#Istanbul HES Code

[nicoscheer]

uumutyildirimm Standing next to me 🫂 🤍

[libraryofloveletters]

Nothing Without You

John Stones x Fem!Reader

Warnings: best friends in love but also in denial, everyone can see it but them, lots of softness, alcohol and the consumption of (lots of it), drunk jack grealish (thats a warning in itself), swearing, it’s so family coded between the players and kids and wags, baby fever from john’s end, friendly teasing from the other players, horrible singing, drunken posting, Sasha and reader are lowkey besties, hangovers for dayssssss 

Word Count: 3.6k

Author’s Note: you can blame the great miss whitney houston for this. every song she has is so john coded and in honour of the treble win, I had to do this. 

--

Attached at the hip since you two were 20, it’s been that way since the first day you met; John was the drunk guy singing off key to Whitney Houston and you were the girl dancing next to him. 

Inseparable since. 

Istanbul had you all on the edge of your seat, fingers crossed and your heart pounding out of your chest as you watched Inter kick the ball towards the net. Ederson swatted the ball away and they managed to kick it from the net just as the final whistle blew. 

One. 

Two. 

Three. 

The match was over and you could breathe again; you can’t imagine how the boys must be feeling. Everyone goes running onto the field, the boys collapsing and hugging each other, screaming and shouting as the entire stadium cheers. 

“They did it!!” You turned to the woman shouting next to you. 

You pulled Sasha into a hug, “they did it!!” You shouted back. The two of you stood together as you watched the trophy ceremony, and the boys received their metals. The blue and white confetti covered the green grass and the fireworks covered the black night sky. 

“C’mon!” You grabbed her hand as you made your way down to the field to see the boys. 

John spots you before you spot him. The man in blue comes running to you, arms open before he reaches you. “Johnny!!!” You screamed, jumping on your best friend. He grinned, wrapping his arms around you as he pressed a fat kiss to your cheek, dangerously close to your lips. 

The player swings you around before putting you down. Your hands squished his face, “Johnny!! I'm soooo proud of you. You’re a fucking champion!”

“Fucking champions!!” He laughs, kissing your temple as he puts his arm over your shoulder. 

You two walked around the pitch, John stopping every two seconds to talk to his teammates and the Man City staff.  You had wandered off, spotting Riyad’s fiancé, Taylor and their daughter, Mila. “Hi baby girl,” you smiled, tickling her side. “You wanna hold her?” Taylor asks and you smile, nodding. 

She hands the little girl over to you and you kiss her cheek, fixing her little Man City jersey. You felt someone grab your leg and you look down to see none other than Ronnie. “Hi buddy!” You kneel down, moving to sit on the ground with Mila. 

“Hi y/n! Hi Mila!” He holds her little hand, the two of them giggling over something. You weren’t really paying attention to what he was telling her but it was making her laugh. 

John patted his friend’s back, the two of them turning their attention to you on the floor with the kids. Riyad doesn’t miss the way John’s eyes light up when he looks at you or how his smile brightens. You covered Mila’s eyes before Ronnie made a silly face at her. The three of you giggling like the best of friends. The big number 5 on your back and the sight of kids in your arms only made John’s heart skip a beat. 

“She's good with them, huh?” He says, getting John’s attention. 

“What?” He asks, confused. 

Riyad nods towards you with the kids. “Y/n... she's good with the kids.” 

“Oh,” John nods, smiling. “Yeah. She’s great.” 

The man shakes his head, nudging his friend with his shoulder. Riyad laughs, “you just don’t get it.” 

He picks up Mila, rubbing Ronnie’s head as he passes by with the little girl. John wanders over to you, a hand stretched out to help you up. 

“Shall we take a picture?” He held your hand, walking over to Erling and his girlfriend who currently had the trophy. 

You smiled watching as Erling stood up and handed the massive silver trophy over to his teammate. You and Isabel were whispering something to each other when John replaced Erling on the random chair in the middle of the pitch, the trophy balanced on his right leg. 

“Babe,” the word rolled off his tongue, a common name amongst the many nicknames he had for you. “C’mere.” He pats his free thigh. 

You walked over and sat yourself down on his leg, an arm over his shoulder to balance yourself. John wraps an arm around your waist, a hand on your hip with the other holding the trophy. Your arm was still over his shoulder and the other was holding the other side of the trophy. 

One of the photographers shouts, “Smile!” John ignores him, letting you hold up the weight of the trophy for a minute, taking the medal around his neck off. He slings it around your neck, straightening it before holding the trophy again. 

“Okay, ready now.” He tells no one in particular, the two of you smiling at the various cameras. 

You giggled as John pinched your hip, getting you to smile brighter; the way he liked. 

