#“Constantinople.”

[kooorey403]

He wakes slowly.

He sees it first, light peeking through to the back of his eyelids, soft oranges dancing around his vision. He hears soft voices suddenly, and he feels his face twitch. The voices stop for a moment before increasing, someone's hissing something, an argument- another is trying to hush them.

It was starting to get annoying, really. Couldn't they see he was trying to sleep!?

He wriggled his toes, and shifted before feeling himself break out into a full body stretch and yawn. Distantly he hears someone shout "Oh fuck!" and it makes snort mid yawn.

He sits up, feeling a bit lethargic. He whines, feeling the nastiest crick in his neck he's ever had.

He blinks the sleep out of his eyes and sees a dark-haired woman holding fire staring at him with wide eyes. He squints and notices two other figures in the room, a blond guy with a wrinkly trench coat, and a ghost. Damn, he thought it felt a little cold. But, it didn't look like he was posing a threat to anyone.

"...What?" He croaked out, and holy! His voice was wrecked, what the hell.

A silence rang through the- ...room? Place? Actually, where was he right now? The last thing he remembers was...

"Are you the one who's been leaving us messages?" Magician Woman asked, making Danny break his train of thought.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"The messages!" Trench Coat Dude stepped forward. "On the bright green sticky notes that keep showin' up everywhere! The ones that led us to you."

Danny feels realization pass over him. Clockwork.

He lets out a groan. Damn it, Clockwork! Seriously!? Now he was bringing in randos to do his dirty work!

He thumps back on the altar he was on. Turning away from the three people in the room, he settled into a good sleeping position. He wasn't gonna do it. He wasn't. Whatever it was. He was tired. He just woke up, and if he has any say in it, he'll have just gone to sleep in a second.

He hears the flutter of paper, and a green glow peeks in his eyes, but he refuses to know what the sticky note says. He assumes the other three read it, because a second later he hears Trench Coat Dude say, "I'm not dealing with this. I need a bloody drink." Then there's a flash of light and Danny feels one less presence in the room. Which is honestly the only appropriate reaction to Clockwork's BS.

Ghost Guy steps closer to him.

"Hello?"

Danny doesn't answer.

"Are you dead?" Ghost Guy asks bluntly, making Danny twitch.

Magician Woman hisses something at the guy, but Danny gets up with a sigh of resignation. Swinging his legs off the altar, sitting up.

"You know, "dead" is such a final state of being. I think I prefer the term: expired."

Ghost Guy glances at Magician Woman who only gives the same sort of sigh of resignation Danny had.

"I'm Deadman," the ghost says, making Danny snort.

"A little on the nose, doncha think?"

"I was called that before my death, actually," he says, making Danny's eyebrows raise.

"Zatanna," the woman introduces herself. "The other man was Constantine."

Danny considered the two of them.

"They call me Phantom," he says.

Zatanna steps closer. "Phantom, we have some questions for you."

"Uh." Danny nods. "Okay, sure, why not."

"Do you know why you're here?" Deadman starts.

"Yeah," Danny says immediately, before trailing off, "I was helping- wait, I was..."

He was... He was on a time quest. Crap. Oh no. No, no, no.

Clockwork.

"The sticky note," Danny says suddenly, holding his hand out to Zatanna. "What does it say?"

Zatanna furrowed her brows, but handed it to him.

'He'll be a wonderful addition.' Danny sees, written in a neat black scrawl.

"What the hell does this mean?" Danny groans. Why can't he make sense on the first try? Clockwork can't just be normal for once?

"I think I might have an idea," Zatanna says.

Danny looks up at her, she gives him an awkward smile

"Phantom, do you know what the Justice League is?"

Danny messes up big time on a mission to the past for Clockwork. How does he mess up you may ask? Well he ends up getting ceremonially buried as a death god in ancient Egypt. Yes, he is embarrassed about the whole scenario thank you for asking.

To make matters worse, they doused him in blood blossom oils. Not enough to kill him, but enough to weaken him big time and put him in a deep sleep. Danny spends the next couple of thousands of years sleeping the blood blossom oil off. He wakes up just in time for his tomb to be opened by a grumpy guy in a trench coat, a weird magician lady, and a ghost dressed in red spandex. Nope, he was not dealing with that. He rolled over and went back to sleep.

The JLD had been running around chasing after green sticky notes for weeks. They finally found this hidden ancient tomb with a lot of inscriptions pertaining to the dead. When they finally enter the inner most chamber, they find a young boy resting on top of an altar. He's definitely not dead because if he was, he would have long since decomposed. However at the same time, he's not breathing.

In the middle of their discussion on how to proceed, a familiar green sticky note floats down from nowhere. It reads "He'll be a wonderful addition." What? Constantine instantly pulls out a sigil and teleports away muttering something about needing a drink, Deadman goes to investigate the kid, and Zatana just sighs. This was about to be a long day.

[toyastales]

A Byzantine Gold Collier with Emeralds, Sapphires, Amethysts and Pearls, from a workshop in Constantinople (late 6th-7th Century AD).

[adiradirim]

Sephardi & Romaniote Jewish Women's Clothing in the Byzantine and Ottoman Periods, illustrated by Nikos Stavroulakis

[cookiewishesyou]

On this January 11, 2025, Cookie wishes you a smashing 1492nd anniversary of the Nika riots of Constantinople (532)!

[charlesoberonn]

Shout out to Porphyrios, the whale who terrorized the waters near Constantinople for more than 50 years during the 6th century.

You'd sunk more Roman warships than most of their human enemies.

[zegalba]

Ivan Aivazovsky: View of Constantinople by Evening Light (1884)

[mapsontheweb]

Fall vs Conquest of Constantinople: The title map of the relevant Wikipedia pages in different languages

[beatricecenci]

Frederick Arthur Bridgman (American, 1847-1928)

A Veiled Beauty of Constantinople

[thornheartless]

I've been fighting for my life against autocorrect

[clownery-blog]

thinking about thisvideo again

[illustratus]

View of the Bosphorus in the Moonlight

by Ivan Aivazovsky

[pedroam-bang]

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations (2011)

[askymzbuki]

[gentlenmensarts]

[tmbgareok]

Y'all were once referenced offhandedly on a map in an old Extra History video (~9 years ago!) and I just think that it's neat to come across my favorite band on my favorite channel...so please enjoy the Johns in all of their EH bean person glory.

[beatricecenci]

Jean-Léon Gérôme (French, 1824-1904)

Une femme de Constantinople