Sorry, I’m not up to date on the details of Star Wars outside the movies, but was R2-D2, like, Leia’s droid between the Prequels and the Original Trilogy? Whatever the case, I think I might need it to happen in a crack fic.
Because I’ve suddenly imagined R2-D2 accompanying Leia to her Senate meetings. In reality, it would probably be very dangerous for R2 and Leia. But I think it would be perfect for a crack fic.
Like, just imagine if Leia and R2 are just strolling around the halls of the Senate, with Leia ranting to R2 about something or other. And then bump into an older Senator by accident. And at first it’s all pleasantries and apologies, but then the older Senator takes one look at R2, turns a color that is not a good color for their people to turn, and then says in utter horror, “IT’S YOU!”
Because surely there must be older Senators out there from before the Empire, who remember that horrible little nightmare droid who tailed those awful Jedi around and occasionally Senator Amidala. (Like, there must be people out there who witnessed R2 blow up a building or even straight-up kill someone.)
And Leia’s like, “What? You know my droid?”
And the Senator’s got a hand over their heart, both to soothe themselves and a little protectively, and says, “My dear, I couldn’t forget that thing if I was dead. That’s the little bastard who set me on fire! Granted, it was an accident and it saved Senator Amidala’s life again, but still. She was far too fond of it! That and that debonair Jedi it belonged to!”
And Leia lights up immediately because oho, this is interesting. Meanwhile R2 is basically swearing up a storm trying to push her away. And the Senator has an expression on their face like, “Oh, damn, I shouldn’t have said that.”
Anyway, Leia accidentally figures out who her parents were because R2 is a memorable asshole that old politicians still see in their nightmares.
I want either that crack fic or an even crackier fic that goes like this:
Darth Vader: *walking down a hall in the Senate building, annoyed af that the Emperor is making him be here to intimidate people for some vote or another, scrolling clickbait quizzes or ship commercials on his datapad*
The sound of something clattering comes from ahead. Darth Vader looks up and sees a droid getting kicked out of a conference room, beeping explicitly and indignantly over just being lost, at the far end of the hall. The droid looks down the hall at Darth Vader. It’s unmistakably R2-D2.
Darth Vader: “…”
R2-D2: “…”
R2: *backs up one inch*
Vader: *takes one step forward*
R2: *SCREAMS*
R2-D2 whirls around immediately and flees around the corner. Vader is too surprised to immediately stop his old droid, but drops the datapad and books it after him (as much as DV can book it). What proceeds is probably a Star Wars version of the Benny Hill chase between R2-D2 and Darth Vader.
It ends in R2, covered in soot and scratches, barely managing to get away after causing enormous amounts of mayhem and property damage.
Leia: “There you are! Artoo, where have you been?”
R2: *beeps* (translation: “Out.”)
So uh
Excellent. This is exactly what I wanted.
“
probably a Star Wars version of the Benny Hill chase between R2-D2 and Darth Vader”
Oh my God.
Vader just awkwardly powerwalking after a screaming Astromech.
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
#ostensibly it was for a scam but we all know the truth#they forget to get divorced until han is getting married again#do you think polyamorous marriage is legal in star wars#it has to be right#so han is accidentally married to like three people#and leia is kind of annoyed by this so he goes to lando#who doesn’t understand the problem because legally speaking he is married to a city-state#he solves a lot of problems by marrying them#he also creates a lot of problems but those are for future lando#not current lando who is currently explaining that he has built a complex tax scheme on his marriages#and his marriage to han is loadbearing#do you have any idea what this would do to his tax deductions han#it would destroy them#han hasn’t paid space taxes in years but it turns out he’s lando’s dependent and lando has actually been collecting a refund this whole time#han is offended and wants his refunds but lando is like no fuck you#if you did your own space taxes you’d be paying twice what i’m getting
Okay but if Han is neither living with Lando nor having <%50 of his supporting costs covered by Lando he wouldn’t be a dependent? Also spouses aren’t dependents, they are spouses, they get a personal exemption.
