#Cleopatra and th

[astrogre]

Astro Observations 1

My first Astro observations post, I would like to confirm that my observations are the niche ways in which a placement may manifest, it is the way I’ve noticed it in others, the people around me, celebrities, myself and in my studies. It is not the doctrine wide broad way the placement occurs for everyone.

Venus in 10th house natives tend to be well known for the person they may date. They tend to date people that really match them physically and can have their relationships idolized by others. The sign it’s under can show what their partners may be known for. This is also a common placement for celebrities because the interest from others in your love life increases your public image, making you more desirable and of interest to everyone including agencies/record labels, they will see your influential potential and love that. Even if you guys don’t date anyone people may have someone in mind who they think matches you or others can just look at you and wonder what your “type” is. Your love life in itself is of interest to others.

Eg. Chris Brown, Johnny Depp, Jimin, Victoria Beckham, Kristen Stewart, Billie Eilish, Kanye West.

Another way Venus 10th housers may manifest is they may have crushes on renowned key figures from history like JFK, Alexander Hamilton, Stalin, Cleopatra, Marilyn Monroe, royal monarchy literally any people of historical significance. (Saturn influence is long lasting and for Venus to be here it can make natives romanticise powerful historical figures)

Pluto 3rd housers can dominate the conversations they have with others so much that they don’t let the other person have their own opinion.

Capricorn Chiron in 6th house makes people feel worthless and terrible if they haven’t been productive for a day, these people don’t like to be lazy, it makes them feel inferior. They put a lot of pressure on themselves to produce and their day routine may be their greatest pride.

10H stellium always have career plans, they like to advance their CV and career prowess for fun, always taking up opportunities. Especially if sun is here.

12H stellium always posting the weirdest stuff that others don’t understand but it has a unique vibe to it that just feels “right” at the same time, they may have this aesthetic that feels eery but overtime enjoyable and something to look forward to because of its uniqueness. I have a 12H stellium friend and they always post pictures of weird random abandoned places with crocs and dirty teddy bears laying in the middle of them. At first I thought it strange but overtime, I look forward to what monstrosity of visuals they will bring next. 12H really does bring out things never seen before. 🤔

Venus in 1H makes you look very feminine, you may style yourself in a feminine manner or have a naturally feminine appearance. Eg. Leo Venus in 1H May have very beautiful feminine looking long hair.

1H Libra Mars has a similar effect as Venus in the 1H however these natives have a hint touch of masculinity, are rather playboy, Casanova and can have a big ego. Think of Flynn rider from tangled. Very pretty boy.

People with 12H Capricorn placements may procrastinate or find difficulty in bringing the planets in there into reality and get frustrated at themselves for it. It’s similar to the planet being in retrograde E.g a 12H Capricorn moon not being able to fully show or act on the way they feel in their head. Look at the house of where Saturn is in your chart to find the topics and how you can bring the energy of your Capricorn 12H planets out.

0 degrees for any planet or asteroid means that you embody that planet/asteroid and its sign in its most pure authentic form. It can make you the epithet of that placement.

Lilith Square Asc makes someone not able to escape looking like a bad boy/girl it always comes out in their appearance without them intending to. They don’t want to present themselves in a way that looks scandalous but at the same time a part of them is and they can’t escape that. It’s like an energy. They’re dynamic and free, they like what they like and that shows in their face and appearance. They also can’t change things about themselves to please others even if they wanted to.

Jupiter 1H usually have big features, like a glossy kind of look to them. It may be big eyes, flushed face, supple puffy skin, wide nose or just have an abundant looking face. I’ve also noticed they tend to have a squared shape face with rounded edges. E.g Hailey Beiber, Abraham Lincoln, Gerard Butler, Aishwarya Rai, Niall Horan, Ashton kutcher, Whitney Houston, Cristiano Ronaldo

Also this is completely random and not astrologically backed up but whenever I think of Jupiter 1H I just think of clear gleaming skin. Perhaps it is backed up astrologically as Jupiter blesses and brings luck to the house it’s in and it being in the 1st rules a natives appearance. Anyways when I think of Jupiter 1st house I always imagine that they don’t need very much makeup they have this glow to them already that cannot be copied.

Virgo ASC style and dress themselves in a way that’s unique for them, for an example they may always have a signature accessory that they wear that only they understand why it’s so important to be worn. E.g. can be a headband, jewellery or hat. They may also be consistent in the way they look, they don’t tend to have “bad days”. In my personal opinion I find Virgo rising men the most attractive. But beauty is in the perspective of the beholder.

Speaking of which, my unpopular opinion is that I don’t believe that a sign or planet can make you more beautiful than another sign E.g like how people say Venus, libra and Taurus is an indicator of being beautiful -I just think that each sign personifies beauty in a different way. In my eyes I see Libra and Venus beauty to be feminine and attractive, but I find Pluto Scorpio beauty to be alluring and intense, magnetic, like Phantom of the opera, like an enchanting vampire that resides in the shadows. I also find Uranus Aquarius beauty to be far more entrancing, striking and even as if the native looks like their from a game fantasy novel or a manga protagonist. I don’t think we can just say “having Venus prominent makes someone more beautiful than others”, perhaps conventionally but not universally. Planets and signs of the first house can show us HOW the beauty is made manifest. It being of Venus, libra influence just kind of makes it feminine or conventionally attractive like butterflies or roses rather than intense or of large magnitude (unless making aspects to magnifying planets like Jupiter)

Aquarius moons can feel a lot of emotions but they’re very good at holding it in. People say that they don’t feel much because the nature of Aquarius being detached however I’ve also seen it occur in a way where the Aquarius moon native may pretend they’re not hurt or sad so that they can keep it pushing and force this happy facade so it hurts less but in reality their just burying the pain deeper. They are kind of avoidant but it makes you feel sorry for them because even if you try to comfort them they don’t even acknowledge the pain themselves so it doesn’t make much of a difference.

Jupiter in 6th house always have action packed days, they spend their days with joy and have a really good time. They usually have their dream day to day life. They’re your one friend that is always doing something interesting, fully booked and loves it.

Jupiter 8H are never strapped for cash, these natives can just be very lucky in getting money from others. Especially if in harmonious aspects with sun, Pluto and Venus. If aspects are negative native still doesn’t worry much but may find that people are a little more hesitant to giving or Jupiter 8H native doesn’t want to ask for it.

Mars 1H makes someone want to work harder on their body by going to the gym, may want to look more manly, aggressive.

Jupiter conjunct moon in 7th house makes you a very passionate lover, anyone who is in a relationship with you can always feel excited and you excel in relationships.

Mercury conjunct ascendant can make someone always think about their goals, plan their next move. They use their minds to get what they want from life and can talk about the principles they apply to themselves which can make them look rather intelligent to others. Can also make someone appear very youthful, not only in appearance but their mannerisms too. Like a dimply smile, blushing and shaking their head when complimented. An animated response.

Moon opposite asc, tends to make a person unable to think clearly when emotions are involved, especially when it’s related to topics in the house your moon is in, like you can look a little mentally unstable here 💀 because your emotions that you show can drastically change from 0-100. moon opp asc also can have a person go against what they want, their principles and approach to life, the opposition forces them to deny their feelings existence in order to act in the way they believe is best. You can even care more about your image than the themes of the moons house.

E.g 7H moon opposite ascendant can make someone care about their image in the relationship, display an image of nonchalance when in reality they’re very protective of their partner. The feelings from their partner and their relationship can be irresistible and make them at times abandon their vices and plans for themselves

[stellabfly]

Quiet as a breath he arrived. Stella couldn't help the smile that broke across her face, though it was still more solemn than usual. But seeing him did raise her spirits. It made her feel bolder in the upcoming decision she had to make.

"Of course I did," she smiled as he sat beside her. Their fingers wove together like the roots of the water reeds that covered the riverbanks. Tangling together to become one, inseparable even by the quickest currents.

The cool touch of his skin was always a comfort. His presence, as still and morose as it could be at times always made her feel at peace. Something to tether herself to, so she did not drift away. Though he thrived in the dark he always found a way to be her light.

"Does my face betray me that much, or is only because you know me so well," her smile was sad as she looked up at him. She brought a hand to his cheek, thumb brushing gently over his cheekbone.

"A leader from a distant land came to me after the last Full Moon. He threatened my status--claimed a woman could not lead a pack nor land of my size. Not on her own," her smile faltered and turned bitter as tears began to burn her eyes. "He told me I had until the next moon to decide--I either take his hand and he absorbs control of my pack and my people, or he will challenge me for dominance--we will fight as wolves and the victor gets both packs." She looked deep into her love's golden eyes, wishing for answers. For what else could be done besides giving up her life, in one way or another.

Stella was strong, and she would do what was needed for the safety of her pack, but the man that had came was so much larger than her and she had a feeling he would fight dirty. That even if she were to best him in combat, his pack would remain loyal to him, and fight hers. From what she had heard, his pack was far larger, and those under his rule who were not wolves were trained soldiers.

"I don't know what to do. I had hoped to come up with some daring plan long before now but I... There's nothing I can do. Not when my people are so at risk. I refuse to flee, to leave them unprotected. If I must use my dying breath to keep them safe than so be it but I..."

She pulled Banzai into a hug, holding him close so he could not see the tears that began to fall. "I'm scared, my love. I'm so afraid."

@banzai-bungu

Shadow & Moon || V-Day Trope Extravaganza AU || Banzella

[wolfienation]

some rhaenicent fic recommendations

grey ridge (ríl liatroma) by molter ( @molter-writes ) - married with kids; business drama; they’re sickeningly cute; arguably the best thing ive read in the fandom; 10 out of 10; read it like 6 times; if you haven’t read it dude what are you waiting for

ride the dragon (and do it quickly) by molter - the #roadtrip fix it 

love is complicated by molter - Alicent is an actress and Rhaenyra is her rich best friend; they idiots and they’re in love; Laena is featured and she is fed up

leaf and blade by molter  - it’s summer; they’re hiding their relationship; they’re teachers; and my all time favorite tag ‘harwin gets a whistle’ 

bodhrán beat by molter - read the tags. its by molter trust me its good.

cleopatra by dontaskmedude   - divergence from episode 4; Joffery does not die; Laenor and Rhaenyra do everything right; Alicent and Rhaenyra raise their kids together 

someone to watch me die by dontaskmedude  - this is just, this is just depressing; good but depressing; like if hurt/no comfort is your thing this is for you; it’s just so, so sad; kinda Alicent in chains/Rhaenyra half year queen era with some timeline tweaks but no happy ending; do not read this if you want them to be happy 

Untouchable by mylordshesacactus - young rhaenicent; if Aemma never died and if Alicent never married viserys; i love this story so much you dont get it

Blame it on Fate by Lumyart ( @lumyart ) - they’re rival co hosts; well, actually, they’re rival co hosts in Alicent’s mind; Rhaenyra is thoroughly enamored (as per usual) 

you don't know what love is (if you don't put up a fight) by tansymeadows - viserys manages to last a couple extra days and Rhaenyra returns after Alicent blinked her pretty brown eyes and said “you’ve only just arrived”

The Silver Queen and the Lady in Green by WanderingFan - idk how to explain this; honestly just read it; it’s really good; slow burn; like incredibly slow burn im on chapter 26 rn and they’ve only just become friends a couple chapters ago but god is it worth it 

is it too soon to do this yet ('cause I know it's delicate) by Arvedui - episode 1 divergence; it’s cute; they’re cute 

would it be enough (if i could never give you peace?) by Arvedui  - Jeyne Arryn my beloved; you and Laena would get along splendidly when it comes to these two nitwits ( i say with affection) 

Midnights Like This by pure_black_wings - based on Taylor’s album; college setting; slow burn

Duty and Sacrifice (A History of Rhaenyra the Blessed by Archmaester Gyldayn) by TheIronDragon10    (@theirondragonrants) - now when i say i love this story i mean i LOVE this story; if you ever wanted to know what the House of the Dragon looked like thoroughly united then LOOK NO FURTHER; top tier; it’s wonderful; it has angst, it has joy, it has family and sibling vibes, it has slow burn, it has pain and healing and love everything i could ever want from a realistic version of canon where my girls can be happy; emphasis on realistic because the irondragon does not pull any punches 

