Blood Contingency part 15 — This part was tricky not just because of what I mentioned last time (wanting to do justice to our first good look at Sano as he is now), but because I was trying to have the dialogue refer to events that will subsequently be detailed in even-numbered parts (the events leading up to Saitou’s death) simultaneously naturally and without giving away any of those details and thereby spoiling the story. I think I did pretty well, but also that this particular difficulty is not going to end here XD

Of course this part was depressing as shit, what with Megumi’s broken dreams and Katsu dying and Kenshin dying and all that, but I at least have been braced for it — my reader(s), perhaps, not so much, though the story is listed as containing character death and angst. Yikes, though. So casual each reference to the death of friends! All part of what Sano’s like now, poor guy.

I have to admit, I like the end of this part a lot. It’s an ending very much in my style (which does make it feel a bit repetitive, but whatevs), and I think the line about Souzou and the last line both hit pretty well.

Nine Decades — Four down, five to go! The 30’s story (did I mention that this one does have a title? That’s nice.) has reached linear completion. And let me tell you guys, this is absolutely the SADDEST STORY SO FAR. I’ve mentioned the necessarily depressing nature of this entire collection… well, if you’ll forgive the pun, the story set during the Great Depression may turn out to be the worst. But there are still five left, so we’ll see.

No further thoughts at this time about the possibility of Trowa stories in this collection. That just means I haven’t come up with any ideas for Trowa stories, so that whole concept is still kindof on hold.

Archive stuff — The star project is done! Yes, there are two original fics that don’t have star ratings, but that’s because I’m trying to decide exactly what to do with thems. Not like anyone looks at that stuff anyway XD

I did do as I was considering and make fluctuating star ratings for both Condition of Learned Helplessness and Pride of her Parents to indicate that my emotional response to and objective assessment of those stories were too greatly opposite to come up with a discrete number of stars.

I’m aware of the obnoxious non-wrapping nature of the “read more” story summaries in the desktop version of the site. I’m trying to figure out what to do about that, so for now they’re just sitting there all ugly and illegible. Eventually I’m going to switch to WordPress.org instead of .com for greater flexibility of design, but not until a couple of current projects are done.

One of those projects is tagging for content as I mentioned in my previous PL — and editing everything as I go. This is progressing apace, and proving to be every bit as fun as I had anticipated. It’ll take a while, but not as long as the other current project…

…which is going through all my old personal entries and checking/updating a number of things about them. First, I have to make sure they’re all present: when I imported everything from LJ several years ago, it was slightly problematic getting everything to transfer. Second, a lot of old personal entries have images in them that are still hosted on LJ or links to other entries that still point to LJ, so I’m working on moving the images all over to WordPress and updating the links. Third, as I go through these entries, I’m deleting their copies over on LJ. Fourth, tags. Lots and lots of tags.

I’ve been working on this (slowly) ever since I moved to WordPress, but it seems a little more urgent now that Russia is getting all up in our faces again over at LiveJournal. That doesn’t mean it won’t still take forever, though XD

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Aku Soku Zan(za) — OK, remember how I was saying I thought I might start putting this story between the other two every time in the work order? Yeah, I’m going to do that. Rewriting existing prose goes so much quicker than coming up with new prose, and it seems silly not to have this one as every other story. I literally wrote the entirety of the latest part — and got it mostly edited — in one day, and that’s not the first time that’s happened. So look forward to more frequent ASZz updates from now on.

As for this part specifically, it’s not hugely different from the original… more details, which I think flesh things out much better, about how Saitou deals with his own emotions, and a bit more of his thought process about the possibility of talking to Tokio about the business with Zanza (instead of his calling the idea “a farce” and moving on without explanation), and that’s about it. Mostly it’s just written much better, and a much better parallel to Zanza’s thoughts in the previous part. Yay!

Forgivably Wrong (previously untitled Saitou & Sano fic) — I decided to ditch that other working title but keep it in mind for a future project. This new title, which I like very much, will probably stay.

I’ve started writing the scene where Saitou encounters Sano for the first time (did I mention this is an AU?), and he is so immediately smitten. It’s adorable! Well, it’s nice to see that humans never change. This particular Saitou is completely out of control of the entire situation presented in the story, which of course makes him a grouchy bean, but it’s also… kindof adorable. At least I think so :D