This was a very interesting thing a friend sent me this week.
Understanding the Karpman Drama Triangle: Persecutor, Rescuer, and Victim
Just a good possible way to think about conflicts and recurring issues with others.
Books of 2026: Mistborn Era 1
Mistborn: The Final Empire
The Well of Ascension
The Hero of Ages
Brandon Sanderson
I first read Mistborn almost 20 years ago, after enjoying Elantris a great deal…and I bounced off it HARD. It was such a grim dark world, Vin was insufferable and “not like the other girls” in my eyes, and I just was not here for it.
But this year, I decided I would give them another try; and I’m so glad I did.
Being immersed in the Cosmere means that I was spoiled for most of the major events of the second two books, but that’s okay. I can accept a few spoilers.
I would like to get a marewill flower tattoo, to go with my bannion flower. Perhaps I will have a whole bouquet of literary flowers someday.
Books of 2026: Hemlock and Silver
Hemlock and Silver, by T. Kingfisher
I picked up this one at a Boozy Book Fair (the local independent bookstore made a deal with a local pub to host a book fair, and it was a smashing success). Took me a minute to read it, but I was enthralled. I love twists on fairy tales (although this one is unique enough that I’m not even sure that’s an accurate description), and I love stories with middle aged protagonists (I need to reread Paladin of Souls).
Books of 2026: There is no antimemetics division
This year or late last, I read “There is no antimemetics division” by qntm. This is a delightfully bizarre story based on stories from the SCP wiki. I would like to read more novel-form-factor SCP stories.
It bears a certain similarity to Ruin, and I’ll say no more about that.
Books of 2026: Spinning Silver
I’m just trying to write down the books I’ve been reading this year.
In January, I read Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik. I’m not Lithuanian, and I’m not Jewish, and I’m not as plugged in to my Eastern European heritage as I’d like to be…but this book felt like home. It’s hard to explain why.
The first time I read it, I was sad that Miriam/Wanda was not the ship.
The second time I read it, I was okay with how it turned out.
I would like to try krupnik. Apparently we call it boilo here?
Splaining
Today at the Sakura Matsuri, I had an extremely amusing moment. Well, amusing to me, anyway.
We were at a booth that sold toy swords (either plastic or wall hangers – not sure which), and two young men (I would estimate early 20s) were there looking at the swords. I overheard one of them telling the other “This is called a katana. It’s what they used…” (I don’t remember the rest of the sentence). The second young man said “So is that what you would use in martial arts, then? Like to practice?”
The first young man floundered a bit, so naturally I decided to insert myself into their conversation and info dump a bit.
“Well, that depends on the martial art. For kendo, they use a sword made of bamboo slats, so you can hit each other without hurting too much. For iaido, they use a sword made of an aluminum zinc alloy, so it’s lightweight but not sharp. For batto-do or other cutting arts, they use a real sword made of steel. There are probably demos of that today or tomorrow!”
Young man #2 said “wow, you really know your stuff!” And I said “Yep!” and wandered off.
This is an example of how Not To Human. In general, this kind of behavior is not considered polite or appropriate. But I think in the specific context I was in, it was okay.
How to prep in a chill way
Loved this short essay. This is basically what I’m getting at with “unfuck your prepping.”
https://open.substack.com/pub/houseofmirrors/p/how-to-prep-in-a-chill-way
The two conservatisms
My hot take for today is that fiscal conservatism is incompatible with social conservatism. It’s expensive to police people that hard.
Protected: On shibboleths and scapegoats and wrongthink
Chronic Illness
This is an *excellent* column from the Washington Post about chronic illness, how we measure it, and where it originates.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/03/19/chronic-diseases-health-policy/
“Blame is cheap. System change costs money and effort.”
Here is a gift link to the article.
Disease is not caused by immorality. Thinking that way is tempting, because of the Just World Fallacy and Fundamental Attribution Error; but it’s not a sound way to go about interacting with the world.
Emilybook 