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2026/026: Cleopatra — Saara el-Arifi

"They'll tell stories of you in years to come," Charmion continued.
Centuries. Millennia.
"I hope so."
I did not understand what it was I wished for. I hoped to become a legend, but I forgot what all stories must have: a monster.
I could not have known that monster would be me. [loc. 452]

Cleopatra narrates her own story from a perspective that remains obscure until the end of the novel. The novel begins with the death of Cleopatra's father Ptolemy XII and her own ascent to the throne of Egypt as the last Pharaoh: and it ends, of course, with her death.

Cleopatra, in this account, is a clever, learned woman, sometimes ruthless but also driven by love -- and not only romantic love, but also love for her children, her country, and even her siblings. The Egypt in which Cleopatra lives and rules is a magical land: the Ptolemies have been gifted by the gods, each having a birthmark and a magical talent bestowed by their patron deity. ( Read more... )

Current Mood: calm

mific

I've been busy lately with several things on the go - doing HR art for the ICE OUT donations challenge, recording a long SGA podfic for the Podfic Big Bang (And Hope by Sihaya Black), and trying to fit in recording a couple of shorter ones for Romancing McShep and Romancing SGA, as well. Oof. Plus a lot of HR fic reading. I've accepted that it's impossible to keep up in any meaningful sense, and just surf along reading stuff I see reccd or authors I know I like a lot, and the few WIPs I'm following. Eventually I guess I'll catch up with numerous gems in the fandom that I missed in this avalanche of new fics, many of them extremely good.

In terms of reading very good authors, I had an exceptionally obsessive episode today where I started a story by one of my fave HR writers and couldn't read it. Because (unlike in ALL their other fics) they'd chosen to do all the Ilya POV narration in Ilya-speak, with most of the articles dropped. Russian doesn't have separate articles, I gather, because the distinction between "a ball" & "the ball" is done with word order - which is why in English, Russians often drop their articles. An example:
1. Девушка читает книгу. (The girl is reading a book)
2. Книгу читает девушка. (The girl is reading the book)
In both sentences, the meaning is nearly the same. However, in Sentence 2, the placement of “книгу” (book) at the beginning, before “девушка” (girl), highlights the importance of the book and implies a specific book.
The parts of the fic where it was Ilya's dialogue were fine because that portrays his actual speech, but the narrative (for me) is his thoughts (internal narration) in tight 3rd POV and there's NO WAY he'd be dropping "articles" in his thinking in Russian. It made him seem stupid, which he very much isn't, and I couldn't bear to read it. So I just now copied it into Word and betaed it, adding back in all the articles from his narrative POV parts. If you recognise the fic, hit me up in a DM and I'll share the edited version. It's a bloody good fic otherwise, 9000 words.

Life's been quiet apart from reccing, writing, arting and podficcing, and I'm looking forward to a dinner out with friends this Wednesday. Also enjoying sweet corn, and the start of the stone fruit season, with gorgeous nectarines. My garden is blowsy and straggly now, in late summer, and I need to take some time (ha!) to trim it back a bit. It's still warm here, about 22-24 degC highs, usually, and drier of late so I'm still watering the entire garden by hand every 3 days.

One bloody annoying thing that happened was that my credit card was hacked back at the end of January (picked up via notifications coming up on my phone from my banking app asking me to approve a bunch of things I hadn't bought). Luckily all smallish purchases (kids? An unambitious thief, anyway) and I think the bank will refund them. But that meant cancelling that card and them mailing me another (a process I last went through several months ago). And then the mailed card never arrived (presumed stolen from my letterbox) and I got another couple of false transactions on the new card that I hadn't even seen yet! So yet another card cancellation and this time I got it mailed to my bank. I was very glad that after the last debacle several months ago I'd arranged a second credit card via my other bank (I have accounts at 2 banks for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture).

