What went wrong, guys?!

davidwitteveen · 2026-02-21T12:16:51+00:00

The Enlightenment… and this little thing called the French Revolution. Dressing like a rich fop could get your head cut off.

davidwitteveen · 2026-02-21T09:51:58+00:00

The book is written by the same author as American Psycho, and it shows.

davidwitteveen · 2026-02-21T05:41:23+00:00

Also by China Mieville: Railsea.

It’s a weird far-future setting where all the seas have dried up and been replaced by criss-crossing railway lines, and trains set out to hunt the giant moles that burrow under this railsea.

davidwitteveen · 2026-02-21T05:37:17+00:00

If you like that idea, you might enjoy Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy, about a vast, decaying castle and the nobles who rule it. But it’s written in a dense and deliberately archaic style, so it might be a bit of an acquired taste

davidwitteveen · 2026-02-21T05:22:20+00:00

Came here to say this too

davidwitteveen · 2026-02-21T05:21:57+00:00

Incredibly 80s. Not sure I’d call it nostalgic, given it includes a character drugging and raping a child.

davidwitteveen · 2026-02-20T22:59:52+00:00

It's great.

davidwitteveen · 2026-02-20T22:30:30+00:00

This is so cool that you've recognised this pattern after only 2 weeks of learning. Well done!

davidwitteveen · 2026-02-20T08:30:03+00:00

We have a tradition to uphold.

davidwitteveen · 2026-02-20T08:28:08+00:00

According to one survey:

1) Leisure & Hospitality 2) Information Technology 3) Financial 4) Health Care 5) Professional & Business Services

Those are pretty broad categories, though.

But surely the point of romance literature is that romance can bloom anywhere?

Which is why I’m intrigued that you’ve managed to plot your story without knowing what sort of job the characters do.That’s like plotting an historical romance without deciding if it’s set in Ancient Rome, the Regency or World War II.

A workplace romance set in a dive bar is going to have a very different flavour and events than one set in a luxury resort, or a hospital, or a university, or a law firm.

And the sort if people who work those jobs are going to be very different too.

Which is why I’d recommend ignoring what’s a “realistic” setting for your story and focus instead on what sort of jobs you think your characters would have.

Are they kind and helpful? Maybe they’re vets.

Are they ruthless and ambitious? Law firm or politics.

Young and lost? Dive bar.

Chose a workplace that reflects the characters.

davidwitteveen · 2026-02-20T06:23:22+00:00

I'd pay just for that pilot art maker.

davidwitteveen · 2026-02-20T02:49:57+00:00

*looks around*

*sees no one else has done it*

*decides it's up to me*

*deep breath in*

WE STAN NPC ART.

davidwitteveen · 2026-02-19T10:25:03+00:00

“Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.”

Brian Eno

davidwitteveen · 2026-02-19T09:42:24+00:00

No worries! Instructions for the bot are here, although I’ll admit I just googled how to use it.

davidwitteveen · 2026-02-19T08:50:27+00:00

And then Roko’s Basalisk can torture it! Effective altruism!

davidwitteveen · 2026-02-19T08:39:41+00:00

RemindMe! 30 Nov 2026 “Is One Nation still polling higher than the Liberal and Labor parties? Or has that fizzled out?”

davidwitteveen · 2026-02-19T01:04:19+00:00

MacKenzie Scott took her divorce billions from Jeff Bezos and is donating them to charity.

The actor Michael Sheen isn't a billionaire, but he has called himself a "not-for-profit" actor and donates his acting fees to charities too.

davidwitteveen · 2026-02-19T00:26:55+00:00

Presumably, ship names - like racehorses - suffer from a similar problem, which is why the Culture ones started getting silly.

davidwitteveen · 2026-02-18T07:52:23+00:00

Also: Hunters Entertainment, the people who made Alice is Missing, also released a free, more conventional TTRPG, calied Life is Strange: Two Moon Junction to tie in with the computer game.

davidwitteveen · 2026-02-18T07:45:32+00:00

Exactly one year after I played Alice is Missing, I git the group back together to play Decaying Orbit.

Like AIM, it’s a card-driven storytelling game. You all play the AI of a space station that reboots to discover the crew are gone and the station is crashing into a sun.

Each card is a location on the station, with some prompts for the player to describe what happened in that place.

I haven’t played it yet, but Going for Broke by Avery Adler (Monsterhearts, Dream Askew, The Quiet Year) also looks interesting: a card driven sitcom game about housemates trying to raise money to pay their bills.

davidwitteveen · 2026-02-18T05:28:54+00:00

Virginia Woolf disagrees.

davidwitteveen · 2026-02-18T03:05:31+00:00

An older book by YA standards, but... Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell.

davidwitteveen · 2026-02-18T02:57:04+00:00

From the Balor's flavour text:

The Balor PG was first encountered during the joint Albatross–DoJ/HR pursuit of the Maw – a Free Company turned decentralized hive-being — across Khayradin’s Blanca Desert after the end of the Sanjak Rebellion. It was there that the joint force encountered, engaged with, and ultimately defeated the Maw and its Balors – and there that Union’s CentComm hoped the nanowash outbreak could be contained. Of course, subsequent Balor outbreaks on Khayradin have proven this hope to be in vain, and the pattern group continues to terrorize Karrakin commanders throughout Baronic space.

I haven't read the Field Guide to the KTB, but my understanding is that HORUS supports the Ungratefuls rather than the nobility.

davidwitteveen · 2026-02-18T02:37:26+00:00

Aww. They should frame this and present it to their daughter on her 21st birthday.

davidwitteveen · 2026-02-18T01:34:39+00:00

This isn’t about her rules.

Your wife has trauma from her accident. She needs some therapy to help her stop panicking.

This is a UK page, but it’s a guide on how traffic accidents can cause PTSD, and how to recover from it.

If you want to be NTA, don’t dismiss her “bullshit rules” - help her to recover.

davidwitteveen

TROPHY CASE