The Jewish War: First half of Book 1

Feb. 14th, 2026 10:32 pm
cahn: (Default)
[personal profile] cahn
I am super not promising to always have this on Saturday, but yay long weekend!

Last week: I know some of you reading this study Talmud -- Josephus asserts at the very beginning that the "sufferings of the Jews" (presumably, in context of Josephus' writing, Titus destroying the temple, etc. though we won't get there for a while) are their own fault: "no foreign power is to blame." It was pointed out that the Talmud may (?) have its own opinion(s) as to whether the destruction of the Temple and the resulting diaspora was divine punishment? And regardless of the former, may also blame Titus? (I also don't know yet, because we haven't gotten there yet and won't for a while, whether Josephus himself thinks it's divine punishment or just plain old temporal consequences. My vague recollection of Feuchtwanger's Josephus is that he was thinking more of the latter, which is also very much borne out by this week's reading.)

This week: First half of Book 1 (Ch 22 / Par 444):

Okay, I must say the first part of this was a slog for me -- flitting between a lot of people I didn't know. Good thing we have this reading group or I might not have got through it. As it was, I had to take copious notes to even make a stab at writing up a summary (I won't promise I'll do this every week, but I had a little extra time and quite frankly I knew I wouldn't remember who any of these people were next week if I didn't), and I'm going to put them in comments so this post doesn't get super long. At least Josephus felt it was "inappropriate to go into the early history of the Jews," which would have made it really long. Anyway, it got substantially more interesting once Herod showed up!

Next week: Finish book 1.
cmk418: (art)
[personal profile] cmk418 in [community profile] halfamoon
Title: Two Lines
Fandom: The Big Bang Theory
Character: Penny
Rating: G
Word Count: 321
Summary: Sometimes you have to let go of one dream to allow another one in
A/N: For the record, I hated how "The Big Bang Theory" handled pregnancies. Bernadette was adamant about not having kids, but that seemed to get swept under the rug once her pregnancy was revealed. Penny was the same way, but the show gave her a pregnancy storyline in the very last show of the series. Why? Couldn't she just been a happy woman without kids? So, I got down off my soapbox and wrote an initial reaction for her that seemed to fit with the theme of today.

Two Lines )
whoremoantreatments: (mr. h)
[personal profile] whoremoantreatments in [community profile] 1character
Character: Sho Minamimoto
Fandom: The World Ends With You
Theme set: Delta
Rating: Mature/Leaning on Explicit
Warnings: Mild hints of dub-con (very mild)
can be read on ao3
Read more... )

Daily Check In.

Feb. 14th, 2026 08:44 pm
adafrog: (Default)
[personal profile] adafrog in [community profile] fandom_checkin
This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Saturday to midnight on Sunday (8pm Eastern Time).



Poll #34223 Daily poll
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 15

How are you doing?

I am okay
10 (71.4%)

I am not okay, but don't need help right now
4 (28.6%)

I could use some help.
0 (0.0%)

How many other humans are you living with?

I am living single
5 (33.3%)

One other person
8 (53.3%)

More than one other person
2 (13.3%)




Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.

Bronx trip.

Feb. 14th, 2026 09:09 pm
hannah: (Pruning shears - fooish_icons)
[personal profile] hannah
The Orchid Show never disappoints. It's always a breath of air and a flash of bright light to remind you to hold on until springtime finally arrives. I went today with a friend, and while it was the reason we tromped up there, it was also excuse for the tromping at the same time - mostly to see each other. Spending time with another adult in a social setting is a welcome feeling.

Getting there wasn't hard, just time consuming. Walking around was made easier by sticking to paths that were already plowed, so while I missed going into the forest, we saw a lot of it just by looking over and taking in what we could from the outside. As for the exhibit, this year it was New York City themed, done by a regional artist with a charming sense of humor - in addition to the big installations, which were themselves things like a pizza parlor, a fire escape, a brownstone covered in flowers, there were smaller constructions scattered throughout, like a steam vent that was accompanied by a bit of how-to on orchid care.

