hi i’m kitty i don’t know anything about star wars whoops
“What am I looking at?”
Lando leaned forward and laced his fingers together. “My taxes.” He paused, then gestured to Han. “Our taxes,” he corrected, with an unnecessarily rakish grin.
Leia squinted at the datapad. “Tax fraud.”
“Oh, no no no. Absolutely not. My accounting is impeccable.”
“I don’t see how it could be,” she said. “He’s a smuggler.”
“Hey,” Han began. He shut his mouth when Leia leveled him with a look. He opened it again to persist, but saw that Lando had a shit-eating grin as he watched their argument-in-potentia. Han glowered at Lando, and made him grin wider. Han huffed, hooking his thumbs on his belt.
“Legally, he’s a long-haul transport navigator,” Lando said, and Leia snorted. “Because he has a spouse at home—me—he qualifies for a higher income deduction as well as a few credits unique to the profession.”
“Wait, credits?” Han asked.
“Because he’s my dependent,” Lando continued, ignoring him.
“The hell I am.”
“That puts me in a unique legal position—not many people know about this, but in order to incentivize long-haul transportation, a spouse who claims a long-haul transport navigator as a dependent qualifies as a household caretaker, which is a kind of head of household that’s able to claim significantly more not only for themselves but for any other dependent spouses they may happen to have.”
“But his transport isn’t legal,” Leia said, fascinated. Han was pretending to understand the conversation, which would have been more convincing if he weren’t already fiddling with a kinetic sculpture on one of Lando’s shelves.
“It’s art.”
“What?”
“As far as my taxes are concerned,” Lando said, “Han transports art. They can’t prove that it isn’t. And I’m always careful to get the valuation right.”
“How do you know what I transport?” Han asked, indignant. A piece came off the sculpture in his hands. He looked down at it, then looked at Lando. He made a hasty attempt to reattach the piece. The entire sculpture collapsed. Han took his hands from it, and attempted to lean casually against the shelves with his elbow to block it from view.
“They call me,” Lando said.
“No,” Leia gasped, delighted.
“Yes,” Lando said, grinning again. “They know I’m his partner. They know I can’t be sure I’m getting my fair share unless I know exactly what he’s getting. So they call me.”
“What!” Han stood straighter, his brow furrowed and his face all twisted into an incredulous pout of anger.
“They might have been able to catch him smuggling,” Lando said to Leia, still not addressing Han.
“They would never,” Han sneered.
“But they’re never going to get him on tax evasion. There’s no way he would have been paying taxes on his own.”
“It never even occurred to me that he would,” Leia said.
“I’m right here,” Han reminded them.
“So you can see why I can’t divorce him,” Lando said.
“I don’t follow,” Leia said.
“My household caretaker status is the foundation of all of this,” he said, pointing to the datapad. “I divorce Han and the whole thing collapses.”
“Collapses how?” Leia asked, narrowing her eyes.
“Cloud City goes bankrupt.”
Han choked.
“How many people have you married?” Leia demanded.
“Leia, you know that you’re my favorite wife-in-law,” Lando said, “but I don’t think I’m comfortable discussing that aspect of my personal life.”
The pile of former-sculpture slid from the shelf, and clattered to the floor.
Han pretended not to notice.
This is GLORIOUS and also 100% in character for someone who allegedly doesn’t know anything about star wars.
100% certain han and lando once got married for a scam and forgot to have it annulled so they were technically married for several years and one day lando comes in and goes “real quick: are we solo-calrissian or calrissian-solo? also, i want a divorce” and han is like baby no where did i go wrong we can still fix this
I have a notion that Chewie’s not surprised that often, but here’s a time when maybe he was.
Four days ago, Chewbacca finished fixing the damper for the
rear center spin control using a bit of electrical tape and an eating utensil
snipped in half and pounded flat. He reattached the panel and knocked twice on
it for good luck.
When the Falcon was still flying straight the next day, he did
it again as he passed the spot, just in case that was why.
Each day since, when he’s passed the panel on the way to and
from his bunk, he’s quickly and quietly knocked twice.
Three days ago, Chewbacca reattached the navigational
antenna on the top hull. They were out of 6-centimeter screws so he stuck in
some shorter ones, glued the whole thing down with epoxy that maybe wasn’t
quite rated for vacuum, and added a whole lot of hope. The spot was right above
the corridor to the cockpit, and when he passed under it he shot a stern look
at the ceiling: You better hold together up there.
