Saiyuki, Saiyuki, Saiyuki.
It's amazing how much different things feel in book form. And knowing how things are going to work out gives an extra poignancy (not that you thought it was all going to end well, mind you).
A few things:
-- Pippi really just has this funny acceptance of Goku going on. She'll casually insult his intelligence, but she just as clearly lets him in more closely than she does almost anyone. And when her brother dies, Goku's the one who first physically comforts her-- he's got his hands on her shoulders. They're quite possibly the most functional couple in the Saiyuki-verse, with the possible exception of Jiroshin and Kanezon Botatsu.
-- Gat! Oh Gat. He's the only grown-up of the three of them, and even he ends up sacrificing himself for the sake of principle. And-- I was talking about this with louiselux so sorry if this looks familiar-- he's got that great moment where he asks Sanzo to look after Hazel. And something about this translation, or seeing it in book form, or seeing it for the five millionth time, finally made it click-- Sanzo's bit about the gun is basically 'no one else can do what you do.' Whether he's not wanting to deal with the responsibility of Hazel (later canon, after all, has him strongly identifying as part of the 'Sanzo-ikkou') or whether he just is trying to get Gat to live-- possibly/probably both-- I'm not sure of.
--Hakkai and Gojyo dealing with Goku's grief. Gojyo's "Suck it up, kid" in the beginning of the volume ends up paralleling, a bit, what he does later-- Hakkai deals with the pain ("What can we do?") while Gojyo just keeps moving on ("Your taste is a little too good").
--An interesting contrast between When The Ikkou Went to Get Gojyo and When The Ikkou Went to Get Sanzo. They're not going to kick Sanzo's ass, or at least they're not talking about it; they're acting more like they're going to save him from himself. (Which is pretty much true.)
Anyway, those are my thoughts, or at least the ones I haven't already seen bouncing around the net.
I also wrote another fic for saiyuki_time. I guess you could see it as the last one's cousin. I have a half-finished one about sight, but I'm not happy with it and I'm over both time and the deadline.
The virtual reality AU for springkink is threatening to spiral out of control. Goku and Nataku want to take over and it's not even their prompt. So naughty!