Today's the day! Surviving Peace is live!
Mar. 18th, 2026 07:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tassosss
Ebook is available on all retailers.
Paperback is available on Amazon.
If you'd like a signed paperback, let me know in comments. I don't have my author copies yet, so it will be a little bit of a delay.
Wordcount: ~114,000
Rated: Teen for swearing and violence
No Archive Warnings Apply
Summary:
They saved the ship. Now everyone wants them dead.
Jacks Harrison and chief engineer Antony Watts avoided a catastrophic collision between their generation ship Peace and their three sister ships that would have killed every human in the fleet. But saving their people came with a cost, and now Jacks and Antony are wanted by the rebellious factions that overthrew Peace’s corrupt governor.
With Peace’s two cities in shambles and neighbor turning against neighbor, Jacks and Antony must fight their way to safety only to find that the people on Peace are still in terrible danger: the ship’s water system is bleeding out, and it’s up to them to figure out how stop it.
Along the way, Jacks must reckon with the violence she finds herself too comfortable with and Antony must confront his past complicity in the corrupt regime. Because Peace doesn’t hand out easy answers, and they both have to decide how far they’re willing to go to ensure they survive.
(no subject)
Mar. 17th, 2026 09:52 pmwaterswordOh my GOD can it be spring yet, I am SO TIRED OF WINTER. There is a tiny tiny tiny pink nubbin of rhubarb in the garden. No asparagus yet. I cannot wait to get the dopamine hit of seeing my summer clothes for the first time in months.
The NT's production of The Importance of Being Earnest is of course a delight (Sharon D. Clarke deserves a knighthood and Ncuti Gatwa wears clothes, and few clothes, to perfection); velveteenrabbi and D's Pesach class is as excellent as one might expect; somewhere on this desk is an embroidery needle and I am convinced the gherkin is going to stab herself with it. Wednesday is actually largely unscheduled and I need only survive the conference Thursday, which requires me to leave the house at godawful o'clock.
I am looking forward to the three-hour train ride and the Dessa concert so much. And then I get a weekend in my favorite city! I have been promised brunch and a museum and rainbow cookies and bagels. (Promised by myself and I intend to follow through in every particular.)
Episode 2753: Ship Happens
Mar. 17th, 2026 09:11 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
darths_and_droids_feed
It's amazing how often we see vehicles designed for space flight end up submerged in water, and then emerge fully functional. They must really over-engineer those things.
In general, things surviving where they really shouldn't can be a great theme for co-opting into a game. Imagine a magical tome that unexpectedly survives a fire that turns all around it into ash. Or the classic creature frozen in ice, which returns to life when thawed out. A shipwreck where the ship is somehow still intact, and the interior spaces are still dry, preserving things that would normally have long rotted away.
Any time something happens that should be destructive, you can sprinkle in some object that unexpectedly survived. Now you have an instant adventure hook.
aurilee writes:
Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)
Aw, Luke didn't even give Rey a chance to raise the X-wing up! At least she could have tried before the old master showed off by lifting the ship up. Definitely looks in better shape than when it was stuck on Dagobah though!
And whoops! That's rather awkward for Corey. I guess that never came up in any of the talk, otherwise he probably wouldn't have picked that metaphor to start with. I think I'd pick rust as the cancer metaphor replacement. It seems to grow if you don't pay attention and take care of it quickly, rusted objects take a lot of work to clean and they're never quite the same afterwards, and it'll eventually destroy whatever it's taken hold in if left alone. And as a bonus, rust doesn't seem to be that common in Star Wars, so as an in-character statement, that'd be even scarier than an evil space fungus. You could probably pick up at least a couple of those by just running off into the jungle around the current Resistance base.
Transcript
we're going up, up, up, it's our moment
Mar. 16th, 2026 04:36 pmmusesfool
Also for Kpop Demon Hunters and "Golden!"
Here are two links I enjoyed this morning:
= Don't Fence Ted McGinley In (NYT gift link) (also, spoilers for aired episodes of Shrinking)
= 'The Pitt,' as Told by Its Patients
*
Didn't see that coming.
Mar. 15th, 2026 11:24 pmsettiai
But apparently Firefly of all things might be getting an animated series set between S1 and the movie.
and now for something completely different
Mar. 15th, 2026 05:01 pmmuccamukkSo I've been watching bits and pieces of that, as well as all of The Royal Ballet's Cinderella. I therefore offer you some fully random observations, from someone who never got into any kind of dance as a kid, and therefore knows baaaaaasically nothing about the topic. (I have been to several ballets in person, The Nutcracker of course, and the Winnipeg Ballet's Svengali..)