Cleaving to Rhaenyra by WanderingFan - another episode 4 divergence 

you’ve got your demons (darlin’ they all look like me) by geralehane    ( @geralehane ) - the reincarnation au 

lying (in the hollows of your heart) by wakesiren ( @wakesirens)  - read this for the last scene of chapter 3 and thank me later; update: READ THIS FOR CHAPTER FOUR AND THANK ME LATER

towers and dragons verse by beepboop (permanganato) - Alicent is one adorable nerd okay and Rhaenyra just loves her 

what is it good for? by bluebaric ( @viscountcrow ) - arranged marriage au; Rhaenyra is a war hero; Alicent is perpetually terrified for her life  

tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart by alphayamergo   ( @sydneysageivashkov ) - this was just, this was just hilarious; like picture Corlys and Otto snarling at each other from across the council room trying to convince Rhaenyra to marry either Alicent or Laena and that’s what this is

thine is the queendom by liadrell ( @lesbianalicent ) - this was an excellent read, really good character dive on alicent

Ember to Flame by CrowSaint (@ dayneonychus ) - intriguing concepts 

our shadow over the sea by queensmooting - sigh

Long Live Our Queens! by WanderingFan - they’re gonna kill their fathers and they’re gonna rule together and it’s gonna be great

blood in your mouth (I wish it was mine) by dontaskmedude - this made me shed some tears

Of Our Own Accord by 99bad_habits ( @99bad-habits ) - can’t wait to see how this turns out; canon divergence at 1x08; Viserys lives long enough and Rhaenyra returns on dragonback and our girls get to co-rule

and i'll still see it, until i die by irridescence - h e a r t b r e a k i n g; starts around the winter fever and goes backward from there

by choice by alicents - co-parenting rhaenicent my beloveds <3; family fluff told in segments in a non-linearly fashion; it's cute; they're cute; something to read while canon is breaking your heart

good luck, babe! by somebodytoundress ( @somebodytoundress )- based on the song by chappell roan; they're friends reconnecting after 10 years about to play lead love interests in a movie. give the song a listen and give the fic a read

am i making you feel sick? by  somebodytoundress - rhaenyra is a vampire. need i say more

fault lines by rogueorbit ( @rogueorbit ) - 1x08 canon divergence; rhaenyra returns on dragonback and her and alicent make peace; alicent plays otto like a fiddle while rhaenyra stands back and chants "i'm in love with you"

once more, to see you by Jazzfordshire ( @jazzfordshire ) - 2x03 canon compliant. takes place after their sept talk. bittersweet as hell. supercorp fans rejoice because jazz wrote it.

And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow by mrdcai ( @mrdcai ) - #valyrianmagicbabies need i say more

Desire (I want to turn into you) by mrdcai - they're friends with benefits because they're fucking idiots

lately i've been crying (like a tall child) by noheteroexplanation ( @noheteroexplanation ) - this has one of the best characterizations of alicent i've ever read. it's told from her pov from the beginning of season 2 come forward with minor changes and goes into speculation for the rest of the show. heavy, heavy book spoilers.

it’s a craving, not a crush by BeastGirl2k14 - did someone say toxic modern au rhaenicent with some vampire action thrown in for fun? (alicent with a fang kink for the win)

Where love is elsewhere held and she lingered by koyuki_kazahana - alicent runs. rhaenyra runs after her. there are book spoilers in this.

there you go again by floodonthefloor ( @floodonthefloor ) - they're actors. they're childhood best friends. they were fuck buddies in uni and that really messed them up. they haven't spoken in years. they're now starring in a movie together. alicent kinda hates rhaenyra's guts but she still wants to jump her bones. trust me. it's good

try not to let go by floodonthefloor - they dated in uni. they broke up. and now they're back in each other's lives. that's gonna go well.

pedestal by floodonthefloor - listen guys. if you think they're insane, i promise you they're EXTREMELY insane in this one. opposing lawyers who can't stop committing career suicide everytime they so much as look at each other.

there’s more i just got tired so feel free to add your own; there are also other stories by these authors (Wandering, wakesiren, somebodytoundress, mrdcai to name a few) which I have not put here that are also enjoyable so you can check them out 

[viewofagarden]

Dandy's World OC: Cleo the Mummy (🎃)

Bio and details below!

“Cleo is a descendant of ancient royalty, and boy does she act like it. But she’s also a thoughtful ghoul who will step in and help others who need it. Besides, when it comes to making Halloween costumes, Cleo’s tough to top!”

Full Name: Cleo Thutmose III  Other Name: Cleo the Mummy Species: Mummy Gender: Female (She/Her) Voice Claim: Carleigh Beverly (Dakota Milton - Total Drama: Revenge of The Island)

Jackson Store Quote “Cleo, Cleo, Cleo…Snooty and spoiled as she is, Halloween costumes just wouldn’t be the same without her.”

Requirements

700 Pumpkins

50% Research on Twisted Cleo

Appearance

Cleo is a mummy with greyish blue skin, yellow sclera, black eyeliner, and pale blue pupils. As well as short dark blue hair peeking from underneath her head bandages

Her outfit consists of a white linen halter-top dress, a teal collar with golden accents, a teal sash with a gold stripe, and teal and gold platform sandals. She also has beige bandages wrapped around her body, specifically her head, her arms, and her legs. The bandages on her arms are elbow length and fingerless, while the ones on her legs are a bit below her knees and are toeless.

Personality

Cleo is well…snooty. She takes pride in her ancient royal heritage, and often expects others to treat her as such, making her quite arrogant and spoiled with a huge ego. She can also be quite sassy and competitive, especially with others who don’t agree with her or question her ancient roots.

However, that’s not to say she’s without her good parts. As a natural born leader, she will stand up for others and help them out should the need arise. Cleo is also quite the thoughtful fashionista and has a passion for making halloween costumes, only wanting “nothing but the best” when making her creations. She also can get along with and be friendlier towards those she shares common ground with, such as her relationship with Stitch, who she bonds with over their shared love of making outfits. 

Stats

Rank: Uncommon Health: ♥️♥️♥️ Skill Check: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Size 200 / Value 2.5) Movement Speed: ⭐⭐  (Walk 12.5 / Sprint 22.5) Stamina: ⭐⭐ (125) Stealth: ⭐⭐⭐ (10) Extraction Speed: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (1.20)

Ability

Wrapped Up Active This Toon can wrap a targeted Twisted in her bandages, preventing their movement for 5 seconds. Needs direct line of sight. Has a cooldown of 45.

Dialogue 

Finishing extraction “Ugh, why do I have to be the one to extract?” “I’m a ruler, not an extractor!” “Ew, these machines are so rusty! 

Descending to the next floor “Why yes it’s me, Cleo! Hold your applause…” “I hope Stitch is doing alright…” “Out of the way people, royalty coming through!”

Activating Wrapped Up “Stop right there, mister!” “I see you’re quite…”tied up” at the moment…” “You scared me, now you must suffer my curse!”

Twisted Cleo

"This uncommon Twisted leaves Toons all wrapped up in her bandages if she sees them. If you find yourself in a jam, hit the spacebar as quickly as you can before she catches you!”

Rank: Uncommon Speed: Slow (15.5) Attention Span: Above Average (3) Detection Range: Average

Twisted Cleo is a roaming Twisted that, upon spotting a Toon, will outstretch one her bandages at them, similar to Twisted Goob, Scraps, and Gigi. Should the Toon be hit by her bandage, they will be wrapped up, preventing movement. The player must then press the spacebar quickly to escape the bandages. This attack is aimed in a straight line of sight and has a cooldown of 13 seconds. 

Twisted Research Trinket: Cursed Urn Trinket Category: Extraction

Heals one heart at the start of a floor, but reduces your Extraction Speed to one star for the duration of it. Extraction speed resets to normal once you’re at full health at the start of the next floor.

Trivia

Cleo’s is named after two pharaohs. Her first name comes from Cleopatra. Whereas her title/surname is from Thutmose III. 

Cleo is related to Connie. The exact extent is unknown, but Connie is a “distant descendant” of the Thutmoses'. They call and treat each other as cousins for simplicity’s sake.

Cleo’s ability is very similar to Ticker’s. However, Cleo’s requires a line of sight whereas Ticker’s does not. It also has a shorter cooldown time (45 seconds compared to Ticker’s 60) and can be used at a farther distance.

Cleo will sometimes use her bandages as transportation, similar to Twisted Yatta and her ribbons.

[robhorninginternalexile]

2024 Book List

January

1. Trances of the Blast, Mary Ruefle

2. Falling Star, Patricia Moyes

3. Labyrinths, Jorge Luis Borges

4. Introduction to the Work of Marcel Mauss, Claude Lévi-Strauss 

5. The Sweet Dove Died, Barbara Pym

6. The Prison-House of Language, Fredric Jameson

7. The Order of Things, Michel Foucault

8. Illuminated Manuscripts, Tamara Woronowa and Andrej Sterligow

9. Structuralism, John Sturrock

February

10. Immediacy; or the Style of Too Late Capitalism, Anna Kornbluh

11. The Dark Frontier, Eric Ambler

12.  Macbeth, William Shakespeare

13. Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, Hubert Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow

14. Don’t Look at Me Like That, Diane Athill

15. The Most of It, Mary Ruefle

16. The Archaeology of Knowledge, Michel Foucault

March

17. Henry IV Part 1, William Shakespeare

18. A Murder Is Announced, Agatha Christie

19. Shakespeare, Johan Gottfried von Herder

20. Literary Theory for Robots, Dennis Yi Tenen

21. Henry IV Part 2, William Shakespeare

22. Richard II, William Shakespeare

23. Lucy Gayheart, Willa Cather

24. Henry V, William Shakespeare

25. Mimesis, Expression, Construction, Fredric Jameson

26. Four-Legged Girl, Diane Seuss

27. Death of a Nationalist, Rebecca Pawel

28. The Flight From the Enchanter, Iris Murdoch

29. The Purloined Clinic, Janet Malcolm

April

30. King Lear, William Shakespeare

31. White Butterfly, Walter Moseley

32. Humanism and Antihumanism, Kate Soper

33. The Illusion of the End, Jean Baudrillard

34. Discourse on Method, René Descartes 

35. Meditations on First Philosophy, René Descartes

36. Cambridge Companion to Descartes, John Cottingham ed

37. The Ordinal Society, Marion Fourcade and Kieran Healy

38. Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare

39. Primer, Bob Perelman

40. As You Like It, William Shakespeare

May

41. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare

42. The Ballad of Peckham Rye, Muriel Spark

43. Preface to Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson

44. The Weariness of the Self, Alain Ehrenberg 

45. Harmonium, Wallace Stevens

46. Mr. Scarborough’s Family, Anthony Trollope

47. Computing Taste, Nick Seaver

48. Hamlet, William Shakespeare

June

49. On Shakespeare, Northrop Frye

50. The Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare

51. The Double Shift, Jason Read

52. Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare

53. La Vendée, Anthony Trollope

54. Mirror Worlds, David Gelertner

55. The Commercialization of Intimate Life, Arlie Hochschild

July

56. In Our Own Image, Fred Ritchin

57. Bending the Frame, Fred Ritchin

58. After Photography, Fred Ritchin

59. Cue the Sun!, Emily Nussbaum

60. Appointment With Death, Agatha Christie

61. The Friend, Sigrid Nunez

62. Libra, Don DeLillo

63. The Interpretation of Cultures, Clifford Geertz

64. Mimesis, Erich Auerbach

65. Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare

August

66. Antony and Cleopatra, William Shakespeare

67. Nonrequired Reading, Wisława Szymborska

68. Traveling, Ann Powers

69. Annie Bot, Sierra Greer

70. Regency Buck, Georgette Heyer

71. Coriolanus, William Shakespeare

September

72. Troilus and Cressida, William Shakespeare

73. Fools of Time, Northrop Frye

74. Bel Canto, Ann Patchett

75. Measure for Measure, William Shakespeare

76. William Shakespeare, Terry Eagleton

77. Shakespeare’s Problem Plays, E.M.W. Tillyard

78. Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare

79. The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare

80. Othello, William Shakespeare

81. AI Snake Oil, Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor

82. Passage of Arms, Eric Ambler

October

83. All’s Well That Ends Well, William Shakespeare

84. The Book of the Courtier, Baldesare Castiglione

85. Fables of Aggression, Fredric Jameson

86. Intermezzo, Sally Rooney

87. The Pleasure of the Text, Roland Barthes

88. Liars, Sarah Manguso 

89. James, Percival Everett

November

90. Aesthetics and Politics, Bertholt Brecht, Walter Benjamin et al.

91. Protocol, Alexander Galloway

92. Sartor Resartus, Thomas Carlyle

93. The Unaccountability Machine, Dan Davies

94. Timon of Athens, William Shakespeare

95. Machines Who Think, Pamela McCorduck

December

96. Henry VI, Part 1, William Shakespeare

97. Henry VI, Part 2, William Shakespeare

98. The Triumph of Achilles, Louise Glück

99. All Shot Up, Chester Himes

100. The Saint-Fiacre Affair, Georges Simenon

101. Henry VI, Part 3, William Shakespeare

[mirrorworldangel]

Hello Mirror!! How are you my friend :D aaaa thank you so much for answering my ask!! I hope you're doing okay, the end of the month is always stressful, so don't feel bad if you need to take some time to answer my ramblings :)

Definitely curious for how Aster got the NORTHWEST of all people to give up their will and especially Pacifica, I also wonder: how is his relationship with the other Contracted? Do they tolerate each other? Genuine friendships or get togethers? Or distrustful of each other (even though they're all bound by Mama. Wonder what would happen if a fight happened with the people in her circle, would she punish them??)

