Oh hai, Liana! *waves eagerly* I've been taking way, WAY too long to come up with a proper review for your chapter twenty on HPFF (stupid "you may only respond once per chapter" rules), so I thought that maybe I could just start reviewing Bella Rosa on this site as well, after all I've created an account here (luckily this name hadn't been taken yet) for some time already. Who knows, perhaps before I reach chapter nineteen here I'd finally review chapter twenty over there. :)

This has nothing to do with formality, you know. I really get a lot of new stuff from your chapters after second (third, fourth...) readings, and especially with all those newer chapters out I have so much new material to cross-reference and look back on for clues and Foreshadowing and whatnot. [Also . . . ahem . . . I have been spending literally weeks trying to read your reviews on this site (moving rather slowly since I discovered lots of good fics on the way), having gone through your one and a half thousand reviews on the other site. Oh if only more people who received reviews from you would review your fics as well.]

~*~

So now I can see more clearly that right from the get-go, Bellatrix's romantic/emotional interests were more than dangerously conflicted. She fascinates the possibility of being subservent to a Dark Lord of Slytherin, Purebloods and the rest of the whole darn world, yet her interest got intsantly peaked when she first heard that the muggle owner was reportedly a yummy kind of bloke. Col. Kurtz once symbolised the horrors he faced into a vivid dream about A Snail Crawling Across The Edge Of A Straight Razor . . . And Surviving. For a long time I have made up endings to your story in my head, wondering if one or more characters would end up muttering "The horror . . . the horror . . ." While reading your reviews (and I'm nowhere near finished yet), I came upon some of your discussions you've had with Ms. K even before this first chapter got posted on any website, about your visions, characterizations and even possible endings. Isn't Bella walking across the edge of a straight razor, as well?

It would be hard to tire of reading Bella's antics, whether it be her bullying the homeless people or adding some spice into the bar (and catching Gabriel's attantion for the first time) with that pseudo-lesbian smooch.

I never got around to saying this before, but the first time I read this chapter, I did not expect that Gabriel would have such a chip on his shoulder in the form of a dreadful personal tragedy. Without spoiling much for any first-time readers, I'd say that Her headstrong attitude had a lot to do with that outcome turning out as such. Not many ficcers would straightout make a story happen that way, with an abbrupt . . . something . . . crashing down and leaving the readers to thinking "Must it have gone that way?". I mean, why isn;t She even feeling terrible that She let { } happen and cause so much grief to Gabe? Although going back to my point at the beginning of the paragraph, I must say that your wording here gave little indication of any past miserabilities (is that even a word?). From the "Oh, yeah, and proving his mother wrong" I had only detected a son striving to prove his worth through realizing his dreams as an artist/gallery master against a disapproving mother (who wanted him to be a [insert vocation here] instead, which would have set off a contrast between him and Bella Black in a different, hopefully still workable, way.

One of the many perks of reading yours and Ms. K's stories is the amount of pop references (usually in the form of music and songs) you manage to incorporate into the chapters. You once introduced me to Muse in a reply, and I must say that "Resistance" is indeed a chillingly appropriate portraal of the way Bellatrix and Gabriel's clandestine relationship is going. Whether or not the story would be heading towards the way you'd hinted in your own reviews, I think I wouldn't be disappointed.

Speaking of which, how much do you know about a band called The Smashing Pumpkins? I first heard about it in an ad for Batman & Robin's OST, but that movie wasn't good at all so I'd given up on any related music; this year however I finally read the famous graphic novel WATCHMEN and watched the Zack Snyder film adaptation as well, but not before checking out the two trailers online. And the first one was one of the awesomest movie trailers I'd ever seen: there was nearly no dialogue (voiceover or otherwise) in it, and the whole clip was set to an abridged version of "The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning", and the audio and footage set each other off more than perfectly. The opening electronic percussions accompanied the studios' logos, small pauses in the tune is where something major takes place, etc... and the lyrics described perfectly the bleak overtune the story would present. (The rest of the songs in the film are just as awesome, but that's another story) I'm asking you to check out that film (or at least the trailer) if you haven't seen it before, and do you think the lyrics would be good for describing the moods in this story as well?


~ David

Author's Response: I cannot believe I waited this long to respond to your review. That was very rude of me. If you only knew how much each review means to me. I love reading your reviews but you always leave me thinking--so picture me just sitting there thinking about all that you said. So, let me respond to things that struck a particular cord for me. I love the Smashing Pumpkins. I have most of their cds with the exception of Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. I gave that to my youngest daughter a long time ago and never replaced it. I love the sound of their music--there's so much bass. There's going to come a time very soon when I will refer to Resistance by Muse. I'm about to get to the exciting part of the story:D Miss K has advised me to move it along. It's not so much that Gabe's mother is disapproving but she's like any Native mother with her children. He's her only (biological) son and she wants him close by not over in London. Why can't he make a name for himself back on the rez? That's all she wants--her child near to her. Bella is indeed walking on the edge of a straight razor (I've never heard that saying before but I like it) or as I like to say she's "dancing in quicksand." (Reference is to a song by Tool on their cd Undertow called Swamp Song.) She loves to live dangerously. What I was trying to portray in the story so far is that she was first attracted to Gabe because she thought of him as dangerous. He was everything her family would hate. Then she started to love him. Gabe's tragedy is a true story--well kind of--there was no accident but the girlfriend died when his daughter was around 11 or so. I know where I'm going with the ending and it will be tragic but I'm also toying with writing an alternative ending that would be much happier. I just don't know. I have a new chapter to put up. I've had it for a while but I just haven't had time to post it. I've been so busy with work writing and working on my other things at home that--oh, I'm making excuses. I'm trying to figure out whether I should write the alternate ending. What do you think? Of course, I have to write one ending before I can think of the alternate.:D