Seriously though, this scene. WHY DID THEY DELETE THIS SCENE?
And as they went away with Luke letting Han’s hand trail out of his, I thought, “…as though millions of Han/Luke shipper voices suddenly cried out and were silenced.”
In all my days I’ve never shipped this till…
Welp, if I didn’t ship it before…
True story from ancient fandom corner: people did ship it, and that shit was stomped on harder than any slash has ever been stomped on. There were lawsuits. SW slash went WAY underground–even in the days when all slash was underground. There were ‘zines, but they were precious as carbuncles and basically if you had one or wrote in one you were like a fucking badass slash bandit.
I may have reblogged this before but I am compelled to do so again.
Let’s all raise a glass to the badass slash bandits who have come before.
I never shipped it before but holy hell
Aw, Han/Luke was my first otp. I got into slash just as internet fanfic groups were on the rise and zines were fading out, so I had never even heard of the Lucasfilm vs. The Fans drama until now.
But yes, when I was really, really into Star Wars, H/L was THE main slash pairing, and there were sooo many good pages dedicated to hosting fan works. (My favorite H/L fanwork archive, btw, was Elusive Lover, which was also a zine at one point. I’m sad to see it’s no longer hosted! :( So many good fics and art there.)
Then the prequel trilogy happened and most everyone’s slashing efforts went to Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan and later Obi-Wan/Anakin, and the flow of new Han/Luke fic & art slowed to a trickle.
Anyway it’s really sweet to see folks discovering this pairing for the first time. If you’re willing to dig a little, there are still countless treasure troves of H/L fanwork out there, from the previous generations of SW Slash fans.
Elusive Lover is still available via the WayBack machine.
