Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

cardassian-andorian:

anyway i love the fact that the rest of rogue one is like “grr murder revenge we are here to kick some empire ass” and then they’re like “hey goggles boy what’s ur deal” and bodhi goes “i’m gonna be brave and listen to my heart” and like. all the Grisly Rebels visibly melt a lil.

(via cthulhu-with-a-fez)

Anonymous asked: So how was Rogue One?

MY G O D IT WAS A BLESSING AND A GIFT UNTO US ALL.

In all seriousness, though, I loved it.  It couldn’t have been better designed for me if they tried.  Brutal honesty about Doing What Needs To Be Done, desperate people fighting desperate wars, shouting matches between allies with laser-targeted accusations and grief-driven sharp tongues, bloody hands and buried sins.  

Basically, look, okay, here: if you read and liked the entire Animorphs series, this will be your jam.  If you prefer your heroes to be unsullied and clean (which, no judgement), maybe not.  But seriously, give it a try.

A couple other things:

• “Fiercely competent anti-fascist space Latinx with a robot best friend” is my new favorite weirdly specific trope, see also: Poe Dameron

• Jyn Erso grows so much over the movie she’s my daughter and I love her

• I want to wrap Bodhi Rook in blankets and put him down in front of Fantasia and cuddle him and feed him chocolate until he’s Happy, I’m a simple woman with simple needs

• Darth Vader is so hilariously Extra

• Krennic’s cape is a fucking tragedy

• “Welcome home” *bawls*
  

• Baze and Chirrut are married and have been for like thirty years, sorry I don’t make the rules

capcassianandor:

“I say eighteen years,” Jyn, perched on the edge of the table.

“What? No way,” Cassian, leaning forward, focused.

Leaning back on his chair, Bodhi cleans his goggles.

“Well, they were Guardians before the Republic fell, weren’t they?” Jyn is insistent, “They must have had some sort of code against emotional attachments, like the Jedi.”

“Even so,” says Cassian, “It has to be longer than that. Looking at the way they interact, the subtlety of the touches, the shorthand… I say twenty-four, twenty-five years.”

“You’re not using your intelligence-gathering skills for this, are you?”

“Well, it’s not like I can just switch it off!”

“But it’s an unfair advantage!”

Cassian brushes her off and turns his attention to the pilot.

“What about you, Bodhi? What do you reckon?”

“Thirty-two years,” he says calmly.

Then, seeing as the other two are looking at him with raised eyebrows, he adds:

“Give or take. Probably dated for like… five years before that? I’m just guessing.”

“Shit, they’re coming. Credits on the table, boys!” says Jyn in a whisper.

Each of them throws a handful of credit chips on the table.

“Alright, spit it out,” says Baze, walking up to their corner of the mess hall, “the three of you have been staring at us for the last fifteen minutes.”

“I told you,” says Chirrut lightly, “their intentions are pure.”

“I don’t trust your definition of pure. And , in any case, it’s annoying. So what is it?”

Jyn elbows Cassian in the ribs to get him to do the talking.

“Well, we were just wondering… How long the two of you have been together.”

“Married, you mean?”

Jyn nods vigorously.

“Well, we became involved when I was sixteen, Chirrut was fifteen.”

“The bit about no emotional attachments was never really a rule. More like advice,” Chirrut answers Jyn’s unvoiced question.

“Very strong advice,” says Baze.

“Well, we were always unorthodox.”

Chirrut smiles at Baze, who leans in to give him a quick kiss.

“Anyway, we were married some five years later, so that makes it… thirty-two years?”

“Just about.”

Cassian and Jyn’s jaws drop, and they apparently decide to give up on hiding their secret. Both turn to Bodhi.

“What?!”

“How did you know?!”

“Unbelievable!”

The two wail and stomp off, grumbling about “two hundred credits!”.

Meanwhile, Bodhi leans forward on the table and gathers his precious winning.

“Guess that means these are mine now.”

“So,” says Chirrut grinning, “are you going to tell them you were born and raised in Jedha City, and that the marriage of two Guardians of the Whills made city-wide news?”

“Eventually,” he says, counting his chips.

(via ifeelbetterer)

shortcrust:

Finn does a lot of reading, when he wakes up. He burns through article after article of history, of linguistics, of culture. He may be strapped down to a bed and fresh from a bacta tank, but he wants to learn more about what it means to be human, and more about what it means to be this human. About the choices he’s made. 

In the first 48 hours, Finn comes to learn two particularly important things.

One: that surnames mean where you come from, mean legacy.

Two: that there was a man called Bodhi Rook, and that he was very, very brave.

