by Magneto. Not necessarily in that order.
Former Talon Dick Grayson
Lazarus Pit Jason Todd
Avengers aren't in the best light, but they're not evil.
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Heathen
Star Wars
Obi-Wan Kenobi & Cin Drallig
Rule 63 for Obi-Wan Kenobi
Melida-Daan canon divergence and thereafter.
Bashing for Qui-Gon Jinn and Yoda.
I've been sitting on the first chapter of this for over a year but I swear it's always in the back of my mind.
I don't entirely buy that Obi-Wan learned how to be a general/war tactics on Melida/Daan, because he was only there for a few weeks, and their war was strictly guerilla instead of the larger scale, often WWII-esque battles of The Clone Wars.
However
Obi-Wan developing a special interest in the history of military tactics and strategy-based games (chess variants, etc) as a trauma response to Melida/Daan, and then later doubling down and refining these lessons and skills as a coping mechanism for the stress he experiences on Mandalore*, is something I can get behind.
* e.g. listening to old battle stories from people who lived as warriors but have decided to back Satine because they want their kids to have a better life, holing up in a closed library to avoid Death Watch for a few weeks and digging through their military history shelves for a distraction that's still going to be helpful, etc.
Much of Obi-Wan's time as a padawan included taking elective courses in military history, and also strategy/tactics for when Jedi have to intervene in ongoing civil conflicts, which they do with enough regularity that nobody's going to say that it's unnecessary (see: Stark Hyperspace War, Naboo, Huk War, etc.). He spends his free time in the Archives reading up on High Republic conflicts and the last great Sith War, and if there's a war or civil conflict kicking up in galaxy, he's usually one of the first to look into it.
Sometimes, he asks to shadow the masters who get sent to those conflicts so he can figure out if what he's learned can be put into practice.
(So he doesn't let himself forget.)
(So he can be there for any child that's suffering the way the Young did.)
(So he can feel like his own traumas weren't all for nothing, like he can do something with them now, even if he wasn't much help then.)
This is from Heathen, the first multichapter story in my So Uncivilized series. It's rule 63, Obi-Wan centric.
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Feemor sat in the pilot's seat of the ship, watching the blue-white star streak past as they sped through hyperspace towards Melida-Daan. Her eyes were half-lidded as she breathed deeply and evenly in a light meditation.
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It's funny bc mine also being about Melida-Daan is a total coincidence.
They’d accomplished their objective, Obi-Wan thought, but the victory felt hollow.
Almost all of their victories felt hollow these days.
“Obi-Wan, we’ve got to go.” Nield’s voice was quiet, but firm.
“I know.” He didn’t move from where he knelt, Eris pulled tight into his arms. He’d carried her back this far, to the place their two groups had agreed to reconvene after the raid. This was as far as he could carry her though.
They didn’t bring bodies back to base.
“We don’t have the medical supplies.” Nield’s voice was implacable, his jaw set firmly as though he thought that Obi-Wan might argue. And Obi-Wan knew that too. It was the cost of being the leaders, being forced to ration what limited supplies they had for those that stood the best chance.
Maybe, just maybe, they could save Eris. But the supplies it took to save her meant that they wouldn’t have enough for Jona and Mara, whose chances of survival were higher.
Obi-Wan understood the choice.
It didn’t stop it from hurting.
“Go ahead of me.” Obi-Wan met Nield’s eyes, and saw the flare of understanding there. He was never sure if Nield pitied him, in moments like these, or if he understood. Either way, he never said a word in protest.
Cerasi, he knew, understood. But Cerasi was back at their base, already planning their next raid.
“Be careful. Remember, we can’t bring her—” Nield cut off. Because the acknowledgment of the fact that they couldn’t even give Eris a proper burial wasn’t something they needed to bring up while Eris was still breathing.
Nield gave Obi-Wan a final nod, before he gestured for the other survivors to follow him. It was risky, staying above ground any longer than they needed to.
Eris was dying, they couldn’t risk that the rest of them died with her just to ease her passing.
The rest of the group filed away quickly, shifting into the shadows to hide their movements as they made their retreat.
