zeldahime / Reading

Do you have a Doctor Who community or a journal that we are not currently linking to? Leave a note in the comments and we'll add you to the watchlist (

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Editor's Note: If your item was not linked, it's because the header lacked the information that we like to give our readers. Please at least give the title, rating, and pairing or characters, and please include the header in the storypost itself, not just in the linking post. Spoiler warnings are also greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Off-Dreamwidth News
Blogtor Who's video of the day for yesterday was a clip from "Carnival of Monsters"
"Terror of the Zygons" to be screened at the BFI in September

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If you were not linked, and would like to be, contact us in the comments with further information and your link.

smbc_comics_feed

Posted by Zach Weinersmith

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/disjunction

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
Thank you to the four people who found this funny or 1=1

Today's News:

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/disjunction

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3119/

"And in maritime news, the Coast Guard is on the scene today after an apparent collision between two lighthouses."

https://xkcd.com/3119/

smbc_comics_feed

Posted by Zach Weinersmith

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/positive-2

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
The other creepy thing is the compound eyes.

Today's News:

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/positive-2

otw_news_feed

Posted by Caitlynne

https://www.transformativeworks.org/ao3-releases-0-9-414-0-9-419-change-log/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=266087

Over the past few weeks, we completed several important infrastructure updates including upgrading to Elasticsearch 8, finishing the transition to Rails 7.1, and migrating the bookmarks table to create room for more bookmarks. We also made some user-facing improvements, such as fixing various access and display bugs; clarifying some error messages, form labels, and page titles; and adding chapter numbers to comments in your inbox. Special thanks and welcome to first-time contributors Abhinav Gupta, hk-contribs, TemperedPetals, and Vemmy RM! We’d also like to thank Dhiraj Mishra for reporting a security issue.

Credits

Coders: Abhinav Gupta, AliceLsr, Bilka, Brian Austin, calm, ceithir, Connie Feng, EchoEkhi, Hamham6, hk-contribs, kitbur, sarken, slavalamp, TemperedPetals, Vemmy RM, weeklies
Code reviewers: Bilka, Brian Austin, ceithir, Coding-Hen, Hamham6, sarken, weeklies
Testers: Bilka, Booksarelife, Brian Austin, Caitlynne, calamario, choux, Deniz, Keladry, LilyP, Lute, lydia-theda, Sam Johnsson, Sanity, Teyris, therealmorticia, wichard

Details

0.9.414

In the process of installing the new Elasticsearch servers, we upgraded to Elasticsearch 8 on June 24!

[AO3-6259] – We upgraded the Elasticsearch gem to version 8.18.0.

0.9.415

On June 25, we finished off the last remaining parts of the update to Rails 7.1.

[AO3-6894] – We flipped the remaining configuration values to use the new defaults from Rails 7.1.

0.9.416

Our deploy on July 1 updated older language on the work search and filtering forms from “Author/Artist” to “Creator” and added chapter numbers to comments in your inbox, among other improvements.