Anyway, in terms of recs:
- I'm reading all Evilharlowe's HR works on AO3 - they really are a fantastic writer.
- Happened on a great short edit that sets Shane and Ilya's tuna melt hiatus to a Chappel Roan song (The Subway - amazing song) - heartrending edit, very well done, but man, I wish it were a full-sized fanvid.
- Bringing to your attention this workout video by Hudson Williams. Leg day and his skincare routine are really paying off! (CN for casual mentions of eating extreme diets or 'not eating' to make his body fit acting roles. Which is worrying but probably routine for actors.)
- there's a LOT of HR podfic by now and every day there are 1 or 2 new ones. It's a great way to revisit fics I read and loved while I do art. For example,

cathexys podficced Magneticwave's Clear to a Hedgehog. This link gets you HR podfic on AO3.

Enough for now. Waving at you all - hope things are going as well as they can.! 💗

torachan

1. We had a very nice morning at Disneyland today. A little warm (I wore a sweatshirt when we got in and had to take it off about halfway through, so then I had to lug it around the rest of the time, which was annoying) and a little crowded, but we ate a lot of good food and had a good time.

2. Poor Tuxie looks like he got in a scuffle again. Yesterday he came to the door with one eye partially closed and the fur between his eye and ear on that side scraped up. He's looking better today (eye fully open) and unlike some times before where he disappeared for a few days to hunker down, he has been spending his time in our yard as usual, so hopefully he's doing okay. I do wish he wouldn't get in fights. :-/

3. Jasper is just hanging out.

muccamukk

I just have such a strong reaction to the question: "Is it queerbaiting if straight actors play gay roles?"

My answer is neither "yes" nor "no."

It's "Not today, Satan!"

torachan

Today is Anaheim Ducks Day at DCA and I specifically made a reservation for today rather than Saturday (our usual), not because either of us care anything about hockey or the Ducks, but because last year we just happened to be there on that day and had an amazing burrito that they only serve on Ducks Day lol.

( Read more... )

hannah

The travel ban's up. Schools are going back to remote learning. Nobody's going anywhere if they can help it. I'd figured this was coming, and it's nice that it's settling in. The snow's coming down steadily and I can faintly hear human voices - going from where the light's coming from, the people in the next building over are either hosting some friends or having a very loud party by themselves. Either way, it's warm human voices on a cold night.

Not a dark night, though. The clouds aren't letting that happen. It's one of the nicer parts of nighttime snow.

Current Mood: pensive
Current Music: nothing now

musesfool

I got up to watch the hockey this morning and despite Team USA pulling it off in OT, I do not accept that Bill Guerin was proved right in his choices. Eighty-five percent of the game was played in their defensive end and they only won because Connor Hellebuyck stood on his head. Maybe a little more scoring power on the team could have given them some breathing room. I am just saying. I'm happy for Hellebuyck and the Hughes brothers, and I got a little teary when they brought out the Gaudreau jersey and his kids, and I'm not gonna lie, watching Jon Cooper and Connor McDavid (along with Sam Bennett, Tom Wilson, and Brad Marchand) lose was pleasing to me on a deep, personal level, but overall, I'd still have preferred the Finns or the Swedes take home the gold.

I then baked some oatmeal for breakfast for the week, and made macaroni salad for a few days of lunch, and then for dinner, I made angel hair as planned, though when I actually read the recipe, it was not anything new to me - it was what I always do for a super quick tomato sauce, except they were adding chile crisp to it, which I guess is the thing nowadays - every recipe I read has chile crisp in it, but I'm not really a chile crisp person. I have the heat tolerance (in terms of spiciness, though I also don't like my food super hot temperature-wise either) of the whitest baby you know.

Anyway! It is a super easy but delicious meal and if you don't mind waiting a few extra minutes, you can do it all in one pot. Boil your pasta - angel hair is best for this, imo - and reserve a cup of pasta water before you drain it. Return the pot to the stove over low heat and add in a nice glug of olive oil (2 tbsp if you need a measurement), and then add a whole can or tube of tomato paste to the oil (so between 4 and 6 oz). Stir it around and season it as you like - I used garlic and onion powder, oregano and red pepper flakes and salt, but if you want to get fancy, you could probably saute a diced shallot and some minced garlic in the oil for a minute or two before adding the tomato paste - for 2-3 minutes, until it's all hot and sizzling. If you are so inclined, add chile crisp to suit your taste. Then add the pasta back, and about half the reserved water and toss it until the pasta is coated. I only used 4 oz of angel hair, so if you have more, you might need more water. Then put it in bowls and sprinkle it with parmesan cheese. If you are in an even bigger rush, you can sizzle the tomato paste in a frying pan while the pasta cooks and then combine it all back in the pasta pot. The couple of minutes you save isn't worth having to wash an extra pot to me, but it might be to some people.