“We did it,” Eris gasped out. There was blood leaking from the corner of her mouth, and Obi-Wan wanted to wash it away.
He could still remember the way Eris had followed him around the first few days after he’d officially joined the Young. Remembered her awe at his clean robes and tunics, though they hadn’t stayed clean long.
She’d thought that being clean was a marvel, and Obi-Wan wished that she could have something more than a dust-covered, blood-stained death.
“We did.” They’d accomplished their objective. They’d taken another Melida weapon cache and stolen enough food to get them through another few weeks if they rationed properly.
Obi-Wan wished they’d managed to find a med-station, but the Young weren’t the only ones with no medical supplies.
The war, or at least this newest part of the centuries long war, had gone on so long that no one had enough medical supplies.
“Do you—” Eris coughed, more blood splattering across too pale cheeks. Obi-Wan held her closer. His gut felt like it was on fire, but he didn’t dare let go of Eris. “Do you think it’ll make a difference?”
Obi-Wan didn’t know. It’d been months now, and they just kept fighting an impossible fight. “Yes. It’ll make a difference.” Obi-Wan would do everything in his power to make sure of it.
Even if, over the past few months, he’d realized just how little power he truly had.
The evidence was dying in his arms.
Seven years old and Obi-Wan couldn’t save her. He couldn’t save anyone.
“I thought it would hurt.” There was still blood welling from her lips. “Dying. They always said it hurt.”
Obi-Wan shrugged, trying to smile even though there was nothing to smile about. “How would they know, huh, none of them have ever died.”
Though they’d certainly seen enough of it that they did know. Obi-Wan could feel the death eating at Eris.
Eris laughed, seven years old and dying, a laugh on her lips. “That’s true, isn’t it?” Her eyes were growing cloudy. Obi-Wan had seen death steal away the final breaths of so many children, he could recognize when death was close.
If Obi-Wan were a better Jedi—and it was a title he couldn’t claim, even though he still felt like one, his heart and soul divided between being Young and being Jedi—if he were trained, instead of an almost-washed-out initiate, then he might have been able to save Eris. Might have been able to heal her.
But all he could do was hold her tight. Hold her tight and take her pain so she wouldn’t have to feel it.
It was agony. Fire burning at his abdomen, weakness weighing down his limbs.
“I’m scared.” It was a whispered confession.
“Don’t be,” Obi-Wan told her. “I’m here. And when you leave me, you’ll be safe in the arms of the Force.”
Eris’ eyes crinkled. “I don’t know what that means.”
Obi-Wan didn’t know either. “It means warmth and safety. It means no more fighting. It means love.”
“Peace?”
Obi-Wan wondered if Eris even knew what that word meant. Even Nield and Cerasi, the oldest of their group, had no real recollections of peace. But Eris, so much younger…
“Yes.” Obi-Wan nodded. “It means peace.”
Eris’ eyes were blinking slowly. “I like that.”
Obi-Wan nodded again, the pain in his gut was fading away. It wasn’t a cause for celebration.
“Thank you.” Eris met his eyes, and she was so young, but she’d seen so much—too much, and nearly all of it bad—there was quiet knowledge in her eyes.
“For what?” Because what could Eris possibly want to thank him for; he’d failed her. He could have, should have, been more. Should have been able to protect her better, and when he’d failed at that, he should have been able to save her.
But he couldn’t.
“For making it not hurt.” Eris smiled, and she was too old for such a young girl. “For staying with me.”
Obi-Wan hadn’t realized she’d known, but then, she was young, not a fool. “Til the end.”
The Force whispered quietly to him; he could feel it gently pulling Eris away.
“I’ll see you again? In the Force?”
Obi-Wan didn’t think that was how the Force worked, but nor did he no with any certainty that it wasn’t. “Yes. You’ll see me again.”
The last thing Eris ever did was smile.
Obi-Wan held her several minutes longer, fighting back desperate tears.
Finally, minutes after she’d left, Obi-Wan set her body down. He pulled at his tunic, ripping a small strip off the bottom of the already ragged cloth. He wet it a little, a small dab from his canteen, before gently wiping at the blood on Eris’ face.
