Week 4. Home (young Bodhi Rook)


Hunger
“And where have you been, Bodhi Rook?” his mother demanded to know. “Wasting time with your worthless friends again? When will you grow up and help out? Your family needs you.”

Bodhi rolled his eyes He was fifteen, and he didn’t need his mother hassling him all the time. So what if he had been throwing dice? He won, didn’t he? He knew what he was doing.

He was about to say something sarcastic when he saw the hunger in his little siblings’ eyes. Quietly, he slipped the credits he won into a basket on the table and turned away.


Thirst
His mother placed one fist on her hip and shook her finger at him with the other hand. “Bodhi Rook, you need to get a job. I talked with your uncle and he can get you work in the old Temple, serving the pilgrims at meals.”

Bodhi scowled. As if he wanted to stand in a hot cooking stall all day, making food for strangers. He was tired of this little moon. Who cared about the temple? Those stupid crystals? The annoying pilgrims? He had a thirst for adventure and he was going to make it to the stars someday.


Itch
His mother sat in the shade with her friend. “That Bodhi Rook. Always complaining. He says that Jedha is too boring for him.”

Her friend shook her head sympathetically. “What does he want to do now?”

“His job in the temple isn’t good enough. He wants to join the Imperial Academy and become a pilot. Fight for the Emperor.” His mother shook her head. “Always with his head in the clouds.”

Her friend smiled wryly. “That boy is like an itch you can’t scratch. Never satisfied. Too much like his father.”

His mother spat on the dust. “Too much, indeed.”


Yearn
“There is a message for you, Bodhi Rook,” his mother called. She didn’t look up as she shoved another flatbread onto the cooktop. She held her breath. She knew how much her son yearned to leave their home and go to the Academy. Secretly, she hoped he might be the one child who escaped the grinding poverty of life on this dying moon. If he got out, maybe he could bring them too.

Bodhi nervously opened the message from the Academy. He hadn’t scored high enough for fighter pilot school. He lowered his head and his heart turned to dust.


Impulse
He earned his commercial vehicles license and secured a job as a courier pilot in NiJedha. When the Empire arrived, he talked his way into becoming a cargo pilot.

He flew up to the hovering Star Destroyer, indulging his impulse to spot the tiny home where his mother and siblings lived as he ascended. Every day, more of his people’s wealth and history was loaded offworld and his family got even poorer. When the Empire finished stripping the temples and old archeological sites of kyber crystals, there would be nothing left for his people. Somebody should do something, he thought.

 

Hunger: This was lovely. I can totally see Bodhi being somebody who's helping his family, even if he does that by gambling. After all, everything he does in Rogue One is gamble. He's the kind who picks what's right, not what's okay according to the rules, and we love him that way. And you're using the little canonic information available on this character in a splendid way!

Thirst: Oh, the irony... son, all these are going to come together as one thing, you know? That's what the Universe wants from you!

Itch: Clever, clever, clever way to show us that, as per canon, Bodhi Rook is from Jedha. I don't think there was enough emphasis on that in the film.

Yearn: What a punch in the gut this is! But once again, the Universe has a different plan for this young man!

Impulse: And this last drabble leads us to where we're starting in the Rogue One. How Bodhi used his life skills to get a job and how he realises what the job is about and decides to do something about it. Once again, great use of canon material to come up with a character backstory.

Enjoyed this set, a lot!

 

These definitely put this dude in a whole new perspective.

 

Bodhi! I'll admit I'm rather partial to him. He's kind of the Neville Longbottom of the Rogue One cast—a quiet, unassuming, Regular Guy who got unexpectedly caught up in Something Really Big, but who rose so much to the occasion that he, out of all of them, got to be the one to both coin and utter the phrase "Rogue One." Your group of drabbles gives us an insight into where his quiet, unassuming attitude came from—it's an understandable effect of being constantly "Bodhi Rooked" by his mother (all we need is a middle name in there—"BODHI THEODOSIUS ROOK!!" ) and told what he Should and Shouldn't Be Doing at every possible moment—but, as we see, it didn't by any means take away his ambition or his thirst for adventure, for something beyond the usual. We see his resilience at work here too: even when things didn't go the way he had hoped with his application for fighter pilot school, he didn't give up on working toward his license, and was eventually able to find a place for himself as a courier pilot and then a cargo pilot. Little did he know that he would soon find himself wrapped up in about 500% more adventure than even the average fighter pilot! (So, in a way, he did get what he'd hoped for after all!)

