Hello everyone!

Okay - by now I'm sure everyone is aware that my recent fanfic silence was caused by my computer crashing and forcing me into an involuntary hiatus. The good news is I now have a new computer! The bad news is, I'm very low on money, so the internet on it may get cut off. And of course everything on my old laptop is lost beyond repair, so I'll have to redo all my notes from memory before I can get writing again. Also, personal stuff is eating up a lot of my time at the moment, unfortunately . . . . . So. Patience, please? I know I have a lot of reviews, review replies, and updates to get to, but I can't spend as much time on here as I used to, so please try and bear with me - I will respond to everything, even if it takes a while.

It's good to be back, and if I've learnt anything from The Great Computer Crash, it's to back up my work in future!!

XD

Love xox

Oh, and I'm trying to shorten my preposterously long reviews, because I hardly have time to read anything new these days, and I would quite like to. Please don't be offended if my reviews vary in length between chapters or stories - it doesn't mean I don't like something or have less to say, it just means I'm busy and trying to get a lot of reviewing done in a short space of time. I'm guessing that more frequent, though shorter, reviews, are better than huge reviews which are fun to write but mean it takes forever to finish anything.

Savvy? ;)

My Current Works-In-Progress :

Long Road To Ruin : Second in my Protege Moi series (looking more and more likely to be a trilogy), which revolves around Bellatrix Black's initiation into the Death Eaters. Includes frequent appearances from the usual suspects - Lucius, Narcissa, Voldemort etc - and some dark themes, including torture, eating disorders and violence. It's not all doom and gloom, but given the subject matter, it is quite dark, and it's going to get darker. Particularly in the third installment. Contains some not-strictly-canon ages, but if anyone's confused just ask - I don't mind explaining. Nine chapters currently posted.

Tangled : My Lucius / Narcissa love story! A sort of flash-forward from my Protege Moi series, but should be able to stand alone. It's fluffy by my standards but is tremendous fun to write, and the reaction has been really positive so far, which is great! Contains quite a lot of Bellatrix and Rodolphus too. My current pet project, this one. Twenty five chapters currently posted. (Wow, that's a little scary . . .)

Black Holes And Revelations : A series of oneshots about Azkaban, each from the POV of a character who has reason to dwell on the place. Death Eaters, innocents, visitors . . . . I take requests. Sixteen chapters posted and coming soon are Arthur Weasley, Igor Karkoroff, and Cornelius Fudge. Feel free to ask for someone else, requests tend to inspire me. Sometimes in the strangest ways . . . . but inspiration is not to be sneezed at. XD

The Sharpest Lives - A Barty Crouch Jr - centric fic about his recruitment. Will feature a lot of Bellatrix, Rodolphus and Rabastan, obviously, and cover a time span from his initial recruitment at seventeen to the fall of his master at eighteen and finally his arrest at nineteen. (It'd be pointless to go beyond that, as you already see Barty-in-Azkaban in Black Holes and Revelations, as well as his parents breaking him out.) It's another of those dark fics I seem so fond of, so if you prefer more of a love story, like Tangled, you might not like it. Barty is not going to fall in love with an OC and become a Regulus Black or Draco Malfoy type figure who regrets joining up. He's very much a nasty piece of work, and more than a little crazy. If you want to see what I mean, and get an idea of whether or not you'd be interested in this one, I'd suggest reading one or all of my oneshots about him - Therapy, Hanging By A Moment, English Summer Rain, and Moment of Clarity. All my stories are inter-related, so they might raise a smile at some moments in The Sharpest Lives too. 1 chapter posted.

The World Has Turned And Left Me Here : My first attempt at Doctor Who fanfiction, a collection of unrelated or very loosely related oneshots. Covers Rose Tyler, Sally Sparrow, Creet, Wilf, Lucy Saxon and The Master so far. If you've read my Harry Potter stories, you should have some idea of what to expect, style-wise at least. Please check them out if you're into the Doctor Who fandom, I appreciate all feedback on how I'm doing. (Hasn't been updated in a while, probably owing to the fact that I haven't seen the show in a while. I'm really feeling the void. Normally we'd have a whole new series almost finished by this time of year. It's a little sad.) May as well come out and say it - ON HOLD. (Ouch.)