You were about to take the medal off but he stopped you, “keep it. It looks better on you,” he smiled as he passed the trophy off to Jack when you two got up. 

--- 

There’s shouting, music and laughter coming from the other side of your hotel door. The boys were in full party mode but all decided to take a quick minute to freshen up before heading out again. 

All of them except for the one you were certain was banging on your room door. 

“Y/n!!” He sang along with the music, knocking again. “C’mon! I know you’re in there!!” He shouts as you open the door. 

Jack stood there in his kit, medal over his neck as he dragged the big speaker behind him. He looks at you like you were an alien; lipstick in one hand, your drink in the other with the curlers pinned in your hair so you can freshen it up.

“You’re not ready?!” He shouts as if you were down the hallway. 

You laughed, shaking your head. “What are you even doing up here? I thought you went straight to the club.” 

"I came looking for- Oh! Here!” He turns around and grabs something, handing you a shot glass filled with some gold liquid when he turns back around. You look at the man like he's insane.

You brought the glass up to your face, the heavy scent of tequila caused you to wrinkle your nose. “Where'd you even get this?”

Jack’s got his own shot in hand, tapping his glass to yours. “We're fucking champions of Europe, baby! Cheers!” he shouted, the two of you giggling as you downed your shots in the doorway like teenagers getting drunk off cheap booze before a party. The tequila burns on the way down but Jack turns, the half empty bottle of 1942 in hand when he spins around again and he refills the shot glasses.

 You tap your glass to his and drink this shot too, thinking you can finally get rid of him, allowing yourself to finish getting ready in peace but Jack starts singing and refilling the shot glasses once again. 

“John, John, Johnny Stonesssss!” He held the note, “where are you, my Johnny Stones?!” 

And as if he was summoned, John stepped out of the bathroom with just a towel wrapped around his waist. You won’t lie and say your best friend wasn’t attractive because he was but you couldn't look at him like that; despite looking at him like that right now. Your eyes fixed on the man, watching the way the water dripped down his chest, following the little drops all the way down to the towel that stopped them from going further. 

Even with him being drunk, Jack noticed the way you looked at his teammate. He wiggled his eyebrows as he tapped his glass to yours. The two of you downed what you hoped was the final set of shots before he left. 

He wiggled his eyebrows, John wasn’t paying attention to Jack at the moment. “Don’t fuck! Come down so we can get fucked upppppp.” 

“Fuck off,” you laughed, smacking his arm lightly. Jack waved to you, finally walking away to the elevator. 

John looks at you as he puts on his pants, “why is your face red?” 

“Had a few shots with Jack,” you held up the empty shot glass, finally putting your lipstick on. John nods, humming as he finishes getting dressed. You were  glad Jack stopped in because what else would you blame your red cheeks on? The fact that you were gawking at your shirtless best friend? 

Insane. 

He comes over to you, his hand on your hip as he watches you pull the last curler from your hair. 

“Ready?” His eyes meet yours in the mirror. 

You nod, smiling. “Ready.” 

The club was five minutes from the hotel, you bumped into Phil and Becca on your way to the lobby, the four of you deciding to head there together. From the moment you stepped inside, John and Phil were instantly pulled into hugs, conversations and promises of dances, not to mention all the drinks all of you were being handed before you even made it to the bar. 

The four of you got separated, you and Becca found a few of the other girls who had lost their other halves and were sorta dancing and chatting at the same time  - it was more of a shout over the music but you were all too many shots in to care.

At some point, you decided you needed another drink that wasn’t in a shot glass. “I’m gonna get a drink!” You shouted to Becca and she gave you a thumbs up. “Do you want anything?” 

“No! I’m good babe!” She smiles, letting you walk off to the bar. 

You navigate your way through the crowd and eventually find the bar. The bartender was busy and you waited, not wanting to be one of those people at shouts at the bartenders who were clearly busy. A few minutes later, he found his way to you so you could order and just as you do, you feel a set of hands on your hips.

“I was looking for you!” The person shouts to you, a chin on your shoulder before you turn around. 

You find John holding onto you, a big goofy grin on his face and you could smell the liquor on him; now if he split something on himself or if he had one too many shots, it was unclear but one thing was, that he was having a good time. 

“I was looking for you too!” You shouted back to him, smiling at him. 

Just as you turn around to get your drink, the opening notes of I Have Nothing by Whitney Houston come on; an odd choice for a club you think to yourself but John doesn’t follow the same train of thought. The man grabs your hand, the drink spilling as he pulls, practically yanked, you to the dance floor.

“This!” He shouts, “is my fucking song!” 

You giggled, letting him pull you to him before you two started singing. 

