"Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What's important is the action. You don't have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow."--Carrie Fisher

Emoji queen. Dog lover. Princess. General. Space mom. Drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra.

These are just a few of the ways people have described Carrie Fisher over the course of her life. She was born to Hollywood royalty Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher; her parents divorced when she was two, with her father moving on to her mother's close friend Elizabeth Taylor and her mother marrying a man who secretly spent her life savings. She was known as the bookworm of the family, and in high school, she enjoyed writing poetry. Her acting career started at age 15, and in 1977, she made history as the fearless Princess Leia Organa in Star Wars: A New Hope, and continued to portray her in The Empire Strikes Back, The Return of the Jedi, The Force Awakens, and the unreleased Episode VIII. In addition to the Star Wars franchise, Carrie Fisher was in multiple other movies and TV shows, and was one of the top script doctors in Hollywood. George Lucas himself hired her to edit his scripts, including those for the infamous Star Wars prequels. She wrote a one woman show called Wishful Drinking, which she turned into a book; her other books include Surrender The Pink, Delusions of A Grandma, Postcards from the Edge, The Best Awful There Is, Shockaholic, and The Princess Diarist, which was released in November 2016.

Star Wars has always been a story about hope, and that's what Carrie Fisher gave to so many people. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at the age of 24, and used pain medication and cocaine (which she realized she was addicted to during the filming of The Empire Strikes Back) to "contain" the effects of the disorder. In 2008, she discussed her ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) which she used to "blow apart the cement in my brain." In 2014, she stopped ECT, but continued speaking out about mental illness. At Indiana Comic Con in 2015, when a young boy asked what bipolar means, she explained that "it makes you go very fast, or very sad, or both...just like everyone else, only louder and faster and sleeps more."

Carrie's daughter, Billie Lourd, is an actress herself, starring as Chanel #3 on the show Scream Queens as well as making a cameo appearance alongside her mom in The Force Awakens. They were very close, and reports indicate that Billie will now take care of her mom's dog Gary.

"My daughter, she tells me when she grows up she wants to be a singer or a comic. I said 'Well, baby, if you wanna be a comic, you gotta be a writer. But don't worry, you've got tons of material: your mother is a manic depressive drug addict. Your father's gay. Your grandmother tap dances and your grandfather eats hearing aids.' And my daughter laughs and laughs and laughs and I said 'Baby, the fact that you know that's funny is gonna save your whole life.'"--Carrie Fisher on her daughter

(screen grab from Mark Hamil's social media tribute to his costar)

Carrie Fisher is a legend. In The Princess Diarist, she revealed that she and Harrison Ford had an affair during the filming of the Star Wars movies. In the 1980s, Dan Ackroyd saved her life by performing the Heimlich maneuver on her while she was choking on a Brussels sprout, and they almost got married. Her Tweets were almost exclusively in an emoji alphabet of her creation. Her emotional support dog, Gary, a French bulldog, is a star in his own right.

When the news broke, there was an outpouring of grief from fans from all over the world. She was even given a fanmade star on the Hollywood walk of fame, which her onscreen brother Mark Hamil honored with a lightsaber:

And Twitter, where Carrie reigned with an emoji alphabet, was filled with other stars describing how she had shaped their lives:

"Carrie Fisher taught me that bipolar disorder is a legitimate chemical setback that is worth battling and that the pain is temporary." - Chris Biehn

"Carrie Fisher was one of the people that helped me realize that you could be self destructive and still come back from the edge and live." - Kerri Green on Twitter

"I am slightly comforted by the fact that if good wished and fandom love *could* save someone, Carrie Fisher would have been immortal."-- author Lisa Mantchev (@lisamantchev)

"her legacy is a galaxy. if you can talk about mental illness because Carrie talked about it, keeping shining, little star."--author Emery Lord (@emerylord)

"Carrie Fisher dedicated her platform to mental health awareness & female empowerment. She is a reason + reminder to keep up your fight. RIP."--singer Halsey (@halsey)

Even those of us without celebrity status are trying to find ways to appropriately mourn and honor our hero, who was so much more than just a princess.

"I always knew her as Princess Leia, space princess of all space princesses. Then I got older and I learned more about her life and her hardships and she became space mom. Carrie Fisher cared for everyone, and more importantly herself. She pushed forward in Hollywood and showed herself to everyone so they knew her authentic self, and told everyone to do the same. She said screw you to anyone who looked down on her for her mental illness or past troubles. That's a hero."--Amanda Gillespie, St. Joesph's College

This article can't appropriately express the sadness I personally feel over this loss. Carrie Fisher was so much to so many: a leader, an inspiration, a badass, a fighter, a hero. Her death has left the world a little more cold, but we all know that the brightest star in the sky is Carrie, looking down on us, encouraging us to be our most unapologetic selfs.

You will be greatly missed Carrie. May the Force be with you always.

Note: In the time it took me to write this article, it was announced that Carrie's mother, Debbie Reynolds, was rushed to the hospital and shortly after passed away. I think I speak for the entire Odyssey community when we say our thoughts and prayers are with the Fisher, Lourd, and Reynolds families.