Hello and thanks for reading. Here are a few thoughts on the story so far.

I have written a lot of versions of Kylo. Some, like the Fulcrum stories written after The Force Awakens, seem very wrong in retrospect of how the characters evolved in episodes 8 and 9. This version of Kylo is closest to the 'on a mission from God' space pope Kylo of Son of Darkness. This Kylo is a man who owns his story—mistakes and all—with regrets but with no apologies. He is neither redeemed nor Light, but he's not a Sith either. He's something new and different, and that's the point of him.

I hate all the missed opportunity of episode 9. Kylo should have been the hero, and not for his sacrifice at Exogol but for his triumph. He is, after all, the last true Skywalker and he has all the knowledge of the Jedi and the Sith. Killing him was such cowardly writing in my opinion. It leaves our heroine Rey in a terrible spot, too.

I like Kylo to be driven by big ideas, rather than simply personal grievance and ambition. I also like how bold he is. Kylo makes big moves—take for example, how he handles things in Snoke's throne room. The man knows what he wants and he's unafraid to take it. He controls his own narrative. The moment when he turns down Rey's plea to call off the Crait attack makes that clear. I hope that Kylo in this story retains that same dynamic character. Whether it's restarting the war, plotting for Rey, or plotting for peace, he is aggressive yet principled. Those two aspects, I think, make him very like his grandfather.

Kylo's talents are more than the Force. He has his mother's political strategy, his grandfather's military cunning, and his father's improvisation. That combination of traits makes him a very formidable figure. Too often, I feel like Star Wars conflicts are reduced to Force skills and lightsabers. That's too limiting. Remember that we didn't see Palpatine whip out a sword until episode 3. Palpatine accomplished quite a bit with manipulation and strategy. I like to think Kylo is similarly a multi-talented guy. His power and success come from more than the Force.

Scavenger Rey doesn't have those leadership skills. She's a Force prodigy with great survival skills and good instincts. While those are laudable and certainly necessary for Jakku, Rey is not well equipped for her role advising the Senate and rebuilding the Jedi Order. She struggles. Some things don't come easy to her, like the Force does, namely personal interactions. I think that frustration makes Rey more interesting. She wants to do the right thing but she doesn't know what that means. The cautionary example of Luke Skywalker looms large over her. At times, it paralyzes Rey because she is still so influenced by the Jedi/Sith/good guy/bad guy dichotomy that she fully bought into before she even met a Skywalker. Frankly, it's a lot to expect of Rey to succeed where Luke Skywalker failed. I think that might be the most depressing part of the Episode 9 ending—poor Rey with nothing but old books to guide her. What might she do? What role might she play in the victorious Republic? I tried to imagine some of that.

Rey has issues—deep and lasting issues that the Force cannot fix. A lot of fans seem to overlook that power does not make you happy nor does it necessarily make you successful. See, for example, the aforementioned Luke Skywalker, Ben Kenobi, and any number of other characters. Where does that leave Rey? Deeply in need of guidance, and not merely instruction in Force tricks. But our Rey is very independent and does not accept help easily, especially when it comes from Kylo on the Dark Side. She's too afraid that he will corrupt her. You know that whole 'once you start down the Dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny' Jedi teaching. The Dark Side does not have to dominate your destiny—that was the whole point of the throne room scene in Episode 6. But neither does the Light Side insulate you from mistakes, and that's the whole point of Luke Skywalker attempting to kill his nephew in Episode 8. This moral complexity—that the right course of action might sometimes be Dark and sometimes be Light—flies in the face of everything Rey believes. Kylo Ren is that idea incarnate (so is she, but Rey can't see it). And so, it is through her relationship with Kylo that Rey comes to better understand the Force.

My Kylo is resurrected unredeemed. This is key. He's not sorry. He is willing to fight Palpatine and to revive Rey but that doesn't make him a good guy. It makes him the bad guy who does good things. Moreover, the First Order Kylo champion has some legitimate beefs. In canon, we never really know what the First Order stands for other than reviving the Empire. No one explains why this goal is worth destroying Hosnia. In addition, there is the suggestion that a lot of First Order supporters are conscripts like Finn. I dove deep into this story vacuum to construct my own political background. It's all based heavily on my rise of the First Order/rise of Kylo Ren and the Knights of Ren origin story, The Searchers. The Searchers was inspired by the events and ideas leading up to the US presidential elections, and so a flavor of that exists here in Epilogue as well. But I want to ground those ideas in Star Wars lore, going back to the prequel era of the Separatist movement.

