gwaihiril | Reading

I meant to post this at the first of January, but because I didn't put it on my planner, it didn't get done. So here we are.

I started doing subscription boxes last year and like a gas expanding to fill its container, the addition of more notebooks in my life caused me to start using more notebooks. I put the really pretty ones aside as gifts, but I've been using the rest.

First up, the planners I have been using for years:

EC Life Planner - my work planner. I've been using this for seven years at this point.

Leuchtturm1917 A5 dot grid - my bullet journal workhorse. While I haven't used this exact notebook the whole time, I've been bullet journaling for nine years at this point. I use this for my personal life, as both a planner and a record/tracker.

Then we come to the new ones as of this year, although I started some of them before January 1.

Archer & Olive A4 dot grid - memory keeping journal. I paste ephemera in here along with stickers that suit my fancy. I write down reflections and more extended records than what is in my bujo. I draw a monthly calendar at the beginning of each month and write things down as they occur to me. There's no set schedule of entries.

Archer & Olive travelers notebook - this is a bit of a butler's book for my house. I have lists of repairs, contractors, expenses, and schedules.

Archer & Olive B6 dot grid notebook - this is my workout/physical therapy/recovery notebook. I'm using this to keep track of my recovery from breaking my leg last winter. I'm slowly getting back to where I was and this notebook gives me a track of my progress.

Archer & Olive 8x8 dot grid - home to my reading journal. I started this last year and filled it about halfway so I predict it will last me until the end of 2026. I keep track of Book Bingo, series tracker, my 'want to read' list, and a running tally of the books I've read. I also make decorative spreads for each book including a book data sheet that I created and the book cover.

There you have it!

Anyone else have a large planner stack this year?

Current Music: A Fine Frenzy - Come On, Come Out

Fandom: Stranger Things
Pairings/Characters: Steve Harrington & Dustin Henderson
Rating: G
Length: 2,489 words
Creator Link:

insignificant457
Theme: Siblings, Gen

Summary: "See, the problem is this: in the past few weeks there's been a distressing increase in the thickness and darkness of the peach fuzz on his upper lip, to the point that it's becoming noticeable and also gross. He should be happy about it, really, because it's a sign of manhood, isn't it?"

Sometimes, not having a dad around really, really sucks. But recently acquiring a big brother does have its perks.

Reccer's Notes: As the author says, "They're brothers your honor." I love the way Steve and Dustin adopted each other in the show, and this fic feels like it could be a missing scene. The voices are spot on, and the vibes are good.

Fanwork Link: Problems of a Follicular Nature

---RESIDENT EVIL 4 (REMAKE)
[x]55 leon scott kennedy
[x]3o luis serra
[x]o2 leon & luis
[x]o2 ingrid hunnigan

---RESIDENT EVIL: INFINITE DARKNESS
[x]23 leon scott kennedy

---RESIDENT EVIL 6
[x]o6 leon scott kennedy
[x]o9 helena harper

( i have no good cut text for this )

---RESIDENT EVIL 9 Spoilers for early game
[x]118 grace ashcroft

(Warmth of a new dawn on my face)

[12] The Pitt Robby/Abbot icons
[3] Noah Wyle & Shawn Hatosy icons

See the rest here.

Because this is going around Tumblr, I thought I would address the issue.

An assertion by an individual on Tumblr is going around calling me/Squidge/SquidgeWorld a fascist organization that deletes works with no cares or such. That we're power hungry, etc..

Is there truth in this? If you know BOTH sides and not just the individual that's accusing us of this, you'll understand. I've gotten half a dozen trouble-tickets asking me to clarify, and so that's the impetus of posting this. Please make YOUR OWN INFORMED DECISION.

I've taken down exactly 2 works (works, not comments. Comments get deleted if they are commission spammers.). And the reasons are:

1) Person imported a work into SqWA from AO3. They didn't bother to clean it up at all - they left in all of the icons, kudos from AO3, etc. The formatting was a complete mess, and I got a couple of trouble tickets on it. I hid the work and was in the process of contacting the author when they emailed me, cussing me out, etc. At that point, I deleted the work because they decided "YOU'RE A FASCIST" and other lovely comments about my personage.

2) Person created one fandom work, and then the next day left 4 comments in 38 seconds (the Tumblr post I made for SqWA spam) saying they really connected with the 4 works they read in under a second. They attempted to commission spam, and as a result, we deleted their account. Including the one story that they posted.

Two works. With compelling reasons to have said works deleted, or at least hidden - but that is my opinion. And if you agree, that's fine. If you don't agree and want to call our organization a fascist organization for being respectful of archive users, well that's something for you to decide. All I know is, the "hair on fire" screamers out there are really making it hard to want to continue giving to the community.

