Thank you! I'm glad the firework/gun thing worked for you - I got halfway through this & had a crisis of confidence about whether it was remotely plausible, but by that time it was too late to change direction.

I'm still working up to the full-frontal slash thing - I haven't managed it yet in anything that I've written, although most have been sort-of-slash. (I really don't want to launch into the whole definitions thing here, so can I just leave it like that?) One day I'll get there...