Update on legal cases: one new victory! :) One new restriction :(
Tuesday, February 10th, 2026 03:03 pm![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png){kind=small}
denise posting in ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_newsBack in August of 2025, we announced a temporary block on account creation for users under the age of 18 from the state of Tennessee, due to the court in Netchoice's challenge to the law (which we're a part of!) refusing to prevent the law from being enforced while the lawsuit plays out. Today, I am sad to announce that we've had to add South Carolina to that list. When creating an account, you will now be asked if you're a resident of Tennessee or South Carolina. If you are, and your birthdate shows you're under 18, you won't be able to create an account.
We're very sorry to have to do this, and especially on such short notice. The reason for it: on Friday, South Carolina governor Henry McMaster signed the South Carolina Age-Appropriate Design Code Act into law, with an effective date of immediately. The law is so incredibly poorly written it took us several days to even figure out what the hell South Carolina wants us to do and whether or not we're covered by it. We're still not entirely 100% sure about the former, but in regards to the latter, we're pretty sure the fact we use Google Analytics on some site pages (for OS/platform/browser capability analysis) means we will be covered by the law. Thankfully, the law does not mandate a specific form of age verification, unlike many of the other state laws we're fighting, so we're likewise pretty sure that just stopping people under 18 from creating an account will be enough to comply without performing intrusive and privacy-invasive third-party age verification. We think. Maybe. (It's a really, really badly written law. I don't know whether they intended to write it in a way that means officers of the company can potentially be sentenced to jail time for violating it, but that's certainly one possible way to read it.)
Netchoice filed their lawsuit against SC over the law as I was working on making this change and writing this news post -- so recently it's not even showing up in RECAP yet for me to link y'all to! -- but here's the complaint as filed in the lawsuit, Netchoice v Wilson. Please note that I didn't even have to write the declaration yet (although I will be): we are cited in the complaint itself with a link to our August news post as evidence of why these laws burden small websites and create legal uncertainty that causes a chilling effect on speech. \o/
In fact, that's the victory: in December, the judge ruled in favor of Netchoice in Netchoice v Murrill, the lawsuit over Louisiana's age-verification law Act 456, finding (once again) that requiring age verification to access social media is unconstitutional. Judge deGravelles' ruling was not simply a preliminary injunction: this was a final, dispositive ruling stating clearly and unambiguously "Louisiana Revised Statutes §§51:1751–1754 violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, as incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution", as well as awarding Netchoice their costs and attorney's fees for bringing the lawsuit. We didn't provide a declaration in that one, because Act 456, may it rot in hell, had a total registered user threshold we don't meet. That didn't stop Netchoice's lawyers from pointing out that we were forced to block service to Mississippi and restrict registration in Tennessee (pointing, again, to that news post), and Judge deGravelles found our example so compelling that we are cited twice in his ruling, thus marking the first time we've helped to get one of these laws enjoined or overturned just by existing. I think that's a new career high point for me.
I need to find an afternoon to sit down and write an update fordw_advocacy highlighting everything that's going on (and what stage the lawsuits are in), because folks who know there's Some Shenanigans afoot in their state keep asking us whether we're going to have to put any restrictions on their states. I'll repeat my promise to you all: we will fight every state attempt to impose mandatory age verification and deanonymization on our users as hard as we possibly can, and we will keep actions like this to the clear cases where there's no doubt that we have to take action in order to prevent liability.
In cases like SC, where the law takes immediate effect, or like TN and MS, where the district court declines to issue a temporary injunction or the district court issues a temporary injunction and the appellate court overturns it, we may need to take some steps to limit our potential liability: when that happens, we'll tell you what we're doing as fast as we possibly can. (Sometimes it takes a little while for us to figure out the exact implications of a newly passed law or run the risk assessment on a law that the courts declined to enjoin. Netchoice's lawyers are excellent, but they're Netchoice's lawyers, not ours: we have to figure out our obligations ourselves. I am so very thankful that even though we are poor in money, we are very rich in friends, and we have a wide range of people we can go to for help.)