Later, after he’s finally discharged from med bay, he has to fill out paperwork. Registration, medical history, next-of-kin sort of stuff. Most of it he has to leave blank. He hovers over one little box in particular. Family name. He hesitates. Poe has already offered him his. The admin assistant leans over the desk, nonplussed expression on their face, and suggests he just pick one at random. Neither feels quite right. Neither feels like a history, or like a legacy.

He takes a breath, puts pen to paper, and writes Finn Rook in a wobbly but determined script.

(via ifeelbetterer)

lazaefair:

bomberqueen17:

boxoftheskyking:

boxoftheskyking:

Okay get this : Poe Dameron does Drunk History (of the Rebellion)

Realistically this is Poe weeping and saying “he was the *pilot* do you get it??? He was the pilot!!!”

Yeah everybody’s assuming Poe would have Cassian as his idol but here’s the thing, and I’m just going to lay this out here for you: Bodhi Rook would be someone Poe admired very, very much. And i know, Finn would be moved by his story, but Poe would have known his story all along and had it in his heart.
And maybe that’s why the instant a Stormtrooper pulled his helmet off and said, “This is a rescue,” Poe was like !!!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 !!!! because there, in his heart, was Bodhi Rook, who did the right thing even though he was afraid, who did the right thing even though he wasn’t treated well, who did the right thing because it was the right thing and he had to.

How did this headcanon get even better? How???

(via princehal9000)

cadeteyes asked: If you're taking rogue one prompts, could you do headcannons for the tragic space bbys (those being Cassian and Bodhi. I have a few of my own but I'd love to see what other people think)

I am…sorry…it’s possible I went Full Tragic with these.

Cassian

• Cassian Andor has a home planet—Fest—but only in the most generously technical sense. (When Jyn asks, he shrugs and says “It’s cold, somewhere out on the Rim.  My sister showed me how to throw snowballs there when I was four.”  That’s about what he knows.)  His parents are merchants—legitimate merchants, thank you very much—and he learns young how to act like he knows where he’s going and what he’s doing, because wandering young children are always kind of a popular target for trouble.
• Cassian doesn’t remember a single day when someone flipped a switch and he lived in the Empire, it was more of a slow slide until suddenly everything was Stormtroopers and the whispers of Darth Vader and the Imperial Flag high overhead. And one day he looked up and saw the flag, and looked down and saw his parents smuggling information out of merchant centers for those who needed it, and he decided he was going to do something.  That’s the day he remembers.
• Cassian has never been naïve.  Three weeks later, he learned that spies die, and that, sometimes, saving something is worth paying with your life.  His parents and his sister bought his escape with theirs.  Watching their blood cool as he hid, he decided he was still going to do something, even if he died trying.
• Cassian speaks…a lot of languages.  The running joke in the Rebel Alliance is that if you need a translator and none of the droids can manage, it’s time to call Cassian.  He just kind of picked them up as he drifted, after his parents died, and hell, he was six then and it’s been twenty years, he’s worth his weight in gold as a linguist.  Of course, he’s only fluent in about eight, but if you need to talk to some random guy from Fuck All Nowhere, Outer Rim, Cassian’s your man.  It doesn’t matter if he’s never heard the language before, he’s going to Make It Happen.  That’s the other thing Cassian’s known for: Making It Happen.  It’s a good trait in a spy.
• (Cassian never meets Luke Skywalker—he dies just hours too soon.  But Luke would have liked to listen to Cassian curse in a cluttered mix of Bocce and Huttese and Force knows what else.  It’s the sound of home.)
• Cassian was formally recruited into the Rebellion because he managed to pick a spy’s pocket successfully, and then the spy watched this skinny eleven-year-old lie his ass off to a Stormtrooper and steal a speeder.  The spy (Cassian doesn’t remember his name, the man died on his next mission and Cassian cried for him) basically tucked Cassian under his arm like a football and kidnapped him.  He was welcomed like a prodigal into the Rebel Alliance, his family remembered for their sacrifice and his information collected over his wanderings a desperately needed help.
• His method of official entry to the Rebellion had a serious impact on Cassian’s recruiting style.
• Cassian has met Leia—she’s almost seven years younger than him, and she acts like he should know how high to jump before she gives the order.  He thinks she’s Great™.  He once watched her slay a man with nothing but words at forty paces and it was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen.  He thinks Bail Organa is Also Great™ and is absolutely flattered beyond belief when he one time hears Bail refer to him as their best spy.
• And finally: Cassian has done some bad shit.  He’s killed, he’s lied, and he’s been on both sides of the interrogation table more than once—sometimes nicely, other times…less so.  But the Rebellion is his home, it’s the only home he’s ever had since the warmth of his sister’s hand and his mother’s smile and his father’s voice, and he’s willing to do what he has to in order to protect it.  He regrets very little, and he still holds his hope for victory close to his heart. And it burns him that Jyn Erso is so ready to act righteous when she’s hidden from the war all these years.  It burns worse because he watches her speak and watches her rage and Force she’s like a star given human flesh, and he can’t breathe with how much he wants to see her lit up with belief in something.
• He dies at peace, breathing easy, because he’s protected his home and he’s seen Jyn on fire with passion and righteous anger and it was all he’s ever dreamed.