EDIT: About 18 months back or so, we had a transphobe who shit on trans people and wanted to force christianity on everyone - including SqWA users - and took every chance they could to stir up shit for the sake of drama. After 3 warnings and approval from the Squidge Board, they were banned, and all of their works were deleted. So it's actually more than 2 works if you could this douchebag that was banned.

Questions? Comment on this post or log a ticket.

Resident Evil Requiem (2026)
[ leon s. kennedy ]

[ here @

axisandallies ]

Continued liveblog as I read Seven Seas’ new print edition of PSOH, and sometimes make comparisons to the original Tokyopop translation.

I’m posting the individual reactions on Mastodon and Bluesky, then rounding them up in the blog. Previous roundups in my PSOH fandom tag. You can pick up the books with my affiliate links here.

When rounding up this post, I expected it to be shorter than the last one…then I actually checked the word count, and it’s almost exactly the same. Commented about fewer panels, but I carried on for longer, so it balanced out.

( This is directly after the “meditation at the museum of extinct animals” chapter, and it showcases a nice shift in their relationship if this is when D starts dropping pointed comments about “humans, like you, Detective, but not like me, hint hint.” )

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: Ronon Dex/John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Dave Sheppard
Rating: Teen, Gen
Length: 3158 (Homework is 963)
Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply
Creator Links: Rheanna on AO3, busaikko on AO3, susan_voight on AO3
Themes: Siblings, Friendship, Going home, Established relationship

Summaries:
Ronon starts his e-mail correspondence with Sheppard's brother more or less by mistake.

For some reason, after his father's funeral Dave Sheppard keeps getting e-mail from Ronon Dex.

Reccer's Notes: This is a remix of Homework by busaikko, and they can be read in any order - this is basically a rec for both fics, Fieldwork being from Ronon's POV, and Homework, which is just as good, from Dave's POV. Ronon's in a relationship with John and as part of learning English he starts emailing John's estranged brother, Dave. Rodney then gets involved as Ronon goes to him for help. The characterisations of Ronon, John, and Rodney here are spot on, and it's both funny and moving - a wonderful set of stories.

Fanwork Links: on AO3: Fieldwork and Homework
Alternate DW links: Fieldwork and Homework
Susan_voight podficced both stories, both separately and collated.

Pick a thing or two that sums up how you're doing today, this week, in general, and tell me about it in the 5-7-5 syllables of a haiku.

=

Signal-boosting much appreciated!

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. Space explorers are tortured with hallucinations by a semi-sentient alien ocean. This was pretty fucked up and I enjoyed it. Watched the George Clooney film after reading the book and I think the film tried to match the vibe but somehow it was too idk sleek(?) to be appropriately unsettling to me.

[DNF] Dubliners by James Joyce. Series of kind of vaguely dark, disconcerting slice of life short stories set in Dublin. Not enjoying it so I'm DNFing it halfway through.

[DNF] House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende. I'm letting myself DNF this one too unfortunately. This is my second read attempt and I got farther this time but despite magical realism being interesting to me, I just don't care for it. It reminds me of One Hundred Years of Solitude which I was forcing myself through a bit toward the end.

-

In TV, I finished Bridgerton (season 4). The first half felt kind of wooden to me but I liked the second half a lot better. Except that they hid a scene at the end of the credits which is annoying to me! (I was trying to remember which other shows I've watched did this and one of them was X-Men '97.) Why do this? Anyway, Francesca has become one of my favorites and I'm excited for the expected continuation of her storyline.

16 Doctor Who icons from 12x08 The Haunting of Villa Diodati

Check out the rest here. <3

Some recs:

Preorders are open for this comics anthology by Iranian cartoonists. Already got mine.

A long and thorough Megatokyo breakdown from an ex-fan. (“I think I hate it better than anyone else.”) The criticisms are well-founded and well-explained, so even though I have some nostalgic fondness for Megatokyo and I’m not on board with every criticism, I liked reading it anyway.

The Skyjacks podcast, an original fantasy actual-play series, was on my “to try” list for a while. Recently, I opened the RSS feed, scrolled to the bottom, downloaded the first few episodes…and was confused to realize that it was (a) picking up from an existing story and (b) set in the Star Wars universe?

Yeah, the same group of players did an extensive Star Wars fangame first, spinning off from a short Star Wars adventure in a different feed, then moved on to their own series and kept adding that to the same feed. It’s a good jumping-on point, though. I’m 11 episodes in and not stopping.

