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You guys. I have finally brought one of the three Guardian WIPs of Doom to first draft, and sent it to solo. It's called Something Wicked, is around 30k long, not an AU although it definitely seems like one, and just, OMG.

I've long since reached the stage where I can't tell whether the story works in any way, so I can't speak to the quality - it's possible it's completely confusing and incomprehensible. But I am so glad to get it into some kind of finished state. It's been over a year with this thing. Seriously.

Other good things have also happened!

DontStopRun created a podfic of Dangerous Knowledge, my Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty OT3 story! I am super thrilled - it's the second ever podfic for one of my stories, and I love it to bits. :-)

Also, Ominous_Rain wrote a pre-OT3 story for Sleuth, and named Dangerous Knowledge as their story's inspiration!

I am totally fine with being the founder of Sleuth OT3 fanfic. ;-) Although I honestly don't know how fans have been avoiding writing stories about these three all along.

( In less good news )

Here is a random Something Wicked Snippet, to celebrate the story reaching first draft stage!

"It's okay. I have a plan." Zhao Yunlan carefully detached her hand from his arm and gave her his best reassuring smile. He didn't think it entirely worked, but that was the benefit of being the boss. You got to do stupidly risky things, and wiser heads didn't have the authority to stop you.

( Da Qing followed him into the entrance hall. )

A little while ago, I was sitting in my favorite tea house, happily drinking tea and reading Guardian fanfic on my tablet, as you do. The woman at a neighboring table kept casting annoyed glances my way without ever quite looking at me. I wondered about this briefly and then ignored it.

Eventually, she came up to me and spoke thusly: "Excuse me, but your cell phone has been in my back this whole time. Are you going to be done using it soon?"

I blinked at her and eloquently replied: "... what now? My cell phone is doing what...?"

Upon which she decided that further conversation was useless, disgustedly snorted and shook her head, and sped to the counter to pay. She hastily collected her things and rushed out the door, never deigning to look at me again and leaving her tea half-drunk.

The waitress and I theorize that she was bothered by the radiation/bad cell phone vibes/whatnot coming off of my tablet. Incidentally, my tablet was on airplane mode, so it wasn't sending anything into her back. Also, the tea house has wifi (which I assume she was blissfully ignorant of). Also, good luck escaping cell phone radiation anywhere in this city...