*

Current Mood: productive
Current Music: Cruel Summer = Taylor Swift

jadelennox

I take a lot of pictures of three classes of things:

Cats: This pictures are good on any camera, including my agéd single-lens SE.
Birds: These pics are shit on the aforementioned handheld phone.
Moss and lichens and bugs: These pics are fine on the phone, but could be much better.

My real constraint is my hands and arms. I can't hold my arms above my head, I can't hold a phone still very long, the non-ergonomic controls and shape of a phone are shit, I realistically can't carry a tripod on a hike, and I can't bear weight on my shoulders or the back of my neck for any length of time. (I recognize that this collection of constraints means my pictures will never be great, and that's okay.)

So, questions:

Are there any cameras that have particularly good ergonomics, are particularly light, or have a good reputation for accessibility?
I believe I could get a remote shutter trigger & a remote focus, so I could prop the camera somewhere and get a good pic from a less painful angle; do you know how to choose a hand-friendly one? (Not finger-fiddly, easy to attach & detach, easy to click buttons.)
On a modern camera, is it possible to get lenses good enough for bird pics that are not, you know, heavy? Last time I had an SLR I was taking pictures on film, so that tells you how out of date my knowledge is.
What's the lightest tripod that works well for people with shit fine motor control and no finger strength? I can sort by weight on hiking sites, but hikers put up with a lot of fiddly controls that I can't handle.

(I'm only looking for advice from your experience or from the experience of people you trust. Please don't GoogleKagiGoPT it for me!)

etymologynerd_feed

Posted by Adam Aleksic

https://etymology.substack.com/p/you-also-need-the-stuffed-monkey

In 1957, the American psychologist Harry Harlow conducted an infamous experiment where baby rhesus monkeys were given the choice between two different “mothers”: one made of wire and one made of cloth. The wire mother held a bottle of food, while the cloth mother held nothing, and yet the monkeys overwhelmingly chose the cloth mother every time.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Harlow monkey experiment as the internet obsesses over Punch-kun, a socially anxious Japanese macaque that returns to his stuffed monkey whenever he struggles to interact with the other macaques.

It’s easy to see why Punch is captivating people’s hearts. We’re literally monkeys ourselves. Everybody can project their own stories onto him; all of us have sought out comfort in difficult situations.

However, the Harlow experiment is a warning about how our monkey instincts can be used against us. When I look at the photograph of the wire and cloth mothers, I see the physical and digital worlds we’re moving toward. One is stripped bare of everything but the basic resources for survival, while the other is an ersatz source of comfort.

The cloth mother is an AI chatbot or a social media influencer. She looks real enough to comfort your monkey brain into feeling a minimum amount of social connection. We turn to her when we can’t find any actual monkeys.

The wire mother is the self-checkout lane in a grocery store, or the sleek grey fast casual restaurant. You get what you want, without interacting with anyone, and then the space practically begs you to leave.

The more our physical spaces are optimized and transactionalized, the less the real world will look like the real world. At the same time, the better our technology gets, the more our digital world will appear like it’s the real thing. We’ll increasingly find ourselves clinging to it in anthropomorphic consolation while everything else withers to wire.

Following the surrogate mother experiment, most of Harlow’s monkeys turned out severely socially impaired, struggling to bond with other monkeys. I worry the same will be true for us, because artificial connection can never replace actual connection.

Punch, meanwhile, symbolizes how things could still go right. His stuffed animal helps him develop social skills and learn to interact with the other monkeys. The zoo is carefully designed for him to thrive; resources aren’t separated from community.

It’s a basic human instinct to seek the cloth mother. We need to feel connected to people and things. Arguably, this is what makes us human in the first place. But the things don’t have to come at the expense of the people. It’s possible to develop both our real world and our technology in a way that cultivates warmth and meaning.

This starts with carefully building our environments to augment the best in ourselves. We can’t focus on just the online, or even just the offline. Society now depends on both, and neglecting either would lead us into Harlow’s dystopia.