Basically, it all has to hang together. The galactic politics has to make sense and be sufficiently toxic enough to merit people volunteering to go to war. Just blaming it all on Snoke/Sidious is not credible in my eyes. The Sith harness grievance for their own ambitions, but that grievance exists independently. I'm trying to explain why the First Order arose, why they felt destroying Hosnia is a good choice, and what that might mean in the immediate aftermath of Exogol. Like how angry are these people at the Republic and why? So welcome to dysfunctional Weimar Germany in the Outer Rim where my version of the First Order operates along the lines of the militant/political/social services organization Hezbollah as a 'state within a state' driven by opposition to the Republic and resistance to the culture of the Core. Affinity for the First Order is more akin to tribal allegiance than it is to citizenship. People's hearts are hardened and cynicism reigns due to generations of colonialism at work. It all has inspiration in real world ideas, like most everything I write. Everything from Brexit to recent American civil disobedience on the Left and on the Right influenced these themes. There's a dash of Edward Said in there as well.

So, what if the bad guy does good things on occasion? What if he might have some meritorious personal and political complaints? What then? It's a quandary Rey must reconcile. Can you be evil/dark and be right? What might that look like? We know you can be good/Light and be wrong. Dismantling the simple moral constructs of Star Wars is sort of my thing. You see hints of it in canon material like Rogue One, The Mandalorian, and The Last Jedi. For Star Wars, like the Marvel universe, has a knack for introducing very adult themes and conflicts into kids' fantasy.

So how does Rey make the leap to true understanding for Kylo? First, through the bond, the Force keeps pushing term together, making them contend with one another. Then Rey inadvertently trends Dark herself trying to do the right thing. You can lose your way trying to help. You can make things worse with good intentions. Rey sees this firsthand when she spirals fast into Darkness. We've seen flashes of it before, but it gets free reign on Jakku and suddenly she has yellow eyes of desperation.

Now, I'm on record for saying I'm not a huge fan of the Force bond. It makes for cool scenes in the movies but it is a too convenient plot device. Like the Force itself, it is such a vague idea that you can use it to explain away just about any situation. The dyad sounds so romantic, doesn't it? But what does it mean is practice? I think it means Rey and Kylo continually influence one another to the extent that they keep switching places. This extends an idea that exists in many of my stories-that the Chosen One Skywalkers are descendants of the Force itself and thus equal parts Dark and Light and hero and villain. Depending on the circumstances, you can see all facets of them. They are capable of anything and everything. By their very natures, the Chosen Ones are conflicted. The Force bond amps that up. And so you see Rey trending Dark while Kylo trends Light and vice versa. At times, she's in the right. At times he is. Things are very much in flux. For Rey, who wants bright line moral rules, the complexity is befuddling and disappointing.

What if neither side has true moral authority? What is there is wrongdoing by both the Republic and the First Order? I envision the galaxy like the Middle East writ large. There have been atrocities on both sides and the resulting zealotry seems to be everyone's default setting. Compromise is hard because empathy is far more short supply than grievance. Peace will be hard to achieve, and the sides will have to be forced to the table. Even if we get to peace, it will be tense and tenuous.

I ended Part One with Rey and Kylo apart and angry. Part Two ends with our lovers together, but separated by duty. Can they keep their relationship together through tough negotiations? Can they maintain their secret and achieve peace? Next up is Reylo in love, trying to divide the galaxy rather than unite it. It's a recognition that the Republic doesn't work for all people, and it's a compromise that won't be popular in all corners of the galaxy.

I'm writing this almost a year to the day when this crazy pandemic took over my life. A lot has happened since then, but a lot happened before that cultural moment as well. Frankly, life had me pretty exhausted going into all the Covid drama. I was so drained—my family and my marriage were so drained—going into this bizarre period. At first, when this was supposed to be a temporary 'two weeks to flatten the curve' situation, I was determined to emerge on the other side new and improved. So I began my new home fitness routine and I was doubling down on skincare and cooking 3 meals a day at home. Within weeks, I dropped all that and just wanted to survive quarantine with my mental health and my family intact. Home schooling was a nightmare, constant togetherness had its drawbacks, the stress of the outside world blared at me from every screen, and most of life's fun diversions were gone. After a few weeks of coping with long walks and nightly double bourbons, the beach was closed and the drinking was clearly counterproductive. All that was left was writing, so I began typing Rule of Two out of self-preservation. Creativity is a good stress release for me.

I'm afraid to go back to read Rule of Two because what I write is only superficially about Star Wars. It's actually about me, about things that bother me, and about people I know. Rule of Two, my first pandemic project, is mostly about a character stuck longing for a past he hopes to recover but isn't sure he ever will. His life is on pause for years as he muddles through the day to day, knowing it's not enough and fearful for what the future holds. He feels powerless, even though he has more power than most. Mostly, he is afraid to recognize that his life has changed and will never be the same so he needs to reset his expectations. You're getting the Covid angle here, right? Rule of Two is all about loneliness and lassitude. If my husband ever learns I write this crap and reads that one, I am in big trouble. Hopefully, if that ever comes to pass, he will read Twilight of the Gods and recognize more things there instead.

