Blood Contingency — With the streamlining I’ve been doing lately, this is now one of only three in-progress RK fics kicking around this place. I became rather excited when I realized that. I kinda feel like, with that being the case, there’s no reason I can’t make semi-regular updates to both BC and Heretic’s Reward and get them finished eventually.

Of course what “semi-regular” means is anyone’s guess, with the way I am and how many projects I have on the table. Remember a couple of years ago when I was like, Why can’t I post a thing about Saitou and Sano every month that seems reasonable right??? And how that worked out? But still! Only three stories in progress? That’s nothing!

Anyway. I did consider putting off part 10 of BC for a while, instead of posting 9 and 10 at once, in order to have something to fill the gap while getting part 11 finished. But not only am I completely unable to predict when part 11 is likely to be finished, it was just a lot easier to post them both at once.

The one problem I really have with this story at this point is that the events in the odd-numbered parts are locked in place by my wanting the big Wednesday to come at a certain point in relation to the even-numbered parts, so there’s sortof a holding pattern in the modern-day stuff where not a lot happens and I have to try to avoid monotonous repetition. I’m afraid that’s particularly going to show with part 11. But what can you do? I could rework the entire structure of the story, but I don’t really feel like it. We’ll just have to see what I can come up with and how good I can make it.

Untitled HoH story (and other) — Still no title yet, obviously. Sometimes a good, relevant, and often clever title comes to me as I’m writing, but sometimes I have to scour the finished story for a line I can use. I think the latter is going to be the case here. Which is fine; I just want to get to that point already so I can stop referring to it as “untitled!”

I had a thought last week that I was toying with for several days. See, in this story, as I’ve mentioned, there’s some discussion between Duo and Sano of their magical experiences. And somewhere else in the HoHniverse at around this time, Quatre and Trowa are having the promised conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Winner to clarify what Trowa actually is — another story I probably want to write.

So I was thinking for a while, why not have both of these things take place in the same story? The day on which Untitled is set, which is a Saturday nine days after Quatre is cured, seems like not too bad a time for it, and then we could have this overall theme of telling-someone-about-your-magical-experiences.

However, I eventually decided against it for a number of reasons. First of all, though nine days out is not forever long after, I think it may be just a little longer than Mr. Winner in particular is willing to wait. I could waive that consideration if the other reasons for combining these two stories were good enough, but I don’t think they are.

I also think the Trowa-and-Winners conversation is likely to take place in the evening (in fact I envision it during after-dinner-brandy time), and Untitled ends in the late afternoon. Yeah, the T-a-W scene could form the second half of the story, picking up chronologically only a couple of hours after the stuff at Heero’s apartment leaves off, but I don’t really like that. The two segments aren’t thematically similar enough, no matter who’s telling whom about what magical events, to justify having them in the same story unless they’re taking place at the same time and can bounce back and forth.

There’s also Sano’s presence, and the question I mentioned before about parts of the audience, to consider. It’s not impossible that some RK reader may want to take a glance at this one, since it does contain some thoughts of Sano’s about his relationship with Hajime… and I think it would be a trifle unkind to make anyone so inclined wade through a bunch of stuff about Quatre and Trowa and the Winner parents on top of what’s already there about Heero and Duo and their communication thing.

So Trowa and the Winners will have to have their conversation separately. Which probably means yet another story set in the middle of Confrérie XD XD The Plus ebook version of that poor thing is likely to keep getting bigger and bigger.

Aku Soku Zan(za) — So this is one of the three in-progress fics mentioned above, and I didn’t include it as a “no reason I shouldn’t be able to update this semi-regularly” story because it’s obvious I need to get the rewrite done before I can get back to new parts. As I’ve mentioned, I have glanced at the latest segment a couple of times since the rewrite project started, but to no great effect.

Meanwhile, the rewrite progresses. One thing I’m interested in doing in it is making Tokio more of a character in her own right. Originally, despite having a dedicated POV from early on, she really only kinda grew into being a main character (rather than merely a prop for Saitou and Sano) over time and several chapters. Obviously I love Saitou and Sano best of all, but that’s an unfair way to treat Tokio, and something we see in mainstream media far too often.

I won’t go on about that common problem with female characters in mainstream media, because that’s a discussion often held much better elsewhere, but the point is that I want Tokio to be a fully realized character from the beginning. So I’m working hard on making sure her part of the story is fleshed out from the very beginning. And, hell, her romance can have just as many early indications as the Saitou/Sano romance, too.

Heretic’s Reward — I don’t really have any significant thoughts to relay about this story at this point, except that I’m still excited at having realized it’s one of only three :D I think I should be able to get the next chapter finished in a fairly timely fashion.

TLY — I don’t have anything much to say about this either, except that I worked on it too.