There was no time for a proper burial, and the sewers had no place for the growing number of Young casualties. Either the Melida or the Daan would be here soon, and they’d incinerate any corpses they came across.
Obi-Wan wondered if Eris’ parents, part of the Melida, he remembered Eris telling him, would ever know what had happened to their daughter.
He wondered if they would even care, or if they would dismiss it as the death of an enemy. If they would rejoice in it, the way they did the deaths of the Daan.
The thought ached.
He gently arranged Eris’ limbs, and it could almost look like she was sleeping, if not for the blood that stained the majority of her tunic.
The Force whispered in warning. People were coming.
He hoped Eris was at peace within the Force.
Obi-Wan turned, it was time for him to head back to the sewers, the war for peace was still raging.
Summary:
"These people feel like my people. This cause feels like my cause. It calls to me like nothing I've ever felt before." - Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Defenders of the Dead
Death was not the end for Obi-Wan, but neither is becoming one with the Force. Sure his time is up, he lets go...and awakens in a place he'd once, briefly, got to call home.
still watching the Onderon episodes and I’m wondering if Obi-Wan has some sort of feelings about leaving a Padawan alone on a planet divided by civil war - obviously this is not the same as his experience with Melida/Daan, but would he have thought of it?
God I want a time-travel fic of the variety where two characters that are like. Estranged marriage. Stuck in the past together. Reconnect as the only real touchpoint the other has to their old lives.
(I was watching the first episode of Outlander, for context.)
I kicked off with "well, obviously HanLeia from like a year before episode VII" because what says 'estranged but we still love each other' like HanLeia? I did consider like. Post-Empire Anidala but anything involving Vader turns into a war crimes discussion instead of estrangement so nah.
Next step: pick a drop point far enough back that they only have a vague idea of what's going on galactically, partly because so much of the information was scorched and burned, and also they've gotten old enough that some of the details weren't important. (The name of that bill that Palpatine got passed doesn't matter when discussing how he rose to power so much as the content, right?) This is Melida/Daan, where they both desperately want to help because dying children and also that's bb Obi-Wan but like. Absolutely none of the kids trust them.
And then my brain went "hey you know who would be fun to add? 23yo Padme who's already a Senator and seeing the Separatist crisis brewing but hasn't been targeted by Jango Fett yet." This detracts from the original intended plot but I got sucked in.
"Just tell people I'm an aunt you rarely got to see but always came home with stories about fighting pirates and liberating slaves with a smuggler and a loose sorta-Jedi, and you don't know if even a quarter of the stories are true, but it didn't matter when you were younger because all you cared about was that they were entertaining and came with souvenirs, like any eight-year-old"
Takes a lot of talking, bb!Obi and Padme are horrified by the future. (Most of the Young are just like 'okay cool let's get back to keeping US alive and you can talk about your weird Jedi things LATER')
Padme has no idea how to relate to Leia because Leia's just. A very odd person, but they're family, yes?
(Han is just like. Whelp. I do as Leia says. No, no, it doesn't get more complicated than that. She says jump and I don't even ask how high before I do it.)
Obi-Wan is almost crying because Leia is just. Taking charge and powerful and she recognizes "end the war with as few dead as possible" as a goal and she then does it with things like sabotaging weapons depots instead of hospitals and whatnot. Padme is horrified to find that all her political and academic expertise are less useful than her ability to grab a gun and Shoot Things, because she's not a General.
They get off-planet eventually, meet with the Jedi, etc.
Han gets sent off by Leia at one point to Tatooine, and she refuses to explain why to anyone until he comes back with a young lady by the name of Shmi who is just confused as fuck but Leia tells her "my father was a Skywalker, and I dreamed of where to find you because I have the Force" and Shmi is just like. Okay stranger lady. You took out my chip and offered to give me some cash and set me up wherever so I'll play along. Family, sure.
Han is probably bothering Qui-Gon because he is incredibly reminded of Future Old Ben, except Qui-Gon is somewhat younger, and looks much younger, on account of not spending twenty years on Planet That Hates You. (Han, you're almost seventy. Calm down.)
Padme thought she was a take-charge kind of gal but now she's met her future daughter and uh. Uh.
