Hello and thanks for reading.

As always, what I write is rooted in canon. Marlo the Hutt is a very minor character from Clone Wars. Major Davits Draven (later General Draven in Rogue One) is canon as well. He's the guy who orders Cassian Andor to kill Jyn Erso's father, the Death Star scientist Galen Erso. Pragmatic Draven is a Clone Wars veteran and the Rebel spymaster. He has no problem with assassination type tactics, making him one of the more ruthless Rebellion leaders. I thought he would be the perfect Rebel crony for Maul. Draven also appears in Twilight of the Gods when Vader's secret second wife presents the Rebellion with a plan to blow up Death Star 2 with Darth Sidious on it.

Rogue One and to some extent Star Wars Rebels show us the lack of unity and the wide spectrum of political and strategic viewpoints amid the fledgling Rebellion. These guys argue and do nothing in Rogue One when presented with the Death Star threat. Only once Jyn Erso and other rebels (including Raddus, who appears in this fic as well) take matters into their own hands, does the Rebellion take action. That internal lack of direction and diffuse leadership find their way into Rule of Two.

This period—the Imperial era—has been sort of light on material. Rebels and Solo show us some of what's going on in the Empire prior to the Rebellion. I'm hoping the Disney+ Cassian Andor show will give us more insight. This is the classic Star Wars time period of good guys versus bad guys, and it's been the locus of my recent stories. As usual, I'm playing against type. So Vader (the bad guy) is really trying to be the good guy in Twilight of the Gods. And bad guy Maul is doing good guy things here in Rule of Two. Moreover, the Rebellion itself is orchestrated in large part by Darth Plagueis, the behind-the-scene big baddie who becomes something of the behind-the-scene big good guy in Twilight of the Gods. He's the one left to pick up the pieces at the end.

You see what I'm doing here, right? So much of the drama in the Skywalker saga—well, really in all of Star Wars to date—comes from the 'will they/won't they?' setup of switching sides. Deeply embedded in the ethos of Star Wars is the idea of moral choice. That you choose to be good or you choose to be bad. You really can't question those categories. Rian Johnson tiptoed around them in Episode 8 giving us a regretful Kylo. And there are suggestions that Qui-Gon Jin isn't a straight arrow Jedi in Episode 1. But by and large, the Jedi are the good guys and the Sith are the bad guys. The choice is either/or and it's always signaled by the color of your sword and the color of your clothes.

Moreover, in the movies, you seem to exist as a Sith character to 1) die or 2) be redeemed and then die. The hard stuff of living post-redemption is ignored altogether by the convenient death of the Sith character. Vader dies in Luke's arms, Kylo dies in Rey's arms . . . it neatly avoids any issue of punishment going forward. This whole moral construct is rather simplistic and it fits with the George Lucas' original idea of fashioning a new cultural myth for kids. The problem is that as young fans grew to be middle aged fans, we started wanting more realism and depth to the saga.

Clone Wars gave that to us. Now, I won't say every episode was fantastic (I am not a fan of that overwrought Mortis arc so much that I have retconned it in stories like The Apprentice and Versions of You), but there is no denying that the Clone Wars story deepens and becomes rather alarmingly dark and adult at times. What Clone Wars did in general was to show us the grey areas of the Jedi and the Republic. In its later seasons, it even gives us grey characters. People like Ventress, Ahsoka, and Maul who have fallen out of their neat Jedi/Sith categories. They no longer follow masters and creeds. Their aims are for themselves to decide. That, readers, is uncharted territory for Force users in Star Wars. For even non-Force users in the original trilogy get the same 'choose your side' treatment, like Han Solo's character arc in Episode 4 (is he just in it for the money? Nope.) and Lando Calrissian in Episode 5 (did he really have no choice to betray his friends? When he has a choice, see what he chooses).

So what does it mean to be an unaffiliated Force user? What is your purpose? We know Ahsoka ends up with the Rebellion. Maul ends up at Crimson Dawn and, in my story, at the Rebellion as well. He has ulterior motives, naturally. But the real issue at the heart of this story is yet to be decided. It's the question spoken by Marlo the Hutt—what does Maul want? Yeah, yeah, I know the short answer: a Sith wants power. But what does that mean among the options available to Maul right now? Does that mean siding with Plagueis, who he worries will betray him? Or siding with Sidious, who might reject him again or betray him as well? And how much of a Sith is Maul at this point? I'm not talking about losing his 'Darth' title and Apprentice role, I'm talking about his mindset. Is power really what he's after? Moreover, what does it mean to be a Sith? Sidious and Plagueis have differing ideas.