So what really would have to be happening here is that Lando is filing for them as Married Filing Jointly. And the only way for that to make sense without having any income listed for Han is if he’s claiming that Han is a stay-at-home house husband. Which is 100% more hilarious, if you ask me.
Especially because when Han and Leia get married that doesn’t change? Leia is off running the New Republic, so Han is totally home with Ben. And every April Leia and Lando have an epic game a sabac to determine who gets Han’s personal exemption that year.
those are the rules for federal tax law in america, on earth, where only human beings can be married to a single other human being at any given time
if we are assuming that in space it is possible to be polyamorously married to various forms of alien, humanoid and otherwise, with variable lifespans and definitions of intimacy, we must also assume that the rules around the tax laws created to incentivize marriage must also be different
‘married filing jointly’ makes very little sense for situations where you are married to three people who each have their own spouses who may not be married to you, and furthermore the tax status is only necessary if what you are trying to encourage is long-term monogamous relationships (which i don’t think the empire or the republic particularly care about). and dependency rules about co-habitation do not make sense for species whose biology or culture negates the possibility of co-habitation even in closely intimate relationships (and definitely doesn’t make sense if someone’s job requires them to spend most of their time traveling through space hauling cargo, or if the government has mandated they work on another planet for some unspecified period of time)
(there is also no meaningful definition of ‘annually’ in the context of space taxes, and therefore taxation periods must be defined per-planet as lived on by the head of household)
(we must also assume that each planet has its own tax structure, and therefore what we are worried about here are republican or empirical taxes, or as they are colloquially known, ‘space taxes’, the taxes you pay to the space government as opposed to your planetary government)
in theory we could assume that the space government simply doesn’t incentivize marriage, because why would they, but that doesn’t work for fic purposes. therefore the most logical reason for the incentive is liability. in that case, each marriage would define one person as the head of household, and the other as a dependent–with the head of household being the person who is legally liable for the other’s taxes and whatnots. if a HoH also has legal access to the assets of their dependents, in order to maintain the household, this creates a set of checks and balances (as it were).
the person in a marriage defined as head of household must therefore be someone that the dependent trusts to be able to keep their shit in order, and the person defined as a dependent must be someone the head of household trusts not to totally bail on them with a bunch of federal property. who’s who therefore becomes a personal choice between the married individuals.
if we assume this stacks, then let’s say person A is married to person B, and person B is also married to person C. if person A is HoH in the first marriage, and person B is HoH in the second marriage, person A still gets access to all the assets of person C as the dependent of their dependent. this means if your husband is thinking about marrying some fucking rando, you’re incentivized to make sure everything is on the level so you don’t have some shady motherfucker with complete access to your assets, or alternately, the ability to make you legally liable for serious space crimes. this is the primary disincentive for fraud–marrying someone who wants to commit fraud is a fast track to either getting all your shit stolen or else ending up in jail for a crime you didn’t commit.
alternately, if lando is married to han, and leia is married to han, and lando and leia are both HoH, things get theoretically complicated. things can get split up according to various formulas, or one of them (leia, it’s leia) can claim more limited benefits in exchange for giving up the majority, as well as surrendering access to han’s assets or liability for his dumb horseshit (”don’t look at me, call his husband, i’m not responsible for that dingus i just have the option to be. you think i want access to his checking account? he’s got three dollars and a pack of gum in there.”). marriage in that case is more a matter of having familial access to your spouse (hospital visitation, etc).
the majority of incentives (in the form of exemptions, credits, etc) would be for the HoHs of dependents who do work the government particularly needs done, because government contractors are the ones the government is most worried about bailing off to nowhere planet with a bunch of stuff. a liability-based system makes it possible for the space government to go to their spouse like “hey… your husband took off with all our shit, pay up please”. therefore having certain kinds of dependent would alter the type of HoH someone is in order to determine what benefits they receive and what liabilities they are assumed to have taken on.
