UPDATE: Suspicion of the Guards (The Motley Crew #3) + online fic reissues
Feb. 1st, 2026 04:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
duskpeterson
ONLINE E-BOOK (html, epub, mobi, pdf, and xhtml)
Free at my website.
The Motley Crew (The Thousand Nations). When a young man named Dolan flees from the north, he faces danger on all sides. The Northern Army wants him back. The Empire of Emor wants him dead. His native homeland of Koretia may not want him at all. And his only protection is a man with motives that are mysterious and possibly deadly.
New installment:
3 | Suspicion of the Guards. Why bother to guard a man who has the ability to torment you?
REISSUES
Already available free at my website, these two omnibuses are now also available at AO3, SqWA, and Ream.
Law Links: Novel and Side Stories (The Three Lands). Few events are more thrilling in a young man's life than a blood feud between two villages. Or so Adrian thought.
Death Mask: Novel and Side Stories (Death Mask). For eighteen years, he has survived in an army unit where few soldiers live more than two or three years. Now he finds himself in circumstances where his life is a living hell. Will the soldier who defied death find that life is too great a challenge?
BLOG FICTION
Tempestuous Tours (Crossing Worlds: A Visitor's Guide to the Three Lands #2). A whirlwind tour of the sites in the Three Lands that are most steeped in history, culture, and the occasional pickpocket.
New installments:
NEWS & UPCOMING FICTION
As of January 20, Amazon Kindle began allowing customers to download some of its DRM-free ebooks in epub and pdf. I've opted in my e-books to this program.
My apologies to Ream readers for the formatting quirks in the Ream editions of Law Links and Death Mask. I worked with Ream's forever-patient customer service for eight months to try to work out the conversion problems I encountered, before I had to give up. The text isn't affected by the formatting issues, you'll be happy to know.
"Heir" (The Three Lands: Blood Vow side story) – delayed because of my concussion last year – will be my next release.
[ SECRET POST #6967 ]
Feb. 1st, 2026 04:05 pmcase posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fandomsecrets⌈ Secret Post #6967 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
01.
( More! )
Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 28 secrets from Secret Submission Post #995.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
Culinary
Feb. 1st, 2026 06:30 pmoursinThis week's bread: Len Deighton's Mixed Wholemeal Loaf from The Sunday Times Book of Real Bread: 4:1:1 wholemeal flour/strong white flour/mix of wheatgerm and medium oatmeal, now that I have supply of these, splosh of sunflower oil, this turned out very nice indeed.
Friday night supper: penne with chopped red pepper fried in a little oil and then chopped pepperoni added, splashed with a little lemon-infused oil before serving.
Saturday breakfast rolls: brown grated apple, strong brown flour, Rayner's barley malt extract: perhaps a little on the stodgy side.
Today's lunch: pheasant breasts flattened a little and rubbed with juniper berries, coriander seed, 5-pepper blend and salt crushed together and left for a couple of hours, panfried in butter and olive oil, deglazed with madeira; intended to serve with kasha but kasha from new supplier did not respond well to cooking by absorption method; sweetstem cauliflower (partly purple) roasted in pumpkin seed oil with cumin seeds and splashed with lime and lemongrass balsamic vinegar, 'baby' (monster baby) leeks halved and healthy-grilled in olive oil, with an olive oil, white wine, and grainy mustard dressing.
Weekly proof of life: media intake | impending weather | manga work
Feb. 1st, 2026 02:07 pmumadoshiOne link, which hopefully won't be paywalled: "Rachel Reid's wild Heated Rivalry ride" at The Globe and Mail. The whole "local girl makes good" element of the HR show taking over the world is a very nice cherry on top of the whole thing, and I really liked this profile.
Reading: I'm maybe 30% into Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl and wavering about continuing. I've gotten better about DNFing things, and this time I actually have the book out of the library, so the good old financial sunk-cost fallacy isn't in play. But I still don't like DNFing.
I've also read some more of Braiding Sweetgrass and reread vol. 2 of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.
Watching: Crunchyroll wasn't in the mood to work when we attempted to watch last week's ep. of Frieren, so we're two episodes behind on that. (Annoyingly, Netflix keeps saying it thinks we'd love the show, but only has season 1.) Hopefully we'll get caught up on the most recent ep. of The Pitt tonight.
On top of those currently-running things, we're now one episode into Midnight Mass.