[AO3-6050] – When accessing the Tag Wrangling page showing all relationship tags related to a character, tags would always be shown in alphabetical order, regardless of sort order. Now, tag wranglers can additionally sort through the tags by how many times they were used or by creation date.
[AO3-6273] – Sometimes, when you used the “Post Draft” button on a draft, the word count of the publicly posted work would be blank. It should now always be the correct number.
[AO3-6373] – If you blocked a user who had previously commented on your work, you could no longer freeze their comment. We fixed this, so you can now block users and freeze their comment threads in any order without problems.
[AO3-6735] – We fixed that when you left a comment on an news posts with comment moderation enabled, the resulting comment email would incorrectly tell you that the comment was on a work with moderated comments.
[AO3-6936] – We changed the browser page title on subscriptions pages to a format that matches other user pages: “username – Subscriptions | Archive of Our Own.”
[AO3-6971] – We fixed an error that occurred if the “No Fandom” tag didn’t exist, for example in a development installation of the Archive.
[AO3-7010] – Trying to access the chapter index of a work that’s both in an unrevealed collection and hidden by an admin used to result in an error 500. We’ve fixed that so it now results in a normal permission error.
[AO3-7017] – If you knew the ID of a draft work or a work restricted to logged in users, you could access a few subpages of the work that revealed its title and blurb. Since that information isn’t meant to be public, we’ve once again restricted access to these pages.
[AO3-7016] – We updated the gem we use to run database schema migrations of large tables.
[AO3-5345] – Collection maintainers get an email notification if they run matching in a gift exchange and the sign-ups are invalid. We’ve improved the text of this email and prepared it for translation.
[AO3-6541] – We changed the works search and the sorting and filtering options to use “Creator” instead of “Author/Artist” to match the terminology used by the rest of the site.
[AO3-6750] – Comments in your inbox now include the chapter number, so you don’t have to follow the comment link to know where exactly it was left.
[AO3-6807] – If you tried to use an invalid URL for an external work or in your collection sign-up, you would sometimes get a 500 error. We fixed that so now you will always get a proper error message telling you that the URL is invalid.
[AO3-6999] – We removed some duplicate code for sending comment emails to admins.

0.9.417 & 0.9.418

On July 3 and July 4, we ran out of rows in the database table that stores bookmarks, so we had to move them to a larger table that can hold them all! Now you can once again add your own bookmarks to the 647 million we already have.

[AO3-7031] – We migrated the bookmarks table to be able to hold more rows and then migrated all other table columns that refer to bookmarks to also support the larger bookmark IDs.

0.9.419

On July 12, we deployed an assortment of minor changes that included allowing the accent-color property in skins and clarifying some error messages.

[AO3-6795] – When you were excluding a tag in a search and then made a syntax error when trying to filter those results, you’d get a 500 error. We’ve fixed this so it instead tells you that your query has a syntax error.
[AO3-6989] – If you tried to view the pseuds list for a user who didn’t exist, you’d get redirected to the People Search page. That made sense in a way, but wasn’t terribly consistent with other nonexistent pages. Now you’ll get a 404 error instead, which makes it easier to check for typos in the URL you entered.
[AO3-7007] – We fixed a 500 error when a guest tried to add a work to a collection by directly going to the “Add To Collection” URL.
[AO3-7025] – We fixed a typo in one of the CSS properties in the Creating a Skin help pop-up.
[AO3-7022] – We changed the default comment setting for news posts to “Only registered users can comment.”
[AO3-5344] – We prepared the email that you get when your work is invited to a collection for translation.
[AO3-7019] – You will now get an informative error message if you try to change your username to the same name as you currently have, instead of it silently doing nothing.
[AO3-7033] – When you access a skin, the skin title is now part of the browser page title.
[AO3-7041] – You can now use the accent-color property in site and work skins!
[AO3-6852] – We removed some old unused scripts for testing gift exchange matching.

https://www.transformativeworks.org/ao3-releases-0-9-414-0-9-419-change-log/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=266087

ao3_news_feed

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/32016

We also made some user-facing improvements, such as fixing various access and display bugs; clarifying some error messages, form labels, and page titles; and adding chapter numbers to comments in your inbox.

Special thanks and welcome to first-time contributors Abhinav Gupta, hk-contribs, TemperedPetals, and Vemmy RM! We'd also like to thank Dhiraj Mishra for reporting a security issue.

Credits

Coders: Abhinav Gupta, AliceLsr, Bilka, Brian Austin, calm, ceithir, Connie Feng, EchoEkhi, Hamham6, hk-contribs, kitbur, sarken, slavalamp, TemperedPetals, Vemmy RM, weeklies
Code reviewers: Bilka, Brian Austin, ceithir, Coding-Hen, Hamham6, sarken, weeklies
Testers: Bilka, Booksarelife, Brian Austin, Caitlynne, calamario, choux, Deniz, Keladry, LilyP, Lute, lydia-theda, Sam Johnsson, Sanity, Teyris, therealmorticia, wichard

Details

0.9.414

In the process of installing the new Elasticsearch servers, we upgraded to Elasticsearch 8 on June 24!