There were a fair number of small birds, a decent murder of crows, and no small number of all-black stealth mode squirrels. I kept having to point out the squirrels and birds to people, who were perpetually delighted to see them - so I can't be that upset they didn't notice, since they got to see them just the same.

Collection Open!

Feb. 14th, 2026 08:01 pm
candyheartsex: pink and white flowers (Default)
[personal profile] candyheartsex
The collection is now open!

Please enjoy your Candy Hearts, and remember to kudos and comment on your gift(s). Feedback can mean a lot to your creator!

The collection will remain open for treating, and the treatless spreadsheet will continue to be updated throughout this week!

A few things

Feb. 15th, 2026 11:14 am
china_shop: An orange cartoon dog waving, with a blue-green abstract background. (Bingo!)
[personal profile] china_shop
  1. My second finished & posted fic of the year, another late [community profile] fandomtrees gift, is Guardian:
    Title: Emergency Contact (6050 words) by china_shop [Teen and Up]
    Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018)
    Relationships: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
    Additional Tags: Pre-Canon, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, (For one of them), Mild Hurt/Comfort, Zhao Xinci's A+ parenting, Inexperienced Zhao Yunlan, Internalized Homophobia, Feelings about being closeted, Non-Linear Narrative
    Summary:

    Zhao Yunlan lists Shen Wei as his emergency contact. The fact they've never met is but a minor detail.

  2. Having a lot of fun with the smudgers. Here is my not-quite-convincing sketch of Amina from We Are Lady Parts. I did one of Zhao Yunlan, too, but while it came out okay in terms of shading, it doesn't look enough like him that I can bring myself to upload it, and my Saira and Bisma... well, it's good to practice. Baby steps.

  3. [personal profile] out_there posted Noah Kahan's The Great Divide a while ago, and it's really stuck with me.



    I also keep listening to Amina's cover of The Reason:


  4. In Kdramas, I'm watching One Spring Night for its wonderful cast, but I'm in the market for something more fun (preferably light/swoony romance), if anyone has any recs.

  5. Milestone: as of yesterday, Andrew is self-propelling (driving again). No more driving him home in the evenings! Of course, this meant I stayed up past midnight making (slightly disappointing; needs scallions and/or garlic chives, neither of which I had) salsa. But anyway, now Andrew has independence (and I have the possibility of earlier nights). Woot!

  6. We're rewatching LotR after many many years. Halfway through Fellowship. Oh, this soundtrack!


For future reference: I replaced my downstairs smoke alarms yesterday.

for this was on seynt Valentynes day

Feb. 14th, 2026 01:41 pm
muccamukk: Text: Endless jousting sprinkled with #relatable. (KA: Jousting)
[personal profile] muccamukk
Nenya's summary of an early account of St Valentine's Day as a romantic festival: "So it was RPF written during lockdown, which contained endless jousting sprinkled with #relatable? Whomst among us?"

Wild tonal shift to follow:

It's also the day that Frederick Douglass chose as his birthday, which is very sweetly illustrated here: What, to a Country, Is a Child’s Birthday? | Talk & Draw with Liza Donnelly & Heather Cox Richardson (video: 3 minutes).

Yesterday, we went to a No More Stolen Sisters march, which was very touching, especially given how many women were their with pictures of missing and murdered relatives. A lot of red cloaks and traditional woven cedar hats.

It was organised by the student union, and I appreciated how much care they put into cultural safety and looking out for family members.

We listened to the DNTO podcast "The Story She Carries: Lorelei Williams and her fight for justice" for class, and my professor said she'd gone to residential school with Williams' mother. It's all very close here.

