this chapter made my mouth fall open.  i love how you are protraying these characters. so different yet still the same. i cant wait to read the next chapter!

Author's Response:

Thank you!

really amazing chapter, thank you.  i love the heart-to-heart b/w Bella and Rose.  i love your Rose--she is so much more complicated and real than SM's version.  

Bella certainly has interesting choices to make.

Author's Response:

I like giving depth to poor Rose.  I think she acts the way she does for a reason!  And yes, Bella has some hard choices ahead of her.

I like it i like it :-)

dark themes.. and yet no clue how it evolves. i don't know why but i got this feeling Mark's been murdered... so i keep reading!!

Author's Response:

?!  Actually, no, Mark wasn't murdered, I'll let you know that much. :-)  It was a genuine accident.

I loved the heart-to-heart. It is so refreshing to see Rose in this way rather than the whiny bitchy vamp that everyone loves to hate!

Author's Response:

I get so bored with the whiny bitchy vamp Rose!

This is a beautiful Rose chapter.  I like these insights into the character.  And I think I should read that book you mentioned.  Who's the author?

Author's Response:

Thanks!  And there are four authors.  If you just enter the title into Google, it'll bring it up pronto. :-)

This chapter is one of my favorites now. I love the way you wrote Rose. So much goes unsaid in the books, and few fics address it. Looking foward to the next update (but I completely understand about end-of-the-semester craziness, so no rush!).

Author's Response:

Thank you!  And yes, poor Rose gets overlooked a lot -- the reasons for her resentment and behavior.

I loved this chapter and the way Rose feels comfortable enough with Bella to open up about her rape, her feelings about being changed "for Edward" and her regard for Emmett.  The best thing is that it did not feel like a conversation taking place in a soap opere where they tend to beat a subject to death.  Thsi conversation flowed so naturally going from one subject to the next like "real" women talk.  Bella has some important decisions to make and it's good that she didn't feel she had to solve everything immediately.  I'm looking forward to Carlisle. 

Author's Response:

Thanks!  I'm really glad it felt like a real conversation.  It was hard to get that mix of movement from subject to subject the way people meander in a convo.

I loved Bella's and Rose's heart to heart.  They are much better friends as adults than they were as teenagers (even if Rose hasn't really aged).

It is appropriate that Bella wants to think about either dying or finishing the change if something happens if she and Edward do make love.  The woman that she is wouldn’t allow herself not to think about this sort of thing once the question was poised to her.

I am definitely looking forward to more, but understand that school comes first.  Keep up the wonderful work.

Author's Response:

Yes, this is definitely something that Rose wants her to think about, in light of Rose's own struggle with having been turned.  And it's a lot of fun to give Rose a real *girlfriend*, which I think she's needed. :-)

Real conversation is one of my favorite things to read.  I loved how things flowed from one subject to the next in a natural progression. 

One of the things I've particularly enjoyed in this story is the time spent with other characters.  I like this Rose.  Bella knows Rose will be completely honest and up front with her.  I don't think anyone else wants to lie, but sometimes other characters might want to gloss things over.  This Bella knows how to look at the "big picture."  Any choice she makes will affect someone and she understands she cannot ignore that.

Author's Response:

Yes!  Alice would want both Bella and Edward to be happy, so she'd ... gloss ... things.  Jasper would get all philosophical.  Esme Bella is too uncomfortable around.  Edward (as Bella notes) exaggerates.  But Rose (and Emmett) will tell her like it is.  Plus, it gives ROSE a chance to talk and confide in Bella.  I think Rose needs a real GIRLFRIEND.  I doubt she's had one since Vera.  I never got the sense she was that close to either Alice or Esme.  in fact, Alice seemed to want to co-opt Bella as a sister perhaps because she didn't feel close to Rose.  So it's funny that, in the end, Rose co-opts Bella!

holy crap you think so in depth to the issues with bella aged now and edward being together. it blows my mind.. and the rose thing was just pure amazing.... you rock.

Author's Response:

Thanks!  I admit, I sort of like thinking things out in depth!  It's fun!

I really, really loved the discussion of Rosalie's rape. I think you dealt with it extraordinarily beautifully. And most importantly, it was noticeably Rosalie talking about her experience. Analytical, reflective, but also impassioned. I also adored her discussion of who Emmett is to her. You really do an amazing job of making Rosalie recognizably her hard, forward self but also making clear how much she cares for the people around her, and I love that about reading this.

I also really enjoyed the way this conversation flowed from one topic to the next, from Hannah, to men, to the rape, to Bella and Edward and sex, and to the change. I felt like I was just sitting there with them talking through all these issues and other stuff just kept coming up. I see why this conversation took over! It needed to. Brava.

Also, I'm really excited to see Bella thinking about what it would mean to be changed. Not that I ever thought for a second that Bella Jackson would still be as impetuously eager to have venom coursing through her circulatory system as she was at seventeen, but it's nice to see exactly what she's thinking about all of this. As I've said in the past, if I find a woman like Martha I'm marrying her son on the spot no matter what, so I'm glad to see Bella taking stock of all the relationships life has offered her so far and all the ones that might be yet to come.

Author's Response:

I think this Bella has come to really understand what relationships MEAN in a way teen Bella didn't because she felt isolated.  But she's not ready to voluntarily give up her human ties just so she can walk again.  As nice as that would be, she knows it's not what REALLY matters in life.

And I'm glad that Rose feels both in character and DEEPER.  I've really fallen in love with her, writing this story, although initially, she just fit the plot need I had.  Maybe a little like you feel for Carlisle?  I always loved Bella's potential, but I'm having a chance to really develop Rose.  Esme too, but especially Rose.  If I'm trying to make Esme more realistic by giving her some faults, I'm trying to make Rose more realistic by making her behavior and attitudes make sense, given what she's lived through.  I don't dislike Esme at all -- I actually sort of like her because she really has a protective, giving personality -- but I'm trying to make her less PERFECT.  Rose it a bitch too often.  She's not.  If we ignore what Stephenie says about her in Bella and Edward's POVs, and just take the facts of her life from her rape, to her obvious love for Emmett, to the fact she's smart enough to get through med school, then she's clearly more than she seems!

Another great chapter. It's impossible for you to disappoint! If there was one story, out of the hundred fanfics I currently have on alert between Twilighted and ffnet, that I could snap my fingers and have the completed version in front of me, it would be 'ItBoaE'. This is just so smart, and sharp, and detailed, and well thought-out.

You've given Rosalie more depth than any other story, and far more than her true creator. And while my heart is sad that Bella doesn't desire to be changed and spend eternity with Edward anymore, my head most certainly understands why she feels that way.

I really look forward to the return of Carlisle, since we've seen so little of him from you. I can't wait to see what he reveals to us.

Author's Response:

I'll admit that I got REALLY frustrated with Stephenie over how Rosalie was presented in the books.  If she never quite came right out and said she was gang raped, she as good as said it.  And rape survivors?  They have ALL sorts of sh*t to deal with.  To wake up and find out she was turned FOR some other guy/vampire?  Jeez!  Of course she's a bitch to Edward!  Nobody walks away from traumatic rape the same.  Nobody.  And if Rose is smart enough to do med school, then she's a lot smarter than Edward credits her.

So yes, I'll admit, my story is an attempt to "remake" Rose in a way that's not contradictory to how she's presented in the books, but makes her MAKE SENSE.  Gah!

Anyway, I really hope that you still feel that way about seeing BLINK completed when it IS completed.  I'm very nervous about the ending to this, as I know that, invariably, SOMEbody is going to be disappointed and dislike it. Ha.