Hullo readers!

Dryk: Thanks for your review and glad you liked the cliffhanger. I'm working hard on the characterisation so your comments on both Lisa and Jamie and finding the right balance is good feedback, cheers.

Okay, so "Island of Lost Souls" is a Blondie song from the 80s. ^_^ It was the fanboy in me.

Reading your comment about the nightmare story just reminded me of it! My computer crashed just after I wrote it and I've since bought a whole new laptop, but I'm pretty sure I saved the nightmare thingo. Might have to try to dig it up now.

Thanks again for reading and replying - more material very soon - chapter 71 if not the nightmare story just prior to it.

Sike Saner: I'm so glad that you chuckle-snorted! That line just burst out of Jamie/me and it just felt really authentic when I wrote it, so I'm stoked it worked. Hoorah, yes, the old gang is reforming it seems, with first Marina then Gavin! Next chapter gets VERY interesting indeed ... hopefully it will be well-received (it leads into a bombshell kind of chapter). Thanks, as ever, for your loyal readership and reply.

Ada: Hey! So glad to see you back here. My bad for taking, what, a whole month to respond?! Honours plus work plus visa application plus personal life is putting a whole load of pressure on, hence writing seems to suffer.

Yay, I'm thrilled that C69 worked. It was definitely one of those "what if the Guard isn't perfect?" moments that mirrors that kind of disillusionment you go through in adolescence, you know, "what if my current worldview isn't the only one?" And it certainly, in many ways, reflects my own disillusionment and embracing the idea that we are, through our own choices, quite in control of our own lives and destinies; the world can exert its pressure on us and make us change and respond to suit it, but at the same time, we have the autonomy and the power to exert our pressure on the world, and change it in our image and make it respond to us. And that's what Lisa's started to go through.

For C70, it's quite funny - I wrote that chapter with Jamie's slightly radical perspective on pokemon training way back in 2009 (yes, that's how much of a backlog of chapters there is), and I also just played Pokemon Black and discovered that the exact same theme is running through it via the character of N. So that's interesting.

I agree that Gavin's return makes more sense than Marina's: my rationale for getting Marina back to the island is, I'm pretty sure, actually discussed in a few chapters' time, though I have no idea why I didn't find a way to edit it in to this chapter instead, since it would have made Marina's return more convincing. Ah well ...

And yes, we'll go with "old-fashioned". Wasn't meaning to be sexist in any way, but "make love" to me conjures up some kind of 1990s syrupy romcom or something, hence the girly reference. Though I also know plenty of girls who hate romcoms - argh, you get my drift!

Thanks for coming back to read and reply, and I hope I can entice you back again once C71 drops!

Everyone: Judging on the comments so far, the lead-in to new chapters is a winner, so I'll try to employ that with every new chapter from here on.

I'm going to look for my backup disc from my old laptop and see if the nightmare story is on there, and if it is, I'll upload it soon, probably before chapter 71. I'm freaking out about releasing the bombshell of C72 too soon, because so much comes spilling out after this and in very rapid succession, and since I haven't written the finale of LTL yet, I have this perfectionistic need to ensure that everything in the finale is watertight before I decide for sure that C72 is ready to go. But C71 will probably be released very soon, so stay tuned!

Thanks all, for your continued support and reading of this fic! Makes me most happy.



Cheers!