Got caught up with Sporadic Phantoms, which was the last new podcast I mentioned starting. It continues to be very good. There’s a big pivot in season 2, but I think they handled it well. And…the season isn’t finished, so now I’m on a cliffhanger. Fingers crossed they stick the landing.

Also watched season 2 of the Ranma 1/2 reboot. It had a lot more of the madcap Jenga-tower-of-connected-gags pacing that I was missing while watching s1, where the personalities are wildly pinballing off each other and if you look away for 30 seconds you’ll miss something great. My “they couldn’t fully do this in s1 because they were too busy establishing the characters” theory is panning out.

And I did end up rewatching Cosmic Princess Kaguya. Turns out it absolutely rewards a second watch. There’s one character who knows about The Reveal from the start, and the amount of “oh that’s what you meant, I see what you did there” is amazing.

Photo of a big-eyed tortie on her cat bed

Cat news: Vet checkup for Fiddlesticks the other day.

When she had dental problems last May, they said she was down from 7-ish pounds to 6-ish, and theorized “maybe she’s eating less because it hurts her teeth.” But the current visit said she’s 7-ish pounds…and said that she was already back to 7-ish pounds last July (the visit where she had the bad teeth out).

Wonder if their scale in May was just having problems.

She developed these two Mystery Bumps since the last visit — you can’t really see them, they’re pea-sized at most and have normal fur growing over them, it’s just something you can feel when petting her. Official vet analysis on those is “probably just cysts, could develop problems in the future, but as long as she isn’t messing with them, we won’t mess with them.”

And she’s not messing with them! Doesn’t seem to notice them at all.

Good job not having cancer, kitty.

The AO3 crashing from last weekend is probably fixed (I wrote more about the downtime here) -- but I still have more unposted bonus content for the Cover of Knight universe. Here's another roundup of that.

Same basic idea as Deleted Scenes of Knight part 1. This time with scenes that were cut from Here's What You Missed, and the various shorter fics that followed it up -- everything before the start of Deadpool Saves the Cover of Knight Universe!

(A link I referenced while writing HWYM, and still had in my notes file: Really nice article about "puzzle box"/"mystery box" TV series in general. (Backup version on the Wayback Machine.) It's from 2018, too early for WandaVision, otherwise I'm sure that would be included as a shining example.)

( Fury, when he sees America and Kamala enthusiastically bonding over something: Oh no, there's two of them )

Fandom: The Protomen
Pairings/Characters: Protoman & Megaman, Protoman & Dr. Thomas Light, Protoman & Dr. Albert Wily
Rating: Unrated, estimated to be Teen and Up
Length: 3,178
Creator Links: ricefu on Ao3
Theme:
Siblings, Science Fiction, Apocalypse/Dystopia, Robots, Androids and AI, Trauma & Recovery, (Not Really) Character Death, Old Fandoms
Summary:
You have heard me tell this story many times before you sleep... This time listen carefully.
Reccer's Notes:
A beautiful and sad character study of Protoman, the older sibling of two tragic brothers in the Protomen universe. It connects his backstory and dives into psyche throughout the canon storyline, including his relationship with his younger brother, his father, and the main antagonist. Although I'm tagging the Not Really Character Death theme for a reason, this is a tragedy, so tread carefully.

Fanwork Links:
The Inevitable Fall of the Firstborn on Ao3

As a lot of y’all probably noticed, AO3 had some extended downtime this past weekend.

They upgraded their database software on Saturday. The first crash happened with Sunday-evening traffic. AD&T (the committee of OTW volunteers who manage the AO3 software) painstakingly nursed the servers back onto their feet. Then they crashed again under Monday-evening traffic. (I’m describing this in US time zones, because it correlated with “the spike when USians get out of school/work and start opening fic en masse.”)

Official AO3 social-media posts haven’t named the software. I assumed because it’s a third-party vendor, and they (very reasonably!) don’t want the place getting deluged with angry emails from AO3’s wankiest users. But at this point, there’s other public confirmation that it’s MariaDB.

AO3’s public Jira board had two new tickets created while they were dealing with the downtime. There’s a helpful breakdown of the tech implications by siropsalot on Bluesky. In short:

“Audits cleanup job” – AO3 has been storing certain logs in a single giant table that updates forever and never gets archived or cleared, which is fine if you’re a small or low-traffic project, but bad if you’re one of the top 100 highest-traffic sites on the internet. (This is part of a long pattern of AO3 being, ah, poorly-designed for the scale of traffic it gets.) This ticket is to create a regular clearing-up process.

