sakura_no_miko | Fic rec - The Last Poem of Jedha

Rating: PG-13 / light R

Pairing: mostly gen, background Jyn/Cassian and Chirrut/Baze

Warnings: various issues relating to warfare and living in an occupied state; military violence, institutional violence, terrorism, genocide, planetary destruction, suicidal ideation, character death (sibling), depression, memory loss, mental health issues, character injury

Other notes: original characters, worldbuilding, alien culture, family, siblings, disabled character, literature, mythology, academics, viva la resistance, au, canon diveregence, hurt/recovery, team, ensemble, nonlinear timeline

Length: 15k

Summary: How Bodhi Rook temporarily misplaced the two most important things in the galaxy, and how he found them again (with a little help).

Fffffff. Here I am, browsing the “Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies” tag, because, well, I’m kind of at a grumpy point of the month and I really needed a pick-me-up.

Instead I was all teary-eyed over my lunch break, fffffff. Well, fffffff in a good way, but.

(Off-topic, but like 80% of this tag seems to be dedicated to The Hobbit, another 15% to Teen Wolf, 2% to Rogue One, 1% to Avengers, and 2% everything else. I mean, by nature, you’re only going to have series that have a high death count to begin with, but, wow. So much Hobbit. Mildly surprised I haven’t seen a Game of Thrones fic yet, but also I’ve never read Game of Thrones fic, so I don’t know what would even be popular in that fandom?)

Also, there is very important character death in this fic. In fact, I’d argue this entire fic is dedicated to character death — but all the canonically dead characters remain alive, so. That’s gotta be a nightmare to try and tag. It’s interesting to consider the idea of nuance when using tags — I feel like that could be an interesting topic for meta. On the one hand, you can write any tag you want, and as many tags as you want, so you could write really specific tags. But on the other hand, tags are kind of meant to be general, agreed-upon terms. So this being an “everyone lives” AU centered around character death is…not what I expected, but it still kinda makes sense, lol.

Anyway, I was not expecting to get smacked in the face with a lovely original character I could fall in love with and her dying. This is an incredibly bittersweet fic, dealing with a person who loses their family and their homeland to war. It’s the sort of fic you read and think, thank God I am not living in a war zone, like many people worldwide are. It’s especially vicious given the current political climate in America, where people are actively trying to stop people from seeking asylum.

I’m not a huge Star Wars fan, although I remember reading a bunch of the extended universe novels when I was a kid. Library was chockfull of them. So I’ve got a lot of vague knowledge of the universe. It’s nice to see…shoot, what are the words I’m looking for? I feel like I’ve said this before, but, in the movies, we watch the heroes, say, blow up the Death Star. And it’s meant to be heroic. But there’s not much mentioned in the movies about the people who were on the Death Star, and if they have families. Or the far-reaching effects of the Empire blowing up an entire planet. Certainly Leia grieves over it, but, like. An entire planet.

You read this fic, and suddenly it’s an entire people, and entire culture, an entire history, all reduced to ash, except for scattered survivors.

I, ah — well, you know, the first time I read this fic, I was attracted to it as a writer. Because this is very much a writer’s story. This is the sort of idea you get in your head, when you realize you’re a writer.

God, this is hard to write, given that I don’t actually write much anymore.

But, thinking back to when I was a child, when I was first thinking of being a writer: you realize how important words are. It might help that I’m old enough that the internet was just getting off the ground, so documenting things in writing was still easier than video. Maybe a bit easier than photos. The idea of keeping things documented seemed very important. Of course, there was always that small part of me that thought, yeah, I’m gonna write a famous novel, something so profound and amazing everyone will remember it. But journalism seemed important, too. History. I was always fascinated by primary sources — that we could piece together bits of life from journals and letters. It all seemed very, very important.

Now I find myself thinking, ah, we’re just overloaded with information. I wrote a line when I was feeling a tiny bit bitter — well, to be fair, I was also writing a bitter character — about that:

“He doesn't recognize himself. There are fewer pictures, these days. No one to send them to or share them with. It's probably for the better. Less fumbling with his phone, one less person contributing a hundred off-centered, badly-filtered pictures of sunsets to the internet.”

I feel less important, these days. There’s a big push for making yourself and your own story heard, and yet I feel like I have nothing particularly unique to offer.

Still — this fic reminded me of that old feeling, that idea that writing was the most valuable thing. In this fic, writing is used to help keep the Rebellion alive. That’s, ah, that’s just the sort of ego-boosting thing that writers tend to think about. I mean that in the most self-depreciating way. I think a lot of art is like that — you can’t be an artist without at least some ego pushing you forward, some need to create and share and make people into your audience.