But omg the thought of all of the half-siblings seeing Aster as their big brother (not just because he's older, but because he technically, acts and is considered family by them makes my heart melt) is so cute. Man not only has his mom but also acquired god knows how many siblings in the way (I can't help but be reminded by Courage the Cowardly Dog, Aster has this serious face you almost think he doesn't care/is detached to most thing, when everything he does is out of care and love OUGH–)

But I also raise this, imagine them going through some books (either trying to find something idk) and one of them just come across a photo album. So everyone's just surrounding the thing, curious to what they'll see (and also blackmail material) and they just see photos of this extremely cute kid, chubby cheeks and everything, fluffy and curly brown hair and a shy smile; sitting on a mullet Stan's lap, smiling while pointing at a camera. When they show it to Stan, who laughs and eyes shine with warmth he just says:

"It's Darlan – or Aster as you call him."

And everyone's just ":OOO" bc holy shit. Aster, built like an unity, taller than all of them, blood and scars on his hands, who fights with the calculation of a predator, every part of his body covered with scars and spots, face riddled with age, was this innocent looking kid. And he looked so small too, fitting perfectly in Stan's arms when he was a toddler and a baby. They feel even worse when they hear of his heart problems. Aster feels a bit weirded out when his siblings just stare at him with this soft look in their faces for some weeks.

(And when Stan comes to them with an album of Aster's teen years; Aster, who's in another room of the house, feels a chill down his spine for some reason)

Also this was wholeheartedly inspired by these images

Hi Ilumi! I am terribly sorry for not being able to reply your ask as fast as I usually would, but I wanna prepare some artworks to support them, so here are your answers down below. I hope your college life is smooth sailing as ever! I'll tag you up as well if you have yet to receive a notification @iluminated-goat :

The way Aster can deceive the Northwests of all of their fortunes and parental rights to Pacifica is a mixture of his bulshitting deception skills and a bit of blackmail using his past connections (& Mama, of course). He has committed several war crimes back in Afghanistan for the government, he is smart enough to make some off-the-scenes connections for some extra cash. His ruthless skills can make some past enemies of Stan to stay clear away from Gravity Falls.

Besides, he pities Pacifica in some way. His darling Cleopatra is treated with more self-respect compared to the little girl. And the Northwests have pissed off a lot of people for generations, so it is better that the girl does not get involved in the bloody legacy - by the time he’s gone, he made sure there will no longer be a Northwest at all.

Aster has his fair share of relations among the other Contractors; some he can get along with, some he wants to murder immediately. In the end, he has his own group of friends that he can get along with, drink some beer with after a mission and listen to gossip from. They even knew Aster’s bio mom, though they tease him about how he’s currently a child to a teen mom. I’ll pile up his comrades in the future, they’re a mix of my new OCs and my favourite characters from different fandoms.

After millennia of abducting and claiming beings from every multiverse, Mama knows a thing or two (or maybe more) about parenting children and adults. She is aware of how bad relations could jeopardise the progress of any mission, so she has to be very careful about who she assigns within a group.

And now, let me explain to you about the Contract Curse. As I have previously stated, every Contractor will have a tattoo mark placed on any part of their body (except on embarrassing places like the buttocks or the lower back because Mama has standards and wants them to have some self-respect) as a sign of her claim towards them.

Whenever her Contractors act out irrationally or quarrel against one another, briars will come out from these specific cut wounds and bind the entire body painfully. These briars can braid together to form hands to pin them down. Usually, Mama only needs to summon the briar collar to keep them in line.

Should they ever betray Mama, well as you can see here, the briars will choke them by the neck, devour their ENTIRE blood supply within their body and forcibly bloom out through the chest, the process is gory like the chestburster alien.

Usually, a life like his would not be a happy one. Aster has to pay his penance through servitude to Mama, but she tries to relieve his sadness by letting him visit Anne Nieve. It took a long while, by the time he had connected his half-siblings and reunited with his mom, the Axolotl and Mama had pardoned him.

(In logical case, Aster has retired to the Afterlife and living his retirement peace with his mom where others can visit him anytime)

Retirement Afterlife is nice, if you ever get the chance to talk to him. He has good friends and half-siblings, two mothers that love him to the end, a daughter feline that he cherishes like the moon, what more could he ask for? He chicken dinner'd this shit and now he reap his rewards, after millenia time passes he guess…

Those chills are a valid danger response, I'll say. It has saved his life too many times he had counted, well except that moment where he lost his right eye - but that’s not the point! But nothing can save him from his own mother - not even from embarrassing pictures to his friends and half-siblings!

And thank you so much for the lovely questions, I had a blast answering them! I am also inspired by your pictures of the baby lamb so here's a small sketch of baby Aster (he was a sick baby btw)! Love you as always! ❤️

[garygoldenbignaturals]

Im playing civ again. Ths time as Cleopatra and i gotta say. Im fucking balling

[goosemixtapes]

max's top books of 2023 :3c

as usual, these rankings are based on some arcane mix of objective quality + my personal enjoyment (previous year's lists)

it was another weird reading year! i did a lot of reading for school, more so than in the past; some of it was really good and some of it was, uh. well, some of it was william wordsworth. nothing i absolutely loathed, though (most of the reads i disliked were books i could at least appreciate on an art/history level), which is cool. so i'm bringing back the runner-up category. did not make it onto my top ten list but were really good anyway: beartown by fredrik backman (books that no joke made me understand why people are insane about sports) and the GORGEOUS re-release of my dear @yvesdot 's debut, something's not right, which i have read before but will always gladly revisit again.

my top anticipated release for 2024 is alecto the ninth again.

(but shoutout also to just happy to be here, king cheer, and henry henry. trans people! shakespeare, even!)

and the list! in increasing order of enjoyment, with pictures this year!

10. The Common Liar by Janet Adelman

no, i can't believe i'm doing this either. i can't believe i did all that preamble and the first book on my list is an academic thesis analyzing shakespeare's antony and cleopatra. but also? it's the only book anyone ever needs to write about shakespeare's antony and cleopatra. janet adelman said it all. which is cool, because i have a fixation on that play, but also sucks, because i was also trying to write an essay on it and mine wasn't nearly as good. btw if anyone wants to buy this for me, somehow, for the $120 it costs on amazon because academia is awful, i will send you my address,

9. Robert Icke's Oresteia

i don't need to say anything about this play, because it's the source of "this was always going to happen. she's been dead since the beginning." that should be enough. but after becoming deranged about the oresteia last year, i finally read this, and holy shit, this adaptation of the story is so fucking genius and icke's writing is so fucking good. it's antiwar! it's about mental illness! there's gender! the fucking ENDING! (i have a pdf if anyone would like it. anything to plug this play bark bark bark rufrufruf grrrrrr)

8. Down Girl: the Logic of Misogyny by Kate Manne

this is a little bit cheating, because i haven't finished this book yet, so maybe in the final chapters manne will say something like "what if we blew up every orphan" and i'll have to retract this. but right now it's fucking excellent! i've been making an effort to read more nonfiction lately, and this one shines; manne sets out to analyze misogyny not as a personal hatred of women that some men harbor, but as an intricate and structural system forcing women into the role of Giving (attention, affection, power, etc; sometimes their lives). and it's sooooo smart. some of it is stuff i already know (and some of it is Academic Philosophy TM that goes right over my head), but manne articulates her point excellently and i can feel it rearranging my brain, so it's going on the list for longevity and skill!

7. Dictator by Robert Harris

does this book objectively deserve to be on this list? you know what, yeah. i'll say it with my whole chest. i don't like how harris writes women and there are plenty of things to pick at in his cicero trilogy, but i had so much goddamn fun reading it that i can't not put it on the list. this was my year of being really really into cicero, and this was fun to read alongside e-pistulae. harris is sooooo good at making ancient roman politics gripping. the last scenes of this book. augh. ack. ough!

6. Detransition Baby by Torrey Peters

there are a lot of valid critiques of this one (a lot of bad critiqus, too, but such is writing literally anything about transness), but i fucking adored it. i LOVE dual timelines, i LOVE unlikable characters, and i FUCKING LOVE TRANSSEXUALITY! moreover, i love that peters isn't afraid to Go There, to poke at the messy ugly sides of transness (and queerness in general) that i think a lot of us don't like acknowledging, especially to cishet people whose view of the community is already skewed. i don’t think this is the One Great Trans Novel; i think there are a lot of great trans novels, and we need more. but this one did hit me RIGHT in the chest, and i couldn't put it down.

5. Wrath Goddess Sing by Maya Deane

the iliad but achilles is a trans woman and she's fighting the war on both mortal and divine levels and she and helen have an insane homoerotic half-god rivalry and everybody is fucking crazy. pitched as "for fans of TSOA" but as i said in my review if TSOA is a pleasant but watery iced tea then this book is gasoline laced with crack. there is a bisexual transgender threesome. i fucking love women. book of the fucking summer

4. White Teeth by Zadie Smith

i probably enjoyed wrath goddess sing more, but i can't not rank this book highly on this list. this book is such a fucking masterpiece. it's tolstoy for the modern age. it's a sprawling multi-familial multi-cultural multi-generational epic about race and gender and religion and science and humanity and britishness. smith's prose is fucking amazing; her character work is even better; this book has no plot but it uses its length sooooooo well. the first zadie smith i've read, but by god there will be more. she wrote this at TWENTY-FIVE. that's fucking CRAZY. do you know how much control over your craft you have to have to write this at twenty-five. bonkers. it is also the only enjoyable book i read in my modern literature class, so shoutout to white teeth for keeping me sane,

3. The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel

this book is ostensibly about bechdel's relationship with exercise. it is actually about bechdel's relationship with her own body, her own soul, her desire for individualism in the style of the transcendentalists, transcendentalism in general, mortality, and aging. i can't really tell you more than that because i didn't actually "read" this so much as i absorbed it through my skin like a frog while trying not to tremble like a little purse dog. i am not gonna lie man i did not have a very good. um. august. or september. or october november december. so this book really could not have come at a better time. alison bechdel i am obsessed with you

2. The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel

ALISON BECHDEL I AM OBSESSED WITH YOU!!!! this one narrowly edges out secret to superhuman strength because... well, i'm sort of rating the entire comic strip's run, and dude. holy shit. i love lesbians so much. this strip is such an important piece of lesbian history; it reminded me that a lot of the things lesbians (and LGBT people in general) argue about and deal with today are... the same things we've always argued about and dealt with, from intracommunity label discourse to global politics to hitting on women badly. but history aside--it's also just really fucking good! it's really funny! if you are a neurotic leftist, as so many of us are, it's hysterical! it's smart! it's hot! it's heartwarming! i read it over the first half of the year, in little bits and pieces, and by the end i felt like i really had gone decades with these characters. really just. so good. the power she has the range she has

1. the suzanne collins reread

okay. this one is definitely cheating. because i usually like to keep this list to books i'm reading for the first time, and i HAVE read the hunger games and the underland chronicles. but i read them, like, almost ten years ago, and i was not prepared to be so thoroughly fucking bodied by them this time around, now that i have critical thinking and analysis skills. we all know the hunger games is a fucking banger, so let me pitch the gregor the overlander series: something of a modern alice in wonderland setup, where the eleven-year-old main character falls into an underground world full of strangeness, except this world isn't whimsical, it's dangerous and stuffed with giant talking animals like bats and rats and cockroaches. there's a war on. there are plagues. there are war crimes. there is a plotline that is extremely explicitly about ethnic cleansing. there is some of the most heartbreaking fucking shit you've ever read in your goddamn life. there is also a rat who quotes macbeth and the underlanders revere a guy named bartholomew of sandwich. this series is for middle schoolers. i cried. not when i was a middle schooler reading it the first time; i mean now. so i'm breaking my no-rereads rule, because it really would be a lie to say that my best reading experience wasn't revisiting all of collins' work with my friends (yes, i read TBSOS; i think it's fine but not great). sorry to give publicity to an author who definitely doesn't need my help, but a few years ago my #1 spot went to shakespeare, so.

if you've read this far: thank you! please tell me your thoughts! tell me your favorite books of 2023! tell me which books you're excited for in 2024! and have a very lovely new year :)

[cyborg-squid]

Kurohime, one of the new dragons on JP, isn't super appealing to me so far (but neither is she unappealing, I'm completely neutral), but I am liking the look of her NP, it's pretty unique, especially with how 'beam attack' and 'world-fucker' focused FGO NPs have become, I'd love to think about how this one would work in a Holy Grail War.