Also, piggybacking on what EP pointed out above, I love the insight you give here about what it's like to have a place like Jedha as one's homeworld. It can be easy at first to take for granted all those annoying pilgrims and crazy crystals that one sees around all the time—so much so that it can take an Empire-scale calamity to open one's eyes to their real importance. "Someone should do something"—true enough, Bodhi m'boy, and that someone is very soon going to be you.

Great set—thanks for giving this character his due!

 

Thanks for giving Bodi a backstory like this. Like Luke he is trapped on a backwater world and yearns for the stars. But his way up there is very different and so is his family. But they both have dreams they want to see come true.

 

Intersting drabbles
I guess there are hundrets of people like Bodhi in the galaxy, who hope to join the empire for a better life. I'm glad he made the right choice though and left the empires service.
I like that last sentece about somebody should do something. Its probably the beginning of Bodhi's way to become a rebel.
Thanks for writing.

 

an interesting look at that character

 

Thank you for reading and replying! I like Bodhi, and I can picture him growing up in such an environment.

Thank you for your thoughtful response! The only thing that really inspired me was this line from the novelization: “’You always talk, but you say so little!’ his mother had said. ‘Learn to listen, Bodhi Rook!’” I just imagined a hard-edged but loving mom, someone who had hopes for her son but also wasn’t putting up with his shenanigans. He also was described in the Wook as having gotten into minor scrapes with the law growing up, and one of the charges was gambling.

Bodhi is slowly but surely moving up the ladder. He has a pivotal role to play, and it will all come together soon.

He’s the “local boy.” When you think about it, when he’s on the ship as they escape the devastation of the Death Star, he’s watching his family die.

Again, according to the Wook, Bodhi applies for Imperial flight school but doesn’t score high enough to qualify. Ironically, this puts him in the perfect position to do something a thousand times more meaningful.

Yes. Bodhi goes from a reluctant helper to someone who wants to make a difference. There has to be a reason why he was willing to help Galen; he said he wanted to make things right. Maybe he was referring to helping the Imperials loot his own town and his homeworld of everything that was valuable. Maybe he’s carrying a burden of guilt for his part in this ransacking of what little treasure they had.

Bodhi Theodisius Rook! Perfect! I can see her, a little thing of a woman, black dress, hair pulled back, shaking a wooden spoon in his direction. You are right, he didn’t give up. He could have been just a no-good scammer but he always yearned for more. Adventure, opportunities – poverty is a powerful motivator. I imagined him coming from a fatherless house, having to assume responsibilities for younger brothers and sisters at an early age. And still, even with all the responsibilities, he looked to the skies.

I can see Bodhi, like others around him, considering the Imperial presence to be a financial opportunity. There are jobs here! I can maybe join the Empire and make something of myself! Which is all well and good until you realize that the “job” you’re doing for the Empire is the looting of your own culture and history.

Thank you so much for your kind reply!

Thank you! I see a lot of similarities between Bodhi and Luke. They both long for more than they have. However, I picture Bodhi being poorer, and his situation more dire than Luke’s.

Thank you for responding and for your kind words! Bodhi sees the Empire as a sure-fire way to get out of a dead-end world, where there really isn’t any opportunity. The Imperial service offers at least a secure job and a possibility for some kind of exploration. And don’t forget, Luke himself was begging Uncle Owen to let him apply to the Academy – the Imperial Academy.
I do think that the scene in the last one is where Bodhi starts to look beyond himself and sees the corruption of the Empire. He starts to take those first steps toward doing something about the callous damage the Empire wreaks on helpless worlds like his home.

Thank you! Bodhi’s a favorite of mine. I’m glad you liked these.

Thank you for your kind reply. Cassian is a fascinating character. Highly intelligent, resourceful, and with a zealot’s devotion to the Rebellion. I don’t know his backstory other than he said he’s been “fighting this war since he was six years old.” In a way, he’s not that different from Jyn, who grew up with Saw’s fanatics. Cassian also has this ethical philosophy of a “righteous kill,” which to me is his way of justifying those executions as being a price to be paid for a greater cause. An interesting guy.

Thank you – this is exactly what I was trying to portray. Here’s a guy who is born to poverty, who could easily become a street scammer, but wants more. His mother is trapped here, but she hopes at least one of her kids will make it out of this dying town. Bodhi is not educated, he isn’t even a brilliant pilot or tactician, but he has a great heart and he has perseverance. He goes from having his mother insist on doing the honorable thing by supporting his family to realizing that the job he has, helping the Empire loot NiJedha, is a dishonorable profession and he is better than that. This is where the rebel in him emerges. I love when the little guy, the person beneath the Empire’s radar, becomes the one to take down the whole works. Go ahead – underestimate him.

Thank you to everyone who dropped in to read and/or reply.