I wish I could put succinct words to all this like the poets Kate Baer or Amanda Gorman. That I could capture the complexity and conflicts of my world and of my feelings in something worthy. But I don't have that precision or talent. So it comes out in overly long, needlessly complicated stories about Star Wars. It's a strange, embarrassing hobby that I can't seem to quit. An escapism that balances the banal everyday.

Stories beget more stories. And so, Rule of Two landed me here writing an Episode 9 fix-it fic, something I said I would never do. Because as all this dragged on and the immediate crises of buying toilet paper gave way to serious concerns about my country, I picked up the paused story The Searchers and started venting in text. That fic is a Kylo Ren/First Order origin story, and it got me focused on the Ben Solo character again. And that's how I ended up here, rewriting the end of the sequel trilogy to fit into my own private Star Wars multiverse. (Re: The Searchers: I promise, I will finish it! It's all leading up to the big confrontation between Leia and Ben that is missing from canon due to Carrie Fisher's untimely death. Ben fully becomes Kylo in the moment he breaks with his mother.).

Revisiting Reylo was never the plan—Count Dooku was next up on my list of Sith stories. But . . . here I am. Reylo has probably run its course on the internet by now. I'm not sure. I don't participate in that sort of thing. I tried on early on lurking in a fan fiction discussion group. It was disproportionately focused on sex, and that was a huge turnoff. I'm no prude, but I had to google the various subgenre requests I read. It was an education I'd rather not have. It will never cease to amaze me that voices shouting 'no kink shaming' are often the same sort of young people arguing for prim and rigid codes of behavior between the sexes in modern life. Yes, I understand that there is a big difference between fantasy and real life. But make a bad pass at a woman these days and you risk being canceled or called out as a harasser or even an assailant. For certain, you could be investigated or fired. Maybe some men fit that description and merit that treatment, but not all awkward or aggressive guys are Harvey Weinstein or Bill Cosby. Sex has long been a topic rife with miscommunication and misunderstandings. Nothing has changed and likely never will in modern societies wherein sex no longer has any rules and anything goes.

But I digress. I'm not here to point out the many inconsistencies of wokeness and the thorny problems of sex. I'm here because I really need the escape of Star Wars. My husband caught Covid and ended up in the hospital for a week. He could barely stand when he was released, he was so weak. The kids and I were fine, but that was a month I would like to forget. Daddy came home from the hospital but Grandpa didn't. We buried him last month after a delay due to a freak snowstorm, of all things. What's next in this slow rolling apocalypse? Who knows? I'm no longer hoping to debut a brand new and improved me when this all ends. I'm just trying to hold it together. There isn't enough undereye concealer to hide months of stress. And even double spanx won't hide my blossoming pandemic thighs and increasingly lymphedemic right leg. Sigh. The pandemic has aged me ten years, like it has aged everyone else. My last true (well, only) social event was the funeral and as I looked around at friends and family who I hadn't seen in many months the truth was undeniable: we all look tired and old. Experience has left its mark and it's pricking my vanity. Moreover: I want a damn year back of my life.

I'm fully vaccinated now, which is great. I'm going to celebrate by going to a lunch with a very glamorous friend soon. I'm planning to wear a dress from last spring that hangs in my closet unworn with tags. It came shipped from Italy. When it arrived, I recall that joking that maybe I should Lysol the box. The dress shipped last February when Covid was getting bad in Italy. Little did we know that Lysol comment was not a joke. A month later I would be spraying disinfectant on pizza boxes and going to the market in leftover surgical gloves from cleaning wound sites from Mr. Blue's accident. I really hope that dress still fits. It was a splurge bought during a simpler time that I would like to relive. Maybe if I can squeeze into the dress and don the still-in-their-boxes shoes and purse bought to match, I can be the Mrs. Blue from the before times. A woman who had places to go and people to see and a reason to get dressed in more than a 'mom uniform' of t-shirts, Levis and Birkenstocks 24-7/365.

So, this being one of my stories, no doubt some readers are anticipating the worst. I will never live down the ending to Fulcrum, even though I like it (it's the beginning of Fulcrum that makes me cringe.) But rest assured, I wouldn't be writing this if I liked the Episode 9 downer ending. I honestly don't know the full arc of this story yet, but it will probably end with my usual mix of good and bad. We'll see where it goes. There is a lot of conflict left to be resolved. Again, thanks for reading.