About Me:

I'm a girl, if you couldn't guess.

I'm eighteen and I write partly for fun and partly because I might go mad if I didn't! I put my stories on here because I'm hoping other people will like them too, same as everyone else on the site. And because nothing cheers me up quite like reviews.

I'm five foot six, with brown hair and blue eyes, if anyone wonders what I look like. I would upload a picture, but I'm the sort of person who cringes at pictures of myself, so an avatar of me . . . I might drive myself mad within a week. If we're friends and you really want to know who you're talking to, I'll send you a pic. Just so you know I'm not some middle-aged internet PERV or anything . . . I'm just a girl who's camera shy.

I spend far too much time in my own little world, and the inside of my head resembles a cross between a Tim Burton movie set and an old library - the sort with heaps of books stacked all over the place in piles that might fall on you at any moment, where it's almost impossible to find what you want when you want it . . . but every now and then you find something so perfect it makes it all worth it.

Like, Dislikes and Everything In Between:

Films : Sweeney Todd, Harry Potters, LOTR, King Kong(latest version!), Breakfast on Pluto, In Bruges, Moulin Rouge, Dogma, Oliver!, Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead, Ten Things I Hate About You, Mean Girls, The Shawshank Redemption, Gladiator, The Departed, Titanic, Donnie Darko, The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, Black Beauty, Save The Last Dance, Love Actually, Strictly Ballroom, Pride and Prejudice, Pirates 1,2 and even 3(but mostly one.And 4 may be pushing it...), Juno, Bend It Like Beckham, The Truman Show, Romeo and Juliet, Walk The Line, About A Boy, etc.

Music : I can't go a day without music. Fact. I'd get way too depressed. I like a mind-boggling array of probably contradictory genres and atrists, but here's a random selection for you -

Placebo, The Killers, Muse, Kanye West, Fall Out Boy, Coldplay, Justin Timberlake,

Savage Garden, Linkin Park, Eminem, Fort Minor, Hard-Fi, Blue, early Maroon 5,

some Kelly Clarkson, Leona Lewis, Akon, Blue, Backstreet Boys, The Streets, Snow Patrol, The Pigeon Detectives, Pink,

Lupe Fiasco, Beyonce, Jay-Z, Blink 182, Sum 41, Gnarls Barkely, Green Day, The Birthday Massacre, Paramore, Simple Plan,

the entire Doctor Who soundtrack (composed by the genius Murray Gold) , Lostprophets, My Chemical Romance, The Paddingtons, Within Temptation,

Evanesence, Bloc Party, Daft Punk, Mary J Blige, The Editors, Feeder . . . you get the picture.

Also, I like rap. Most people on here seem to hate rap, which makes me something of an oddity. I get bored, I'll admit, when all the rapper goes on about is blunts and bitches. But there are some fantastic beats and samples in rap songs, and some of the rhymes Lupe Fiasco and Mike Shinoda come up with blow me away. I only wish I could be that skilled with words. So there you are. Well, someone had to defend rap. ;)

TV Shows : Desperate Housewives, Doctor Who, Kath and Kim, Father Ted, Fawlty Towers, Sex and the City, old ER . . . .

Ships : Bellatrix/Voldemort (a fairly twisted ship that is nevertheless oddly compulsive . . .), Bellatrix / Rodolphus, Lucius/Narcissa, Lily/Severus, Ron/Hermione, Harry/Ginny, Lupin/Tonks, Sweeney/Lovett...Honestly? I'll give anything a go if it's well-written and not totally cracked (e.g Ginny/Dumbledore, Firenze/Dobby...ew.) That said, slash (Harry / Draco, Harry / Snape, Severus / Lucius etc) doesn't really float my boat. Can't really take it seriously, same with any Straight!Dumbledore fics. It just comes across as a little bit too OOC for me, no matter what you do. Sorry. (Unless of course the character is actually gay, or there's room for reasonable doubt. Gay Remus or Snape tends to just do my head in, to be honest, because there's glaring canon evidence to suggest both men are straight, so it makes no sense to me, though it seems to be very popular here. Ha. )

Fics : For some reason I rarely read fics featuring an OC as a main character, AU fics, and fics about the core trio in Harry Potter. They just don't particularly grab my attention and I'm not sure why. I mainly go for the sort of fics that fill in a backstory not given in canon, or explore an event we've already seen from a different perspective. I'm not sure why this is, as I said, it's just some strange quirk of my personality. But I have my likes and dislikes and I can be quite hard to budge on that.