“Take my love, I’ll never ask for too much. Just all that you are and everything that you do.” You sang to John, arms over his shoulders and your hand resting on the back of his neck. 

The man’s hand reached for your hips, pulling you a few inches closer. “I don't really need to look very much further. I don't wanna have to go, where you don't follow.”

“I won't hold it back again, this passion inside. Can't run from myself. There's nowhere to hide.” You sang the next part. 

John spun you around, your back to his chest, his arms wrapped around you and held you close to him. You can feel his chin on your shoulder, the stubble on his jaw rubbed against yours as he pressed his face to yours. 

“Don't make me close one more door. I don't wanna hurt anymore. Stay in my arms if you dare or must I imagine you there. Don't walk away from me.” He sang horribly off key. 

You giggled as you two sang the last part together; “I have nothing, nothing, nothing if I don't have you, you, you, you, you, you.” 

John lets go of you, your hand still on his shoulder as you two danced to the other song. You take a sip from your drink only to find the ice hitting your lips. “I need another one!” You tell him, wandering off to the bar again. 

From the corner of your eye, you could see Jack and Erling giggling. 

“What?” You shouted to them and Jack ran over. “You and John are so cute, it makes me wanna puke!” He laughs, a hand on your arm.

Erling slings his arm over your shoulder, “yeah! Get a room!” 

“Fuck off, both of you!” You laughed, ignoring them. 

You left them at the bar, a drink in hand as you walked off to find John again. The man was with Kyle and Ruben, the 3 of them pouring a round of shots. 

“Want one?” Kyle held a glass out to you and you nod, taking it from him. John’s arm slings over your shoulder, pulling you into his side before the 4 of you holding up your shots. 

“To us! To the treble! To the champions of Europe!” Kyle shouts over the music, the clear liquid slipping over the rim of the glass, all of you downing your shots. 

Kyle pulls Ruben to dance, the two of them amongst the last set of people on the dance floor. It was nearly 5am, the sun was peeking through the clouds over the city and all of you had been up for nearly 24 hours straight. There was a flight back to Manchester in 5 hours and you figured you two could sneak in a few hours of sleep. 

John had the same thought, “ready to go?” He whispers to you, lips pressed to your ear. You nod, holding his hand as you two walk out. He shouted to his friends as you two walked out of the club, his fingers interlocked with yours when you got into the cab back to the hotel. 

The walk up to the room was no better, his hands on your hips, the two of you giggling as you tried to undo the lock on the door, the keycard not buzzing. John’s face buried in your neck, the stubble on his chin tickling at your skin, you shrugging him off and finally got into the room. 

He went to the bathroom to change and you were on the bed, taking a moment to gather yourself before you tried to get your shoes off. Eventually you managed to undo the strap and kicked them off, letting them land somewhere. 

“Fuck,” you heard from groan from the bathroom, you slowly got up and walked over. 

You could see the man in the reflection of the mirror, his fingers tugging at the buttons on his shirt but he wasn’t getting them undone. “Need help?” you asked, pushing the door open. 

John dropped his hands, “please.” 

Your hands slowly made its way down, undoing the buttons for him. The medal around his neck slung as he moved and he finally got the hint after you pushed it away like 4 times. John took it off, you assumed he’d set it down somewhere but instead he slung it around your neck, the heavy gold pendent hitting your sternum when he let go. 

“Perfect,” he smiled to himself as he watched you undo the last button. 

You picked up the medal. “What’s this for?” 

“Just ‘cause and you’re the coolest ever,” he hugs you from behind, his eyes meeting yours in the mirror. “And because I love you sooooooo much,” he smiled, kissing your jaw when he leaned down. 

Your cheeks are bright red, swatting the man’s hands when he pinches your side. 

The phone on the counter catches your eye and you pick it up, manage to unlock it and open the camera. “Smile,” you told him, leaning back on him. John’s arm wrapped around you, over your shoulder as you two smiled at each other in the mirror. 

There’s a series of drunken photos being taken; his arms around you, the two of  you making silly faces, laughing and giggling. Somehow you’re leaning over the counter and he’s got the phone now, you’re still laughing. There’s one of you hugging him, you kiss his cheek and in the next one, he kisses yours. Somehow you got your signals crossed, both of you turning to kiss each other on the cheek and ended up actually kissing. Your hand on his cheek as you giggled against his lips. 

“We should try to sleep,” you tell him as you hopped up onto the counter. 

John leaned on you and was clicking away from his phone. “Uh huh,” he finally put the phone down, wrapping his arms around you before he picked you up.“Let’s go then,” he carried you back to the bedroom, you giggled as you held onto him, the man dropping you on the bed before joining you. 