Not knowing what you want is a brand-new plot for me. My other heroes always have a grand goal in mind. For if there is anything that defines the Sith ethos, it's ambition. Most want to rule the galaxy (Darth Sidious, Kylo Ren, sometimes Darth Plagueis). But there are other quests afoot as well. Darth Vader wants to save his son from the Emperor and live up to the Chosen One hype in Twilight. In The Apprentice, Darth Bane wants to save the Sith Empire from the Republic and bring back self-exiled Emperor Vitiate from the realm of Mortis. Plagueis and sometimes Kylo Ren (Son of Darkness) want to spearhead a religious reformation of the Force. Darth Malgus of DARKER wants to win the war against the Republic and to gain the respect of his disdainful Emperor. Darth Vitiate is just bored—whether he's bored ruling the Sith Empire (Taking the Veil) or bored jailed in the Force realm Mortis (Apprentice, Versions of You)—the galaxy's most insecure overlord is looking to make trouble and always finds it. But Darth Maul? Well Maul doesn't know what he wants.

That's chiefly because he's conflicted in his loyalties. But here's the twist, it's not the classic Dark-Light good versus evil conflict we're used to seeing in Star Wars. Maul's conflict is more personal. It's whether to oppose the father he still loves. Right now, Maul is keeping his options open to see how things develop. But given the right opportunity, he's basically already decided that he will attempt to reconcile with Darth Sidious. Rhea doesn't want this for him personally or for herself politically. She'll be saying so as she gains more confidence and standing in their relationship. I know where the story is heading, but I'm still not yet sure how to get there. So, it's time to pause and do some thinking. There are still major players to this plot who have yet to make an appearance.

So the Star Wars canon couple who set the backdrop for Maul and Rhea are, of course, Malgus and Eleena. For those who are unfamiliar, Star Wars Legends tells us that Darth Malgus discovered a young, abused Twi'lek slave girl named Eleena Daru who he took for his own. Malgus and Eleena ultimately became lovers, companions, and comrades in arms. It was a twisted relationship, with suggestions of emotional and physical abuse. Malgus feared his love for Eleena was a weakness unbecoming a Sith. His rivals knew of the relationship and used it against him. To resolve the issue, Malgus killed his beloved Eleena by driving a lightsaber through her heart.

In the Sith-iest trope of all tropes, Malgus pines and pines for his lost love (like Vader!). Eleena was his greatest weakness in life, but his greatest strength in death. Pain is a Sith thing and self-inflicted pain is apparently a super Sith thing. So . . . yeah, in canon, Malgus chooses power over love. And that quandary runs through all of my stories: what will you sacrifice for power? What will you sacrifice for love? Different Dark lords answer that question in different ways in my stories. I still get hate mail from how one of my earliest fan fictions stories answered that question. Clunky Fulcrum presents a horrifying but, I think, believable answer for Darth Ren (who since the story was written after TFA, is far more Dark than Kylo Ren's canon character turns out).

In my version of the Malgus-Eleena tale DARKER, the abusive master-slave girl dynamic is all an act. Just a public front of posturing designed to meet expectations. Honestly, I find the official version of Malgus and Eleena to be pretty distasteful. Not because I like to water down my Sith lords and their violence (I have written abusive, predatory lovers a time or two) but because the official Malgus seems a very unlikely guy to fall for some random slave girl. Frankly, he's got too much going for him to resort to stooping that far beneath him. But Maul is a different story. The guy is horribly injured with lasting, life changing ramifications. He loses his health and his future when he loses to Kenobi. Then, he loses his mind. Decades later when my story begins, he has rebuilt his life and his body some, but it's a pale and dissatisfying substitute for what he lost. Unlike Vader who gets to rule the galaxy after he loses everything, Maul gets no consolation prize. His lost glory haunts him. There will never be any amount of achievement that will offset what he lost. It's the heartache that will never ease and the wound that will never heal. He's equal parts embarrassed, ashamed, and disappointed.