Playing: Cult of the Lamb: Woolhaven continues to delight me.
Weathering: There's another storm heading in, due to arrive tonight, but it looks like it's veered enough that our local forecast is now for a somewhat more reasonable amount of snow than I'd been hearing before yesterday evening or so. Apparently it's also bringing fairly high winds, so there's the usual "will the power stay on?" worry. (Our neighborhood has been really lucky on that front this season, andscruloose and I are pretty well prepared, so it's not a huge worry.)
Working: I turned in the final volume (!) of Pet Shop of Horrors on Friday and immediately tried to switch to the next volume of Now That We Draw, since that's due mid-week, but my brain was Not Having It; I suspect it was the sheer tonal dissonance as much as anything. But then yesterday, what with the storm warning and all, I basically did the last four-fifths of the book in one sitting to make sure I at least had a workable draft, and now my brain is pretty crisped. (It's not a very text-heavy or tricky rewrite, and the translators make it pretty painless, so four-fifths is a lot at once but not the feat it would be with some series.)
So now I have a draft with just a couple tweaks still to be made and a final read-through to be done, and I'm tempting fate a bit by not trying to get that all off my plate today, but I think letting it rest for a day before reviewing it is extra important given that I did the draft so fast. So I'm gambling a bit, but also have something I can submit with caveats if need be, if we do lose power for three days or something.
Sleeping: Sleep has been distinctly Not Great for the last few (?) nights. I've been doing decently at getting to bed in a timely fashion and mostly not taking forever to fall asleep, but I've been having even weirder and more stressful dreams than usual and it's all been very restless.
Reading: I'm maybe 30% into Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl and wavering about continuing. I've gotten better about DNFing things, and this time I actually have the book out of the library, so the good old financial sunk-cost fallacy isn't in play. But I still don't like DNFing.
I've also read some more of Braiding Sweetgrass and reread vol. 2 of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.
Watching: Crunchyroll wasn't in the mood to work when we attempted to watch last week's ep. of Frieren, so we're two episodes behind on that. (Annoyingly, Netflix keeps saying it thinks we'd love the show, but only has season 1.) Hopefully we'll get caught up on the most recent ep. of The Pitt tonight.
On top of those currently-running things, we're now one episode into Midnight Mass.
Playing: Cult of the Lamb: Woolhaven continues to delight me.
Weathering: There's another storm heading in, due to arrive tonight, but it looks like it's veered enough that our local forecast is now for a somewhat more reasonable amount of snow than I'd been hearing before yesterday evening or so. Apparently it's also bringing fairly high winds, so there's the usual "will the power stay on?" worry. (Our neighborhood has been really lucky on that front this season, and
scruloose and I are pretty well prepared, so it's not a huge worry.)Working: I turned in the final volume (!) of Pet Shop of Horrors on Friday and immediately tried to switch to the next volume of Now That We Draw, since that's due mid-week, but my brain was Not Having It; I suspect it was the sheer tonal dissonance as much as anything. But then yesterday, what with the storm warning and all, I basically did the last four-fifths of the book in one sitting to make sure I at least had a workable draft, and now my brain is pretty crisped. (It's not a very text-heavy or tricky rewrite, and the translators make it pretty painless, so four-fifths is a lot at once but not the feat it would be with some series.)
So now I have a draft with just a couple tweaks still to be made and a final read-through to be done, and I'm tempting fate a bit by not trying to get that all off my plate today, but I think letting it rest for a day before reviewing it is extra important given that I did the draft so fast. So I'm gambling a bit, but also have something I can submit with caveats if need be, if we do lose power for three days or something.
Sleeping: Sleep has been distinctly Not Great for the last few (?) nights. I've been doing decently at getting to bed in a timely fashion and mostly not taking forever to fall asleep, but I've been having even weirder and more stressful dreams than usual and it's all been very restless.
London exhibition trip
Feb. 1st, 2026 05:46 pmdolorosa_12Matthias and I got back from London about an hour ago. We had a great time, but the Saturday portion of the trip was beset by an almost comical calvacade of chaos. (It's worth noting that we planned everything over a month in advance, with military precision — National Rail website and Google Maps open, planning every event with ample time in mind.) In list form:
The restaurant where we were booked to eat on Saturday night sent Matthias an email at 6am on Saturday saying that 'due to circumstances beyond our control,' they were 'closing permanently' as of Saturday.