[AO3-6259] - We upgraded the Elasticsearch gem to version 8.18.0.

0.9.415

On June 25, we finished off the last remaining parts of the update to Rails 7.1.

[AO3-6894] - We flipped the remaining configuration values to use the new defaults from Rails 7.1.

0.9.416

Our deploy on July 1 updated older language on the work search and filtering forms from "Author/Artist" to "Creator" and added chapter numbers to comments in your inbox, among other improvements.

[AO3-6050] - When accessing the Tag Wrangling page showing all relationship tags related to a character, tags would always be shown in alphabetical order, regardless of sort order. Now, tag wranglers can additionally sort through the tags by how many times they were used or by creation date.
[AO3-6273] - Sometimes, when you used the "Post Draft" button on a draft, the word count of the publicly posted work would be blank. It should now always be the correct number.
[AO3-6373] - If you blocked a user who had previously commented on your work, you could no longer freeze their comment. We fixed this, so you can now block users and freeze their comment threads in any order without problems.
[AO3-6735] - We fixed that when you left a comment on a news posts with comment moderation enabled, the resulting comment email would incorrectly tell you that the comment was on a work with moderated comments.
[AO3-6936] - We changed the browser page title on subscriptions pages to a format that matches other user pages: "username - Subscriptions | Archive of Our Own."
[AO3-6971] - We fixed an error that occurred if the "No Fandom" tag didn't exist, for example in a development installation of the Archive.
[AO3-7010] - Trying to access the chapter index of a work that's both in an unrevealed collection and hidden by an admin used to result in an error 500. We've fixed that so it now results in a normal permission error.
[AO3-7017] - If you knew the ID of a draft work or a work restricted to logged in users, you could access a few subpages of the work that revealed its title and blurb. Since that information isn't meant to be public, we've once again restricted access to these pages.
[AO3-7016] - We updated the gem we use to run database schema migrations of large tables.
[AO3-5345] - Collection maintainers get an email notification if they run matching in a gift exchange and the sign-ups are invalid. We've improved the text of this email and prepared it for translation.
[AO3-6541] - We changed the works search and the sorting and filtering options to use "Creator" instead of "Author/Artist" to match the terminology used by the rest of the site.
[AO3-6750] - Comments in your inbox now include the chapter number, so you don't have to follow the comment link to know where exactly it was left.
[AO3-6807] - If you tried to use an invalid URL for an external work or in your collection sign-up, you would sometimes get a 500 error. We fixed that so now you will always get a proper error message telling you that the URL is invalid.
[AO3-6999] - We removed some duplicate code for sending comment emails to admins.

0.9.417 & 0.9.418

[AO3-7031] - We migrated the bookmarks table to be able to hold more rows and then migrated all other table columns that refer to bookmarks to also support the larger bookmark IDs.

0.9.419

On July 12, we deployed an assortment of minor changes that included allowing the accent-color property in skins and clarifying some error messages.

[AO3-6795] - When you were excluding a tag in a search and then made a syntax error when trying to filter those results, you'd get a 500 error. We've fixed this so it instead tells you that your query has a syntax error.
[AO3-6989] - If you tried to view the pseuds list for a user who didn't exist, you'd get redirected to the People Search page. That made sense in a way, but wasn't terribly consistent with other nonexistent pages. Now you'll get a 404 error instead, which makes it easier to check for typos in the URL you entered.
[AO3-7007] - We fixed a 500 error when a guest tried to add a work to a collection by directly going to the "Add To Collection" URL.
[AO3-7025] - We fixed a typo in one of the CSS properties in the Creating a Skin help pop-up.
[AO3-7022] - We changed the default comment setting for news posts to "Only registered users can comment."
[AO3-5344] - We prepared the email that you get when your work is invited to a collection for translation.
[AO3-7019] - You will now get an informative error message if you try to change your username to the same name as you currently have, instead of it silently doing nothing.
[AO3-7033] - When you access a skin, the skin title is now part of the browser page title.
[AO3-7041] - You can now use the accent-color property in site and work skins!
[AO3-6852] - We removed some old unused scripts for testing gift exchange matching.