In cases where Netchoice filed the lawsuit before the law's effective date, there's a pending motion for a preliminary injunction, the court hasn't ruled on the motion yet, and we're specifically named in the motion for preliminary injunction as a Netchoice member the law would apply to, we generally evaluate that the risk is low enough we can wait and see what the judge decides. (Right now, for instance, that's Netchoice v Jones, formerly Netchoice v Miyares, mentioned in our December news post: the judge has not yet ruled on the motion for preliminary injunction.) If the judge grants the injunction, we won't need to do anything, because the state will be prevented from enforcing the law. If the judge doesn't grant the injunction, we'll figure out what we need to do then, and we'll let you know as soon as we know.
I know it's frustrating for people to not know what's going to happen! Believe me, it's just as frustrating for us: you would not believe how much of my time is taken up by tracking all of this. I keep trying to find time to updatedw_advocacy so people know the status of all the various lawsuits (and what actions we've taken in response), but every time I think I might have a second, something else happens like this SC law and I have to scramble to figure out what we need to do. We will continue to update dw_news whenever we do have to take an action that restricts any of our users, though, as soon as something happens that may make us have to take an action, and we will give you as much warning as we possibly can. It is absolutely ridiculous that we still have to have this fight, but we're going to keep fighting it for as long as we have to and as hard as we need to.
I look forward to the day we can lift the restrictions on Mississippi, Tennessee, and now South Carolina, and I apologize again to our users (and to the people who temporarily aren't able to become our users) from those states.
We're very sorry to have to do this, and especially on such short notice. The reason for it: on Friday, South Carolina governor Henry McMaster signed the South Carolina Age-Appropriate Design Code Act into law, with an effective date of immediately. The law is so incredibly poorly written it took us several days to even figure out what the hell South Carolina wants us to do and whether or not we're covered by it. We're still not entirely 100% sure about the former, but in regards to the latter, we're pretty sure the fact we use Google Analytics on some site pages (for OS/platform/browser capability analysis) means we will be covered by the law. Thankfully, the law does not mandate a specific form of age verification, unlike many of the other state laws we're fighting, so we're likewise pretty sure that just stopping people under 18 from creating an account will be enough to comply without performing intrusive and privacy-invasive third-party age verification. We think. Maybe. (It's a really, really badly written law. I don't know whether they intended to write it in a way that means officers of the company can potentially be sentenced to jail time for violating it, but that's certainly one possible way to read it.)
Netchoice filed their lawsuit against SC over the law as I was working on making this change and writing this news post -- so recently it's not even showing up in RECAP yet for me to link y'all to! -- but here's the complaint as filed in the lawsuit, Netchoice v Wilson. Please note that I didn't even have to write the declaration yet (although I will be): we are cited in the complaint itself with a link to our August news post as evidence of why these laws burden small websites and create legal uncertainty that causes a chilling effect on speech. \o/
In fact, that's the victory: in December, the judge ruled in favor of Netchoice in Netchoice v Murrill, the lawsuit over Louisiana's age-verification law Act 456, finding (once again) that requiring age verification to access social media is unconstitutional. Judge deGravelles' ruling was not simply a preliminary injunction: this was a final, dispositive ruling stating clearly and unambiguously "Louisiana Revised Statutes §§51:1751–1754 violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, as incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution", as well as awarding Netchoice their costs and attorney's fees for bringing the lawsuit. We didn't provide a declaration in that one, because Act 456, may it rot in hell, had a total registered user threshold we don't meet. That didn't stop Netchoice's lawyers from pointing out that we were forced to block service to Mississippi and restrict registration in Tennessee (pointing, again, to that news post), and Judge deGravelles found our example so compelling that we are cited twice in his ruling, thus marking the first time we've helped to get one of these laws enjoined or overturned just by existing. I think that's a new career high point for me.
I need to find an afternoon to sit down and write an update for
dw_advocacy highlighting everything that's going on (and what stage the lawsuits are in), because folks who know there's Some Shenanigans afoot in their state keep asking us whether we're going to have to put any restrictions on their states. I'll repeat my promise to you all: we will fight every state attempt to impose mandatory age verification and deanonymization on our users as hard as we possibly can, and we will keep actions like this to the clear cases where there's no doubt that we have to take action in order to prevent liability. In cases like SC, where the law takes immediate effect, or like TN and MS, where the district court declines to issue a temporary injunction or the district court issues a temporary injunction and the appellate court overturns it, we may need to take some steps to limit our potential liability: when that happens, we'll tell you what we're doing as fast as we possibly can. (Sometimes it takes a little while for us to figure out the exact implications of a newly passed law or run the risk assessment on a law that the courts declined to enjoin. Netchoice's lawyers are excellent, but they're Netchoice's lawyers, not ours: we have to figure out our obligations ourselves. I am so very thankful that even though we are poor in money, we are very rich in friends, and we have a wide range of people we can go to for help.)