- I like classical ballet (I'm not really watching modern) because it's quite ridiculous, and unconnected to anything that has ever happened on the face of the Earth.
- I have learned that there's dialogue! Classical ballet has a kind of sign language, done through gestures, so that the dancers can explain plot points such as "We make evil men dance until they die!" and "This lake is made of my mother's tears!"
- There does not seem to be much point to the male principal dancers. They have thighs like birch trees, which allows them to leap impressively high in the air, but they don't spin around on nothing but their big toe, which makes them less interesting to watch. Their main purposes seems to be to move the plot along, and act as a "Ballerina holder upper."
- Maybe it's just because I'm not good enough at reading the mime, but the romantic dances are... not very romantic. They mostly seem to be the ballerina holder upper holding up the ballerina while she spins around on her big toe.
- I don't know if there's non-transphobic/misogynistic way to do the comedy roles where male dancers play female characters, but Cinderella sure didn't manage it.
- The plot of Giselle is really interesting (boy meets girl, girl dies when she finds out that boy has a fiancée, girl joins chorus of vengeful ghosts, vengeful ghosts attempt to kill boy, girl saves boy), and I wonder if there have been modern retellings like there have of other old fairytales.
- I'm pretty sure the human body is not designed to do any of that.
Which is all I have for now.
nothing but the truth now
Mar. 15th, 2026 05:50 pmmusesfoolWe went out for a fun dinner - the onion rings at this place are so good! even if the service was a little haphazard - and then I went home with my brother's family. It was early enough that I could have come back here, but my middle niece was like, "aren't you going to hang out with us?!" so of course I stayed, and ended up watching KPop Demon Hunters with middle and youngest niece (youngest was like I don't wanna! but at the end she was like, that was really good!). I should note that they are 27 and 24, but they still like hanging out with me! <333 And now we want the prequel about Rumi's mother and her demon affair.
My car this morning came 90 minutes early, so I rolled out of bed expecting to be able to have a bagel and a cup of coffee before I had to leave, but there he was, blocking the driveway, so I got home before I was even scheduled to leave.
The amount of benadryl and Zyrtec I have to take at their house because of the cat is ridiculous, and I ended up coming home and sleeping for most of the day. I'm glad I didn't cancel my PTO day tomorrow though - I scheduled it when this dinner was originally planned for tonight. I did tell my boss she could ping me if she needed me ahead of their meeting with the board chair tomorrow afternoon, but I so hope she doesn't.
*
Episode 2752: Do You Like Scary Moves?
Mar. 15th, 2026 09:15 amdarths_and_droids_feed
Food is often a fixture at a gaming session. Some groups like to eat while they play, while others (including us, and the Darths players) prefer to take a break from the game while eating a meal. For us this is because we generally have pizza, and nobody wants greasy fingers on their dice or character sheets. It also gives a chance for a mid-game break and reflection. Sometimes we just discuss non-game stuff, while others times the players discuss strategy for whatever thing is happening in the game.
aurilee writes:
Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)
Heh. Screaming as one jumps out of a perfectly fine aircraft is expected! The tandem instructors are probably more than used to it as well. I also think that Pete might have not been entirely wanting to go skydiving if he's only just realized he'll be screaming as well. But hey! We'll find out more about how the skydiving went after a few more game sessions have gone by I bet.
Transcript
π
Mar. 14th, 2026 08:00 pmsettiai
Proper stuffed pizza! In DC! I never thought that I'd see the day.
Performing some traffic maintenance today
Mar. 14th, 2026 01:04 pm![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png){kind=small}
mark posting in ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_maintenanceHappy Saturday!
I'm going to be doing a little maintenance today. It will likely cause a tiny interruption of service (specifically for www.dreamwidth.org) on the order of 2-3 minutes while some settings propagate. If you're on a journal page, that should still work throughout!
If it doesn't work, the rollback plan is pretty quick, I'm just toggling a setting on how traffic gets to the site. I'll update this post if something goes wrong, but don't anticipate any interruption to be longer than 10 minutes even in a rollback situation.
whoops; it's been a month
Mar. 14th, 2026 10:15 amtassosssI've been busy lately with getting my book Surviving Peace ready to publish next week--and the subsequent crash after I got everything loaded to retailers, and my brains was like - Done! I'm sorry in advance that I'm going to be posting about it a bunch next week.
In other fun news, I finally finished watching season 1 of The Pitt last week and I'm through episode 4 of season 2. I absolutely love the show and am obsessed. We're shipping Robby and Abbot, right? Because yes please.