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/32016

isis

I finished the game, yay! As I've mentioned before, this is a spooky atmospheric puzzle game, very stylized in grayscale with splashes of red, and a sort of phase-shifted overlay effect that makes everything look a little unreal. You play as a mysterious woman who has come to a mysterious hotel full of locked doors somewhere in Europe (Italy? Austria? Germany?) in 1963, at the request of a mysterious man for reasons of ??? The gameplay is very simple: you move with either a controller stick or arrow keys, and you have a single action button to interact with whatever is highlighted in front of you, or if nothing is, to bring up your "introspection" screen that includes inventory, "photographic memory" (images of everything important you've interacted with, text from books/documents/signs you've seen, etc), and "mental notes" which is where your quests, so to speak, show up, e.g. "Unlock room 1957" or "Broken elevator?" The game manual - once you find it :-) - is minimal, and a lot of the game consists of figuring out how you need to figure out the game. The story also makes little sense and is mostly vibes until you accumulate more information, as putting the story together is in some sense the point of the game.

The puzzles are mostly a matter of figuring out codes to open locks (doors, safes, puzzle boxes, computer logins) based on information that is usually near the lock, but may require extra information from books, letters, or other documents in order to transform into the needed code. Some things rely on Greek letters or Roman numerals; some rely on perspective or rotation or other transformation. Usually if I couldn't figure something out, it meant I didn't have the necessary auxiliary information, though sometimes I had it but didn't realize it was the missing piece.

I found the overall game structure really interesting, in that it's sort of separated into informal stages where there are a number of places you can go and things you can do (and a few things you can't do yet and can't figure out at all, e.g. a statue with a hole in it where obviously something is meant to go but you don't know what, or a room you can see but not enter) and within that, you can do things in any order you like, it's completely nonlinear. And then either something you do triggers an event which opens up additional places you can go/things you can do, or you solve a puzzle that gives you a key (possibly literally) to open up a new area. However, sometimes (probably often!) you receive access to a new area before you've solved everything in a previous area, though in order to fully progress the game you'll need to go back and solve whatever you missed. My brother and I compared notes occasionally, and marveled at how we often did things in completely different orders! For example, there's one area called the "Quiz Club" where you have to answer questions about in-game things in order to progress, and to get to it, you need to solve a puzzle that you have access to from fairly early in the game. My brother got there long before I did, because I missed that puzzle entirely until much later, but he was only able to answer a few of the questions, since he hadn't encountered the answers yet; by the time I got there, I was able to get through the whole thing fairly easily.

I did a bit more than 95% completion (there are some optional things you can do, some of which I chose not to) and finished in about 25 hours, which is probably dead slow, but I'm a slow gamer. I have 9 pages of notes - the facts and diagrams are of course saved in "photographic memory", but I wrote some things down so I could refer to them while in the game without having to access it (and sometimes it's not available, so you have to either remember or take notes). Also a few photos I took with my phone, heh.