But, on a second reading, I’m also struck by this because I’m a third generation immigrant. Well, I suppose. My grandmother was an immigrant, not me personally, so it seems odd to call myself that. More particularly, there’s a kind of stereotype associated with American immigrant families — first generation immigrates over, and usually goes one of two ways: either a person stays in the immigrant community and doesn’t integrate much, or they go the completely opposite way and try and Americanize as much as possible. Second generation, the stereotype goes, tends to be Americanized, and sometimes resentful of their parents for being “old fashioned” or “weird.” Often bilingual, though not always by choice. Tends to be more aggressively American to prove themselves. Third generation — which would be me — is raised completely American, monolingual, and sometimes feel like they’re no longer connected to their grandparents’ culture.

I’m quite in that third stereotype. I barely know anything beyond being American, aside from a few quirks I picked up from my grandmother. Couple words here and there, couple superstitions. If, for some ungodly reason, you suddenly told me I had to try and revive the traditions of my ancestors, I would have nothing. I mean, I could read about them. I dunno if that would ever feel authentic. Couldn’t tell you much about culture or literature or ancient history. “Cultural imposter syndrome,” they call it.

Shoot. To be fair, I’m not even sure I could tell you a lot about American cultural traditions, or even the traditions in my own state.

If everything were suddenly wiped out—

Ah, that’s terrifying.

Moreso because it actually happens. Just last year, a museum in Brazil burned down, wiping out a ton of historical documents, including recordings of languages that are no longer spoken. Just utterly gone.

Fff, this is not my usual style of rec. In fact, I think 90% of this isn’t even about the fic in question. Ah, that’s unfair to the author, I think. Also, it’s probably fairly obvious at this point that my grumpy mood has definitely not dissipated.

No, I do want to be fair to this fic, because the writing really is exquisite.

This is an especially striking scene:

The first three lines, of course, are the biggest hurdle. The naav is known as the death poem, but only the first three lines have anything to do with death. The first line is the name of the person who died. The second, seven syllables long, states where it happened. The third, arguably the most important line of the entire poem, tells how they died. The rest of the poem is divided into two sections, speaking about the person's life and of what example they set to everyone around them.
Bodhi's sister leaves the first line blank.

The subtly here is delicious. Because you know — you feel, even — instantly what she isn’t writing, just like her intended audience does. What is dying? Jedha? The Senate? Liberty? Everything and, technically, nothing, all at once.

That’s another thing that you kind of learn without intending to learn — how to talk around subjects. I’m sure everyone’s got at least one aspect of their life where they can’t speak openly. Could be as simple as being at work and working around a problem customer, or as complex as being closeted. That certain language you develop for the outside world, and the way it feels when someone else meets your eyes and understands what you aren’t saying.

Man, just all the passages about writing are impressive:

Bodhi knows Dalid, a little, from family suppers and functions at the Academy, and he seems like a nice enough man. His sister's head over heels in love with him, though she's not effusive about it. Bodhi sees some poetry on her desk when he goes to borrow a calligraphy pen: a hata, in his sister's hand, titled 'To the one who halves my grief.' He feels so relieved she found someone that it doesn't leave space in his heart for bitterness.

Ah, she “isn’t effusive” about her love, but she leaves her poetry lying around. That’s another little writer-ly thing that gets to me, because writers tend to write things as gifts. Or at least, I do. I can’t be the only person, else kink memes and fic exchanges wouldn’t exist. And, ah, that line: “to the one who halves my grief.” Simultaneously brilliant and heartbreaking, because of course love helps you share the burdens, but it’s also a grim reminder that the situation they’re living in has made grief her biggest trait.

So, getting to the ending, I must admit, until I started writing this review — until I was about halfway through, even — I didn’t pick up on the fact that Bodhi never calls his sister by her name. Which, admittedly, I usually call my brother “my brother” in conversation, and occasionally like to boom, “Brother!” at him like Thor. And I watch a lot of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean media, where it’s also pretty common to call someone “older brother” or “younger sister” instead of a name. When Bodhi himself realizes it — it is heartbreaking. And it makes the scene where he receives a volume of her poetry back even more emotional. Survival. Some tiny, seemingly insignificant scrap survived, when memory and life all failed. And that is enough to revive a piece of his culture, it’s enough to let him pick up his own pen and ensure something else will survive.

It is fucking lovely and pensive and melancholy.

Ah, I don’t have much to rec for Star Wars, but I did read Honor Thy Fallen and Shout Their Names From the Stars fairly early on, also from Rogue One. Oh, and The Story of Finn, from Force Awakens, if you like the ideas of stories starting rebellions.

(Looking for more fic recs?)
Crossposted to pillowfort