#hlweek2019

Han & Leia Appreciation Week Day 2: Carrie and/or Harrison (or Carrison) appreciation

Han & Leia Appreciation Week 2019  

Day 3, October 22:  Domesticity 

I thought a lot about what “domesticity” would look like for Han and Leia, and I feel it would break down into two distinct categories:  During the Rebellion, and Post War.  

My usual love letter to Carrie Fisher on her birthday, in honor of HanLeia Appreciation Week 2019 Day 2: Carrie and/or Harrison appreciation.

Dear Carrie,

Oddly, or appropriately, I thought of you the other day while contemplating a pair of shaper underwear at the store. Spanx (which sounds vaguely sadomasochistic, probably the reason for the name) or Skinnygirl (which I am not, not anymore) or something of that ilk, and ugly as sin. I remembered what a friend in college said when he saw something similar in one of the Victoria’s Secret catalogs (the ones that had magically appeared in every woman’s mailbox at school that semester): “If I took that off a woman, I would laugh.”

This is supposed to be about you, Carrie, not about the arrival of what I understand to be my own “middle-age spread” and my conflicting feelings about same. But it is about you, and about your legacy, I think.

Like many of us in fandom, I do adore young, beautiful Carrie. Nineteen-year-old Carrie, looking somber in her side buns or making mischief with Mark on set; twenty-one-year-old Carrie, doing press with Harrison or staring back at us with those luminous doe eyes and that perfect circle of braids; early 1990s Carrie on a book tour with short hair and impossibly perfect legs.

But the woman I still profess to want to be when I grow up (I’m in my forties, I’ll grow up any day now) is Carrie of the dry wit, Carrie of the eyeglasses and the ever-present dog and the brown hair streaked with gray, Carrie whose eyes were no less luminous framed with laugh lines, Carrie who reminded us that men are allowed to age and gain weight while women are hidden away like a nasty secret. Carrie who shared your struggles, who was so smart it scared the hell out of a lot of people, who was flawed and fucked up and fucking beautiful.

Would you have bought the Spanx, Carrie?

Maybe, because you understood the game and the rules and maybe you didn’t always love how every bit of your body fit into clothes either. And maybe not, because life was too short to worry about whether the bag you carry your brain around in was good enough for someone else.

I didn’t buy the Spanx, this time. Whether I did or I didn’t, at the end of the day I still have to wrestle with the body I have and struggle to love it. And I have an example of that from you, too. You didn’t have it all figured out, by any stretch. You struggled until the end of your life, and you owned it and made so many people feel less alone in the process.

For the last day of Han Leia Appreciation week, a little vignette that works on its own, or as a little bit of backstory for a scene in my “The Way We Get By.”  I’ll probably be putting it up on AO3 a little later today.

Hoth, Pre-ESB, Han & Leia, G

*

In the mess, there wasn’t a lot of room. Not a lot of decent food, either, but he at least wanted to sit down while he ate it. Scanning the empty seats, he spotted a couple of them--a buffer zone around Princess Leia. Whether of her own making or others avoiding her, he didn’t know and didn’t care. They were seats, she was pretty when she was mad at him, and he wanted to eat his breakfast. He breached the buffer zone of empty chairs and pulled out the seat right across from her.

She glared at him wordlessly as he dropped his tray to the table with a clatter, then flopped down into the seat itself.

“Morning, sunshine.” He smirked, then picked up a spoon and prodded the congealed bowl of gruel in front of him. The serving droid had said it was berry oatmeal, but it looked more like purple sludge.

“Are you going to eat that or play with it?”

He scooped up a large spoonful and put it in his mouth, making a show of enjoying it. It actually tasted significantly better than it looked, though he questioned whether it tasted like any berry he’d ever eaten. At least it was hot.

“What’s got you in a mood this morning? They sending you somewhere even colder?”

She may have smirked a bit herself, then shook her head. “No. It’s your fault.”

“You haven’t seen me in two days!” He ate another spoonful of the rapidly cooling breakfast. It would only be good while it was warm, which wouldn’t be for very long.

“I had a dream about you.” She looked him dead in the eye as she said it, and he nearly choked on the oatmeal.

“Ye--wha--yeah?” He sat back, away from the choking hazards of breakfast foods. “How’s that a bad thing?” This he had to hear--she was dreaming about him?!

“You were wandering around in just your bloodstripes, talking about how Corellians are three degrees warmer than ‘normal’ humans. How you were just so warm and toasty you didn’t need all your winter layers here. Or even your shirt.” She glared at him, as if he’d actually paraded through the command center and done this.

“That doesn’t sound like a bad dream to me.” He waggled his eyebrows at her, which only caused her to glare harder at him.

“First of all, it’s scientifically untrue. Corellians are not three degrees warmer than other humans.”

He helped himself to another bite of breakfast to keep from rolling his eyes. Then he frowned, as it had cooled more than he’d expected, changing the consistency into something gummy.

“That’s what’s got you all riled up?”

“It was more the shirtless gloating.”

Pushing the tray away, he frowned again, at her this time. “But I didn’t even do it!”

“Why don’t you ever seem cold here? Everyone else is freezing.”

“Chewie and me are both from warm planets. I keep the Falcon warmer than the rest of this iceball.”

“You’re hiding in there, staying warm.”

It wasn’t untrue; he shrugged. “Would it be easier for you if I did wander around shirtless? I can do some work inside on the Falcon that way later today if you wanna swing by.”

She let out a huff of frustration, then abruptly got up from the table and stalked out of the mess.

He swirled his spoon through the congealing purple goo in his bowl, and smiled as he watched her go. Maybe he’d do a little work on the power supply later, just in case.