Maybe this is just me Case Files brain-ing it, but with the connections of hair, blood, and flame, almost has like a... classic Magecraft feel to it? By which I mean a connection to older ideas in Magecraft, not like Age of Gods shit, but like stuff Waver has talked about with sympathetic Magecraft, I think some entry has also mentioned the importance and value of hair to female Mages, there's the fact the sword seems to manifest/teleport as opposed to just a slash so you could do some locked room mystery shit with it.

Louhi's is another recent cool-looking one, though I haven't read much on that event: it features what I assume are her witch ritual implements in that lantern, sickle, and pick, that rotating stone thing that is apparently a millstone, and changes in the celestial sphere that result in an animalistic transformation. Though I figure that sorta star and weather manipulation is pretty high level Magecraft, it being used in a Holy Grail War would probably have to have it be pretty small and localized, and probably have a hefty mana drain on the Master, though Louhi's Territory Creation (I love to see standard Class passives on Classes they're not normally on) could help offset that some? (Partially related: I love Evil Servants, and Neutral Evil in particular is one that doesn't have a lot of Servants.)

It's just fun for me to think about NP uses in normal Holy Grail Wars, especially some of the more 'non-standard' ones.

The NPs of these two are more normal ones but have some interesting details to play with, I was brainstorming with my sister about Servants we'd summon and fight each other with, her with Arjuna and me with Cleopatra: Assassin's Presence Concealment outranks Arjuna's Clairvoyance, so he can't instantly snipe her while she closes the distance with superior speed, Arjuna has renowned physical fighting skills but only has his bow as an Archer, while Cleopatra compensates for less in the way of 'real' weapon experience with Imperial Privilege, and while there's no detail on what Assassin's Protection of the Goddess does, the fact that it grants Invincibility leads me to think it can at least do some sort of deflection or blocking.

But Pashupata, and Arjuna being a strong summon overall, does seal the deal in his favor, but not completely: It's a big explosion, so collateral damage would have to be considered by both Master and Servant, so it's deployment would be limited in that way. Going off FGO gameplay, I'd use Cleo's Protection skill to block it with Invincibility, but Pashupata has a chance to insta-kill Divine targets, and Cleo has D-rank Divinity. So I had the really cool thought that, since her Divinity is so low and she's using the Blessing skill to block it, it basically blasts the Divinity and that skill off of her, insta 'killing' them (leaving them unable to be recovered or used this manifestation) and heavily wounding her in the process, after which me/her Master would order her to retreat.

Through the wounding and the now lack of Divinity, though, comes an interesting avenue for the use of Uraeus Astrape; she already can't control it due to a lack of the Riding skill, it's usage in FGO already damages Cleopatra and that was with taking into account a damage reduction from Divinity, and the snake is not a 'real' Divine Beast or Phantasmal, it's just an embodiment and representation of the death of both Cleopatra and Egypt... But backed into a corner, and already wounded and maybe near death, would provide some of the necessary requirements, in my opinion, to unleash Uraeus Astrape, and use this giant uncontrollable flame snake as a distraction (one that might get other parties in the HGW involved if Arjuna can't handle it himself) with which to retreat.

[theclassclone]

I Hope You Get Your Wins

Chapter 12

Word Count: 7,539 TW: Canon-typical Master List || Previous || Next

“On this very special chapter of Clone High,” Abe narrated. “Cleo’s been campaigning for Homecoming queen, but as it turns out, she needs a campaign manager. And one particular clone—.”

“Lincoln.”

“Just so happens to speak her language.”

“LINCOLN.”

CJ walked through the uneven grass toward Cleo; she had her arms crossed and she observed Cleo’s stand in the middle of the football field. “You do realize these morons are trying to complete their parade floats in peace, right?” She asked. “Who’d you even ask to set up this monstrosity of a stand out here?” She motioned to the stand. She realized that the stand was a coffee stand.

Cleo stopped mid self-promotion to listen to CJ’s question. She had a closed mouth smile and donned a ‘50s style dress rather than her typical Y2K tank top and low-rise skirt. Her face actually lit up as she held a paper cup out for CJ. “Pumpkin spice latte?”

“Ugh,” she rolled her eyes in her eye sockets to the point she caused herself eye strain. “I don’t take handouts.” She declined the dreaded fall-flavored latte.

Cleo forced herself to laugh at CJ’s comment. “It’s not a handout, silly,” she continued to smile. “I’m just offering these to hard-working students, you included. You’re our super influential VP! It must be so exhausting being all political for your school or whatever.” She tried to offer CJ the latte again.

CJ inhaled deeply. “Still not taking that.” She declined the latte again. “You lost me after pumpkin spice.”

“Take. The. Latte.” Cleo demanded through gritted teeth. “I want your vote for Homecoming Queen, just take the stupid latte.” She grabbed CJ’s right hand and tried to, once again, force the latte cup into her hand. “Ugh.”

“You’re not going to get me to take the latte.” CJ maintained. She pulled her hand away from Cleo. “You’ve made no indication to me that you even want my vote and I’ve made no indication to you that I wouldn’t vote for you if I were to vote for Homecoming Queen—which would only be fair for me to do because I planned the entire Homecoming week and dance.” She knitted her eyebrows together and examined Cleo’s expression.

Cleo was unwavering; she had one eyebrow raised and a slight smirk on her face. “Well, I don’t see any reason for you not to vote for me. I mean, I’m Cleopatra, I’m a total ten—.” She continued to hold the paper cup out for CJ.

“Yes, we’re all well aware.” CJ begrudgingly took the latte from Cleo’s hands. She immediately transferred the lukewarm cup to Confucius as he simply walked past her and Cleo, unsuspecting, but extremely grateful and happy to have finally received a pumpkin spice latte (even if it was lukewarm).

“A latte!”

“I’m sure you’re well aware that I don’t particularly care for this week whatsoever, especially the dance and it’s thematic royalty,” she exhaled slowly and tilted her head to the left. She glanced at Cleo’s large containers of pumpkin spice lattes. “But,” she glanced back at Cleo, “if voting for you lessens the chance of someone else being Homecoming Queen, then I’m fine with voting for you.”

“I wasn’t aware anyone was running against me.” Cleo slowly turned her head.

CJ lifted her head and shrugged her shoulders. “I wouldn’t say anyone is actively running against you, I don’t think anyone is campaigning like you are. But there are people who won’t vote for you.”

Cleo pouted as she thought about what CJ had said to her. She knitted her eyebrows together and tapped her cheek with her pointed fingernail. “I don’t know why you don’t care about any of this, but it makes things easier for me, why don’t you help me?”

“Help you?” CJ raised an eyebrow. “You set up a latte stand in the middle of the football field, promoting yourself for Homecoming queen, while these imbecilic drones work on their parade floats. What could I possibly do for you?”

Cleo shifted her weight and placed one hand on her hip and her other hand on her thigh. “Well, you’re the VP, aren’t you?” She asked, almost in a tone that indicated that CJ was the idiot. “You’re also familiar with half of these—uhm—nice classmates. I could use a campaign manager for the next three days to secure my spot as Homecoming queen. You and I are on the same team, we don’t want anyone else winning this popularity contest.”

CJ shook her head. “I don’t really think that utilizing a campaign manager this late in the week will be conducive to your popularity contest.”

“I insist.” Cleo continued to hand pumpkin spice lattes to their classmates as they approached her fall-themed stand specifically for the refreshment. “I’ll even buy you dinner.”

“Why?”

“Um, because I’m being nice to you.” Cleo scoffed. “You’re going to be my new campaign manager, I can tell. It’s only for the next three days.”

CJ inhaled deeply and pulled at her leather jacket. “Alright, I’ll accept the dinner.”

“Great, I hope you don’t mind having dinner with JFK and,” she grimaced, “Joan too. I’m not paying for them; JFK is just driving us to the Grassy Knoll once Joan and her weird friends—I mean the student council—finish with their float for the day.”

CJ narrowed her eyes and looked toward the sky; she, too, grimaced at Joan’s name. “Yuh, I guess, I don’t mind.” She looked back at Cleo and forced a small grin onto her face. “I’ll see you at the Grassy Knoll, then.” She walked past Cleo’s festive stand and toward the other side of the football field; she wobbled her in ridiculously tall heels.

“Oh, and don’t mind Joanie,” Cleo called after her.

CJ stopped walking and glanced over her shoulder at Cleo.

“She likes to think that she’s, like, progressive and cool, but she’s very basic. She felt threatened by me because I was popular when we were freshmen, she made herself into an outcast and she made herself unlikeable.” Cleo’s eyes barely traced CJ. “Everyone liked me, and I’m still liked—again, I’m Cleopatra. Don’t let her get to you, it’s not worth your time.”

CJ slowly turned around to fully face Cleo. “Why are you telling me this? Is this just another one of your miniature speeches to convince me to be your campaign manager?” She, now, studied Cleo.

Cleo looked away from CJ, watched their classmates build their parade floats (some good and some horrendous). “I’m not all that bad.” A small smile spread across her red lips; she slowly turned her head toward CJ. “I just feel like you understand. You might not be my vision of beauty, you might not be my idea of popularity, but there’s just something about you. There’s some, like, naivety to you. Think of it like this, from one girl to another, don’t let Joanie bring you down and don’t let Joanie decide who your friends are.”

“I’m sorry?” CJ drew the corners of her lips back and knitted her eyebrows together. She leaned forward ever so slightly to observe Cleo’s expression.

“Just because JFK and I broke up, doesn’t mean we’re not friends. I know you’re avoiding him.” Cleo smirked. “He said something about a sleepover.”

CJ looked away from Cleo, toward the parade floats, and brought her shoulders to her ears. “Ah… yeah, that.” She dropped her shoulders and looked toward the containers of pumpkin spice lattes. “For the most part it was fun. Until she kept getting mad about her boyfriend trying to talk to me. I don’t even talk to him first. I don’t typically initiate conversations.”

“I’ve noticed,” Cleo said flatly. She inhaled deeply and rolled her eyes. “Don’t let Joanie control you, starting tonight at the Grassy Knoll. You and I will talk about you being my campaign manager and if JFK wants to talk to you, talk to him. It’s not like we’re sitting at the table alone.”

“You’re making it sound weird.” CJ stated.

Cleo sighed. “What are we going to do about Joan?”

CJ narrowed her eyes. “Don’t let her tell me what to do?”

“Consider this a little gift or whatever,” Cleo gave her half a smile as she spoke. “I’ll see you tonight.”

CJ knitted her eyebrows together and nodded slowly; she backed away from Cleo and turned around. She walked away from the cryptic clone of Cleopatrê, she glanced over her shoulder at least once and shook her head at the strange conversation she had. The fact that JFK told her that she had been avoiding him—first of all, they must still be close and that must bother Joan, second, does that even bother Joan? She shook her head again and walked through the football field to observe the monstrosities that are the parade floats being built.

