With today's publishing of Chapter 20, the first half of this story is officially over. What started off as two paragraphs of conjecture on a Discord server became a novel and a half's worth of writing, consuming months of my life, stretching my ability as a writer, and becoming something that I'm immensely proud of. It's messy in places, I made a few missteps, and I still have my characters sigh way too often., but I'm happy so far. There's a few things I want to ramble about so I'll chuck them here, mostly for my own closure than for anything else.

Story and Stuff

There's no use me repeating what happened in the story already and it'd take too long anyway. Going from writing Ezrabine garbage to writing more general garbage was an interesting jump, but people seemed to enjoy it. I had the opportunity to use characters outside of the Ghost crew and this story gave me a chance to experiment with a couple of different things. I wrote Ezra and Sabine in much the same way as I'd written them before, albeit with less focus on how much they make a damn near perfect couple. Using Hera wasn't too much of a change, and I didn't use her as much as some of the other main characters of this tale.

Thrawn, Ahsoka, Luke, and Jacen proved to be the most difficult characters to write, for different reasons. Ahsoka just had no exact frame of reference to base her character on since she could well have changed so much after Malachor. I wanted to do my best to keep some sort of mystery and power about her, hence the crazy force stuff she can do, but also keep the lighthearted person she has been since her Clone Wars days. Luke was mostly based of Jedi Outcast/Jedi Academy Luke since it's the better fit for his role than a more OT Luke or miserable old ST Luke. Jacen was hard because toddlers are difficult, not much to explain there really. Finally, there's Thrawn. I have to admit, Thrawn was the one I enjoyed writing most of all because he's just a fun character to play with. The eloquent language and sense of calm control is just really satisfying to engage with, no matter how well you capture it in the end. His plan for Ezra/Luke has to be my single favourite aspect of this story, it's definitely one of the things that took the most effort to work into dialogue and scenes without making it too obvious or compromising his motivations. Thrawn is sort of the anti-hero of this, he's still the same villain from Rebels but he's the lesser of two evils compared with the Inquisitor and the Voice talking to her.

Before I move on, there is one massive error/omission I made a while ago that I never corrected - Thrawn's journal entries. The first ten chapters had small introductory paragraphs similar to the first canon Thrawn book that functioned sort of as the 'message' of that particular section but I ended up forgetting to add one in for chapter eleven, then twelve, and then for the rest of the story. I don't think I'll pick them up again for the future, they started to get a bit samey in my head so that's probably why I dropped them, but I am sorry for the stylistic inconsistency in that regard.

The Future

The whole point of the second half of this story is to confront the Voice. I'm calling it 'the Voice' because I need something to call it in the author's notes until I get a name for it. The characters will refer to it by whatever they know it as, if they know it at all, but I'll just call it 'the Voice.'

I won't give any massive spoilers for the second half but I will give a general idea of what's to come. The focus moves away from Rebels a bit and becomes something that's more widely Star Wars than the first half was. Rebels is still a huge part of it, whole plot lines are rooted in it, but the second half isn't picking up from Rebels like the first half did.

The first half had three main story threads going on alongside two semi-major ones: Ezra, Thrawn, and Ahsoka and Sabine were the main ones that were in all/nearly all of the chapters, while Hera and the Fourth Sister had their own side-plots. Hera's was pretty self contained and mostly occurred in the first few chapters while the Fourth Sister's came more towards the end and was quite heavily tied to Thrawn's. The second half is focused on three threads, plus one that's deeply tied to another. It's probably no surprise that Thrawn's is one of the main plots and then the Fourth Sister's is linked with him. The other two will be made up of the other characters, but in what combination and what role they have will be kept quiet for now. Suffice it to say, it lets me explore some different character dynamics, as well as some familiar ones, and puts me in the best position to give them the sort of progression or resolution that I want.

My plans for the future of this story have crystallised as I've written, and several ideas that are now core to the story and its characters were barely thought of, if at all, when I set out. The general story is the same but there's a few character arcs and ideas that have developed and made themselves clear organically as I go. In the last few days I've nailed down the last decision I'd been unsure of so now pretty much every single story beat is set in stone. Some of the finer details are still WIP, and the story is pretty much the same as what it is when I planned it at the start, but with these last details locked in I'm clear about where I'm headed.

There's really nothing specific I can give about the future of the plot that I haven't already said. It will tie in to other areas of Star Wars and seek to explain or build on things that have been mentioned before, such as the idea of the compasses that I've started with in this half. I hope I've at least interested some of you enough to come back for the second half. The second half is going to wrap up most questions I've raised, and a few wider ones that I wanted to give an answer to, and I promise it's not a series of events that every character is going to make it out of...

Finally, I will say that work on Chapter 21 has actually begun so I have started chipping away at the remainder. I like to write several chapters in advance of what I publish so don't expect 21 next week or anything, but things are actually moving with it.

Specific Acknowledgements

Just before I go, I do need to mention one or two people in particular. I think the first has to be WestwardGlance not only for his own stories (I probably don't need to tell you guys to go read them now, who here hasn't?) but for all the support he has given to me over these last few months. He proof-read my first chapters, gave me advice on story decisions I haven't been sure on, and has diligently read and reviewed everything I've put out. He has also permanently infected me with the Oxford comma, so he's the one to blame if you love it or hate it. I owe him a massive debt of gratitude... and a whole lot of apologies for taking digs at beards so often.

There's also RagnarDanneskjold who I always owe a thank you to for getting me into fanfic in the first place. I think he was the first person I pitched this idea to months ago and he's also been following the last few months too. I also have to thank him for getting the word out about this story on Reddit. I really appreciate the extra publicity.

All the other writers in our little network deserve a shout-out. SweetSinger2010, ddaulton94, springfieldbluebird, and TheYellowLantern, as well as a few other non-writers whose names I'm not sure I should put here but are still awesome.

I'll Stop Now I Promise

I swear a good 10-15% of this story has been author's notes so I'll put a lid on it here. The last thing I have to say is a thank you to all the regular readers and reviewers who've given up their time to have a look at this. It's hard to communicate how nice it is to have feedback and to know there's people who check in every few days/weeks to catch up on the stuff you throw together. I'm extremely grateful for all the 25,000+ people who have dropped by since July and I hope I can see a lot of you again for when I get around to finishing this.

Until I get the chance to come back again, thank you,
- Lothcat1138

TL;DR - Loved writing this, work has begun on part 2 but don't expect to see it for a couple months, all you guys are awesome.