Come to Dark Souls

Feb. 14th, 2026 09:33 pm
rydra_wong: Lee Miller photo showing two women wearing metal fire masks in England during WWII. (Default)
[personal profile] rydra_wong
We have terrible platforming, shortcut porn, hostile shrubbery, BOXRATS!!!, extremely smashable vases, “amazing chest ahead” (male), “amazing chest ahead” (female), “amazing chest ahead” (mimic), weirdly sexualized moaning (male only), repeatedly falling down inside a giant hollow tree to your death, Moss Lady, a magic medieval snakeskin-covered gramophone, hidden areas hidden behind other hidden areas hidden behind illusory walls, combat skirts (unisex), giant snakes with horse teeth, pretending to be an egg, quite a lot of jank, a very angry elderly cat who scolds you in bad faux-Shakespearian and is also a faction leader, the secret lake underneath the bottom of the world, “jolly co-operation,” chibi mindflayers, clams full of skulls, a trident that lets you do a silly little dance, ridiculous ragdoll corpse physics, a really cool double helix staircase probably based on the Château de Chambord, ball/crab things that turn up unexpectedly in your game and try to magic missile you because somebody in another game lost some stuff, getting punched to death by mushrooms, and Gender.

This is such a weird game (complimentary).
petra: Barbara Gordon smiling knowingly (Default)
[personal profile] petra in [community profile] thisfinecrew
The public comment period is open until 2/17/26 on two regulations. One would prohibit use of public funds for hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to minors, and the other would prohibit the use of Medicaid or CHIP funds for gender-affirming care for minors.

As people of conscience, we should speak out in defense of the young people who cannot vote against this.

Federal Register Comment Area 1 re: hospitals.

Federal Register Comment Area 2 re: Medicaid and CHIP.

I have a standing offer in my journal to write for people who make donations to food banks, Médecins Sans Frontières, and Stand With Minnesota. I am adding in a drabble or limerick per comment on these topics because it's urgent.

My comments, for reference )

Fellowship (2025)

Feb. 14th, 2026 03:13 pm
pauraque: world of warcraft character (wow)
[personal profile] pauraque
In this co-op ARPG, you and three friends battle your way through timed dungeon runs, collecting gear and gaining new abilities. As your power grows, you unlock higher difficulties that put new twists on what you've seen before. Enemies learn new attacks, bosses hit like trucks, and new mechanics like falling meteors and exploding ice will require you to adapt your strategies. The game doesn't end, it just keeps scaling up forever until you either reach the limit of your skills, get bored, or the game season resets and everyone goes back to square one.

four characters in combat with sentient plants in a colorful fantasy world with magic spell effects going off as a timer ticks down in the corner
Wraithtide Vault, aka Freehold If You Squint

In other words, this is the Mythic+ game mode from World of Warcraft, without the rest of the MMO. I think for people to whom that means something, the reaction tends to be pretty polarized, either "That sounds terrible" or "This is the game I've been wanting for ten years, TAKE MY MONEY!!" I definitely fall into the latter camp, and having now played the first season of early access, I am pleased to say that I'm having a great time.

If the look and feel of the game were any closer to WoW, Blizzard would sue. )

Fellowship is on Steam for $24.99 USD. The second season of early access starts on February 19th, so that would be a convenient time to jump in since we'll all be starting from scratch again.

Day 14: Fic - My Hero Academia - Momo

Feb. 14th, 2026 03:40 pm
alchemicink: A smiling Ashido Mina (Pretty Mina)
[personal profile] alchemicink in [community profile] halfamoon
I decided that instead of writing something new, I'm going to share something I wrote last year because it fits the "letting go" prompt well and has a nice optimistic vibe. It was originally written for [community profile] femslashfete, but I never got around to crossposting it to ao3 until now. Enjoy!

Title: To forsake
Fandom: My Hero Academia
Character: Yaoyorozu Momo (plus Jirou Kyouka is briefly here too)
Rating: G
Length: 401 words
Summary: Momo decides to forsake her duties as a knight
Link: here originally on the femslashfete comm, here on ao3, or you can read it under the cut below

Read more... )

2026 Schedule

Feb. 14th, 2026 12:29 pm
firebatvillain: Drawing of a hand in darkness, holding a ball of fire. (Default)
[personal profile] firebatvillain in [community profile] sufficiently_advanced_ex


Greetings!