On the game front I am working through Hades II, which has been a lot fun. I like that they've put two pathways in. It's really helped with each run to have another option. They've done a really great job with the game and story. I <3 Nemesis and Dora on the companion side of things.
For other tv, Husband and I are watching The Apothecary Diaries. We were coming off of season 1 of Frieren (so much love), so at first we were a little meh, but now we're all in. The hard part is the complicated court politics reveals that happen very quickly so we sometimes have to pause and figure it out. Mao Mao is wonderful though, such a gremlin and I'm here for it.
Currently, I'm reading the third book in a romance series, Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez. It's good. The whole series has been good. She lets there be obstacles that come from real pain and baggage, which make the third act much more bearable. I think one of my issues with traditional romance beats is that I myself take people at their word in relationships, and I find it so frustrating when a character in their head goes "he says he loves me. but of course he loves his ex not me." And I get that this is a real thing, but it is so foreign to my own thought processes that it drives me nuts. Jimenez's writing makes me much more empathetic to her characters when they do that, because that is very much part of their journey in a genuine way, rather than it feeling forced. Anyway. They're good. I'm having fun.
A scattered weekly proof of life
Mar. 14th, 2026 11:24 amumadoshi
Yesterday work wrapped up early enough that I had an actual evening, so I was finally able to start Butterfly Effects, the fifteenth (!) InCryptid book. ("Finally" is a bit of a stretch, I guess, since it's still the release week, but this is a Sarah-narrated book. Mostly. SARAH.)
So my hopes for the weekend are pretty much: avoid napping (I don't find naps restorative and feel groggier after than before I started); finish reading Butterfly Effects; watch this week's The Pitt and hopefully the temporarily-streaming production of The Importance of Being Earnest with
scruloose; get scruloose to redo my undercut; and (also with scruloose) do a second round of advance-prepping ten or so bags of the dry ingredients for my breakfast banana bread while also baking up a new batch of loaves. I think that last will also require decanting cinnamons from bags into jars, so maybe we'll manage a bit of other spice decanting/sorting while we're at it.
trying to run the gauntlet
Mar. 13th, 2026 07:21 pmmusesfool
Tomorrow, I have to get up early and bake Irish soda bread to take to the family - we are going out for St. Patrick's Day dinner (and also the NINTH[!!!!!] anniversary of my father's death - it is his recipe I use; I miss him a lot).
TV quick takes:
Shrinking: ( spoilers ) Anyway, the first few episodes of this show are a little tough to take but it has morphed into a funny, endearing, poignant hangout comedy and I recommend it! Harrison Ford is SO GOOD in it too.
The Pitt: ( spoilers )
I am very interested to see where the rest of this season is going.
*
It's Here!
Mar. 12th, 2026 09:00 pmmuccamukkFree to view now until the 18th, GMT, I assume.
links list (the Internet may be getting worse)
Mar. 12th, 2026 08:52 ammuccamukkdw_dev: AI and Dreamwidth.Great post from
mark about exactly how DW could use AI (potentially spam filtering), and how it will never use it (feeding your posts into the maw).404 Media: 'AI Is African Intelligence': The Workers Who Train AI Are Fighting Back.
Kenyan workers are still the underpaid labor behind AI training, moderation, and sex chatbots. The Data Labelers Association is fighting back.
The Verge: Grammarly is using our identities without permission.
When users select the 'expert review' button in the Grammarly sidebar, it analyzes their writing and surfaces AI-generated suggestions 'inspired by' related experts. Those 'industry-relevant perspectives' include the likes of Stephen King, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Carl Sagan, among many others.
Wired: Grammarly Is Facing a Class Action Lawsuit Over Its AI 'Expert Review' Feature.
I'm sure everyone enjoys getting sued by Stephen King.
The Flytrap: Sex Workers Versus the Algorithm.
Mostly about payment processors, but also about filtering:
the endless dance around content bans requires constantly coming up with new ways to craft video titles and content that are frustrating not only for adult performers, but also their customers.
The Guardian: The world wants to ban children from social media, but there will be grave consequences for us all.
Age-verification systems require collecting sensitive data to support the biometric information. In no time, the internet will become a fully surveilled digital panopticon.
Canadian Politics
(I'm actually saving fewer links about this, because it's mostly pretty disheartening. And I can't deal.)
Desmond Cole fact checks his misinformation and explains how blaming the most vulnerable distracts us from fighting for good health care for all.
The Tyee: Advocates Hope a Ruling Will Change RCMP Treatment of Indigenous Witnesses.
But critics say the Canadian rights tribunal didn’t go far enough after finding police discrimination.