Cute animal videos will always go viral, but I’m sure there’s a reason Punch resonated so much in this current moment. He’s a lonely monkey, and we’re in the middle of a loneliness epidemic. We’re all drawn to the “stuffed animals” in our own lives, but we should recognize that these are means to an end, rather than the end itself. Instead, we must use our tools to build community where we can, understanding that we are monkeys as well.

Upcoming speaking events:

This Wednesday 2/25 at CU Boulder - details here
This Thursday 2/26 at UC Berkeley - details here. Event is currently full but they might move to a bigger room
March 13 at SXSW, Austin - details here

As always, if you liked this essay, please consider buying my book Algospeak! Thanks for your support :)

https://etymology.substack.com/p/you-also-need-the-stuffed-monkey

settiai

My debit card was compromised late last week, and I'm waiting for the bank to get all of the charges reversed. I've been able to cover my most urgent bills (the hotel and my storage unit), but I have a few others that are due that I'm still worried about paying. If I can come up with another $100 or so, it would make a huge difference while I wait for the bank to get everything taken care of.

So I'm going to try to sell a few things and hope for the best. 🤞🏻

First, I have a few Nintendo Switch games for sale:

Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! (example on Amazon)
Spyro Reignited Trilogy (example on Amazon)
TemTem (example on Amazon)

And then a few TTRPGs that were Christmas presents so they're still in basically like new shape:

Candela Obscura Core Rulebook (example on Amazon)
Daggerheart Core Set (example on Amazon)

If you're not interested but know someone who might be, please point them my way. It would help a lot if I could manage to sell at least one or two things from this list.

For payment, I have CashApp ($Settiai), PayPal, Venmo, or Zelle (nancy.lynn.foster@gmail.com).

Current Mood: hopeful

oglaf_comic_feed

https://www.oglaf.com/zzz/

runpunkrun posting in

fancake

Fandom: Stranger Things
Pairings/Characters: Will Byers/Mike Wheeler
Rating: Explicit
Length: 59,047 words
Content Notes: Bullying and homophobia.
Creator Link:

harriet_vane
Theme: Inept in Love, Pretend Couple, Friends to Lovers, Canon LGBTQ+ Characters

Summary: Will needs a date to his mom's wedding. Mike volunteers.

"I have an idea," says Mike.

Ice cubes form in Will's stomach. "How dangerous is it? Like, should I call Dustin to talk you down, or should I call Nancy to be ready to drive us to the hospital?"

"No," says Mike, "you can't tell anyone or it won't work."

"Or what won't work?" Will asks. It's like picking up a rock you know a spider will be under.

Mike gets up and closes Will's door. Hopper doesn't make them keep it open but sometimes Will does anyway, because every now and then lying around alone with Mike on his bed just makes his chest ache too much. If the door is open he can tell himself You can't do anything right now, someone will see.

Mike leans back against the door. His eyes are lit up with that special maniacal gleam that the Wheelers get right before they do something insane, like when Nancy says, "Then we have to go kill Vecna ourselves," or whatever. "Take me to the wedding," says Mike.

"Yeah," says Will slowly, "you'll be at the wedding. Obviously."

"As your date."

Reccer's Notes: They've fixed Hawkins' Upside Down problem (though this predates the final season), and it's the kids' senior year, and Will is worried his mom is worried about him, so Mike hatches a plan to be Will's (fake) date to Joyce and Hopper's wedding because of course he does. That means we've got Will pretending to pretend he's into Mike and Mike playing gay chicken against himself and...losing? winning? both?? Neither of them is doing a great job (or any job) communicating, but their fake relationship thrives and does what all the best fake relationships do, becomes real. A sweet friends-to-lovers romance with just the right amount of agonizing feelings.

Fanwork Link: Roll To Charm Person

smallhobbit posting in

fan_flashworks

Title: Well, it is Raining!
Fandom: Hercule Poirot
Rating: G
Length: 348 words
Summary: Hastings comes in very wet; Poirot does not approve.

( But, ma fois... )

raven

There's a feeling, I hope, a unidentifiable but deeply uncomfortable burn, felt by white women, who don't know, but should know, how many private brown group chats are typing.