When we opened the National Rail website to check that our train was still running (something we had checked and confirmed, as trains on this line on weekends are not always a given due to various pieces of track work), it showed no trains going to London at all. After some trial and error entering different start and destination points, we realised we'd be able to go to Cambridge North, then get on a train going to London Liverpool Street, get off at Tottenham Hale, and get the Tube on to our original destination. But this was going to make us late to our first booked exhibition at the British Museum.
I tried to phone the British Museum to check if being late would be a problem, but their phone box office is only staffed Monday-Friday.
Every seat on the train filled up at Cambridge North, and by the time we got to Cambridge main station, which was packed with a scrum of people wanting to go to London, all available standing spaces were filled. At each new station, I could see the crowds of people (for whom this is normally a very uncrowded train in to London) visibly spotting how full the train was and their faces falling in horror. We got later and later as more and more passengers tried to Tetris their way in at each new station.
We ran through the Tube, then found our way partly blocked by the weekly protest about Gaza, which I'd forgotten always started around Russell Square.
The British Museum had massive snaking queues to get through security. (Our original itinerary had us arriving there about forty-five minutes early, with time to get through the queue, which we knew would be long on a Saturday, drop off our bags, and amble into the first exhibition.) By the time we made it in, dropped our bags and coats in the cloakroom, and got to the first exhibition, we were half an hour later than intended.
We then whipped our way through the two exhibitions at absolute breakneck speed, so that we wouldn't be late to our lunch reservation (where I had had to provide card details when booking, so I knew they would charge me if we didn't show up). Half an hour per exhibition wasn't really enough time, but I'm impressed we managed it at all!
Lunch and the next exhibition at the Tate Modern were both fine, and happened as planned (I was particularly pleased that we managed to walk from Bloomsbury to the Tate, make it inside before it started raining, and emerge about an hour and a half later to find the rain had moved on, just in time for us to walk for forty minutes to our hotel! I now return to the ongoing chaos:
I always have a list of restaurants lined up that I want to try, so when we got the email cancelling our previous reservation I had another one in the list. This one didn't take reservations at all, but said that if no tables were available, you could get a drink at their bar or give your number to waitstaff and they'd phone you when a table became free, but I had forgotten that a) this was a stupid thing to risk in Soho on a Saturday night and b) that this place had become massively overhyped on social media, so when we got there, there was a queue of about fifteen groups lining up outside the door — no chance even to get inside and get a drink as promised! — and it was about to start raining again.
Some very quick work with my remaining list of restaurants and I managed to snag a booking for a place at 6.30pm at a pasta restaurant I had wanted to try. The only problem — at that point it was 6.25pm, so we sprinted down the street in the rain, and made it there in time to take the reservation.
And then they accidentally gave my dinner to a woman at the table next to us, and her dinner to me! This was rectified in about fifteen minutes, but it was definitely the crowning glory in a day that was characterised by chaos from start to finish.
Sunday, in contrast, was calm and lovely — breakfast in a little cafe with views of the Thames, the Lee Miller exhibition at Tate Britain (spectacular — if you have the ability to be in London before it closes, go if you can), where we inevitably bumped into a former colleague of Matthias and her husband, lunch in a sort of upmarket food court a minute away from Liverpool Street Station, and then a much less crowded train ride home.
I'm glad we went, but that was a lot more everything than I had expected! And I still haven't managed to try the hyped viral Thai restaurant in Soho...
Lunch and the next exhibition at the Tate Modern were both fine, and happened as planned (I was particularly pleased that we managed to walk from Bloomsbury to the Tate, make it inside before it started raining, and emerge about an hour and a half later to find the rain had moved on, just in time for us to walk for forty minutes to our hotel! I now return to the ongoing chaos:
Sunday, in contrast, was calm and lovely — breakfast in a little cafe with views of the Thames, the Lee Miller exhibition at Tate Britain (spectacular — if you have the ability to be in London before it closes, go if you can), where we inevitably bumped into a former colleague of Matthias and her husband, lunch in a sort of upmarket food court a minute away from Liverpool Street Station, and then a much less crowded train ride home.
I'm glad we went, but that was a lot more everything than I had expected! And I still haven't managed to try the hyped viral Thai restaurant in Soho...