In cases where Netchoice filed the lawsuit before the law's effective date, there's a pending motion for a preliminary injunction, the court hasn't ruled on the motion yet, and we're specifically named in the motion for preliminary injunction as a Netchoice member the law would apply to, we generally evaluate that the risk is low enough we can wait and see what the judge decides. (Right now, for instance, that's Netchoice v Jones, formerly Netchoice v Miyares, mentioned in our December news post: the judge has not yet ruled on the motion for preliminary injunction.) If the judge grants the injunction, we won't need to do anything, because the state will be prevented from enforcing the law. If the judge doesn't grant the injunction, we'll figure out what we need to do then, and we'll let you know as soon as we know.
I know it's frustrating for people to not know what's going to happen! Believe me, it's just as frustrating for us: you would not believe how much of my time is taken up by tracking all of this. I keep trying to find time to update
dw_advocacy so people know the status of all the various lawsuits (and what actions we've taken in response), but every time I think I might have a second, something else happens like this SC law and I have to scramble to figure out what we need to do. We will continue to update dw_news whenever we do have to take an action that restricts any of our users, though, as soon as something happens that may make us have to take an action, and we will give you as much warning as we possibly can. It is absolutely ridiculous that we still have to have this fight, but we're going to keep fighting it for as long as we have to and as hard as we need to. I look forward to the day we can lift the restrictions on Mississippi, Tennessee, and now South Carolina, and I apologize again to our users (and to the people who temporarily aren't able to become our users) from those states.
Wednesday Reading on Thursday
Thursday, February 5th, 2026 04:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oracneThis is actually all of December and January, which I wrote up for my professional blog.
The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo is horror, a genre I read only rarely, but I was completely gripped by the 1930s rural setting. Leslie Bruin, a trans man and veteran nurse of World War One, now works for the Frontier Nursing Service. Sent to the tiny, isolated town of Spar Creek, he is quickly put on his guard by unfriendly townspeople and louring forest, but stays to try and help young Stevie Mattingly, a tomboyish local whom the entire town seems to want to control. The building tension is very effective, and finally explodes in dark magic and violence. Trigger warnings for off-screen sexual assault and some gory justice doled out towards the end.
The Incandescent by Emily Tesh is very excellent. It's a magic school story from a teacher's perspective, which fully demonstrates the ridiculously huge workload of a senior administrator/teacher and the difficulties of having a "human" life separate from teaching. It has great characters and deep worldbuilding, and even shows what graduate school and career paths the students might take. The solidly English middle-class point of view character Sapphire Walden, socially awkward with a doctorate in thaumaturgy, is brilliantly depicted, including her grappling with how to communicate with her students who vary in race and class. This novel read as a love letter to teachers and teaching that also showed their humanity with its mistakes and flaws.
Troubled Waters by Sharon Shinn is first in the "Elemental Blessings" series, a secondary-world fantasy with magic and personality types associated with/linked to elements or combinations thereof. The protagonist, for example, is linked mostly to water, which has a relationship to Change; in her case, she's part of major political changes. The story begins just after Zoe Ardelay's father has died. He was a political exile, and Zoe has mostly grown up in an isolated, tiny village. Darien Serlast, one of the king's advisors, arrives to bring her to the capital city, ostensibly to be the king's fifth wife. At this point, I was expecting a Marriage of Convenience, possibly with Darien. This did not happen; instead, the first of several shifts in the plot (much like changes in a river's course over time) sent Zoe off on her own to make new friends. While there is indeed a romance with Darien, eventually, it was secondary to the political plots revolving around the king, the machinations of his wives, and Zoe's discoveries about her heritage and associated magical abilities. I enjoyed the unexpected twists of the plot, but by the end felt I'd read enough of this world and did not move on to the rest of the series.