Bodhi

• Bodhi Rook doesn’t remember this—there’s a lot he doesn’t remember, from Before—but he has met Baze and Chirrut before. Actually, he met Guardian Malbus and Guardian Îmwe, when he came up to their knees.  All he remembers is that he loved the Temple of the Whills, loved the smooth warmth of the carved stone walls and the way the altar glowed dimly in the dark and the feeling of breathing in energy when he stood near the crystals.  He doesn’t remember Guardian Malbus’ booming laugh as he gaped up at the arches of the ceiling, nor Guardian Îmwe’s wide grin when he breathlessly said that it was beautiful.  He doesn’t remember the way he touched a kyber crystal—so daring he could barely believe it of himself—and felt it sing under his fingers and saw Guardian Îmwe’s milky eyes turn toward him as if summoned by the thrum in the air.
• Bodhi also doesn’t remember that he swore up and down for a full two years that he was going to be a Guardian.  
• Bodhi does remember a specific day when the flag of the Empire rose overhead.  The clones they had come to trust as the strong arm of the Jedi swept through Jedha City like a storm, and Bodhi remembers with horrible clarity the stark white of their uniforms, scrubbed clean of the individualized markers they’d been so proud of.  He remembers most clearly of all the body of one of the Guardians who had been most indulgent of him, a tall, powerful Togruta woman with a lightning-like scar branching down the length of her arm, splayed broken on the ground with her glazed eyes pointed to the flag hung out from the Temple wall.
• Bodhi remembers the lesson he learned that day: even the best fighter can’t stand against the Empire.
• Bodhi has two mothers and twin baby brothers and they need to be fed.  The Empire pays.  He’s sixteen when he swallows down his nausea and takes the cargo job.  He’s a good pilot—they don’t care about his age.
• It doesn’t hurt as much to watch them rip out the kyber crystals if he doesn’t watch.  
• Bodhi has seen more combat than you might think.  He’s been hit by raiders three times, Rebels twice, and perfected the fine art of ‘running like hell,’ but it doesn’t always work out.  He’s only ever had to shoot someone twice.
• He doesn’t want to talk about it.
• Bodhi is a little in love with Galen Erso.  Not so much with the man himself, although certainly there’s an appeal to the nimble fingers and soft voice and steady gaze, but with his courage. Bodhi, who misses the steady pulse of the kyber crystals, listens to Galen speak quietly about resistance and courage and finding a way to do the right thing, and sees the bright flicker of brave-hearted determination beneath the veneer of the Imperial engineer.  He listens, and Galen’s voice washes over him, and Bodhi loves him for the steady gaze in his eyes.  
• The same brave-bright storm lights in Jyn, as she fights to convince the Alliance of her father’s message, and she looks at him with a steady fire in her eyes, and Bodhi loves her for it.

archwrites:

fn-skywalker:

imagine if finn could have had bodhi as his mentor the way rey has luke??

bodhi who defected from the empire?? who would know what it’s like to have that guilt with you?? but also the hope?? to be a better person????

i’ve been cheated of a great relationship

“Ah, Finn,” General Organa says as he enters the room. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet. This is General Rook.”

Finn looks at the slight man next to her. He could be any age from forty to sixty-five, with salt-and-pepper hair and deep lines bracketing his mouth. His eyes are striking: big and dark and evaluating. “Sir,” Finn says, and salutes.

General Organa raises her eyebrows. “Bodhi Rook,” she says, as if that name should mean something to Finn.

Finn shrugs helplessly. “I’m sorry, I don’t know,” he says.

“Why would you?” Rook says. “It’s not the sort of story the First Order would have wanted circulating.” He steps closer to Finn and gives him a slow, measured once-over. “I was an Imperial pilot. I smuggled out the original Death Star plans before the Battle of Yavin.”

Finn stares.

“And I’ll be in charge of debriefing you,” Rook continues. And then he smiles, fierce and proud. “One traitor to another.”

(via maelace)