Greetings from western Canada
Feb. 1st, 2026 07:51 amjonw posting in addmeName: Jon (JD) Watson
Age: let's just say I was a BBS SysOp before the internet existed.
I mostly post about: day to say stuff. I tend to lean geeky/tecchy and Canadiana, but I think a lot about lots of things and post topics can get pretty random. I keep it clean, mostly, so you can safely check out my content to decide for yourself :)
My hobbies are: journalling (privately, not necessarily online, but there is definitely overlap), writing, nerding out on home tech projects, self-improvement, and caring for my three dogs. If anyone ever asks you how many dogs is too many dogs, the answer is three.
I'm looking to meet people who: are Canadian OR have geeky job/hobbies OR see normal things in deeper ways OR are sane Linux users (AKA, not the alpha-nerd type of boor) AND are tolerant of the incredibly diverse state the world is in AND kind to things and people that can do nothing for them.
My posting schedule tends to be: Dailyish. Usually more than weekly but I doubt I can consistently hit daily.
When I add people, my dealbreakers are: right-wing crap in all its forms, both overt and covert. And, honestly, politics in general. I firmly believe that social media is the worst place to get news or reliably accurate information on anything, and politics has emerged as the most divisive topic to date. Thus, I am not interested in getting involved in political discussions as a general rule.
Before adding me, you should know: I overthink everything and will probably eventually bore you with some deep indepth post about the merits of square toothpicks versus round ones.
Age: let's just say I was a BBS SysOp before the internet existed.
I mostly post about: day to say stuff. I tend to lean geeky/tecchy and Canadiana, but I think a lot about lots of things and post topics can get pretty random. I keep it clean, mostly, so you can safely check out my content to decide for yourself :)
My hobbies are: journalling (privately, not necessarily online, but there is definitely overlap), writing, nerding out on home tech projects, self-improvement, and caring for my three dogs. If anyone ever asks you how many dogs is too many dogs, the answer is three.
I'm looking to meet people who: are Canadian OR have geeky job/hobbies OR see normal things in deeper ways OR are sane Linux users (AKA, not the alpha-nerd type of boor) AND are tolerant of the incredibly diverse state the world is in AND kind to things and people that can do nothing for them.
My posting schedule tends to be: Dailyish. Usually more than weekly but I doubt I can consistently hit daily.
When I add people, my dealbreakers are: right-wing crap in all its forms, both overt and covert. And, honestly, politics in general. I firmly believe that social media is the worst place to get news or reliably accurate information on anything, and politics has emerged as the most divisive topic to date. Thus, I am not interested in getting involved in political discussions as a general rule.
Before adding me, you should know: I overthink everything and will probably eventually bore you with some deep indepth post about the merits of square toothpicks versus round ones.
Pimp your Small Fandom!!!
Feb. 1st, 2026 09:20 amspikedluv posting in smallfandomfestIt’s time for another new round of fandom pimpage! Remember, the pimp-your-fandom button is reset to zero, so every single small fandom is up for grabs. Even if someone else had previously signed up to pimp it and failed to deliver. *coff* Not me, of course. *g* *coff* Even if it’s already been pimped once before. Of course, we don’t want you to rehash everything the last pimper said, but we’d love to get your own unique take on the fandom.
( Pimping Rules )
So, if you’d like to pimp your favorite fandom, please sign up in a comment to this post with your name and the name of the fandom you’d like to pimp.
(If you’re wondering what people have included in their pimps in the past, check them out here.)
( List of Claimed Fandoms: )
Don’t forget to track our Missing: Have You Seen This Fandom? post! Any assistance you can offer your fellow small fandomites in their search for small fandoms will be appreciated.
( Pimping Rules )
So, if you’d like to pimp your favorite fandom, please sign up in a comment to this post with your name and the name of the fandom you’d like to pimp.
(If you’re wondering what people have included in their pimps in the past, check them out here.)
( List of Claimed Fandoms: )
Don’t forget to track our Missing: Have You Seen This Fandom? post! Any assistance you can offer your fellow small fandomites in their search for small fandoms will be appreciated.
SFFest38: Round Thirty-Eight Closed
Feb. 1st, 2026 08:25 amspikedluv posting in smallfandomfestI’m sad to say that the thirty-eighth round of Small Fandoms Fest has come to an end, but we’ve had so many great submissions, and now we get to look forward to next round!