A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett is second in a series, Shadow of the Leviathan, but since my library hold on it came in first, I read out of order. As with many mystery series, there was enough background that I had no trouble reading it as a standalone. This secondary world fantasy mystery has genuinely interesting worldbuilding, mostly related to organic technology based on the flesh and blood of strange, metamorphic creatures called Leviathans who sometimes come ashore and wreak destruction. The story revolves around a research facility that works directly with these dangerous corpses and is secretly doing more than is public. Protagonists Dinios Kol and his boss, the eccentric and brilliant detective Ana Dolabra, are sent from the imperial Iudex to an outlier territory, Yarrow, whose economy is structured around organic technology and the research facility known as The Shroud. Yarrow is in the midst of negotiations with the imperial Treasury for a future entry into the Empire when one of the Treasury representatives is murdered. Colonialism and the local feudal system complicate both the plot and the investigation. If you like twists and turns, this is great. There are hints of the Pacific Rim movies (but no mecha) in the leviathans, and of famous detective pairings including Holmes and Watson and Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, the latter of which the author explicitly mentions in the afterword. (Similarities: Ana likes to stay in one places, is a gourmet of sorts, sends Kol out for information; Kol has a photographic memory and is good at picking up sex partners.)
The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett kicks off the Shadow of the Leviathan series. Kol and Ana begin the story in a backwater canton but soon travel to the imperial town that supports the great sea wall and holds back the Titans that invade in the wet season. The worldbuilding and the mystery plot are marvelously layered, and Ana's eccentricities are classic for a detective. I kept thinking, "he's putting down a clue, when is someone in this story going to pick it up?" and sometimes, I felt like the pickup took too long. This might have been on purpose, to drag out the tension. As a writer, I was definitely paying attention to the techniques the author used.
Paladin's Grace by T. Kingfisher is first in the "Saint of Steel" series, which has been recommended to me so many times by this point that I've lost count. While the story is serious and begins with an accidental massacre, the dialogue has Kingfisher's trademark whimsy, irony, and humor. When the supernatural Saint of Steel dies, its holy Paladins are bereft but still subject to a berserker rage no longer guided by the Saint. The survivors are taken in by the Temple of the White Rat and then must...survive. Paladin Stephen feels like a husk who serves the White Rat as requested and knits socks in his downtime until he accidentally saves a young woman from danger and becomes once again interested in living. Grace, a perfumer, fled an abusive marriage and has now stumbled into a murderous plot. Meanwhile, a series of mysterious deaths in the background eventually work their way forward. This was really fun, and I will read more.
Paladin's Hope by T. Kingfisher is third in the "Saint of Steel" series and features the lich-doctor (coroner) Piper, who becomes entangled with the paladin Galen and a gnole (badger-like sapient), Earstripe, who is investigating a series of very mysterious deaths. Galen still suffers the effects of when the Saint of Steel died, and is unwilling to build relationships outside of his fellow paladins; Piper works with the dead because of a psychic gift as well as other reasons that have led to him walling off his feelings. A high-stress situation helps to break down their walls, though I confess that video-game-like scenario dragged a bit for me. Also, I really wanted to learn a lot more about the gnoles and their society.
Paladin's Strength by T. Kingfisher is second in the "Saint of Steel" series but arrived third so far as my library holds were concerned; I actually finished it in February but am posting it here so it's with the other books in the series. This one might be my favorite of the series so far. Istvhan's level-headedness and emotional intelligence appeal strongly to me. Clara's strong sense of self made me like her even before the reveal of her special ability (which I guessed ahead of time). They were a well-matched couple, and a few times I actually laughed out loud at their dialogue. I also appreciated seeing different territory and some different cultures in this world. I plan to read the fourth book in this series, and more by this author.
Wrong on the Internet by selkit is a brief Murderbot (TV) story involving Sanctuary Moon fandom, Ratthi, and SecUnit. It's hilarious.
Cold Bayou by Barbara Hambly (2018) is sixteenth in the series, and I would not recommend starting here, as there are a lot of returning characters with complex relationships. Set in 1839 in southern Louisiana, the free man of color Ben, his wife Rose, his mother, his sister Dominique and her daughter, and his close friend Hannibal Sefton travel via steamboat to an isolated plantation, Cold Bayou, for a wedding.
As well as the inhabitants of the plantation (enslaved people and the mixed-race overseer and his wife), the sprawling cast includes an assortment of other family related by blood or otherwise through the complex French-Creole system of interracial relationships called plaçage or mariages de la main gauche. These involved White men contracting with mistresses of color while, often, married to White women for reasons of money or control over land rather than romance. The resulting complexities are a constant theme in this series, as Ben and his sister Olympe were freed from slavery in childhood when their mother was purchased and freed to be a placée; meanwhile, his half-sister Dominique is currently a placée, and on good terms with her partner Henri's wife, Chloe, who later has a larger role in the mystery plot.
