LadyRhi Romantic FanFic

Title Reveal...

As Stars Through Our Souls by LadyRhi on AO3

Chapter XXI: But Dawn Will Come

Sneak Peek...

"You've been selfless for me," she insisted. "You killed Snoke. Whatever you said after, I know none of that was on your mind in that moment."

"Being unwilling to lose what I love isn't selfless, Rey. It's the opposite," Ben told her, shaking his head in denial.

"But not to me," Rey whispered, eyes trailing along the jagged edge of the scar she'd marked him with only days before he'd stood to risk everything for her.

Resting her fingertips on the back of his hand as he continued to stroke Bump absentmindedly, she met his wavering gaze.

“You said that saving the baby absolved me of turning to the Dark Side for the power I needed. How was your defense of me any different?” she reminded him. “It’s subjective, I know. Not many would agree, but it’s the only way we can… forgive ourselves.”

Chapter Title Reveal Soon to Come...

As Stars Through Our Souls by LadyRhi on AO3

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New to the story?

Go back to the beginning of this post-TLJ romance:

Chapter I: Wake Me to Dream Once More

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Looking to catch up?

Pop by and read the most recent chapter:

Chapter XX: And Darkness Embrace Me

Dear ASTOS Readers,

I wanted to take a moment to come by and say THANK YOU for all of the support & kind words you’ve shared with me. Logging into AO3 and Tumblr to find your messages has been like receiving a big hug!

I know I’d said there wouldn’t be a hiatus for ASTOS, but I found that I needed to take a breath and leave fandom spaces for a while after publishing Chapter 20. There were two main reasons I chose to give myself this break...

The first is my dog, Rowan. Two years ago, she was diagnosed with heart disease, and recently, I learned that the medications she’s been on to treat it have affected her kidneys. That was very hard news to hear from the vet. She’s my bestie and my baby, so I had to give her the time & attention she deserves while we worked to stabilize her condition. There’s no ‘cure’ for her unfortunately, but she’s doing much better and back to being her happy little self.

My second reason is that my heart needed some time to heal. That sounds sappy, I know, but I put everything into writing Ben & Rey as I do, and having people cast hate on my story was devastating. Closing down my Twitter and withdrawing from Discord servers has been a much-needed emotional detox, and I can finally think about Reylo fanfic without my chest growing tight. It’s been genuinely liberating.

Please remember something, friends ~ If you are a writer, artist, or fan who becomes targeted by others within the fandom for what you create, enjoy, or how you interact, take that step away and prioritize your mental wellbeing. You are worth far more than anything a bully who doesn’t know you (and will never bother to try) can say about you.

Phew. That got heavy, huh?

It’s way too late to ‘make a long story short,’ but the good news I’m itching to share with you is this:

Chapter 21 is on its way!

I sat down over the weekend and wrote my heart out! It’s still in the early writing stage, which is why this isn’t an official teaser post, but I’m so gosh darn excited about it that I had to give you friends an update. Our little Force family will be back and getting to have a well-deserved cuddle after what I put them through in Chapter 20. Expect sweet nothings, Bump cuteness, and some answers to lingering questions... as well as the return of sexy times. *wink*

To Read or Not to Read?

I read an article yesterday in which Mac Walters, a writer behind a popular video game franchise, discussed fans' reactions (expected & unexpected) to the characters he worked to bring to life. There were some the audience embraced wholeheartedly, but others who were largely ignored, or even caused outrage. The writer can't control how their creation will be received, regardless of how much effort & heart they put into it...but according to Walters, that's okay.

It made me think about how much fear there is within the fanfiction community when it comes to writing something that is deemed controversial. Some authors have been driven away from their communities entirely due to backlash over their work, but so often the reasons for the outrage that we see boils down to the fact that someone didn't like it, and therefore it was unacceptable.

"I don't like that" is not a reason to berate, abuse, or target a creator. Not at all. Never.

Too often, subjective criticism is confused with objective critique.

Thus, we have the saying, "Don't like, don't read." In this interview, Walters says the exact same thing, but in a way that I think empowers both authors and their readers...

...you want to write a character so someone will hopefully gravitate towards [them]. But if you try to write a character that everyone gravitates towards, you're going to fail. I mean, it's not that you're gonna fail, but how substantial is that character going to be? How meaningful can a character be if they appeal to everyone?

There needs to be something there that you have to work with, that challenges you. And if it challenges you so much that you're like, No, I don't want to deal with that, that's fine. That's your choice. It emphasizes choice, I think.

— Mac Walters, writer & director Mass Effect trilogy ("Mass Effect writer reflects on trilogy's grand ambition" via Polygon)

Well said, sir.

In terms of fanfiction writing (or any form of creative work, really), this can apply not just to characters, but to themes, tropes, scenes, or whole plots that present something which offers readers that "challenge." No one will ever write a story that every person who ever reads it will love. There will always be those who dislike it, are made uncomfortable, get bored, or don't wish to engage with what the story asks of them. That's based on personal preference, however, and it's up to the reader to make the choice to continue on despite their aversion or walk away.

Often, writers include a difficult element intentionally in order to present that challenge, both to the characters and their readers. It's meant to make people pause to think and reflect. Stories which truly intend to cause harm or promote something harmful are very, very rare (and in those cases, there are proper channels to bring them to the attention of the sites they're posted on, thankfully). That aside, however, we all ultimately own the responsibility to curate our own experience.

There is an audience for every work, and a work for every audience. With the wealth of creativity posted every day, there's never a scarcity of content to enjoy.

As Stars Through Our Souls

Chapter XX: And Darkness Embrace Me

Live on AO3: Chapter Twenty

Post-TLJ Reylo Romance

Rating: Explicit

CW: Pregnancy, Violence, Reference to Miscarriage (though it does not occur)

Alpha Magic: QueenVi

I’ll be there for you afterwards...♥

THANK YOU to everyone who waited and cheered me on as this chapter slowly came together. I wish it was a lighter installment, given all that’s happened behind the scenes, but know that there are truly lovely things to come for our little Force Family. Much love ~ ♥

Excerpt ~

Click. Click…click.

Rey’s eyebrows twitched, annoyed by the distracting sound that made her lose the rhythm of her melody. She did her best to drown it out and focus on Bump’s worry, which only seemed to grow despite her best efforts…

But she jumped and turned to look up in surprise when her door slammed shut.

She stared at it in confusion, no visitor in sight. Then shock spiked through the Bond and Rey felt for Ben’s mind in concern, sensing his fear and the first stirrings of that furious storm building once more. She was forced back from him, however, when she heard the noise again.

Her locks clicked back into place, one-by-one.

Rising with alarm, she looked around the room, but found no sign of the intruder. Was it a lark? She couldn’t imagine any of her friends trying to scare her for a laugh, however, so perhaps the locks were malfunctioning.

All three at once? Rey questioned, knowing it wasn’t the case.

In the same way she’d sensed a volatile Dark Sider stalking her through the forest on Takodana, she could feel that there was…something.

Something very, very wrong. No, not something.

If you’ve been waiting for it, you know what this means.

Happy beeps to my alpha, friends ~ it’s in her capable hands!

I can hardly believe it.

I passed my 1st anniversary as a fanfic writer a few days ago, and I didn't even notice! At once, it feels like such a short span of time and an endless aeon.

While I'd been on the periphery of Reylo fandom since TFA as an observer, seeing TROS was the turning point for me, as it was for many. Ben's death, the grief Rey was denied on-screen, and the fates of the Skywalkers left me a mess. After a while, I finally opened up about it (rather bashfully) to the counselor I was seeing at the time, and you know what she said?

"Go rewrite it."

That initial challenge pushed me to pen When Angels Fall, which was nothing more than a heartfelt need to vent. After finishing it, I found that there was more of the story to tell, and that led to the creation of And Wash Away the Sky. Then, midway through writing what ultimately turned out to be a fix-it for the ending of TROS, I took a step away to jot down (what I'd thought to be) a one-shot where I tried to see whether I was capable of crafting an intimate scene.

And that one-shot became so much more...

While I've kept the original version of it under its old title, Bound to You, that brief stint into a moment of emotional connection between Ben & Rey transformed before my eyes. The day after posting it, I had a OneNote notebook filled to the brim with a plotted multi-chapter story that had my heart racing with the desperate desire to write. It was a daunting project (and sometimes still is) but I surprised myself when I uploaded Chapter 2...and then Chapter 3...

Before I knew it, I was creating the story I truly wanted for Ben & Rey.

That's how As Stars Through Our Souls was born. Though I'm far from finishing it, when I look back at all it's become, I can't help smiling. Despite the drama, in-fighting, bullying, and even abuse that I've seen and experienced within the Reylo community, I will never regret that I took that counselor's advice. Each and every piece I've created has made it worth enduring the 'Dark Side' of fandom.

What a long, extraordinary journey this has been. Thank you to those who've cheered for me, read the pieces of my heart that come in the form of very long, chonky chapters, and leave me comments that fuel my determination to see my self-imposed Herculean task through to the happy ending I've promised. I began writing ASTOS for myself, but I'm beyond glad to know that others have embraced it along the way.