But when Maul happens upon another damaged survivor in Rhea, he thinks he has found a kindred spirit. In many ways, he has. Her downward life trajectory is an accident of fate and it cannot compare to the meaning of Sith prince Maul's losses. But Rhea's losses (her family, her future, her face) are real and they profoundly affect her in very lasting ways. It gives Rhea and Maul common ground for a relationship. That's important because there is an enormous gulf of age, power, and experience between our lovers. It's unusual for my stories, frankly. I like age appropriate heroines who might not all have the Force, but they have plenty of other talents and expertise to compensate. Not so with Rhea, who has very little except for enthusiasm. But that lack of accomplishments makes her very safe for Maul who at all times can feel her superior in every respect. It's only with an impressionable, easily cowed, truly nice girl like Rhea that Maul will allow himself to be vulnerable.

Rhea—like many of my original character heroines—mostly exists to be the window through which we see our Dark hero's struggles and decisions. She is the sounding board and the sidekick. The hero's struggle becomes her struggle as well, for these women get caught up in the web of lies and conflicts that surround their Dark lord. Some of my heroines make choices that reverberate with major consequences. See, for example, Tosca who keeps Lord Vitiate's son in Taking the Veil. That boy is every threat Vitiate has ever feared, and thwarting that kid's rise will change the course of history in the Ancient Republic-Ye Olde Sith Empire conflict in DARKER. Or consider Shan's very bad decision to take refuge at a Jedi Temple that gets her and her unborn baby stripped of their Force powers in (the admittedly very cheesy) Fifth Wife. Plagueis gets a son with no Force (the horror!) and that will later spur him to attempt to make one in the Force, which we all know becomes Vader. Anyhow, the main point of the heroine is to be relatable. To be the person with whom our Sith can be vulnerable.

A word about mommy issues. Maul's big drama is his conflict with his father figure Sidious. Contrast that with his witch mama Mother Talzin who loves Maul and saves him twice—first from insanity and then from death at the hands of a very angry Sidious (this occurs in a comic book, I think. It never got made as a Clone Wars episode after Disney bought the franchise and cancelled the series). Let's give Mother Talzin some respect, folks. That's one badass bitch. Don't get on this gal's bad side. She goes toe-to-toe with Sidious' Force lightning and possesses Dooku with her Dark magic. She's neither Jedi nor Sith, but something far more primal and scary. In my mind, she's like Erda in Wagner's Ring cycle.

Seriously, her canon story is AMAZING. She has some unwritten personal history with Dooku in his Jedi years. Dooku did something to help Mother Talzin in the waning days of the Republic—we don't know what. Years later, they are enemies and Mother Talzin is particularly cruel in her treatment of Dooku. Watch Clone Wars—she uses him like a voodoo doll. Old love affair that ended badly? Hmmm . . . you decide. Then, there is Darth Sidious' murky relationship with Mother Talzin. Up and coming Senator Sidious shows up to trade knowledge with the witches in the years before the Clone Wars. He promptly runs off with Talzin's son Maul. That sets into motion an amazing story of vengeance and conflicted loyalties that results in the Maul character of this story. Oh Mommy Talzin, we hardly knew ye! She's the femme fatale of Dathomir, who lures the two most influential political figures and Force heavyweights of the late Republic to her lair. She and her Nightsisters literally raise the dead to create an army—are you watching, Darth Plagueis the Wise? Take notes! She has incredible power and both direct and indirect influence on galactic events. For all those Star Wars fans who complain about lack of female representation, look no farther than Mother Talzin. She's the real deal.

Best of all, she's so wholly female in her mindset. Not just some male villain retconned from a male character like Phasma. Talzin is first and foremost a mother—her name even says it—and much of her character interactions-what she does, how she acts, what she wants—are all intrinsically female. There's a story there and I will write it someday even though no one will read it. I've been wanting to write a female Dark Force user heroine.