Veryl St.-Chinian, one of two members of a family with control over a vast quantity of property, is 67 years old and has decided to marry 18 year old Ellie Trask, an illiterate Irish girl whose past is revealed to be socially dubious. Even before Ellie's rough-hewn uncle shows up with a squad of violent bravos, tempers are fraught and no-one thinks the marriage is a good idea, because of the vast family voting power it would give Ellie. Complicating matters is the inevitable murder and also a storm that floods the plantation and prevents most outside assistance for an extended period.
Hambly is one of my autobuy authors and I greatly enjoyed revisiting familiar characters as well as seeing them grapple with mystery tropes such as "detective is incapacitated and must rely on others for information" and "isolated assortment of plausible murder suspects." She's great at successively amping up the danger with plot twists that fractal out to the rest of the story, and though justice is always achieved in the end (as is required for the Mystery genre), the historical circumstances of these books can result in justice for some and not others. I highly recommend this series if you like mystery that successfully dramatizes complex social history.
The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo is horror, a genre I read only rarely, but I was completely gripped by the 1930s rural setting. Leslie Bruin, a trans man and veteran nurse of World War One, now works for the Frontier Nursing Service. Sent to the tiny, isolated town of Spar Creek, he is quickly put on his guard by unfriendly townspeople and louring forest, but stays to try and help young Stevie Mattingly, a tomboyish local whom the entire town seems to want to control. The building tension is very effective, and finally explodes in dark magic and violence. Trigger warnings for off-screen sexual assault and some gory justice doled out towards the end.
The Incandescent by Emily Tesh is very excellent. It's a magic school story from a teacher's perspective, which fully demonstrates the ridiculously huge workload of a senior administrator/teacher and the difficulties of having a "human" life separate from teaching. It has great characters and deep worldbuilding, and even shows what graduate school and career paths the students might take. The solidly English middle-class point of view character Sapphire Walden, socially awkward with a doctorate in thaumaturgy, is brilliantly depicted, including her grappling with how to communicate with her students who vary in race and class. This novel read as a love letter to teachers and teaching that also showed their humanity with its mistakes and flaws.
Troubled Waters by Sharon Shinn is first in the "Elemental Blessings" series, a secondary-world fantasy with magic and personality types associated with/linked to elements or combinations thereof. The protagonist, for example, is linked mostly to water, which has a relationship to Change; in her case, she's part of major political changes. The story begins just after Zoe Ardelay's father has died. He was a political exile, and Zoe has mostly grown up in an isolated, tiny village. Darien Serlast, one of the king's advisors, arrives to bring her to the capital city, ostensibly to be the king's fifth wife. At this point, I was expecting a Marriage of Convenience, possibly with Darien. This did not happen; instead, the first of several shifts in the plot (much like changes in a river's course over time) sent Zoe off on her own to make new friends. While there is indeed a romance with Darien, eventually, it was secondary to the political plots revolving around the king, the machinations of his wives, and Zoe's discoveries about her heritage and associated magical abilities. I enjoyed the unexpected twists of the plot, but by the end felt I'd read enough of this world and did not move on to the rest of the series.
A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett is second in a series, Shadow of the Leviathan, but since my library hold on it came in first, I read out of order. As with many mystery series, there was enough background that I had no trouble reading it as a standalone. This secondary world fantasy mystery has genuinely interesting worldbuilding, mostly related to organic technology based on the flesh and blood of strange, metamorphic creatures called Leviathans who sometimes come ashore and wreak destruction. The story revolves around a research facility that works directly with these dangerous corpses and is secretly doing more than is public. Protagonists Dinios Kol and his boss, the eccentric and brilliant detective Ana Dolabra, are sent from the imperial Iudex to an outlier territory, Yarrow, whose economy is structured around organic technology and the research facility known as The Shroud. Yarrow is in the midst of negotiations with the imperial Treasury for a future entry into the Empire when one of the Treasury representatives is murdered. Colonialism and the local feudal system complicate both the plot and the investigation. If you like twists and turns, this is great. There are hints of the Pacific Rim movies (but no mecha) in the leviathans, and of famous detective pairings including Holmes and Watson and Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, the latter of which the author explicitly mentions in the afterword. (Similarities: Ana likes to stay in one places, is a gourmet of sorts, sends Kol out for information; Kol has a photographic memory and is good at picking up sex partners.)