 

Week 5: The Storyteller (Darth Vader)

Dinner
Once, there had been a young man. This was many years ago, though, and the memories have grown quite dim. There was a young man, and there was a woman of exceptional grace and beauty, and the young man loved her with all his heart.

There were intimate moments, a dinner shared in a lakeside villa, a tender kiss on a hillside, the soft touch of her perfumed skin as his hand slid along her arm. There were other intimate moments too, when all they had – all they needed – was their love. Foolishly, he thought that love would be enough.


Theater
The man was stubborn and impatient. He was fearful, too, and he would not risk anything that might endanger this idyllic existence he had found with her. Because he feared, he grew possessive and paranoid. He thought he was protecting his love for her by placing guards at the gate. Instead – but he didn’t know this at the time – he was imprisoning the one thing that should always be allowed to soar.

And so it came that one night, the young man found himself at the theater, seated next to the trickster who promised to make the woman his forever.


Pint
It all came to ruin, of course, as such stories do. His own interference in fate brought about the events that led to her death. The smallest changes in the events of time cause catastrophic reactions. He moved a handful of clay and a mountain collapsed; drained a pint of water and emptied an ocean.

He convinced himself that he had done this for her, to protect her – keep her safe -- but deep down he knew he had done it for himself, to save himself from feeling the pain of loss again. His fear and selfishness destroyed them both.


Shot
It was so long ago. He had lived almost as long now as this beetle-shiny creature, this soft body locked in a carapace, as he had lived as that handsome young man. He could scarcely even remember those days now.

Far away, his wife lay cold as her marble crypt. The gods punished his hubris by ensuring that he would never again sleep by her side, even in death.

The young man was dead. But his life persisted, his blood laced with chemicals, his flesh shot with neuro-electrical impulsors to trigger his nerves, his bones fretted with surgical durasteel rods.


Alcohol
Still, every now and then, he felt a phantom hand rest on his shoulder. He caught the scent of a long-forgotten perfume. He saw the thin wisp of a blue gown from the corner of his eye. He angrily shoved such images away.
Those memories served only to add fuel to his new existence, like an alcohol-soaked rag lit afire. He dismissed the story of that young man – that foolish boy – as a fairy tale.

His existence was pain, and pain served to feed the conflagration of rage that was the only thing that now resided in his hollow heart.

 

That was beautiful.

 

powerful memories for Darth Vader

 

He really lives the life of a Korriban zombie raised from his crypt:

The young man was dead. But his life persisted, his blood laced with chemicals, his flesh shot with neuro-electrical impulsors to trigger his nerves, his bones fretted with surgical durasteel rods.

That were thrilling updates!

 

A nice insight into Vaders mind. Its hard to see how the pain tortures him, how he has ultimatley nothing left in the galaxy. Padme, Obi Wan, the other Jedi they all have died or are his enemies now.
Its sad but also frightening what has happened to Anakin in RotS.

 

This has got to be the best of all five. I enjoyed every single word of it.

Dinner: The idea of beauty and love not being enough is quite intriguing. One could say than A/P had young love, where each of them idealised the other way too much and, eventually, there had to be cracks beyond that surface. A really thought-provoking observation you have there!

Theater: Okay, this connection would have been obvious, but you know how we don't remember the most obvious things? Yeah, that. A good description of Anakin's fears in a nutshell.

Pint: Oh wow, this one is very, very poetic, despite its utter darkness.

I really, really liked this. That's a great use of the prompt. And shows how little things can build up to absolute disasters. And yeah, how appropriate that I'm posting this reply on April 26th.

Shot: Loved the use of cold here, if one can even say that. Also, the softness of the body in the carapace (yay, new word!) and the coldness of the marble. Shows that not only that Anakin cannot sleep next to Padmé in any way, it's just that one cannot reach to a person with no life after life, and through such a thick shell.

Alcohol: It's ironic how he, Vader, can dismiss the story, yet the smells, the images, the sensations are phantom in the same way he has phantom limbs. A proof that no matter how hard your shell (carapace?) is, there are things that can penetrate it, the way gamma rays would penetrate through everything in our world.

 

Darth Vader's life story as fairy tale—I will admit that there was a time when I would not have thought that juxtaposition possible, but it totally works, and it's beautiful! Because, after all, one could say that Anakin's whole fall is motivated by his overwhelming desire to protect and maintain the perfect, delicate, fairy-tale like existence he (thought he) had for a time with Padmé—to the point of overprotection, where he's caging the bird that should be allowed to soar (as you say so beautifully). Ultimately, of course, it's down to his own fears rather than any sincere interest in protecting her. Like the main character of that Hawthorne story "The Birthmark," he lost her by trying too hard to keep things perfect. In doing so, he himself became imperfect—encased in a beetle-like black plasteel carapace, kept alive purely by mechanical and chemical means.