When the nav computer was still working the next day, he
kept looking up each time he entered or left the cockpit, because better safe
than sorry.
Two days ago, he repaired a weld on the cooking unit so it
would make heat again instead of just sparks. The connectors had been fixed so
many times the ends wouldn’t reach anymore, so he stuck an extra bit of wire in
there, welded it to both pieces, and hoped for the best. He laid a hand on the
cooktop in a quick, quiet blessing.
When Han didn’t die in an explosion the first time he tried
to heat up a meal-pack, Chewie thought: better do that again, for luck.
Chewbacca has a lot of little rituals like that. Small
things, probably silly, but it seems like when he remembers to do them his
repairs hold together, even if he fixed the thing with spit and fur because
they couldn’t afford to do it right. Or because they forgot to stock up on
six-sided washers, or because Han threw that one specialized wrench at the
bounty hunter they were running from, and they left both wrench and bounty
hunter in the dust.
He doesn’t do these things if he knows Han’s around. Han
would tease him. Even though Chewbacca is fully (and secretly) aware that Han
whispers sweet nothings to the ship when he thinks his first mate can’t hear.
But then, after a quick stop on Syvon to pick up food and
drop off a certain piece of unofficial cargo, suddenly Chewie’s down with the
Syvonian Flu, and although humans usually only sneeze a bit, it hits Wookiees
hard. He’s stuck in the medbunk for five solid days, dizzy if he tries to stand
up, hallucinating little furry creatures that appear to be dancing on the
ceiling while singing raunchy songs.
Han brings him broth and flatbread.
When Chewie finally staggers to his feet, the lights are
dimmed in the medbay and the ship’s engines are humming quiet and smooth.
Nothing’s pinging. Nothing’s knocking. No alarms are blaring.
Chewie hasn’t knocked on a panel or reminded the nav antenna
to stay on the ship in five whole days. He never took his rituals all that
seriously, but still. Don’t tell Han, but Chewie’s amazed the ship hasn’t
fallen apart.
He makes his way down the corridor toward his own bunk,
still unsteady on his feet. As he rounds the corner, he sees Han heading that
way too, just passing the panel over the spin control damper. Han lifts a hand,
and… knocks twice.
Chewie’s short, surprised laugh isn’t that loud but the ship
is so quiet. Han turns, sees him, smiles.
“Held the ship together for you,” he says, “but I’m not sure
I got them all. She’ll be glad you’re back to do it right.”
do you think leia felt everyone on alderaan die but because she didn’t know she was force sensitive she thought it was all her own pain, do you think unknowingly force sensitive people all over the galaxy in the middle of sleeping or cooking dinner or kissing their children goodnight suddenly felt their hearts torn out and had no idea why
Adding a thing that slapped me in the face this morning thinking about this:
This explains Leia’s behavior on Hoth, too.
Her twin brother is in mortal danger. While the argument (the more I think about that scene, the more I want to caveat “argument” with some major footnotes, tbh) with Han is going on? Luke has gotten himself strung up like a piece of meat in a Yeti’s cave and is waiting to die, save for his resourcefulness in using the Force and, later, Han’s refusal to follow protocol.
Of course she’s going to be freaking out and on the defensive – just like in Cloud City, mortal danger is afoot, and it involves a member of her biological family, even if she isn’t aware of that link yet.
Leia’s Force sensitivity is shown and stated over and over to be incredibly strong (and is incredibly untrained and uncontrolled, because apparently Obi-Wan and Yoda can’t be bothered to give a shit about Anakin’s daughter, only his son). When it’s in check – and it is 98% of the time – Leia’s actually extremely even-tempered and rational. Look at her behavior in ROTJ – she might as well be a different character. Pretty much the only other time she raises her voice, other than dealing with the extreme stress of the situation in New Hope, which takes its toll on all three protagonists equally, is when she’s trying to be heard and taken seriously in the Rebellion – among troops who surely think of her still as Bail’s little princess playing war-hero dress-up.
But when her Force sensitivity acts up – and it’s only really shown to flare up when the actions of a family member are about to cause imminent death or destruction – we need to treat that with the respect of someone with unique mental health needs, not discuss her “anger issues” or laud it as proof of the sass of Strong Independent Feminism.
Steel Phoenix Studios 