The game is pretty inexpensive on Steam and goes on sale periodically (at the moment it's $17.49). As I mentioned in one of my updates, there is a really excellent hint guide on the steamcommunity.com site, which gently nudges you in the direction you should be thinking in order to solve the puzzles, rather than providing answers. You can pet the dog! You can drink espresso (after solving a certain puzzle...)! If you like puzzle games of this sort, I recommend this game!

beck_liz in

doctor_who_sonic

Editor's Note: If your item was not linked, it's because the header lacked the information that we like to give our readers. Please at least give the title, rating, and pairing or characters, and please include the header in the storypost itself, not just in the linking post. For an example of what a "good" fanfic header is, see the user info. Spoiler warnings are also greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Off-Dreamwidth Links
Blogtor Who: Video of the Day – Doctor Who Classic: The Keys of Marinus, 1964
Blogtor Who: Doctor Who: Prison Paradox Cast Reveal
Blogtor Who: Review of Doctor Who: Vampire Weekend
Blogtor Who: Video of the Day – Doctor Who Classic: The Faceless Ones, 1964
Blogtor Who: BBC Shop Returns with New Doctor Who Merch

(News from

doctorwhonews_feed and

blogtorwho_feed, among others.)

Discussion and Miscellany

purplecat with Costume Bracket: Round 4, Post 7

Fanfiction
Complete
Burning Question by

badly_knitted (G | Tenth Doctor, Donna Noble)

Recommendations

paranoidangel recommends the fanvid For Good (Wicked) by Ben

If you were not linked, and would like to be, contact us in the comments with further information and your link.

smbc_comics_feed

Posted by Zach Weinersmith

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/unjust

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
Lifehack: you can get stuff by making the system juuuuuust a little worse!

Today's News:

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/unjust

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3118/

Washington, DC: Eastern gray squirrel, Amur honeysuckle. Puerto Rico: Crested anole, sea grape. US as a whole: Mallard, eastern poison ivy.

https://xkcd.com/3118/

smbc_comics_feed

Posted by Zach Weinersmith

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/canon

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
I don't know if we need any kind of formal Canon of unread texts. I just think it'd be nice if we all failed to read the same cultural touchstones, you know?

Today's News:

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/canon

smbc_comics_feed

Posted by Zach Weinersmith

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/monster-3

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
There should be a Monsters Inc. episode where they experience a leveraged buyout.

Today's News:

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/monster-3

merryghoul in

doctor_who_sonic

Do you have a Doctor Who community or a journal that we are not currently linking to? Leave a note in the comments and we'll add you to the watchlist (

doctor_watch).

Editor's note: Because of the high posting volume and the quantity of information linked in each newsletter, doctor_who_sonic will no longer link fanfiction that does not have a header. For an example of what a "good" fanfic header is, see the user info. Spoiler warnings are also greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Off-DW News
Blogtor Who's Friday Video of the Day is part 1 of Terror of the Zygons
Blogtor Who's Saturday Video of the Day is Planet Comicon's 2025 panel with Jenna Coleman
Blogtor Who reviews the book Doctor Who Icons: Shirley Jackson and the Chaos Box

(News from

doctorwhonews_feed and

blogtorwho_feed, among others.)

Communities and Challenges

dw10l: Challenge #1050: termination

Fanfiction
Completed
Floral Spectacle by

badly_knitted [Ten, Martha | G]

If you were not linked, and would like to be, contact us in the comments with further information and your link.

smbc_comics_feed

Posted by Zach Weinersmith

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/poseidon

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
Poseidon does, however, wonder where all the Steller's sea cows went.

Today's News:

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/poseidon

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3117/

Maybe encouraging the publication of null results isn't enough--maybe we need a journal devoted to publishing results the study authors find personally annoying.

https://xkcd.com/3117/

smbc_comics_feed

Posted by Zach Weinersmith

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/paperclip-2

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
The paperclippification fetishists however are just loving it.

Today's News:

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/paperclip-2

isis

I really did intend to post yesterday, but I didn't get to it. Well, it's Thursday!

What I recently finished reading:

The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison, the third book in the Cemeteries of Amalo sub-series of The Goblin Emperor books. I had gone into it with mixed feelings; not that I strongly cared about

spoiler

the Thara Celehar/Iäna Pel-Thenhior ship, but I had heard that the way it was sunk was awkward and issueficcy and felt like "I was going to write this relationship in but it felt pointless after all the fanfiction", and - yeah, it was

but I enjoyed it, overall. I liked the low-ish stakes plot, and the DRAGONS, and the fairly mild author's message of what makes a person a person, and the importance of basic rights and the rule of law, which, let's face it, is a relevant message these days.

Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky, stand-alone SF. Again, a lot of people whose reviews I follow didn't like it, but I did; Tchaikovsky is hit and miss for me, but this was a hit. A biologist who is also a political dissident on an extremely authoritarian Earth is exiled as prison labor on a planet with native life that is very weird and apparently hostile. This is basically another exploration of Tchaikovsky's Theme, which is at core, I think, "How can we see the Other as a Person? How do we overcome the instinct to be closed and tribal, and instead practice empathy, leading to discussion and exchange?" There are echos of the Children of Time series, in particular Children of Ruin (the second book), I think. There is also the strong contrast between a culture which gives lip service to the importance of individuality, but demands conformity, and a culture which emphasizes the communal and the good of the community. And of course, the importance of resistance, of holding to one's core beliefs even in the face of a terrible horrible authoritarian government.

I mostly enjoyed the style except for a few references which seemed a little too grounded in 21st century reality for this future in which humans are mining multiple far-flung planets. The structure and pacing worked well for me. Warning for a terrible horrible authoritarian government that doesn't give a shit about human lives other than their own, and body horror, and an ending which may strike some people as not entirely happy, but which satisfied me.

sovay, it's very different from Elder Race but if these themes appeal I think you'll like it.

"Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy" by Martha Wells, a Murderbot short story, in which Murderbot doesn't explicitly appear, but ART | Perihelion has recently met it for the first time. It's from Iris's point of view, on a mission with the rest of the crew, and really the mission is just a framing device McGuffin for "Peri has changed because it met someone?!?", and I agree with

runpunkrun's take that there are way too many words devoted to them walking around on this mission which turns out to be not really relevant, compared to the actual point of the story. Still, it's nice to have a bit about Murderbot from not Murderbot's POV.

What I'm reading now:

Just started on the seventh and last Shardlake book by CJ Sansom, Tombland.

What I recently finished watching:

Murderbot! I enjoyed it! I (mostly) appreciate, or at least understand, the changes they made in adaptation. (Not sure why it's not enough for Pin-Lee to be Space Lawyer, but also must be Badass Fighter? And the Arada/Pin-Lee/Ratthi thing didn't seem to have any reason for being and just felt a bit cringe.) I really loved the ending, and Gurathin's whole general arc, and SANCTUARY MOOOOON, and Mensah is chef's kiss perfect.

Speaking of Sanctuary Moon, Murderbot vidded it! Okay, it was really

pollyrepeat, but: RADIOACTIVE by Murderbot [vid]!!!

What I'm watching now:

Arcane, because B watched the first episode during the winter, riding the stationary bike, and decided I might like to watch it with him, so moved on to something else so we could watch it together. Not very far into it yet.

What I recently listened to:

The third episode of S3 of The Strange Case of Starship Iris, which, I really liked this one!

usuallyhats in

doctor_who_sonic

Do you have a Doctor Who community or a journal that we are not currently linking to? Leave a note in the comments and we'll add you to the watchlist (

doctor_watch).

Editor's Note: If your item was not linked, it's because the header lacked the information that we like to give our readers. Please at least give the title, rating, and pairing or characters, and please include the header in the storypost itself, not just in the linking post. Spoiler warnings are also greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Off-Dreamwidth News
Details of Doctor Who Magazine #619, available now
Blogtor Who's video of the day for yesterday was a clip from "The Five Doctors"
Doctor Who earns its first ever Emmy nomincation

(News via

doctorwhonews_feed and

blogtorwho_feed among others.)

Fanfiction
Complete
Volcanic by

desecrets (Professor Yana, Chantho | G)

If you were not linked, and would like to be, contact us in the comments with further information and your link.