“Patch Devise to prevent excessive audits” – One specific user has a buggy older browser, which generated over 2 million entries in the giant table just for them. This ticket is to patch against that specific edge case.

(Denise was pretty alarmed by the first one, because the proposed fix might delete data the OTW is legally required to keep. That’s a tangent, this is mostly a post about the tech problems, I’m just throwing it in because it seems worth knowing.)

MariaDB also has a public Jira board. Which documents this bug in the version of the software that AO3 just upgraded to: ““Local temporary space limit reached” on not so rare occasions.”

AD&T brought the site back up on Tuesday. It’s been safely up ever since. My understanding is, it stayed up after tech support from MariaDB helped them troubleshoot and implement a workaround for that issue.

Disclaimer that I am not a programmer! Someone more technical might come along and correct me on this! AD&T is working on an official postmortem — hopefully after they catch up on some well-deserved sleep — which will be way more illuminating than anything I can figure out in the meantime.

But my impression right now is that “AO3 software has problems with huge poorly-managed piles of data” ran headlong into “MariaDB upgrade has problems with not allocating certain operations enough space,” and it went about as well as a 12′ truck trying to drive under the 11’8″ bridge.

(Except in this case it’s a more normal bridge, where safely-loaded trucks usually pass under it with no problem, while AO3 is…I guess a truck with an extra 5 feet of clearance, caused by a wobbly pile of stuff held on top of it with a precarious set of bungee cords?) (It’s not a perfect analogy, okay. But you get the point.)

Fandom: Batman - All Media Types
Pairings/Characters: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Length: 4,742 words
Creator Links:

Wisetypewriter
Theme: siblings, complicated relationships, drinking & talking

Summary: Dick drinks on a rooftop.

Jason shows up.

Reccer's Notes: Really interesting fic! I love the exploration of Dick and Jason’s relationship, especially how the story weaves in elements from different comic continuities. It hit me right in the feels <3

Fanwork Links: Brothers around a beer

Fandom: The Protomen
Pairings/Characters: Megaman & Protoman & Quint
Rating: Teen and Up Audiences
Length: 53,236
Creator Links: VioletVulpini on Ao3
Theme:
Siblings, Science Fiction, Time Travel Fix-it, Alternate Universe, Hurt/Comfort, Trauma & Recovery, Apocalypse/Dystopia, Robots, Androids, and AI, Old Fandoms, Gateway Fanworks
Summary:
"The sound of Machines marching into a screaming mass did not cause Megaman to turn. The sound of children crying for their mothers would not pull his gaze from the far edge of the city."

And then he kept walking.
Reccer's Notes:
This fic takes the premise of an existing Mega Man character from the games, who was used as a minor sad character, and makes him the main character of a time travel fix-it in this alternate universe of The Protomen. Megaman goes back in time to before he killed his brother Protoman in an attempt to fix things, and manages to save his brother -- but now both his past self and his brother are after him, not to mention Dr. Wily, whose iron grip still holds the city. It has some of the best robot hurt/comfort I've ever read and amazing looks at the family dynamics between the characters.

Fanwork Links:
Through the Window to the Mirror on Ao3

Fandom: Mega Man (Cartoon 1994)
Pairings/Characters: Mega Man & Proto Man, Mega Man & Roll
Rating: Teen and Up Audiences
Length: 342,087
Creator Links: BlackRussian on FFN and BlackRussian on Ao3
Theme:
Siblings, Action/Adventure, Enemies Working Together, Plotty Fic, Series, Science Fiction, Gateway Fanworks, Epic Works
Summary:
Fighting Dr. Wily while watching your rebellious sister is tough for anyone, even a robot. Add an evil brother who's determined for you to join his side (or else battle to see who's strongest), things get ugly. Retcon of the Ruby-Spears Mega Man cartoon.
Reccer's Notes:
An amazing AU take on the Ruby-Spears Mega Man cartoon from 1994 which adds heart and multiple intertwining subplots, as well as fixing major plot holes and including more background for various characters. The central character relationships are between Mega Man and his (evil?) older brother Proto Man, and Mega Man and his sister Roll, but there's plenty of background relationships that keep the story engaging, along with a lot of clever worldbuilding and cheesy moments to fit the original cartoon's tone. It's part of an ongoing series, but seasons 1-2 are complete.

Fanwork Links:
Read it here on Ao3 and here on FF.net

Fandoms: 9-1-1: Lone Star, Beauty and the Beast, Bridgerton, Daredevil, Ransom Canyon, Shadowhunters, She-Hulk, Siren, Stargirl, Stitchers, Supergirl, The Leftovers, The Order, The Witcher, Vikings: Valhalla, Walker