A cherry red and rather shimmery 1960s corvette pulled into the parking space next to CJ’s pink mustang; CJ looked over at the occupants of the red convertible and pulled her sunglasses off of her face. She slipped out of her car. “I felt safer in my car.” She told them as she slowly looked toward the diner.

“Lincoln, uh, drove Joanie.” JFK tried not to slam the driver’s door, simultaneously answering what was likely going to be Cleo’s question to CJ’s cryptic sentence. “That guy. He, uh, thinks he can just drive my Joanie to the Grassy Knoll when we have plans that don’t include him.”

CJ raised her eyebrows and looked at Cleo, who simply shared and equally confused expression. She looked back at the Grassy Knoll and headed toward the entrance. “To be fair, Kennedy, you drive a corvette with no seating. What surprises me would be the fact that she drove here with Lincoln, I thought they weren’t friends anymore.” She grabbed the door handle and pulled the door open allowing JFK and Cleo to enter the diner before her.

“Yeah, I, er uh, thought that too.” He frowned.

CJ swiftly followed JFK and Cleo into the diner; the greasy air filled her nostrils, and she remembered why she told Julius and Vincent she wanted to leave (which is how they ended up rolling down the hill in a shopping cart in the first place). She flared her nostrils and looked around at the scene and every time (all few times, to be exact) it struck her as a movie scene. Teenagers galore, and what was even funnier was that the majority of them thought that changing their attire was beneath them, so they were still dressed like they were from the ‘50s—much like CJ, Cleo, and JFK were.

“All that matters is that Abe is not at our table.” Cleo led JFK and CJ to the table Joan was sitting at. She slid into the booth.

“As bad as he is, I don’t mind Lincoln.” CJ said.

Cleo glanced at her. “Don’t say that too loud,” she paused. “Even though I agree.” She yanked CJ into the booth beside her.

“What do you guys agree on?” Joan asked.

“Nothing.” Cleo said quickly and sharply.

CJ grimaced at the sound of her faux leather pants sliding against the sticky and potentially leather seat of the Grassy Knoll booth. She crossed her arms and leaned against the back of the booth and glanced around the teen hotspot; the Grass Knoll was filled with the familiar faces of her classmates including her table, Abe (who stuck out like a sore thumb) and Topher, Julius and his friends at a nearby table, and a slew of other students she was vaguely familiar with. She remained close to the edge, not wanting to sit too close to Cleo, but not wanting to be out of the booth either. Across from her, JFK immediately had Joan distracted by his sexual innuendos, and his muscular physique practically toppling over hers, distracting her from CJ and Cleo. But CJ could still see that Joan was trying to see what CJ and Cleo were up to over JFK’s arm and bunched up jacket because his display was oddly suspicious. It wasn’t until he stopped his peacock-ish display that Joan stopped trying to eavesdrop and spy on CJ and Cleo.

Cleo had her elbow on the table and pressed her cheek into her fist. She watched CJ with a grin plastered on her stereotypical mean-girl face. “So, tell me how to get everyone to vote for me Friday morning.” She fluttered her eyelashes, most likely believing that the way she won Abe and JFK over was the way that she was going to win CJ over.

CJ inhaled deeply; her grimace slightly shifted into a smirk. “We never talked about me becoming your campaign manager.”

“Well, I just assumed you were going to say yes.” Cleo gently dropped her arm to the table. “I don’t see why you wouldn’t.”

“I want to know what I get out of being your campaign manager for three days.” CJ told her.

Cleo rubbed her lips together and looked away from CJ; she stared out of the window for a moment. CJ assumed Cleo was thinking about what she could possibly give her in return. She tapped her fingers against the table as she thought.

Joan was engrossed with something about experimental filmography, explaining the concept to JFK, even showing him pictures and short clips on her phone. He, for the most part, paid attention to what she was sharing, listening with about as much interest as he would in the classroom setting. His arm was wrapped around her shoulder, but she leaned so far away from him every time she turned her phone to show him something. Whilst Joan was distracted, looking for yet another short clip of an experimental film to show him, JFK glanced up at Cleo, at first, and a brief look that resembled confusion ran across his face because Cleo was not looking at CJ. He glanced over at CJ, who was already looking at him. He locked eyes with her, and a smile began to appear on his face—whether it be because he was going to laugh or something else. CJ quickly looked away from him.

Cleo turned her head back toward CJ. “What do you want out of this?”

CJ bit her bottom lip lightly and studied Cleo; she held a wary eye on Cleo. “Well, I don’t know. I was assuming there would be an offer, but if I have to propose my own offer, I’d rather leave it open.”

“You mean to call in a favor?” Cleo asked.

CJ nodded slowly. She allowed her eyes to wander away from Cleo’s personal space for a moment, even barely glancing at the excitable captain of the football team. “I’m not a particularly interesting person, nor do I want material objects at this moment because I often buy myself everything that I want…” She tilted her head toward JFK and Joan’s side of the table. “You seem to have a particular skillset that I do not have, it might become of use to me, and I might need to call in a favor, as you so kindly worded it, or I could simply reach out with a request and say that this request is what you owe me for the three days of me being your campaign manager.” She tried her hand at this negotiation tactic she once saw on TV (if that’s even what it really was).

“Well, whatever you ask for can’t be too bad. When you actually dress up, you don’t look terrible…” Cleo glanced at CJ’s outfit and makeup and looked away from her as her voice trailed off.

“Is there a problem with the way I dress?” She raised an eyebrow.

Cleo shook her head. “Not today, no. But your makeup… you could use some help.”

CJ swallowed and pursed her lips. “But the way I dress…” Her voice trailed; she cleared her throat. She crossed her legs and leaned forward. “So, your campaign.”

“Yes, I want to win.”

“Obviously,” CJ said.

“You sound like that guy from, uh, those movies.” JFK quickly turned his head and interrupted CJ and Cleo.

Cleo drew her eyebrows together and scrunched her nose. “What?”

“They way she, uh, said ‘obviously’.” He looked between the three adolescent females at the table.

Even Joan was appalled by his strange interruption��and possibly for her own reasons because she was trying to have her own conversation with him. “What movies are you even talking about?” Her voice became harsh. “Why were you listening to them and not me?” She leaned forward and tried to bring herself into his line of his, not just his peripheral vision.

“Do you mean Professor Sarpa from The Witching World of Hugh Parris?” CJ asked.

“Er, yes! Do you like that series?” He asked, grinning from ear to ear.

She shook her head. “No, actually. I hate it, deeply.” She watched his smile fade; she swallowed hard and raised her eyebrows. She slowly turned to face Cleo and opened her mouth to speak again and closed her mouth, having completely lost her groove. She blinked and looked down and around Cleo’s personal space, trying to collect the thoughts that she had completely forgotten because of JFK’s stupid—yet kind of funny—interruption.

“Don’t mind him.” Joan spoke up. “That’s just silly JFK for you.” She reminded CJ.

CJ pursed her lips and flared her nostrils at yet another distracting voice. She pressed the palms of her hands together and pointed the tips of her fingers toward Cleo. “You’re already campaigning, so everyone already knows that you’re running for Homecoming queen. You made the right call by offering the student body pumpkin spice lattes, which was a good tactic. However, you only have less than three days to win, you need to keep this energy up. Maybe, erm, put posters around the school that entice each of the high school stereotypes—nerds, jocks, theater kids, band geeks, so on and so forth.” She listed. She crossed her arms over the table. “You might need to ask an additional friend or two for help because you’re already late if you plan on doing posters.”

“Mhm.”

“Everyone seemed to enjoy the pumpkin spice lattes, you could always do something like that again because pumpkin spice is not the only fall-themed beverage or food available. It is also Halloween season; candy is typically on sale before the holiday and immediately after.” She lifted her left hand and rotated her wrist as she spoke.

“Those are some really good ideas.” Cleo told her; she immediately turned her attention toward JFK. “JFK.”

“What?” He quickly peeled his eyes away from his girlfriend and rapidly looked between CJ and Cleo. “I’m, er, havin’ a conversation with my, uh, girlfriend over here.” This time he was having a conversation with his girlfriend—not when he interrupted CJ and Cleo. But the way he said it was sort of odd to CJ, almost like he said it to appease Joan, the tone, saying it in general. His eyes continued to bounce between CJ and Cleo.

“We know, but I need to ask you to do me a huge favor.” Cleo stretched her hands across the table, reaching out for her ex-boyfriend. “You’re the only one at this table that friends with that weird tech-savvy kid, the one with the mullet.”

“Confucius.” CJ leaned over and told Cleo the clone’s name.

“Yes, that one, Confucius. And I really need him to get in touch with CJ so he can do something for me. Could you text him CJ’s number or whatever and have him get everything he needs from her?” Cleo batted her eyelashes. “CJ will buy you a milkshake for you to share with Joanie if you do that right now.” A grin spread across her face as she roped CJ into her ploy to use JFK and Confucius.

“I will?” CJ slowly turned her head to look at Cleo.

JFK grinned. “Absolutely!” He pulled his phone out of his jacket and obnoxiously pushed Joan away from him so he could joyously text Confucius and tell him exactly what Cleo told him to say. “I want that milkshake!”

CJ sighed. “I can’t believe I’m paying for a milkshake. And I don’t even get to drink it.” She reached into the inside pocket of her cropped leather jacket and pulled out a bifold wallet; she handed JFK her credit card. “I will drink your milkshake if this card is not back in my hands.”

“You got it, doll!” JFK jumped out of the booth and swiped the credit card from CJ’s hand. He quickly disappeared to order the milkshake that he was clearly dying to have.

Joan glanced at CJ immediately after JFK’s choice of words; her gaze was like that of an unpredicted storm because still, CJ could not grasp exactly what Joan was so worried about if that was ‘just JFK’ or however Joan had previously and continuously worded it to CJ. Joan’s eyes never flickered with the same kind of fury or envy when Cleo pouted or begged for JFK to do something for her, it was a frustrating mixture of confusion and something so nonsensical—maybe Cleo was right. It wasn’t worth CJ’s time. And even then, CJ could be reading too much into it after the words of Harriet and Frida reached her ears because it was Harriet who was the school’s second biggest gossiper next to Topher. Harriet would latch onto something and spread it like wildfire in a way that would rival Topher’s own abilities. And Frida was really just along for the ride, just as susceptible as CJ and Joan to Harriet and Topher’s juicy gossip.

JFK returned to the booth with his extra-large milkshake for two; he happily sat back down next to Joan. He grinned at her and even moved himself closer to her. “Oh—.” He reached into his pocket and grabbed CJ’s card. He held it out for her to take from him.

CJ quickly snatched her card from between his thumb and forefinger, barely grazing his hand with her own. She kind of snarled, still upset at the idea of paying for someone else’s stupid milkshake. She angrily fumbled with her bifold wallet and jammed her card back into it, simultaneously realizing she could have also paid for her own (but even then, she’d still be paying for the lovers’ milkshake, which was not something she wanted to do at all).

“Joanie, look,” JFK started.

“Awe, JFK that’s so swee—.” Joan cut him off and looked up at him endearingly.

“Do you want to see how fast I can drink this?” He pointed at the milkshake as he grabbed the two straws between his fingers. He smiled at Joan, almost like he was looking for her approval before he started to inhale the milkshake on his own.

Joan’s expression completely changed from that of endearing and complete admiration (CJ assumed) of her boyfriend to one of utter annoyance and frustration that spelled out the words as clear as day. Joan was sick and tired of JFK’s little shenanigans. She drew the corners of her lips into a little frown and nodded slowly—more like bobbing her head. She looked down at the table, completely losing interest in the little half-date that she was on with her boyfriend, his ex, and CJ. “Saw that coming.”

A lopsided grin spread across CJ’s face. “Chug it.”

“Don’t encourage him.” Joan quickly looked up at CJ with eyebrows knitted together in some form of anger.