Anyhow, I digress. I write for stress relief and I need that lately more than ever these days. Times are hard economically, politically, and for me personally as well. After Mr. Blue's 2018 accident, things were finally looking up. After three surgeries and thirteen months of wheelchairs, walkers, scooters, and canes, all the bones were healed and he was moving short distances and driving and traveling independently. I got Mr. Blue a new physical therapist/trainer team to help him regain strength and lost health. We were going to eat cleanly to get some of that wheelchair weight off. I even announced to the kids that 2020 would be our Year of Fun. We booked a spring break family vacation. It was something to look forward to and to work forward to so that he could be physically strong enough to fully participate. You know what happens next: COVID changed all that and brought an entirely new set of challenges.

Now, normally, I am up for that sort of thing. I'm a rally-the-troops, let's-do-this, we-can-think-through-this-problem sort of person. Except after spending more than a year in that mode, I have crisis fatigue. So when I had to get my seven year old COVID tested last week, our housekeeper is praying a novena and my husband can't sleep but I just took a bath and went to bed. Because I am way past being stressed out about anything now. I figure I'll just have to deal with the test result and the consequences whatever they are. Thankfully, Little Blue Two was negative. But the very next day, Little Blue One got a concussion, so there is no rest for the weary.

Readers, I have problems, so many problems. I know I'm not alone. But the normal respites of life to deal with them are mostly no longer available. I legit cried in the car by myself after I heard the news that the fall Met Opera season was cancelled. I know what you're thinking—of all the sad things going on, that's what you cry over? Yes. Cue the privilege and 'first world problems' comments. Opera is my happy place and it's closed now too. Life is just a lot of unrelenting bad news right now. So I write to forget.

But as everyone sits in various degrees of quarantine (we're scaling back reopening and heading for a second lockdown where I live), new readers have found my Reylo stories. They must have read everything else out there, for I am assuredly the Reylo author of last resort. Well, the private messages and reviews are in and they're not good. Here's an example: this morning, I read a fifteen paragraph review of a fairly innocuous story telling me how horrible my characterization is and how depressingly banal it all is. The same reader told me they had read all of my Reylo and Reylo-related fics (which is a huge undertaking) so they had done their due diligence to form an opinion. Well, okay. Thanks for reading . . . I guess.

That sort of thing happens from time to time these days. It's discouraging. Not because I have any literary delusions of grandeur, but because it sort of kills the stress release to have the stories themselves become a source of stress. Especially stories I wrote years ago and have pretty much forgotten.

I love Star Wars and I like to fill in the blanks in the history and in the characters. That's not always pretty. Some heroes have flaws. Most make mistakes. Moreover, most of my endings are a mixed bag of happy/sad. Characters get what they want but they lose a lot along the way, or they don't get what they want but they gain things they didn't realize they needed, or they get what they want and realize they never wanted it in the first place. But however they end up, they are changed for the experience.

There is a common metaphor for life being a journey. I hate it. Because it implies you are going somewhere different. I guess I'm middled aged now, so life is half done. Have I gone anywhere? Not really. A lot has happened, but it seems like I have become more fully myself, in good ways and bad ways. Not that I am heading to someplace new or to becoming someone new. At this point, I know that happy endings are real, but they take effort for them to endure. And sometimes, no matter how hard you and everyone else tries, there is no happy ending. At least, not the shiny, happy Disney ending we are all conditioned to want.

It floors me just how strong the pull is for HEA. All along, my notes indicated that Twilight of the Gods would follow canon and we've all seen ROTJ, right? We know how Vader ends. And yet still . . . people complained about my (and George Lucas') ending. It brings home just what a novice writer I truly am because the point of Twilight of the Gods is how Vader gets to that moment in the throne room and what that moment means to him. I was trying to write a redemption tale—the kind of tale I have never written for Kylo Ren—to show the meaning and the cost of that sacrifice. That really mattered to me after the mess of TROS that totally retconned ROTJ. Anyhow, that story was a bust. And maybe the answer is that the canon itself is a bust now too. I worry Rule of Two is a bust in the making as well. But if nothing else, it will have relieved some of my lockdown boredom. Hopefully, some of yours as well.

Anyhow, the point is that writing is my stress release and it's becoming a source of stress unto itself. And that makes me want to take a break for a bit. I'll be back with more. I just need to think it through and get in the right headspace to write it. The latter might be the harder task, I fear.