The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett kicks off the Shadow of the Leviathan series. Kol and Ana begin the story in a backwater canton but soon travel to the imperial town that supports the great sea wall and holds back the Titans that invade in the wet season. The worldbuilding and the mystery plot are marvelously layered, and Ana's eccentricities are classic for a detective. I kept thinking, "he's putting down a clue, when is someone in this story going to pick it up?" and sometimes, I felt like the pickup took too long. This might have been on purpose, to drag out the tension. As a writer, I was definitely paying attention to the techniques the author used.
Paladin's Grace by T. Kingfisher is first in the "Saint of Steel" series, which has been recommended to me so many times by this point that I've lost count. While the story is serious and begins with an accidental massacre, the dialogue has Kingfisher's trademark whimsy, irony, and humor. When the supernatural Saint of Steel dies, its holy Paladins are bereft but still subject to a berserker rage no longer guided by the Saint. The survivors are taken in by the Temple of the White Rat and then must...survive. Paladin Stephen feels like a husk who serves the White Rat as requested and knits socks in his downtime until he accidentally saves a young woman from danger and becomes once again interested in living. Grace, a perfumer, fled an abusive marriage and has now stumbled into a murderous plot. Meanwhile, a series of mysterious deaths in the background eventually work their way forward. This was really fun, and I will read more.
Paladin's Hope by T. Kingfisher is third in the "Saint of Steel" series and features the lich-doctor (coroner) Piper, who becomes entangled with the paladin Galen and a gnole (badger-like sapient), Earstripe, who is investigating a series of very mysterious deaths. Galen still suffers the effects of when the Saint of Steel died, and is unwilling to build relationships outside of his fellow paladins; Piper works with the dead because of a psychic gift as well as other reasons that have led to him walling off his feelings. A high-stress situation helps to break down their walls, though I confess that video-game-like scenario dragged a bit for me. Also, I really wanted to learn a lot more about the gnoles and their society.
Paladin's Strength by T. Kingfisher is second in the "Saint of Steel" series but arrived third so far as my library holds were concerned; I actually finished it in February but am posting it here so it's with the other books in the series. This one might be my favorite of the series so far. Istvhan's level-headedness and emotional intelligence appeal strongly to me. Clara's strong sense of self made me like her even before the reveal of her special ability (which I guessed ahead of time). They were a well-matched couple, and a few times I actually laughed out loud at their dialogue. I also appreciated seeing different territory and some different cultures in this world. I plan to read the fourth book in this series, and more by this author.
Wrong on the Internet by selkit is a brief Murderbot (TV) story involving Sanctuary Moon fandom, Ratthi, and SecUnit. It's hilarious.
Cold Bayou by Barbara Hambly (2018) is sixteenth in the series, and I would not recommend starting here, as there are a lot of returning characters with complex relationships. Set in 1839 in southern Louisiana, the free man of color Ben, his wife Rose, his mother, his sister Dominique and her daughter, and his close friend Hannibal Sefton travel via steamboat to an isolated plantation, Cold Bayou, for a wedding.
As well as the inhabitants of the plantation (enslaved people and the mixed-race overseer and his wife), the sprawling cast includes an assortment of other family related by blood or otherwise through the complex French-Creole system of interracial relationships called plaçage or mariages de la main gauche. These involved White men contracting with mistresses of color while, often, married to White women for reasons of money or control over land rather than romance. The resulting complexities are a constant theme in this series, as Ben and his sister Olympe were freed from slavery in childhood when their mother was purchased and freed to be a placée; meanwhile, his half-sister Dominique is currently a placée, and on good terms with her partner Henri's wife, Chloe, who later has a larger role in the mystery plot.
Veryl St.-Chinian, one of two members of a family with control over a vast quantity of property, is 67 years old and has decided to marry 18 year old Ellie Trask, an illiterate Irish girl whose past is revealed to be socially dubious. Even before Ellie's rough-hewn uncle shows up with a squad of violent bravos, tempers are fraught and no-one thinks the marriage is a good idea, because of the vast family voting power it would give Ellie. Complicating matters is the inevitable murder and also a storm that floods the plantation and prevents most outside assistance for an extended period.