CJ was sort of taken aback by Joan’s quick and angry response, but she should have pieced together that she would have responded in that way. She slowly turned her head to look at Cleo—who thought that she was more mature than everyone at the table combined. CJ’s mouth hung slightly open, and she battled herself while staring at Cleo. She wanted to take Cleo’s advice and not waste her time on Joan’s silly comments because perhaps Cleo was right about the whole thing and perhaps Harriet was right about the whole thing. But this was also CJ, she wanted to do the exact opposite of Cleo’s advice and say something extremely witty or uncalled for and completely waste her time on something that doesn’t deserve her time.

CJ just wanted to have a little bit of fun now that she and Cleo have some idea of what they were going to be doing for the next three-ish days and JFK presented to perfect opportunity for fun—seeing just how fast he can drink the milkshake he got himself through two straws. It was just absurd enough to qualify as entertainment and it was present enough to CJ to even consider encouraging it. And to be fair, it just didn’t feel right if she didn’t. JFK just wanted to be her friend and, well, what is this other than friendly encouragement?

JFK proceeded to happily show them (despite, at this point, none of them even paying much attention to him) how fast he could slurp the milkshake through two straws. CJ, however, glanced over at him and his progress from time to time. Cleo and Joan, on the other hand, were mildly embarrassed by his childishness.

CJ pushed the front door open and dropped her heels, leather jacket, school bag, and mini bag from her arms onto the floor. She pushed the door closed and huffed. She kicked her belongings back toward the door, her heels rolled against the ground and her bags easily slid to the wall. She turned her back toward the front door and walked toward the kitchen; she hesitated at the kitchen door upon hearing movement. She pushed the kitchen door open and glanced between Mr. B and Scudworth. She scrunched her nose and narrowed her eyes at the butlertron and the bumbling idiot taking up the butlertron’s kitchen space.

She yawned. “You know, believing that cooking together is a form of intimacy is actually a reason for divorce because it’s not a form of intimacy at all.” She stepped into the kitchen and slumped her shoulders; she tilted her head to the side and watched Mr. B try to work around Scudworth.

“Oh, I’m not helping.” Scudworth said.

“Even if you were, you wouldn’t be.” She drew the corners of her lips back and raised her eyebrows. “Hence cooking together being a reason for divorce.”

Mr. B stifled a laugh.

“Enough of that,” Scudworth nudged Mr. B. “When were you going to tell us you had a girlfriend? You know there’s none of that in this house.”

“That’s pretty homophobic for someone that fruity.” CJ deadpanned; she hesitated before speaking again. She lifted her head and straightened her posture and widened her eyes in realization. “Wait, I don’t even have a girlfriend for you to be homophobic about.”

“I’m not homophobic or fruity—!”

“It’s all over FlipFlop.” Mr. B informed her. “You and Cleo went on a double date with Joan and JFK.”

CJ opened her mouth to speak, raised her right hand and pointed toward the ceiling with over a million things to say but she closed her mouth and curled her finger slightly. She was taken aback by this information, but she wasn’t entirely surprised by the rumor considering the crowd that was present at the Grassy Knoll. She opened her mouth to speak again and pointed up toward the ceiling again, but once more closed her mouth and slightly curled her finger back down. She knitted her eyebrows together and looked away from Scudworth and Mr. B. She once more opened her mouth to get her thoughts out, straightened her finger, and looked between Mr. B and Scudworth, but back down again by closing her mouth, retracting her finger, and looking away from them.

“Did you feel like you couldn’t tell us?” Mr. B asked.

CJ slapped her right hand to her forehead. “I’m not dating Cleo.” She whined. She dragged her hand down the side of her face. “It’s just a stupid rumor and a bet I know who posted it.”

“She’s definitely lying.” Scudworth said to Mr. B.

“I’m not lying! I’m not dating Cleo!” She stretched her arms out to her sides.

Scudworth shook his head. “Your classmates posted it; it can’t be a lie.” He picked his phone up off of the counter and poked at the screen, all to likely show her the FlipFlop post about her on that supposed double date. “They wouldn’t lie about such things.”

“You’re impossible.”

He turned his phone toward her and showed her the video in question—the angle at which top-her69 had taken the video at definitely made it seem like Cleo and CJ had a few intimate moments during their conversation (and the way Cleo had pulled CJ into the booth when the arrived didn’t help much either). There was a lot of indications (loosely) that Cleo was flirting with and making moves on CJ because that’s just how Cleo was (considering how she acted toward JFK and Abe when she showed interest and that one time when Joan apparently cross-dressed for some reason). The video even made sure to show JFK and Joan to make sure it looked like it was a double date! Topher could be so infuriating sometimes—all the time. The comment section of the video was flooded with comments, short, long winded, arguments, shock, emoticons, speculation, conspiracy, support, concern, etc. There were icons near the comment section that indicated that the video had been viewed, shared, and added onto by her classmates.

“Oh-ho, no. no. no. no. no.”  She tucked her chin to her neck and scrunched her nose. “God, Cleopatra? Gross, no. I’m not in a relationship with Cleo.”

Scudworth raised an eyebrow. “I’m finding that awfully hard to believe.”

“If they’re just rumors—.”

“That the entire school now believes to be fact because it’s Cleo-fucking-patra. AUGH!!!” She balled her fists and threw her arms down to her sides. She walked around Scudworth and pulled the fridge open; she rummaged through the fridge looking for a drink despite knowing she was probably going to default to something plain and simple as she always does. “That creatin needs to stay the fuck out of my business.” She mumbled and continued to mumble incoherently as she settled for cold water. She slammed the fridge door. “Stupid bastard.” And once more walked around Scudworth, but this time, to exit the kitchen. “And you are too.” She pointed at him as she slipped out of the kitchen.

She marched up to her room, suddenly fuming because of Topher’s rumor and the fact that she had to find out from idiot’s one and two in the kitchen. She aggressively pushed her bedroom door open and tossed her phone onto her bed; she groaned and slapped her hands to her face.

CJ walked down the stairs with her cellphone to her ear and her shoulder holding it so she could use both of her hands. “Lincoln, you’re starting to sound like a parent on an episode of Charlie Brown.” She cut off her friend—rather forced acquaintance. “Thank you for the sound of approval Confucius, could you mute yourself until you’re done?” She snorted and tried her hardest not to smirk, even if she had no reason to hide her facial expressions because neither Abe nor Confucius were even around to see them. “I don’t know how we got this far off topic, but since you both insist on this little break; I’m certain Topher is doing this on purpose, I have no reason to believe that he truly suspects that there is anything going on between Cleopatra and myself.” She walked into the kitchen without paying any attention to whether or not she was alone. “That’s just what he tends to do once he finds a reason to dislike or hate you.”

CJ faced the pantry and listened to Abe try his best to defend Topher’s behavior while simultaneously dig Topher a grave. She had a glaze over her eyes as she listened to Abe’s contradictory words through the phone, and quite frankly, it was not the best quality because they were on a three-way call while Abe was driving himself home from, ironically, Topher’s house. Confucius, by this point, had unmuted himself because he had stopped laughing at CJ’s comment and sided with CJ about Topher’s behavior, but not saying too much as Confucius was not the kind to start and argument (rather, he would offer a solution, but seeing as Abe was on the defensive, Confucius was just waiting). CJ had, unsurprisingly, stopped listening to Abe because she was more interested in finding herself a late-night snack, which consisted of her lifting various snack boxes and putting it back on the shelf where she grabbed it from.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, being associated with Cleopatra in a positive interpersonal relationship makes me look good, but I do not what the entire school to think that I am in a romantic relationship with her.” She grabbed an open box of variety fruit snacks and tucked it under her arm. “I would like for Topher to just move on. I did, it’s rather easy.” She stepped away from the pantry and stepped toward the fridge; she pulled it open and stared at the contents, now wondering what to drink. “This entire thing only started because Cleopatra wanted me to run her Homecoming campaign for the next three days.”

CJ hummed in response to Confucius’ wise words. She plucked two juice boxes out of the fridge absentmindedly, more focused on the wise words of the clone of Confucius—who she knew felt he didn’t live up to the real Confucius (which was bizarre in her mind, but who was she to judge his problems). She slammed the fridge shut and turned on her heel.

“Well, you’re not wrong, experience is experience in any form—whether it’s what to do or what not to do.” She deadpanned.

She inhaled deeply as the conversation took yet another turn, in yet another direction because of Abe’s anxieties. She waited for her acquaintance, maybe friend at this point, to ‘briefly’ elaborate on the similarities between his problem and her problem. News flash, he was cancelled, and she wasn’t, there aren’t that many similarities. Nonetheless, he talked CJ’s and Confucius’ ears off about ideas on how to fix things and change things—and not ideas that were considered good in 2023.

“Alright, alright, I—Lincoln.” CJ tried to capture Abe’s attention because he had drawn this on a lot longer than she had hoped. “I know you want to assist me with clearing the air about my reputation regarding the rumors Topher starting, but, well, you are still considered cancelled, obviously you know this.” She began her trek out of the kitchen, avoiding the curious butlertron whom she crossed paths within the dining room. “Confucius was kind enough to offer to help me dig you out of the gutter because your so-called best friend couldn’t do so much as defend you.”

Unfortunately for CJ, this only sparked Abe’s manic blabbering about both situations again.

CJ stopped at the bottom of the staircase. “I’m sorry, did you just tell us that you’d kiss your ex-girlfriend to help my situation? Why would you ever want to do that?” She knitted her eyebrows together.

She stood dumbfounded as she listened to Abe and Confucius bounce off of each other in a stereotypical male fashion, something she couldn’t begin to comprehend.

“What kind of answer is ‘it’s Cleopatra’? I don’t understand.” She marched up the steps and huffed. “Men!”

CJ pushed her bedroom door open with her foot. She rolled her eyes as Abe and Confucius talked over each other, trying to explain their though process.

“I still think that seems kind of extreme and I don’t think she cares much for you anymore. Wasn’t she shallow? Just dating you because you and JFK had some sort of, uh, rivalry and she wanted the popularity points from the male who became class president in the end?” She kicked her door shut and shuffled over to her bed. She dropped her juice boxes and box of snacks onto her bed and shuffled over to her desk. “Hold that thought, I’m connecting my headphones, I was struggling this whole time because I needed my hands for something else.” She grabbed her cellphone from between her ear and shoulder and placed it on her desk. She lifted her hybrid gaming headphones off of her laptop screen and held the power button until the device lit up. Her headphones instantly connected to her phone, and she put her headphones over her ears. “Can you hear me?”

She waited for Abe and Confucius to respond to her voice, but they continued to talk amongst each other. She inhaled deeply and looked around her desk for the detachable microphone piece that she didn’t need all the time, but apparently this was the one time she needed it. She lowered her laptop screen and grabbed the microphone piece and plugged it into her headphones after poking around the device instead of taking them off of her head and plugging the microphone in swiftly.

“Can you guys hear me?” She asked again.

This time she received a response from Abe and Confucius.

CJ lifted her laptop and her phone. “Backup for me, Cleopatra kept going back and forth between you and JFK the entire time, for whatever reason, correct? She couldn’t just wait until there was a clear winner and decide from there?” She climbed onto the foot of her bed and crawled toward her pillows. “I’m starting to think I don’t understand girls like I thought I did. Maybe I just don’t understand humans. I don’t know.”

She snorted at the collective assumption that CJ was not human at all—the conversation quickly turned into one of trying to figure out what CJ was, as a joke of course. An alien? A ghoul? A secret third thing? Not even CJ knows!

“Ok, no, go back to my question!” CJ stopped their guessing game.

Abe laughed and tried his best to clear up the story, from his point of view, of course, as she turned her laptop on. She hummed and nodded along as if he could see her. His story was filled with holes and stories within stories.

“Oh, yeah, school politics and a drag race make it so much clearer.” She scoffed. “So, let me at least get the ending sorted. Cleopatra chose you, even if you didn’t win anything. JFK somehow got Joan but still had other girls. When you were about to have meat locker sex with Cleopatra you realized that you were actually in love with Joan, who was apparently in love with you for the longest time, but you caught her having meat locker sex with JFK and realized that you missed your chance with Joan?” She tried to understand.

Confucius even expressed his confusion. And Abe tried, once again, to clear up the story.

CJ hummed. “I’m glad Confucius is amused and confused. I’m somewhere in the confused and horrified range.” She scrunched her nose and poked at the keys on her laptop. “And for whatever reason, you think that by kissing Cleopatra you could solve my rumor dilemma? What, do you think you’ll no longer have feelings for Joan as well?”

