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rachel

@stonefruits.bsky.social

480 followers 200 following 1.6K posts

she/her, librarian & semi-retired classicist • posting about the roman republic, translation, fandom, and etc • MILF (Man I Love Fruit) • writing at https://deadlanguages.substack.com/

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rachel @stonefruits.bsky.social · Feb 14

new essay in the newsletter today—i've wanted to write about this for a long time, and i'm very glad to finally share it. (un)happy valentine's day!

WHAT IS THE POINT OF LUKEWARM LOVE?

IF I AM NOT DROWNING IN IT I HAVE NO DESIRE FOR IT

deadlanguages.substack.com

rachel

@stonefruits.bsky.social

this has been happening for years already at my workplace 🥲 just a few weeks ago i responded to an email from someone who was having trouble locating a source. i couldn’t find it either so i emailed back to ask if they got the citation from genAI and they said yes. double check your citations, kids

scott b. weingart @scottbot.bsky.social · 1d

Folks might not know a lot of people are getting *very* upset that the materials they request are not available in the libraries/archives they're requesting from.

We're getting lots here at the Library of Virginia: requests of documents likely surfaced by large language models that *do not exist*.

Colleen Theisen @librarycolleen.bsky.social · 1d

I wish a notice like this wasn't necessary.
www.icrc.org/en/article/i...

December 8, 2025 at 6:59 PM

rachel

@stonefruits.bsky.social

in honor of terror camp v: my old translation of catullus 4 🌊

That ship you see, my guests,
says that she was the fastest of all ships— she was capable of surpassing any other boat
whether the job was to fly with an oar-blade or with a canvas sail.
And (she says) the shore of the menacing Adriatic
doesn't deny this, and neither do the Cycladic islands or noble Rhodes
or the rough Thracian sea of Marmara or the wild Pontic gulf
(where that future boat was previously leafy forest;
on the Cytorian summit, with rustling foliage,
she often made a whistling sound).
Pontic Amastris and boxwood-bearing Cytorus,
the boat says that these things were and are well-known to you:
from her earliest beginning, she says that she stood on your peak,
she dipped her little oars in your water;
and from there, through so many wild seas,
she carried her master (whether a left or right wind would call,
or whether favorable weather fell upon both sails at the same time)
and no offerings on her behalf were made to the shore gods
when she was coming from the final sea all the way to this clear lake.
But these things happened before: now, in secluded repose,
she grows old and dedicates herself to you,
twins Castor and Pollux, patron gods of sailors.

December 8, 2025 at 4:24 AM

rachel

@stonefruits.bsky.social

i’m on episode 3 of the american revolution documentary and things aren’t looking good. seems like we are not going to win this thing

December 8, 2025 at 4:09 AM

rachel

@stonefruits.bsky.social

this is going to sound nuts but i have a little story to tell. the day after b passed, my mom brought me three heart balloons to try cheering me up, two pink & one red. this was october 15. today is december 7. the pink balloons deflated last month. the red heart balloon is still floating

December 8, 2025 at 12:58 AM

rachel

@stonefruits.bsky.social

rip cicero on this day 43 BCE 🫡

December 7, 2025 at 9:38 PM

rachel

@stonefruits.bsky.social

i keep thinking about mcnulty showing up to terror camp as Michael and then surreptitiously changing his dn to Matthew mid-zoom

December 7, 2025 at 6:58 PM

rachel

@stonefruits.bsky.social

christos you absolute icon....... "i have an air of intelligence but it's not real"

December 6, 2025 at 8:25 PM

rachel

@stonefruits.bsky.social

matthew mcnulty on MY zoom screen

December 6, 2025 at 7:00 PM

Reposted by rachel

Sarah E. Bond

@sarahebond.bsky.social

4. Look, science and archaeology writing is incredibly important and I get they want to grab headlines. But as I have written about and as Seth Bernard has shown recently: slavery was a horrid institution.

There is never a defense for slavery. hyperallergic.com/new-research...