Hambly is one of my autobuy authors and I greatly enjoyed revisiting familiar characters as well as seeing them grapple with mystery tropes such as "detective is incapacitated and must rely on others for information" and "isolated assortment of plausible murder suspects." She's great at successively amping up the danger with plot twists that fractal out to the rest of the story, and though justice is always achieved in the end (as is required for the Mystery genre), the historical circumstances of these books can result in justice for some and not others. I highly recommend this series if you like mystery that successfully dramatizes complex social history.
Feb post!
Thursday, February 5th, 2026 10:44 amgeraineonIt's now February. Lots happened since my last post.
Fought my bank for more than a month and got my money back (their app disappeared some of my money through a "Piggy Bank" feature that disappeared), so now I have book funds! But this has been a background stressor for a bit because I hate having to continuously follow-up with the bank to find out the status of my money. It's not a huge amount, but it's still RM1000+ and that can feed me for a whole month (more if I am frugal)!
( The not so good )
I caught up with the archon quest in Genshin Impact. It's enjoyable enough but I'm definitely not really feeling the magic of early Genshin anymore. Dottore was fun though. 10/10 will get kidnapped again.
I also started playing Arknights Endfield and I've been utterly consumed by it. The factory gameplay is incredibly fun! I didn't even know I'd enjoy this factory style game (but I do have a friend who immediately pinged me as someone who would enjoy this type of game a lot). I'm advancing the main story quest just to unlock more factory things (new mining spots, new outposts, etc.). And I love that you can make the whole map into a tower defense (or is it tower offense if you put weapons everywhere? XD). I know this gameplay is very polarizing, but those I know who like it really, really like it.
I'm also still playing Where Winds Meet but I really cannot main two games. I'll prob just switch between these two in terms of time investment and energy level. This game takes more time and energy because it's hard to just stop halfway to attend to my mother.
Huffing a cat is the key to getting rid of excess stress (be careful of the cat's paws when they get annoyed though!). Seriously, having a cat has been great. I can sit with her when I'm feeling frustrated, stressed, worried, etc.
I'm visiting Vietnam for the first time in March. Very excited to see my housemate again! And excited to try all the foods, see the sights, take in the vibes and all that! Will be staying with her family, so I'm gonna start collecting a bunch of gifts to give when I see them. Also time to start learning Vietnamese beyond Vietnamese food names and greetings XD;;
Life/family
Fought my bank for more than a month and got my money back (their app disappeared some of my money through a "Piggy Bank" feature that disappeared), so now I have book funds! But this has been a background stressor for a bit because I hate having to continuously follow-up with the bank to find out the status of my money. It's not a huge amount, but it's still RM1000+ and that can feed me for a whole month (more if I am frugal)!
( The not so good )
Games
I caught up with the archon quest in Genshin Impact. It's enjoyable enough but I'm definitely not really feeling the magic of early Genshin anymore. Dottore was fun though. 10/10 will get kidnapped again.
I also started playing Arknights Endfield and I've been utterly consumed by it. The factory gameplay is incredibly fun! I didn't even know I'd enjoy this factory style game (but I do have a friend who immediately pinged me as someone who would enjoy this type of game a lot). I'm advancing the main story quest just to unlock more factory things (new mining spots, new outposts, etc.). And I love that you can make the whole map into a tower defense (or is it tower offense if you put weapons everywhere? XD). I know this gameplay is very polarizing, but those I know who like it really, really like it.
I'm also still playing Where Winds Meet but I really cannot main two games. I'll prob just switch between these two in terms of time investment and energy level. This game takes more time and energy because it's hard to just stop halfway to attend to my mother.
Other things
Huffing a cat is the key to getting rid of excess stress (be careful of the cat's paws when they get annoyed though!). Seriously, having a cat has been great. I can sit with her when I'm feeling frustrated, stressed, worried, etc.
I'm visiting Vietnam for the first time in March. Very excited to see my housemate again! And excited to try all the foods, see the sights, take in the vibes and all that! Will be staying with her family, so I'm gonna start collecting a bunch of gifts to give when I see them. Also time to start learning Vietnamese beyond Vietnamese food names and greetings XD;;
Minor operations; testing new serving path
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2026 10:25 pmmark posting in dw_maintenanceHi all!
I'm doing some minor operational work tonight. It should be transparent, but there's always a chance that something goes wrong. The main thing I'm touching is testing a replacement for Apache2 (our web server software) in one area of the site.
Thank you!