She laughed at Confucius, who had to mute himself because he began choking. Abe argued his idea once again, finding offence in Confucius and CJ’s opposition.

She inhaled deeply and hung her head. “I watched so many movies and I can assure you that that is a purely fictional method of doing things, but sure, by all means, give it a go. Just make sure you write it down so that it counts as science.” She allowed herself to begin mumbling. “Make sure this science happens in front of Confucius and I, I’d hate for us to miss it.”

Confucius had unmuted himself and rejoined the conversation, adding his two cents worth between fits of laughter.

She lifted her head and kept herself propped up on her elbows. “Oh, yeah, he’s as good as dead.” She laughed with Confucius, immediately offending Abe. “So, what exactly did JFK tell you?”

Confucius answered CJ before Abe had a moment to think of a response to them; he outlined the information that JFK had given him about Cleo’s campaign and what she was expecting them to do. He continued to talk over Abe, who was trying to being to conversation back to his poorly crafted ideas to fix CJ’s rumor problem and his cancellation problem.

“Text me your email, I’ve got a few posters I’ve used for school projects in the past that I think you could use as templates or at least guides—they’re nothing fancy.” She poked at her keyboard and clicked a few things and opened a few tabs and browsers.

She waited for Confucius’ text to come through and listened to Abe begrudgingly ask about what he could do to help with the campaign since no one would listen to his ideas to fix the other problems; he went as far as to rattle off way too many ideas, some worse than others, which was apparently typical for him. She grinned at a few of his more nonsensical ideas. She reached over to her side and grabbed at her juice boxes and snack box and began to pick at her snacks while she and Confucius listened to Abe drag on and on. She tapped her phone and typed Confucius’ email into the recipient line of her email draft, finally up and deciding to just tune Abe out until Abe or Confucius decide to bring her back into the conversation or end the phone call.

“Huh?” CJ absentmindedly poked her strew into her juice box. “Oh, yeah, the drawing board for Cleopatra’s campaign. Erm, I mean, Confucius is all over social media, why not utilize that?”

Confucius expressed how good of an idea what was.

“Obviously that’s a grand idea, that’s why I said it.” CJ rolled her eyes and sipped at her juice box, she poked at her laptop with one hand and sent the email with her old school projects to Confucius. “I sent the email, Confucius.”

Abe filled the silence with asking CJ questions as Confucius glossed over CJ’s email.

She slightly kicked her feet. “Why are you asking if I actually have romantic feelings for anyone? What does this have to do with Cleopatra’s campaign?”

Abe argued with her.

She ran her fingers through a section of hair, twirling it between the stiff fingers of her left hand. “It’s not going to help, Lincoln.”

Confucius bounced back into the conversation.

“Ugh, yes, thank you, Confucius!” She pulled her hand away from her hair. She grabbed a pack of fruit snacks and struggled to pull the packaging apart to enjoy the artificially flavored snack. “She needs to have another—ugh I can’t open my stupid snack, I just want fruit snacks, damn it! Sorry. She needs to do something else like the gross latte thing. Lincoln, are you laughing at me? You wouldn’t be laughing if you couldn’t open your fruit snacks, you stupid jackass.”

CJ nonchalantly ate her fruit snacks and listened to Abe and Confucius socialize with each other about how they were going to continue running Cleo’s campaign under CJ’s management for the next two-ish days. She unlocked her phone and let her laptop sit idle, ignoring it in favor of scrolling through social media, unconsciously in search of updates from someone that was not Abe or Confucius. She inhaled deeply and clicked onto JFK’s profile with the intention of just seeing what he had posted for the day. Clips of him and Joan. Gross. He reposted Topher’s video of her and Cleo. Great. She immediately closed FlipFlop and entered a safer social media application—one of just images (mostly just images) and fell into the same trap that she set for herself. She frowned slightly at JFK’s recently posted images throughout the week of him enjoying himself with his friends. She found herself wishing she were there. Kind of. Slightly. With him and his friends because they seemed to have been having a grand time even if it might have been for the picture only.

She cleared her throat after being addressed in the conversation and being interrupted from her confusing thoughts. “Yeah, erm, it’s Cleopatra, she doesn’t typically give people that much thought, as shown by Lincoln’s tale. So, I can’t say that I’d actually want to do this again, but an experience is an experience.” She swallowed hard. She knitted her eyebrows and stared at her phone. She scrolled up and down on the posted that she paused on, lingering on JFK’s profile. “But if you want to do it again, you can.”

[theantonian]

The Battle of Actium, Part 3: Aftermath

Cleopatra was planning the next steps for defending Egypt; but Antony watched with despair the disintegration of his forces. The swift ships with which he had escaped caught up with Cleopatra's squadron, and he got aboard Cleopatra's flagship.

He went without a word to the prow of the ship, and sitting down, held his head in his hands like one who was dazed. He was still sitting there dumb and heartbroken, when night fell. Now Octavian had seen him go in pursuit of Cleopatra, and, supposing that he would presently come back, had at once dispatched two or three fast Liburnian galleys to attempt his capture while he was thus alone; and with them went a certain vessel which had been provided and fitted out by a man named Eurycles, a Spartan, who had placed himself and his ship at Octavian's service in order to be revenged upon Antony for having condemned his father, Lachares, to death for robbery- In the darkness these vessels came up with the Antonias and the escorting ships which, laden with Cleopatra's treasure and baggage, were sailing by her side; and at this Antony rose to his feet, and called out: "Who is this that wants Antony?" Across the water came the reply: "I am Eurycles, son of Lachares, armed with the warrant of Gaius Octavian's fortune to revenge my father's death.” Antony gave the order to turn about and face the danger, and at this the Liburnian ships drew off in fear, only the vessel of Eurycles keeping to its course. For a moment this man was seen standing at the prow, holding aloft a spear which he was about to hurl at Antony, who faced him; but suddenly the ship collided with one of the Egyptian vessels, and both drifted away into the darkness, locked together. The Antonias then continued on her way, and Antony resumed his seat in the prow.

The sun rose and found him haggard and unkempt. His two servants brought him food, but if he ate at all he did not know what he ate. The third night ensued, and during the next day they sailed across the Gulf of Messeniacus (Kalamata), and that evening reached Cape Taenarium, the southernmost point of Greece. Here a halt had to be made in order to obtain supplies and fresh water; and at last, Iras and Charmion persuaded Antony to join Cleopatra.

During the day two or three ships came in, bringing refugees from Actium and news of the results of the battle- Octavian had been victorious, they said; and at four o'clock in the afternoon, about two hours after Antony had left, the fleet had given up the fight and had surrendered, although not more than five thousand men had lost their lives, and few ships had been sunk. Including the transports and other shipping in the Gulf, about three hundred vessels had passed into Octavian's hands, of which the best part of two hundred were powerful men-o-war by no means seriously damaged. Antony's informants told him that only a few of the officers knew that he had deserted them and many of those to whom these had given the news had refused to believe it, supposing, rather, that he had been killed or had gone away on important business and would presently return- The army, it seemed was standing firm, and was preparing to march inland. At this Antony dispatched messengers to his generals, telling them to lead the troops eastwards through Macedonia and Thrace into Asia Minor; but he had no hope that these orders would be carried out. Long before they could reach the army, his desertion would have been apparent to all, and there would have been a general capitulation. It was too late for him to go back himself: he would almost certainly be captured and put to death. Nor had he any desire to continue the war or to sacrifice any more lives in the cause of a leader so worthless as himself. The Queen's mind, it is true, was already full of plans for defending herself in Egypt; but he himself could not think so far ahead as this. He wanted, for very shame, to die; and no one who has studied his face in the Vatican bust, and has observed the sensitiveness of his mouth, will fail to appreciate the agony of his humiliation.

Amongst the refugees there were several senators and officers, and to these he offered a large sum of money and numerous plates and dishes of gold which Cleopatra had told him he might use for this purpose; but "they refused his kindness with tears in their eyes, and he, on his part, comforted them with all the goodness and consideration imaginable, begging them to leave him, and writing letters on their behalf to his steward at Corinth that he would provide for their safety and keep them concealed till such time as they could make their peace with Octavian." There were two men, however, who elected to go with him across the sea: one was a Greek professor of oratory, named Aristocrates, and the other was that Roman officer, Lucilius, who, after the battle of Philippi, had pretended to be Brutus to save his defeated general's life, as already recorded and who had been forgiven for his deception and spared by Antony.

He had sailed from Taenarum south to Cyrene, where five legions had been stationed under Lucius Pinarius Scarpus, Caesar's nephew and Antony's legate at Philippi, to protect northeast Africa. The soldiers had turned against Scarpus and were now under Cornelius Gallus, Octavian's man. Their hope of veteran land allotments in Italy lay with the winner. And their loyalty did not lie with Egypt against Rome. Only those who feared for their personal safety under Octavian and those who felt a rare loyalty in friendship remained with Antony. As Antony took stock in the Egyptian port of Paraetonium, his despair was so great that he tried suicide but was stopped by two loyal followers. It was a small contingent that sailed with him to Alexandria.

Sources: Plutarch's Life of Antony

Cassius Dio, Roman History, Vol. V, Book: 50

Eleanor Goltz Huzar, Mark Antony-A Biography

Arthur Weigall, The Life & Times of Mark Antony

Painting: The Flight of Antony and Cleopatra from the Battle of Actium, Agnes Pringle.

[constellationsgods]

"That I might hear thee call great Caesar ass / Unpolicied!" (5.2.364-365)

Kauffmann, Angelica. Virgil reading the Aeneid to Augustus and Octavia. Oil on canvas, 1788. Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Angelica_Kauffmann_-Virgil_reading_the%E2%80%9AAeneid%E2%80%98_to_Augustus_and_Octavia_(Hermitage).jpg If we grant that Shakespeare was more inclined to the Ovidian view of Augustan Rome, which is skeptical of Augustus's imperium, than the Virgilian view, which celebrates it, then it makes sense, I think, to consider Octavius Caesar's representation in Antony and Cleopatra. After all, Caesar emerges as the victor of the political conflict: at the end of the play, his enemies lie dead, clearing the path for him to fulfill his great destiny and become the first emperor of Rome. But is he actually the victor? Is his destiny all that great? I submit that Antony and Cleopatra undermines the Virgilian view of Augustus by depicting Caesar as dishonorable, unprincipled, and ultimately unvictorious.

In Antony and Cleopatra, Octavius Caesar ascends to the emperorship chiefly by duplicity and political machination. Far from the Roman paragon of masculinity and pious virtue that Virgil describes in the Aeneid, the Octavius Caesar of Shakespeare is a double-dealer and backstabber. In short sequence, Caesar breaks the truce with Pompey and imprisons the triumvir Lepidus—who had long acted as a sort of mediator between Caesar and Antony—and in so doing effectively declares war on Antony. Shakespeare frames this escalation of conflict almost exclusively through the perspective of Antony and his allies, who react with bewilderment and outrage to the aggressions of Caesar:

ANTONY Nay, nay, Octavia, not only that— That were excusable, that and thousands more Of semblable import—but he hath waged New wars ’gainst Pompey; made his will and read it To public ear; Spoke scantly of me; when perforce he could not But pay me terms of honor, cold and sickly He vented them, most narrow measure lent me; . . . . . OCTAVIA O, my good lord, Believe not all, or if you must believe, Stomach not all. A more unhappy lady, If this division chance, ne’er stood between, Praying for both parts. (3.4.1-15)

Here Shakespeare presents Octavius Caesar as the unreasonable aggressor and Antony as a sort of passive onlooker. Naturally, Antony would be enraged if Caesar embroiled his men in another war and publicly disrespected him. Although Antony is unquestionably adulterous, Shakespeare at least softens Antony's infidelity by emphasizing Antony's passionate loyalty to Cleopatra. Shakespeare provides no such redeeming qualities for Caesar, who comes across as a sort of power-hungry oathbreaker. Only after Caesar has vanquished Pompey and imprisoned Lepidus does Shakespeare finally offer his perspective, first on Antony's alliance with Egypt and then on Antony's accusations regarding Lepidus.

