Excuse me if I am stepping exactly where Mr. Van Leigh so tactfully avoided.
Blaze’s short stories set in the present around the creation of his character’s log seem to fit perfectly well in the Personal Log forum. They fulfil a very similar function, the exception being that they are narrated rather than expressed in character, but they do not exactly break the RP since they are narrated from an in-universe viewpoint. There is nothing in the narration from outside the RP.
It would seem a natural fit to put any backstory or narration from before the character’s first shift into the character backstories location.
The issue I see is that it would be nice to have a view that showed only the log or the backstory (as proposed). This is less distracting and more immersive to read. On the other hand is it very encouraging and satisfying to get feedback on posted material and it has led to some fun discussions in the threads. The only issue is that the discussion of Personal Logs has to be OOC (because you would not expect someone’s personal log to be open to other characters).
For this reason, I am compiling my completed logs into a single Google doc, so that it can be reviewed without commentary and with some inserted images.