the deep moans round with many voices

This is part 20 of An Ounce of Prevention, a Naruto/Harry Potter crossover that I started as a giftfic for askerian.

Technically, it's an insertion of one HP character/plot device into the Naruto world, but that does count as a crossover of sorts. "An Ounce of Prevention" will not affect canon in either series; that is, it takes place during the Naruto timeskip, and significantly before CoS in HP. (Which gives away at least part of the ending, but whatever. *grin*)

( An Ounce of Prevention, chapter 20 )

First I was distracted by wedding stuff. Then, this past week, writing has been like pulling teeth.

No. Worse than that. Like tweezing blood-gorged ticks out of the back of my neck without aid of a mirror.

But I'm about halfway through chapter 21, and I fixed the really egregious potential continuity error, so I thought I might as well post this to keep the inter-chapter gap from getting too ridiculous. *grin*

This is part 19 of An Ounce of Prevention, a Naruto/Harry Potter crossover that I started as a giftfic for askerian.

Technically, it's an insertion of one HP character/plot device into the Naruto world, but that does count as a crossover of sorts. "An Ounce of Prevention" will not affect canon in either series; that is, it takes place during the Naruto timeskip, and significantly before CoS in HP. (Which gives away at least part of the ending, but whatever. *grin*)

( An Ounce of Prevention, chapter 19 )

And we're up to a 23-chapter outline. *headdesk*

I despise plot mechanics. I know exactly where I'm trying to go, but the trouble with attempting to keep the fundamentally loopy premise as logical as possible -- and keep the Leaf-nin acting both IC and, you know, like ninjas -- is that it's taking twice as long to reach the ending as I thought it would.

Also, it's hard to write when it's too hot to think... which is why I'm posting this past midnight. I have to stay up this late in order to have any chance of stringing words together in a vaguely coherent fashion.

*prays for a cold front*

Random question: have we seen any of Tsunade's slugs other than Katsuyu (the giant equivalent of Gamabunta and Manda)? Does she have any canonically named slugs whose size is equivalent to, say, Gamakichi?

---------------

In real life news, the weather continues to be disgustingly hot and humid (and it was only around 90 degrees). I am once again renewed in my vow never to move anywhere south of Philadelphia unless someone pays me several million dollars to do so.

As I said to Susan the other day, when it's cold, you can always put on more layers. When it's hot, there's only so much clothing you can take off. Sooner or later you end up naked -- and if you're still too hot, what are you going to do for an encore? :-)

This is part 18 of An Ounce of Prevention, a Naruto/Harry Potter crossover that I started as a giftfic for askerian.

Technically, it's an insertion of one HP character/plot device into the Naruto world, but that does count as a crossover of sorts. "An Ounce of Prevention" will not affect canon in either series; that is, it takes place during the Naruto timeskip, and significantly before CoS in HP. (Which gives away at least part of the ending, but whatever. *grin*)

( An Ounce of Prevention, chapter 18 )

The outline expanded again -- I now have 22 chapters (counting the epilogue) rather than 21. This is partly because I needed some page space for a transition, but partly because a plot point changed on me while I was working on part 19. It doesn't make much difference to the outcome, just to the process by which that outcome is reached. I think half the change comes from my subconscious constructing a more plausible device to solve one plot problem, and half from a semi-conscious effort not to give Sakura too much information.

See, one of the things I like about this particular crossover is that the ninjas never do learn all that much about the HP world, and Tom never learns all that much about Konoha, either. They're in a situation where they could trade all sorts of information, but for character and plot reasons, they don't. They pass each other by rather than becoming friends.

As I may or may not have somebody explicitly say, it's a shame that such a momentous occasion -- first contact with a person from another world! -- is a complete bust. But you can't expect success on every mission, and at least they keep Konoha safe.

I want to contrast that sense of futility and missed opportunities with Sakura's growing confidence in her own ability, and maybe give her proof that even when things don't work out the way you'd like, you can still know that you did your best, and move on. I may not manage to get all that into the story -- actually, judging by past experience, I almost certainly won't manage to -- but it's definitely one of the themes in the back of my head.

This is part 17 of An Ounce of Prevention, a Naruto/Harry Potter crossover that I started as a giftfic for askerian.

Technically, it's an insertion of one HP character/plot device into the Naruto world, but that does count as a crossover of sorts. "An Ounce of Prevention" will not affect canon in either series; that is, it takes place during the Naruto timeskip, and significantly before CoS in HP. (Which gives away at least part of the ending, but whatever. *grin*)

( An Ounce of Prevention, chapter 17 )

I had way too much fun writing that chapter... but seriously, what's not to love about Sakura kicking ass? And a cliffhanger. I love cliffhangers -- don't you? *angelic smile*

---------------

Apropos of nothing in particular, I find that I like hand-coding the minimal html that lj doesn't do for you. It makes me stare very suspiciously at every use of italics, which is good and useful, since I have a tendency to overuse them. When I'm typing [i] and [/i] around every slanted word, the editing corner of my brain takes the opportunity to shove each one in my face, sigh in disapproval, and say, "Liz, you poor silly creature, are you so scared that your words might not say exactly what you want them to say that you're going to put them on steroids?"

And I frown, and waver, and end up putting one to two thirds of the italicized words back into normal type.

You should all be grateful. Italics abuse is not pretty to read. *grin*