We are pleased to announce that Sufficiently Advanced will return for 2026. Because of the nature of this exchange -- focusing on print canons -- we are kicking off with a promo period before nominations begin, to give everyone time to pick up something new or reread something old. The canon promo post for this year can be found here.


As a reminder, here are the freely available canons and promo post for all years.


The Ao3 collection can be found here.


The Ao3 tagset can be found here.


2026 Schedule


Nominations: February 21-March 7

Signups: March 8-21

Assignments: No later than March 25

Creation Period: March 22-May 3

Works Due: May 3 at 10 PM EDT (UTC-4)

Work Reveals: May 10 at 10 PM EDT (UTC-4)

Creator Reveals: May 17 at 10 PM EDT (UTC-4)


Mod email: sufficiently.advanced.ex@gmail.com

2026 Canon Promo Post

Feb. 14th, 2026 03:20 pm
keita52: Sameen Shaw (person of interest)
[personal profile] keita52 in [community profile] sufficiently_advanced_ex
Use the comments of this post to promote your favorite canon(s). Please use one comment per canon. You can use the template provided here or whatever format you wish.

If it is freely available online, consider adding it to the Freely Available Canons spreadsheet.



Name:
Author:
Length (pages or words, whichever is more relevant): 
Sub-genre:
Why it's awesome:
Any other important information to know about:

Day 7 - Fic - Warrior Nun - Yasmine

Feb. 14th, 2026 09:01 pm
jacquelee: (WN: Yasmine thinking)
[personal profile] jacquelee in [community profile] halfamoon
Title: Finding Yourself in a New World – Chapter 7: The Lover
Day/Prompt: Day 7 / The Lover
Fandom: Warrior Nun (TV)
Character/Pairing: Yasmine/Camila
Rating/Warning(s): M / None
Word Count: 5033
Summary: When Tronan kisses her during their mission on Kasar but Yasmine feels nothing, she realizes that she has feelings for Camila. Blurting out her feelings, Yasmine is first mortified, but Camila does reciprocate her feelings and they share an intimate moment.
Author's Notes: I upped the rating for this fic, mostly out of ample precaution. It is mostly fade to black, there isn't any actual smut, but still. Also, I will finish this fic, despite my little (much needed) hiatus. I'm not sure whether I'll be able to write the 4 chapters I'm still missing today and tomorrow and then post all the remaining chapters tomorrow by Halfamoon's deadline, but I'll try.

Here on AO3
cmk418: Nahla Ake reading (ake1)
[personal profile] cmk418 in [community profile] halfamoon
Title: Comfort
Fandom: Starfleet Academy
Character: Chancellor Nahla Ake
Rating: G
Word Count: 109
Summary: There are benefits to being comfortable.

Comfort )

Not a good kind of PSA, I'm afraid

Feb. 14th, 2026 02:43 pm
umadoshi: (W13 - Claudia crying (vampire_sessah))
[personal profile] umadoshi
In the comments of [personal profile] spikedluv's final post, which she made on Feb. 2, there's info saying that she died unexpectedly later that day, with a link to her obituary. :( No cause of death given.

Thank you, [personal profile] shipperslist, for the heads-up.

ETA: [personal profile] lunabee34 confirms in comments. ;_;
(Note: I'm taking the info in good faith as posted; I don't know the person who shared it, and while [personal profile] spikedluv and I were mutuals for a long time, I never knew her wallet name. But the obit info matches what I did know and she was an extremely regular poster, so even a day or two of silence was worrying.)

Profile

anghraine: vader extending his lightsaber; text: and now for the airing of grievances! (Default)
Anghraine

January 2026

S M T W T F S
     12 3
4 5678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
2526272829 3031

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Feb. 15th, 2026 07:08 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios