The World and Her Stars

Thank You.

Well...I'm crying.

The World and Her Stars has finally been completed.

I never thought I would see the day tbh. I've been working on this story since October. I have been writing since I was 8 years old, but the world of fanfiction has made me fall even more in love with writing as a whole. Ever since I started writing, I have been VERY protective of my work. My own mother wasn't even allowed to read the stories I wrote. My stories have lived inside of my head, on the pages of random journals/notebooks, and in the harddrive of my computer for 12 years now.

Me posting this story was a MAJOR deal.

When I started writing fanfiction, I only ever intended on keeping it to myself. I NEVER planned on posting it anywhere, or even letting another pair of eyes see the name Rose Eros. I planned on keeping this story my little secret, because I've grown so attached to the love story and the characters, and I was afraid that people were going to judge me for my writing.

Through my struggle with depression, this story has been the one thing that has served as a constant source of relaxation, creativity, happiness, and serotonin. Writing takes away so much of my anxiety. It calms me, it calms my constant worrying, it focuses me and steadys my ADD astronomically. This story, I think, has completely kept me afloat during my times of mental struggle. Posting it was a big step for me, since the story is so sacred in my heart, but I can't even explain how happy I am that I did decide to post it.

The outpour of love, support, encouragement, praise, and hilarious comments has been so incredibly uplifting. It's hard for me to even put into words. Seeing people fall in love with the characters that I created and the love story of my dreams is surreal. Like...you guys love something that came out of my head. People are loving Rose. People are loving the direction I went with the characters. People are loving the love story. PEOPLE ACTUALLY LOVE MY IDEAS?? It is so foreign to me, because I'm so used to people just telling me what they think I want to hear, and it is so hard for me to believe people when they give me compliments or praise (don't worry, working on it in therapy lol). I'm still learning how to process it all, but all I can say is thank you. THANK YOU SO MUCH!! Every single one of you means the world to me.

Now to the part that will sound like an acceptance speech.

Thank you to my mother (who I still will never let read my fics) for introducing me to Twilight, because this whole story was inspired by a single scene in that movie. Without Twilight, there would be no TWAHS. Thank you to my grandma (who will also never read this) for getting me random journals all the time that I would then fill with awful stories that I still cherish to this day (even though I cringe just thinking about them). Thank you to Harry Styles, Sleeping at Last, The Neighbourhood, Lykke Li, Cigarettes After Sex, M83, Ellie Goulding, Bon Iver, Niall Horan, Claude DeBussy, Taylor Swift, Lord Huron, Lana Del Rey, Arctic Monkeys, Alara, and Olivia Rodrigo for making the best music on the planet that fueled alot of the scene writing for this story (playlist in my tik tok bio: accioalexis). Thank you to the app Splice, because I STAY editing fancast videos on there for this fic. Thank you to Grace aka beetlepimpsidepiece for introducing me to the world of fanfiction. She probaby won't ever see this, but she has unknowingly changed my life, so I thank her immensely. Thank you to my boyfriend for pretending to listen while I described the story in detail for hours on end (he will never read this either). Thank you to my therapist for putting me on antidepressants that gave me the random boost of confidence to post my story for the entire world to see. We love bettering our mental health. Thank you to everyone that comes onto my lives that I am constantly doing on tik tok. Thank you to Romy, Zaynah, and Mel for constantly staying up late on Google Meet with me. Your friendships have kept me going through all of this and I am so thankful that tik tok and TWAHS brought us together. And thank you to every single person that is reading this right now. Each and every one of you has made a difference in my life, and I'm glad that I was able to make you fall in love with these characters just as much as I did.

I can't wait for many more stories to come!!

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!

I LOVE YOU!!

xoxo,

alexis