I have to say you interpreted the prompts in very interesting ways here. "Theater" is the opera house where Anakin had that fateful conversation with Palpatine—the one that first put the idea in his head that led to his fall. The "Pint" represents the small actions that had big, ocean-sized consequences later. And "Alcohol" is not what Vader drinks (!) to forget his past (as some might in a situation like this) but an emblem of his volatility and flammability—as well as the fire that gave this new self of his birth. Very cool, and very well done, in true divapilot fashion.

 

Drabble replies set #5

Thank you so much! I’m glad you liked it.

Thank you. Yes, I would think those memories would, after a while, seem like someone else’s life compared to what Vader has to live with.

Thank you very much! You’re right, he is like a zombie. Alive in physical form but dead in every other way. He has lost anything worth living for, and only has his hate to inspire him.

Thank you for the kind reply. It’s true, he has lost everyone who ever meant anything to him. Anakin’s story is a tragedy. He didn’t die, but he lost everything worth living for.

Thank you so much!

Anakin was so young. What was he, 20? 19 even? What do people really know about life and love except for what’s romanticized at that point? Relationships are hard work, and when you have a mind full of dreams you often forget that.

Thanks. Anakin’s downfall is his own doing, based on his own fears, and Palpatine has been grooming him for a long time. Palpatine distorts things, giving Anakin the idea that he has been somehow deceived, when in reality it’s Palpantine who is the deceiver. Sneaky snake.

Thank you! I kind of liked it myself. And when you think of it, Anakin’s insecurity led to his vision becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It never really occurred to me that that was the case until I write this. Anakin never does see her again, once he becomes Vader. She goes to Polis Massa, where she delivers the babies and then passes away. Then her body is taken to Naboo, and she is laid to rest in the crypt. Vader spends the rest of his life with the empire, and he is interred on Endor. They aren’t even buried together.
And the shell is really a metaphor for who/what he is. He is hard, brittle, impenetrable. Nothing can touch him – physically or emotionally.

I think that Padmé, and what might have been, haunts him. Maybe not literally, but she consumed his life so much when he was Anakin. I intended it to be a phantom emotional pain. Just as he lost his limbs and his physical strength, he lost what was left of his emotions too.

Thank you very much for your thoughtful reply! It does seem weird to have it as a fairy tale, but it does kind of work. The idea that it is a story told from a distant perspective, a cautionary tale of someone who loved not wisely but too well. Anakin was broken when he started, and the cracks that started on Tatooine only got worse as time went on. He was terrified of losing the ones he loved. He was never raised to believe that he was worth anything – he was only a slave. Those fears smothered the love that he and Padmé should have felt free to express.

The fire that birthed Anakin, the watery imagery that Padmé assumed in her funeral casket. The cold marble of her tomb, the heat of the hate that drives Vader. The two who were once one have become diametric opposites. It’s a tragedy.

Thank you so much! The detachment of the unknown storyteller gives this a “view from a distance” idea that gives perspective to the Anakin/Padmé tale. And perspective, of course, is exactly what Anakin lacked. He did not understand that what seems like a disaster might actually have a solution, and what appears to be his solitary problem is actually something that can be resolved if he only trusted his companions.

Thank you! I appreciate the kind comments! Anakin/Vader is a fascinating study in juxtaposition.

 

Week 6. What Dreams May Come (Jyn Erso)

Dream
The tedium of the long trip to Jedha, combined with Jyn’s inclination to finally allow herself to relax since she was not in any imminent danger, made drifting off to sleep possible. Jyn didn’t really dream; it seemed instead that images floated to the surface of her memory and she skimmed along its still waters, gazing into the depths at whatever ghosts of the past decided to manifest.

Naturally, she recalled simpler times and her parents. She felt her father’s arms around her, she saw the love in her mother’s eyes. They were her everything, and she was their stardust.


Stars
Jyn used to sleep in a comfortable bedroom. At night, her mother would read a story, then arrange the blankets around her. Once she was safely tucked in, her mother would leave and, later, when he was done with the work he had brought home, her father would come into her darkened room.

Sometimes he would lie beside her and she would whisper secrets to him. Together they would gaze through the skylight overhead, into the dark night, resplendent with glittering stars, and he would tell her about magical distant worlds. “Someday, Stardust,” he said, “you’ll see them for yourself.”


Barricade
That was the last comfortable bed she ever slept in. Over the years she moved to the farm with her parents, sleeping in a small cot in a spare room. But even that was more comfortable than the hard mat that she unrolled each night while she lived with Saw.