On Cleopatra:

CAESAR Contemning Rome, he has done all this and more In Alexandria. Here’s the manner of ’t: I’ th’ marketplace, on a tribunal silvered, Cleopatra and himself in chairs of gold Were publicly enthroned. At the feet sat Caesarion, whom they call my father’s son, And all the unlawful issue that their lust Since then hath made between them. Unto her He gave the stablishment of Egypt, made her Of lower Syria, Cyprus, Lydia, Absolute queen. MAECENAS This in the public eye? (3.6.1-12)

On Lepidus:

AGRIPPA Sir, this should be answered. CAESAR ’Tis done already, and the messenger gone. I have told him Lepidus was grown too cruel, That he his high authority abused And did deserve his change. For what I have conquered, I grant him part; but then in his Armenia And other of his conquered kingdoms I Demand the like. (3.6.34-42)

Not only do these rationalizations come post hoc, but they scarcely justify Caesar's aggressions. Caesar and his advisors are discussing how to shape the public narrative, so these scenes read to me more as political maneuvering than a legitimate reason to make war against Antony. On the contrary, Caesar comes across as the instigator, having violated the truce with Pompey and deposed Lepidus. Thus Shakespeare illustrates that Caesar is neither honorable nor pious in his war against Antony.

Shakespeare likewise diminishes the military achievements of Octavius Caesar. His crowning moment, the Battle of Actium, is won not by any military acumen of his own but by the strategic blunders of his enemy. I discussed in my previous post the narrative emphasis on Antony's decision to engage by sea rather than by land, so I will not retread those points here. I would add to that analysis, however, that Shakespeare suggests Antony's forces might have won if not for Cleopatra's retreat:

ENOBARBUS How appears the fight? SCARUS On our side, like the tokened pestilence, Where death is sure. Yon ribaudred nag of Egypt, Whom leprosy o’ertake, i’ th’ midst o’ th’ fight, When vantage like a pair of twins appeared Both as the same—or, rather, ours the elder— The breeze upon her like a cow in June, Hoists sails and flies. ENOBARBUS That I beheld. Mine eyes did sicken at the sight and could not Endure a further view. (3.10.11-21)

Of course, this perspective is skewed because it comes from Antony's soldiers, but perspective—what is emphasized and what is excluded—is everything in this play. Contrast this with Virgil's depiction of the Battle of Actium in the Aeneid:

The waves shone golden in the famous scene. On one side, in the center, was Caesar Augustus Standing tall, on the high deck of his ship, Directing the battle action being waged …. On the other side is depicted Antony, Triumphant as he was upon the Red Sea shores and over the People of the Dawn, And Egypt and all the Orient forces coming With him and as far away as Bactria, and Followed (monstrous) by his Egyptian wife. (8.897-917)

Whereas Virgil glorifies Caesar for his noble victory over Antony and the monstrous Egypt, Shakespeare depicts Caesar as winning by dumb luck—the product of Antony's insistence on battling by sea and of Cleopatra's untimely retreat. Far from the valorized military man of legend, the Caesar of Antony and Cleopatra wins by the poor decisions of his enemies. Even in victory Caesar is defeated. His grand design for the end of the war is to take both Antony and Cleopatra alive so that he can display and humiliate them in front of the Roman public, thereby exalting his own imperium. After learning of Antony's death, Caesar focuses his efforts on subduing Cleopatra, intending to lie about publicly shaming her:

CAESAR Come hither, Proculeius. Go and say We purpose her no shame. Give her what comforts The quality of her passion shall require, Lest, in her greatness, by some mortal stroke She do defeat us, for her life in Rome Would be eternal in our triumph. Go, And with your speediest bring us what she says And how you find of her. (5.1.72-79; emphasis mine)

Cleopatra, however, discerns Caesar's true intention and, by her suicide, denies him the satisfaction of parading her through Rome. As Cleopatra tells one of her handmaidens, "Thou an Egyptian puppet shall be shown / in Rome, as well as I. Mechanic slaves / With greasy aprons, rules, and hammers shall / Uplift us to the view." Regardless of whether the audience sympathizes with Cleopatra, I believe none would deny that this ghastly image makes Caesar seem barbarous. Through her death then, Cleopatra averts this ugly fate and defeats Caesar, elevating her and Antony's names into the realm of legend. Prior to her death, Cleopatra seems to express some awareness of this metanarrative, remarking that Caesar's good luck might have its downsides, and declaring herself "fire and air."

CLEOPATRA I hear him mock The luck of Caesar, which the gods give men To excuse their after wrath.—Husband, I come! Now to that name my courage prove my title. I am fire and air; my other elements I give to baser life. (5.2.340-345)

It is also worth considering Caesar's closing words:

CAESAR No grave upon the earth shall clip in it A pair so famous. High events as these Strike those that make them; and their story is No less in pity than his glory which Brought them to be lamented. Our army shall In solemn show attend this funeral, And then to Rome. Come, Dolabella, see High order in this great solemnity. (5.2.430-437)

At the end of Antony and Cleopatra, Octavius Caesar claims imperium. But the play certainly does not exalt him, and indeed his character enjoys no sense of fanfare or triumph. On the contrary, Shakespeare has undermined the magisterial aura of Augustus at every turn, questioning his honor and military valor. And now Cleopatra has thwarted his plans. Rather than celebrate his own majesty, Caesar is forced to recognize the legend of Antony and Cleopatra, and he resigns himself to arranging their funeral. Indeed, the legend of Antony and Cleopatra may in some respects eclipse even the legend of Caesar Augustus. (At the very least, they have a Shakespeare play bearing their names, whereas Augustus does not.) Works Cited Shakespeare, William. Antony and Cleopatra. Folger Shakespeare Library, https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/antony-and-cleopatra/read/.

[libidomechanica]

“No tear; no matter mair hae Queen, Thus let thefts to die”

No tear; no matter mair hae Queen,     Thus let thefts to die. Then Cleopatra lives on yawning     and dumb though her praise is dumb. The flow’rs so white rushing with     pleasure of life should prepare. And love of love, then, since finds—     no Word of fear, to try

it and a day, and a more wretched!     Fond fantsies shalt thou grieve to a bee sucks from sleepe thou     shalt see me fresh sprung from here! It’s green in this couple still     thou are, you are they all around shadow of—was its fair     day that religious man,

to be seen, as if a little     mouldy hay, but that when pale his hands. And Roger turns strangely:     but, for an unco care: but, fool, said I’d slip through     dooms of a worm quickly shall murmur, a little think of     his petty boss, that I

make her roguish the Empire     of the roast beef I had energy; you go to th’     most, a naked by thy Graces, and kept, as the rain is     enough, and what hath been seraglio has its own his byre;     thou the heat deep for slaue.

[alixinwwonderland]

minimalist shakespeare tragedies: antony and cleopatra

give me my robe, put on my crown; i have immortal longings in me.

[aristosmusical]

We got to see the lovely dancers this last Sunday improv to Cleopatra! (The video gets brighter, I promise)

‘Cleopatra’ is a mythological metaphor about Cleopatra the wife of Meleager that compares her plight of trying to appease her husband’s pride to Patroclus’s similar plight.

Here’s Clara portraying Cleopatra and @courfeyracs-swordcane portraying Meleager!

[bubblegumfrosting]

Torture

Pairing: Nolan Booth x Fem!reader

Summary: What happens when The Bishop decides to torture you instead of Hartley?

Warnings: swearing, kidnapping, torture

A/n: I love me some Ryan Reynolds and I was shocked to see that there weren’t a lot of fanfics based off Red Notice so I had to write something

You met John Hartley and the infamous Nolan Booth after getting arrested in Rome. Your life as a criminal was just starting and this was your second heist. Call it beginners bad luck. Somehow all three of you found yourselves intermingled with unearthing the three cleopatra eggs. It has been quite an adventure, an FBI agent, the world’s second best art thief, and the worlds best failed art thief.

Unbeknownst to you, Nolan and Hartley were handcuffed together in a room further down. You couldn’t hear a thing over the sound of a crowd cheering.

For some unknown reason the only thing you could think of was whether Nolan was okay. Your heart raced at the idea of the Bishop torturing him for information on the third egg. You hated to admit that the criminal had grown on you, his constant humor and dashing looks made him completely irresistible but there was also something much deeper and gentler that drew you towards him.

“Where is she?!”, Nolan spit at the Bishop.

She walked in front of him, “That’s not important Booth, this is the time where you tell us where the third egg is.’”.

Nolan let out a breathy laugh, “Piss off for a thousand years.”.

“Oh bummer, I really wanted to do it the easy way.”, she sighed, “That’s okay, I’ll get the information from you, by hurting him.”., she gestured towards Hartley.

“I’m sorry what?”, Hartley questioned.

“I love this plan.”, of course Nolan would.

Bishop turned up an electricity machine and made her way towards Hartley, “You two share a special bond, I mean why else risk your lives together attempting to steal the eggs.”, she grabs two metal pliers, “Isn’t that right, Agent Hartley?”.

“There isn’t any bond between us, I barley know the guy…Booth tell her we’re not friends.”.

Of course being the cheeky one, Booth had to play this one out, “She knows about us pal.”.

“That’s bullshit..”, Hartley immediately knew what he was doing.

“She knows about our special bond..she knows you were the best man at my wedding…”.

“You son of bitch.”, Harley spat at Booth, “He’s lying!”. The Bishop teasingly sparks the pliers in front of Hartley’s face.

“If she hurts you bad enough, I mean if she gets really creative with it, than I’m gonna have no choice but to tell her everything.”, Nolan continues his speech.

“Now Mr. Booth, where is the third egg?”, Nolan stayed silent, “Okay..here I go..”.

“No don’t wait..”, Nolan sarcastically pleas.

He seemed completely unfazed with the torture his new found friend was being subjected to.

“Hm, let’s switch it up.”, the Bishop nods to Sotto and he exits the room with one of the pliers, “If this isn’t working maybe giving a few shocks to that pretty little thing down the hall will.”.

Nolan freezes, suddenly the air feels stiff and the once humorous situation turned sour, “Don’t you fucking touch her.”. He says in a serious tone.

“Seems like we’ve struck a nerve, tell me where the egg is.”.

“Eat shit!”, she lets out a low chuckle and presses a button.

Your screams could be heard clearly, crying for help, crying for Nolan’s help, “NOLAN!!”.

“NO NO STOP IT!”, Nolan thrashes around, “ITS IN EGYPT!”, Nolan finally caved in.

She stoped the machine, “Where in Egypt?”.

“It’s buried with Cleopatra in the Grand pyramid, there’s a secret entry way, alright!Just please stop hurting her.”, Nolan breathes heavily.

“See! That wasn’t that hard, I would say nice working with you but we both know that would be a lie.”, and with that The Bishop left.

“I swear to God I’m gonna to kill that bitch”.

While the two of them got into a shooting fight with Sotto, you were still trapped in the chair. Your body felt numb and your cheeks felt wet, you presumed it was your tears. There was a metallic taste in your mouth and all you could do was whimper as you heard gun shots.

Than there was silence, you heard a door open and your blindfold was ripped off. It took a minute for your eyes to adjust to your environment but the only thing you could see was Nolan’s worried expression as he looked down at you.

“Nolan, it hurts”, you sobbed.

“Hey hey hey, I know sweetheart.”, he didn’t mean for the name to slip out but he was too distracted to care.

Nolan unhooked the restraints and guided you to your feet, you immediately crashed into his chest due to how weak you felt.

“The electricity affected her worse than me because she’s much smaller than I am.”, Hartley spoke and met Nolan’s eyes. Hartley knew the look Nolan had and felt guilty for how badly injured you were.

“I was so scared they were going to hurt you.”, you spoke.

“I wish it was me rather than you.,” he said in a whisper.

You pulled back from the embrace and met his eyes which looked down upon you lovingly yet concerned. He lowered his head and placed a hesitant kiss on your forehead. As he pulled back he analyzed your face for any sort of reaction, once he saw the faint blush on your cheeks and your smile he returned it. He cupped your face and leaned in, your breath hitched as your two lips connected.

You deepened the kiss by pulling him closer by the neck earning a short groan from him.

“Okay okay, break it up!”, the two of you pulled away both out of breath and looked towards Hartley.

“Dude! A little privacy here!”, Nolan said and promptly returned to kissing you.

“Why did I agree to any of this.”, Hartley left with a huff.

You didn’t know what the futures has in stored but for now you felt safe in Nolan’s arms and you knew that this is where you belong.