Forums, Fun, And Other Stuff:

If any of my Protege Moi readers want to discuss all things Bella-related with like-minded people , check out Lewrah's forum, http://www.fanfiction.net/myforums/xoxLewrahxox/1680137/ . A fun, if mildly crazy and very random place ( you know you belong there ).

Special Shoutouts!

I owe some of the people on this site a huge debt, because without all their support, I seriously doubt I would still be on fanfiction. In addition to that, they are all great people and lovely reviewers! Anyone reading this should give their works a try. So . . .

Expecting Rain - One of my first ever readers, and still my most consistent reviewer, she's also a brilliant writer. Her Juno oneshot, http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4309145/1/Of_Malls_and_Minivans_TicTacs_and_Telephones made me laugh and come very close to tears, and her Secret Garden fics, http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4091125/1/Forever_And_Ever_And_Ever and its sequel, http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4309064/1/A_Good_Year_For_The_Roses, are still among my favourite fanfiction ever. If you like the Secret Garden, you should definitely check them out. If they were for sale, I would buy them. That's how much I love them. Oh, and we're both suckers for any Disney princess type thing . . . . so that's fun. ;)

xDoubleIndemnity - Random, and shameless, and that's why I love her! Consistently supportive, hilarious in PMs, she also managed to somehow turn me into Belladolphus supporter. My current fave fic of hers is the hilarious http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4876399/1/Accidentally_in_Love , though her Sorting Hat drabble collection All I Ever Wanted is looking promising too . . . . Oh, and she's also the only person I've met so far on this site who agrees with me that the Black sisters should've gone Andy, Bella, Cissy in age! So we have that in common, along with a love of meat pie metaphors and various other fun things.

xoxLewrahxox - A diehard Bella fanatic, and incredible fun person, her Bella-centric forum is a fun place to hang out. She's also a really loyal reviewer, and a great friend, who tolerates my random rants and is incredibly supportive of all my fics. What more could I ask for? Thanks Sarah! My current fave fic of hers is http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4988360/1/Forever , which is coming along nicely. She also has a new Youtube video posted, her first! Check it out here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WxuD_ehaRo - and leave her a comment. (Youtubing is fun, you know you want to.)

xBELLATRIXtheSTRANGE - An incredibly sweet person, who's always great for a random Breaking Dawn moan, who really, really supports Protege Moi, (she tried the "guess the blood status of teachers" game at school, with interesting results) and who also got me into Paramore!

Daring D - Becuase I will never forget life in a small town! Jk. Seriously though, a really insightful reviewer, whose oneshot http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4392507/1/Loathing, made my skin crawl. In a good way. We have the most entertaining PM'ing conversations. Tornadoes, apparently, are nothing to fear. ;) But double-barrelled names are a different story . . . . haha. And I think I may have inadvertently fluffed her up . . . . . . oops. (But there is no escaping the Tangled fluff, it's diabolical. I would know. )

Jacalyn Hyde - Probably the most prolific writer I know on this site, I still haven't read over half her fics. An amusing and thoughtful reviewer, and a talented writer in her own right. My current fave fic of hers is http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4979642/1/You_Found_Me , a Rodolphus / Andromeda pairing which is funny, sharp and sweet. We've both managed to actually exceed the length limit on PMs more than once, somehow, but hey, it's fun! XD

xxDibDabxx - A really fun person to talk to and a lovely reviewer, she also has something of a twisted gift for crackfics. Cross-dressing Rodolphus, Bellatrix / Dumbledore . . . . classic! The Merthurness is pretty fun too, especially on her Youtube account where Merthur videos are the order of the day. ;)

Inkfire - My newest fanfic friend . . . avid Bellamort shipper and fan of Breaking Dawn (though we won't hold that against you Az) who wrote a great poem about the Malfoys, all in French, which I attempted to review, in hilariously bad French . .. . thanks for not shooting me on the spot sweetheart. Don't ever unsubscribe to the forum, LOL. Your essay-length posts make me feel oh-so sane .. . XD