New Research Shows Slavery’s Outsized Role in Pompeii’s Economy

It was the violent profitability of slavery as an exploitative labor system that allowed for the region to prosper, the study demonstrates.

hyperallergic.com

December 6, 2025 at 1:04 PM

Reposted by rachel

Sarah E. Bond

@sarahebond.bsky.social

A new report on dietary findings in a select area of Pompeii likely inhabited by enslaved people came out in Scavi di Pompei. Many newspapers are now running w/a headline about Roman slaves “eating better” than free Romans. pompeiisites.org/e-journal-de... Let’s discuss why this is problematic

December 6, 2025 at 12:48 PM

rachel

@stonefruits.bsky.social

friday night i watched ken burns american revolution & played animal crossing and now saturday morning i’m drinking a matcha and watching terror camp….. perhaps all is not lost

December 6, 2025 at 3:28 PM

rachel

@stonefruits.bsky.social

i put a motivational note on my monitor

sticky note that says “Do you want Henry Winter to regard you with chill distaste?”

December 4, 2025 at 5:05 PM

rachel

@stonefruits.bsky.social

i'm not sure if this is quintessential onion but it has resided in the penthouse of my mind for many years

Area Woman Not a Morning, Afternoon, Or Night Person

December 4, 2025 at 3:55 AM

Reposted by rachel

Rob Delaney

@robdelaney.bsky.social

Bong Joon Ho hit me up for the squad you legend deadline.com/2025/11/bong...

Bong Joon Ho took a characteristically radical approach when questioned on his thoughts around the rise of Al technology at the jury press conference of the Marrakech Film Festival on Saturday.
The Korean director, who is president of the jury, gave two responses, one measured, the other deeply personal.
"My official answer is, Al is good because it's the very beginning of the human race finally seriously thinking about what only humans can do. But my personal answer is, I'm going to organize a military squad, and their mission is to destroy AI," he said.

November 29, 2025 at 12:49 PM

rachel

@stonefruits.bsky.social

me logging onto social media every day (ad atticum 2.23)

As for me (a subject on which I am sure you are anxious to be informed),

November 30, 2025 at 1:16 AM

rachel

@stonefruits.bsky.social

repetitive sentiment but i cannot overstate how it is taking literally everything i have in me to write [redacted career-changing work project] while still eyeballs deep in grief

November 29, 2025 at 11:58 PM

rachel

@stonefruits.bsky.social

"We all survive more than we think we can," Didion says of living on after the deaths of her loved ones. “We imagine things — that we wouldn't be able to survive, but in fact, we do survive. ... We have no choice, so we do it."

November 29, 2025 at 11:29 PM

Reposted by rachel

Alison Fisk

@alisonfisk.bsky.social

A dog’s paw print on a Roman clay tile 🐾 🐕 😍

About 2,000 years-ago, a dog made its mark for ‘pawsterity’ when it wandered across the wet tile laid out to dry before firing.

From Richborough Roman fort
📷 by me

#TilesonTuesday
#Archaeology

My photo shows a hand-sized, jagged, fragment of Roman red clay tile. There is an impression of a dog’s paw pressed into the clay. The imprint shows four toe pads arranged in an arc above a central pad. Above each toe imprint there is a small indent made by the dog’s claws. The imprint was made when the paw pressed into soft clay when the clay tile was laid out in the yard before firing. The tile fragment is set against a blue display case background. Excavated at Richborough Roman fort. My photo was taken in 2020.

November 25, 2025 at 2:54 PM

rachel

@stonefruits.bsky.social

i’m only hanging on by two threads right now: animal crossing and the amy poehler podcast

November 26, 2025 at 4:47 AM

Reposted by rachel

Jon Bois

@jonbois.bsky.social

whenever the sun sets at 4:45 pm i open a window, lean out and yell "WRONG" as loud as i can. that usually buys me another hour or two of sunlight

November 17, 2025 at 9:48 PM

Reposted by rachel

Joel

@sentantiq.bsky.social

The Rage of Hera and a Dehumanized World sententiaeantiquae.com/2025/11/24/t...

The Rage of Hera and a Dehumanized World

The Divine Council at the Beginning of Iliad 4 In my earlier posts on Iliad 4, I emphasized the opening scene, where Zeus toys with the other gods and entertains the idea of ending the conflict, an…

sententiaeantiquae.com

November 24, 2025 at 7:18 PM

rachel

@stonefruits.bsky.social

one thing about me is that i hate having long nails—it’s a sensory ick. but in a strange mourning ritual i have not cut my nails since b died and they do look really good now