Nominally good news, but so much about this case pisses me off. $7k each? Seriously? Reminder that the one person who got state protection in all of this, the guy who (allegedly) abused all those people, is John Furlong. Fuck that guy.
The Breach: A notorious RCMP unit shaped B.C. universities’ reaction to Palestine encampments.
From Fairy Creek to university campuses, CRU-BC is positioning itself as the go-to police force for repressing dissent.
Category: jackbooted thugs.
Kind of Cool, Actually:
Words cannot express how validating this was. Lo! How many long years have I said that AL:VH is the most historically accurate Lincoln movie? HCR agrees.
The Tyee: What Can You Do with Used Plastic and 3D Printers? Meet Two Pros.
Not sure how scalable this is, but it's a cool project.
The Narwhal : In northeast B.C., fresh food is scarce. This First Nation hopes geothermal energy could change that.
Cool project to restore food security after Site C fucked it up, hopefully they can get funding.
I've really been enjoying the promo clips for this new ballet. I hope there's some way to watch it online.
Episode 2751: A Fire Shall Be Woken
Mar. 12th, 2026 10:56 amdarths_and_droids_feed
Fire does destroy a lot of things. So if you want something to seem indestructible, having it survive a fire is a pretty good indicator. It's not for no reason that Gandalf chucked the One Ring into the fire to demonstrate to Frodo that it was Something to Be Reckoned With.
Think about the cool and adventure-worthy implications of:
- A person who walks through fire, unharmed.
- A book that cannot be burnt.
- A monster that only grows stronger when consumed by flame.
- A wand that is tossed into a fire, and extinguishes the flames, emerging unscathed.
- Gauntlets that let you place your hands in fire and pick up red-hot things with impunity.
aurilee writes:
Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)
I guess Nute is being left to the rest of the cast then. I suspect that there's going to be another space battle of some kind while Palpatine is being dealt with, and that'll likely involve at least some of the Resistance. So the other part of the Resistance better get busy on dealing with Nute. Sure, there's not many high-ranking members of the First Order left, but there's still plenty of minions Nute can work with and cause all sorts of shipping problems.
It really isn't that surprising the pyramid's fine. Like the GM says, the adventure has to end at some point. But also, it's totally an evil artifact of some kind. Kylo might have crushed the other one, but I bet it wasn't completely damaged beyond repair. Rather like how smashing a monitor doesn't stop a computer from doing its calculations, I bet there's still enough bits left in the other one that it would still have been usable for the navigation purpose.
Well. Usable by someone like Chewbacca who's actually really good at repairs. It's still hard to use a computer if there's no screen!
Transcript
Challenges and achievements in and out of games
Mar. 11th, 2026 08:45 pmschneefinkOther effects: I read books on my e-book-reader on my commute instead of fics on my phone. And I really wish my radio wasn't broken but it hasn't reached the necessary annoyance level yet to get it fixed.
I'm not behind on my study plan for my next exam yet! (The upcoming exam is mostly VAT so both important and relevant and hard.) We'll see how long it lasts, but I'm in week 3 and that's pretty good especially for my standards. And that's despite me being sick one weekend and having a bad cold the next.
I told myself I'd combine it with finally starting the Hades 2 1.0 playthrough I've been planning for months, and for the first two weeks I actually managed to stick to my "one run per study session" rule but, uh, not anymore. Ahem. Good news, still having a lot of fun playing Hades 2. And thanks to playing over 130 hours in Early Access I'm so much better than when I started my first playthrough.
(I started now because the plan was DD would start the week after and then we can talk about it, but she had a schedule change and still hasn't started so that didn't work out either ^^)
But since I started playing Hades 2 I mostly stopped playing Vampire Survivors - not completely, I have done a few more runs to get some of the very last unlocks/secrets, but mostly. So have the remaining notes for now, directly continuing from last time.
( More Vampire Survivors: more bats, still no vampires. )
I should stop procrastinating and do the dishes.
another big swing from a young hitter
Mar. 10th, 2026 10:08 pmmusesfool
*
Work is currently bananas. Listen, I have a whole document I wrote on how to change/streamline board stuff to foster discussion and engagement, but we were supposed to do it methodically and not implement it until the June meeting, except now we are doing it NOW, and everything got upended in the stupidest way possible. I maybe kind of couldn't control how irritated I am about it because it is basically making me do double the amount of work and is seems to me like it is just going to achieve the exact opposite of what we want it to, but apparently this is coming directly from the new board chair. I told my boss that if I am right, and that this doesn't do what they think it is going to, I might not say it, but I will be thinking the world's biggest "I told you so." And she was like, that's fair. Sigh.
*