UPDATE 10/30/16 - For those of you here for Side Stories. I haven't really updated ever since I started grad school some years ago. I'm in my final semester now so hoping updates will come along. I'll probably have to watch the 2nd movie again to refresh my memory though ;_;

in depth//Visions of Snow White: This is an AU sidestory to Wish-chan's CCS fanfic "The New Trials of Cardcaptor Sakura and Friends"—it's like probably the longest, and longest-running CCS fanfic of all time! I don't have pictures, but I will just leave it to your imaginations of what Tomoyo is wearing. In my mind, it's sapphire blue (bc September), and it's a sleeveless, floor-length, formal evening gown type of dress. Let's just say that Sonomi pulled all the stops to make sure Tomoyo looks absolutely gorgeous, haha XD

in depth//KOKORO: This came to me while I was listening to Kokoro (Vocaloid Original Song), and there was a Utada Hikaru version that someone made (using a custom voicebank they made up for her) that I really liked. Sometimes there are just songs that I hear and I just loop that one song for days and days, and I ended up putting Sasuke and Sakura (and Naruto, because I can't exclude him) into the tragic story of the scientist and robot. I remember the MV being really sad especially the version where they had added dialogue. So the first questions Sasuke asked her, were inspired by that dialogue.

The story's very fragmented, made up of a series of drabbles, and a lot is left out too. I tried filling in the spaces here and there, but in the end, I decided not to fill in every single detail or go into every background--like how many "worlds" or "lifetimes" are intertwined in this one story (depending on the reader's preference) and how do they connect? Have the characters been reincarnated or what? Unless I make this into a multi-chaptered fic, I can't really explain all these things, but for this twoshot, I decided to just leave things as such.

in depth//Side Stories: Be Forever Yorozuya: Inspiration sprouted from watching the second Gintama movie and a GinTae fan-manga I came across--except that ended up being the second chapter because the first chapter ended up writing itself after a bout of inspiration. Just a bit of trivia here but the first lines that conceptualized the first chapter were: "Oi, this isn't a boarding house you know," and "Everyone in the Shinsengumi knows you're sleeping in my closet anyway." And then the rest happened on it's own from there. Best writing experience ever is when the characters just make things happen. Haha.

But basically, as titled, it's a short side-stories that explore different characters' lives during this five-year gap, the struggles and ups and downs. I think what Otose said stands out: That she's only able to still laugh now (in spite of his "death" and Earth kinda left to rot) because his friends kinda carried on his legacy in protecting this town. So I just want to capture these moments. Except so far, the chapters lean more on the angst side... whoops XD

And even with the pairings listed, you'd probably have to squint for romance...

Below, I have the chapter orders listed and categorized by when in the 5-year span it occurs. I guess it's not necessarily necessary, because the chapters were originally meant to be independent of each other (except I guess I intertwined the plots so much that it's all in one same universe now). But for those who'd like to know—and also for myself too when I need to figure out transitioning and stuff. If I ever write a chapter that's definitely AU of this AU (lol, whatever that means), I'll make a note of it.

Timeline: For convenience, I've decided that the date Gintoki first "disappears" to to July 8, which was when BFY movie was released.

1st Year: Shelter, Kami-gata, Ohaka-mairi (end of first year)

2nd Year: White (wip), Kanban, Birthday (wip), Endurance (wip)

3rd Year: Farewell, Killer (wip)

4th Year: Kimono (wip), Bonds (wip)

5th Year: Lamentation, Visions, Respite (wip)

Within-Movie-time: Token (wip), Vestige (wip)

So far, most of the chapters feature Sougo, Kagura, Gintoki and Tae; I have ideas for chapters featuring other characters (i.e. Katsura, Shinpachi, Kyuubei, Sarutobi, etc), but since I don't read much Gintama fics, and don't have quite the feel of how to portray some of them, it would take me some time to get around to uploading those chapters.