For those of you wondering we had 53 submissions this round in 32 different fandoms, as well as 3 fandom pimps. Thank you so much to those of you who made the move to DW with us and to those of you who are just finding us. I appreciate that you chose to play in this sandbox despite all the other holiday challenges and exchanges you have to choose from.
Thanks so much to everyone who participated in this round, whether you submitted prompts, wrote fanfic, created fanart, or pimped your fandom, your involvement helped make this round a huge success! ♥
Participation buttons will be available shortly, and the call for prompts for the thirty-NINTH round will go out on May 1st, so mark your calendar! *g
For those of you wondering we had 53 submissions this round in 32 different fandoms, as well as 3 fandom pimps. Thank you so much to those of you who made the move to DW with us and to those of you who are just finding us. I appreciate that you chose to play in this sandbox despite all the other holiday challenges and exchanges you have to choose from.
Thanks so much to everyone who participated in this round, whether you submitted prompts, wrote fanfic, created fanart, or pimped your fandom, your involvement helped make this round a huge success! ♥
Participation buttons will be available shortly, and the call for prompts for the thirty-NINTH round will go out on May 1st, so mark your calendar! *g
Crossed #3
Feb. 1st, 2026 08:00 amcyberghostface posting in scans_daily
"A lot of what I do seems extreme in comparison with other comics — which, given that the industry staple is still superheroes, are mostly going to seem that bit more restrained. But compare my work to some of the current stuff in TV or movies, and all of a sudden I’m not quite that far out there." -- Garth Ennis
( Scans under the cut... )
Absolute Martian Manhunter #7
Feb. 1st, 2026 12:51 amlaughing_tree posting in scans_daily
We’re celebrating what I think is really interesting about the original character and concept. I’m going back and reading all of the early Silver Age appearances from the first detective stories. I thought there was something with this character that can see into people’s minds, but has a truly alien perspective that even Superman doesn’t possess, that was really powerful and interesting. -- Deniz Camp
( Read more... )
fandomocweekly and fanmix_monthly
Feb. 1st, 2026 04:20 pmmatsushima posting in ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_community_promo
fandomocweekly is a low commitment challenge community for sharing your fandom-based original characters. Every week, there is a gen prompt and a relationship prompt. You can post fills in any format/medium (fic, icons, art, etc.). OC x canon, yume, self-shipping, Mary Sues, etc. all welcome! ✨ This week's prompts are ideal & consideration.
Despite the name,
fanmix_monthly is not only for fanmixes and the monthly prompts are optional. You're invited to share any mixtapes you've made any time! This month's theme is relationships.
flareonfury posting in smallfandomfestTitle: One Bed (Je vous aime.)
Author:flareonfury
Fandom: Bastard Son and the Devil Himself, The (tv)
Pairing/Characters: Annalise O'Brien/Nathan Byrn/Gabriel Boutin
Rating/Category: PG / MMF
Prompt: Hold Each Other by A Great Big World
Spoilers: Post-Canon
Summary: They find a safe house after Wolfhagen.
Notes/Warnings: Also written for100fandoms prompt heart. 2 hours late for smallfandomfest, but hopefully that's okay! I had such writer's block for this one.
Read on dreamwidth or Read on AO3
Author:
flareonfuryFandom: Bastard Son and the Devil Himself, The (tv)
Pairing/Characters: Annalise O'Brien/Nathan Byrn/Gabriel Boutin
Rating/Category: PG / MMF
Prompt: Hold Each Other by A Great Big World
Spoilers: Post-Canon
Summary: They find a safe house after Wolfhagen.
Notes/Warnings: Also written for
100fandoms prompt heart. 2 hours late for smallfandomfest, but hopefully that's okay! I had such writer's block for this one.Read on dreamwidth or Read on AO3
Daily Check In.
Jan. 31st, 2026 05:44 pmadafrog posting in fandom_checkinThis is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Saturday to midnight on Sunday (8pm Eastern Time).
Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.
Poll #34155 Daily poll
This poll is closed.
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 29
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 29
How are you doing?
I am okay
16 (57.1%)
I am not okay, but don't need help right now
11 (39.3%)
I could use some help.
1 (3.6%)
How many other humans are you living with?
I am living single
10 (34.5%)
One other person
13 (44.8%)
More than one other person
6 (20.7%)
Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.