Jyn learned to sleep with a blaster in her hand. She would crawl behind a barricade or hide inside a vehicle, and close her eyes. Always alert for danger, never quite relaxed, Jyn trained herself not to dream, choosing to forget any evidence that her life had ever been different.


Rain
Ironically, the last place that she had lived in (her last known address, she thought sardonically), had been the labor camp. The gray, barren walls devoid of any decoration; the metal slab that sufficed as a bed; and Kennel, her antagonistic cellmate, made up the boundaries of her residence. Routinely, Kennel wished Jyn goodnight with a promise to kill her by morning.

Morning would come, and Kennel cruelly broke her promise every time. So Jyn would rise from that slab, as harsh as a coroner’s table, and prepare for another indifferently brutal day of slagging minerals in the cold rain.


Home
There was one dream she refused to indulge in. Someday, perhaps, there would be someone who would have her back, someone who would return for her in her time of need. A man who would care about her, understand her, respect her, maybe even feel some tenderness towards her. She would have a place to call home, even if it was only for a little while.

Jyn knew this was impossible. She would never feel a man’s arms wrapped around her as she closed her eyes. There were some odds that couldn’t be overcome, some storms that couldn’t be weathered.

 

You show us a breathtaking kaleidoscope of Jyn´s life. Her happy times, the hard ones and, always deep inside her, a sparkle of hope. Of star dust.

 

Nice drabbles
Intersting to get a bit of a look into Jyn's mind, at her as a person. I like how you describe the stations of her life, how it becomes harsher and harsher. Its nice to see she still had some hope inside her.
Sadly she never got to life the better life she dreams of at the end.

 

Nice to see this, giving insight in her life and character

 

Our Stardust! And what a perfect set of prompts—these fit Jyn to a tee, and you’ve really encapsulated one of the basic tensions of this character in this group of drabbles. On one hand, she once had these loving parents who cared for her, told her stories of beautiful worlds far away, and cuddled her in a comfortable bed—as well as took gave her a beautiful kyber jewel to remember them by when she had to run off and hide. On the other hand, she now leads a hardscabble existence as an extra rebellious rebel who was partly raised by a particularly rebellious rebel under very makeshift, rouging-it conditions; I bet Saw never told her any bedtime stories. She started with wonderful dreams that she was later was trained to forget in favor of always being on guard for her life. And it gets worse: she ends up in a place where she had to sleep on something even harder and colder than the rolled-up mat, never knowing if that mean roommate of hers would keep her promise—how can one dream under such conditions? Saw may not have been the gentlest guardian in the Galaxy, but I’m sure he at least never mocked her in such a morbid way!

The last one of the group is the most poignant. First of all, the very fact that she has to suppress this dream of a loving man shows that Jyn still has a tiny glimmer of hope and warmth deep within her, and that her many hardships have not totally stripped her of her capacity to love and dream. But this was especially stunning:

Oh, Jyn, you don’t know yet just how much that forbidden wish will come true! And how that moment will indeed be “a place to call home, even if it was only for a little while.” What a breathtaking image to leave us with—the same image that the film leaves us with at its very end.

An incredible group of drabbles, and so true to the Stardust we know and love!

 

Week Four.

Now Hunger was interesting, though I went in thinking this was the Temple Guardian character in the red breastplate. I didn't realise who he was till you had him becoming a cargo pilot.

He was about to say something sarcastic when he saw the hunger in his little siblings’ eyes.

Yeah, later on you made clear that the family was desperate and in grinding poverty, but this early, my first interpretation was that this young observer was sitting back with a metaphorical bucket of popcorn and a ringside seat for the savaging his/her big brother was going to get if he mouthed off to Mum. Bodhi dropping credits in the basket, helped me along to thinking that the little frakker might just be hungry.

Thirst, Itch, Yearn - good progression arc of his family and local life, Bodhi's desperation to leave, and it could have been a good outcome, a positive, uplifting story, after all, we know he becomes a pilot. But no, you pulled a Whedon, and turned his heart to dust. That was like killing Kenny. You *******!

Impulse. Yes, these are drabbles, but you are charting one's life. Back in Yearn, Mrs Rook broke and finally made clear that she was desperate to leave Jedha as well. Sure, you pressed the [Return] key twice between the fourth and fifth drabble, but I don't know how many years passed between his failure to get into Imperial flight school, and getting his commercial pilot's licence, and all the time, they are on Jedha.

Some good work here. You really conveyed weight to your tale of the lad's early-to-present day existence.

Well Done. 10/10 And drokk it, an A Star as well.