And as I don't want to take on a cringe middle-class racist white woman (at this point there's about five of them that I have at various times decided not to take on, all terribly right-on, right-thinking, probably-vegan feminist pro-Palestine queer white women), that is all I have to say about that.

badly_knitted posting in

fan_flashworks

Title: Fallen In Battle
Fandom: War of the Worlds (1988-90)
Author:

badly_knitted
Characters: Harrison Blackwood, Paul Ironhorse.
Rating: PG
Setting: Seasons 2, Episode 1.
Summary: An alien clone of Colonel Ironhorse wreaks havoc on the Blackwood Project.
Word Count: 200
Content Notes: Nada.
Written For: Challenge 507: Amnesty 84, using Challenge 15: Double.
Disclaimer: I don’t own War of the Worlds, or the characters. They belong to their creators.

( Fallen In Battle... )

Current Mood: tired

james

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

vriddy

candyheartsex has revealed authors!! Another delightful round. Because the minimum requirements are so small (300 words for fic) and there are usually several hundreds participants, I decide to go mega self-indulgent and ask only for my rare polyships, in tiny (K-9) and larger (Wind Breaker) fandoms. And therefore I was SUPER DELIGHTED to get, guess what?? A gift for one of my beloved rare polyships :D :D :D :D 💖💖💖 *happy sigh* A delight, truly.

pile of five by

yesthisisnarumi | Wind Breaker | Sakura/Nirei/Suou/Kiryuu/Tsugeura | ~700 words | rated T

Summary: Akihiko wakes up in the middle of their bed and tries his best to find a way out.

Read it on AO3

Meanwhile I wrote two things :D :D One for a beloved BNHA polyship, and the other for K-9... I was so glad to have an outlet for some of my feelings over the fact that OBORO CANONICALLY GETS A COLLAR lol. This is probably the FIRST EVER K-9 fanwork in an exchange, too? >:D Mwahahaha

hardly an abduction | Boku no Hero Academia | Miruko/Dabi/Hawks | ~800 words | rated T
Summary: Dabi is injured. Miruko and Hawks take a risk to help, hiding in an abandoned shelter in the mountains.
Read it on Dreamwidth or AO3.

tailor-made | K-9 | Ren/Oboro/Fujimaru/Kagari | ~400 words | rated M
Summary: Oboro pretends not to make a big deal out of it when Hidaka hands him a collar.
But it is.
Read it on Dreamwidth or AO3.

Current Mood: happy

torachan

1. So nice to get back to my routine at home. I tried my best to stick to the things I could while away but it's not the same and it's definitely a source of stress.

2. Carla got some frozen char siu fried rice from Trader Joe's and it's really good. Making fried rice from scratch is an easy meal, but I wouldn't mind keeping a bag of this in the freezer for times we feel like something even easier.

3. A moth got in the house the other day and Carla was able to get some really great pics of Ollie when he was laser focused on the moth.

jenab

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

senmut

10trueloves - 5/10 written

Random Plot Bunnies in Progress

~ Fulcrum and Rex time travel to before Anakin runs to Mace. - NEEDS CANON REVIEW
~ Sequel to Retrieval - 93 WORDS
~ An Atin universe that is more like The Second Clone War or Mine, All of Them - 3 chapters written, each about 1k words

Potential Bunnies Pending Further Bouncing

~ Rachel and Joe meet with BOTH finally aware in Closing Up Shop
~ Drizzt's fallout/Vierna's reactions in the Divining Destiny universe

Finished

nothing

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

The Unusual Suspects

2026/026: Cleopatra — Saara el-Arifi

Bits and pieces, catching up

Daily Happiness

randomly

2026 Disneyland Trip #10 (2/22/26)

Falling.

i don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you

advice from camera nerds

you also need the stuffed monkey

For Sale: Nintendo Switch games + TTRPG books

Zzz

Stranger Things: Roll To Charm Person, by harriet_vane

Rain Challenge: Hercule Poirot: Fanfic: Well, it is Raining!

(no subject)

Double Challenge: War of the Worlds (1988-90): Fanfic: Fallen In Battle

oh my god the stupid

Candy Hearts author reveals!

Daily Happiness

Menopause grumbling

Projects and Bunnies

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August 2013

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