--- 

The airport was noisy, your head pounding and you were still refusing to open your eyes. John’s arm was around you and you were cuddled into his side, trying to get a few more seconds of peace before the team headed out for this flight back to Manchester. The rest of you would all be on your own flights home later in the day. 

Kevin was passing by, a smile on his face as he looked at this teammate. “Good  man, Johnny.” He pats the man’s shoulder. John gives him a puzzled smile, watching Kevin walk away. 

You open your eyes slightly, looking at your friend. “What is Kev on about?” 

“Not a clue,” John rubbed your arm, letting you settle back into his side. 

Gundo walked by, a big smile on his face as he looked between the two of you. John was beyond confused as to why all his teammates were in a good mood, patting his shoulders and telling him good job. 

Either he was delusional and stuck in an alternate reality or they were all still drunk.  

“YOU GUYS FINALLY DID IT!!!!” Jack shouts, jumping in front of you both. “Oh god, make him shut up.” You grumbled in John’s arm, making him chuckle. 

Sasha shushed the man, pulling him back a bit. “Jack!” She scolded him, “be quiet.

“Okay, I’m confused. What is going on?” John asked. Jack’s looking at you two like you’re mad, “you- what do you mean what’s going on?” He reaches for his phone to show you something but the screen won’t turn on. 

Sasha ignores her boyfriend for a moment, showing you both what Jack was trying to show you on her phone. There it is, the reason everyone has been looking at you two funny; a series of photos from the series of photos you took last night, you and John in the bathroom with the medal around your neck, kissing and John’s shirt undone. 

Quite the scandal. 

“Oh my god.” You looked at the phone, and then John, and then back to the phone and back to John again. Sasha nodded, “it's out there now.. but based on that look on your face, I’m guessing those weren’t meant to be posted?” 

“Yeah,” you nodded, John was already reaching for his phone. “I’ll delete them.” 

Your hand rested on his, stopping him. “Don’t.. it's already out there. It's fine.” 

John looked at you, “you’re sure?” 

“100%” 

He smiles at you just as the announcement plays over the speaker. “All Manchester City players and staff, please report to gate 3B for departure.” 

You and Sasha walked them to the gate. The couple next to you were all wrapped up, whispering something to each other like it's the last time they’d see each other - they’d be reunited in a few hours. 

John’s hand rests on your lower back, “I’ll see you at home?” 

You nodded, a smile on your face. “I’ll see you at home.” He pulled you against him, your hand on his cheek when you kissed him. Foreheads pressed to each other’s, giggling like teenagers in love. 

“Can you let go of her for a second?” Jack interrupted, “let me say bye to my friend?” 

John rolls his eyes playfully, letting you go. You and Jack hugged goodbye for now, John and Sasha doing the same. “We’ll see you at home,” she called to them, the two of them waving from the tunnel. 

You were about to walk away but John dropped his bag, running back to you. “What are you doing-” The man cuts you off with a kiss; very hallmark-esque of him. 

“You’re gonna miss your flight,” you whispered to him. 

“They won’t leave without me.” He smiles, giving you another kiss. You gave him a little push, sending him on his way. 

You jogged to catch up with Sasha, the two of you heading off to get a coffee. The woman nudged you with her shoulder as you two stood in line. You look over at her and nod, waiting for her to say something.

“I’m glad you two finally came to your senses.” She smiled and you laughed. 

“Yeah, me too.” 

-- 

taglist: @thesnailus @alwaysclassyeagle @lettersfromvenus @mehrmonga @callsignvenus @kmc1989 @valentinehrts​

add yourself to the taglist!

[todaysjewishholiday]

2 Elul 5784 (4-5 September 2024)

The invention of the moveable type printing press in the fifty third century of the Hebrew calendar set off far reaching transformations in numerous human endeavors, with the study of halakha being no exception. Prior to mechanical printing, each copy of any book had to be laboriously and meticulously copied by hand, with the result being that most people simply did not own books. For many centuries after the Talmud was first put into writing rather than being transmitted entirely as an oral tradition through repetition and memorization, most Jewish study was still performed collectively, with hand-copied seforim being discussed and commented on collectively in batei midrash. Hand-made copies had to be very carefully checked to ensure a text remained the same through multiple copyings and variants were still often introduced. And most Jews would not have owned any books personally, with the exception of especially erudite scholars. The printing press made mass production, and thus mass ownership of books, possible. The result was not just more books, but different kinds of books. Most halakhic seforim prior to the invention of printing assumed a high level of expertise from their readers— they were written not for the average Jew but for scholars engaged in the multigenerational process of halakhic rulings, and assumed a high level of familiarity with the entirety of the Tanakh and Talmud and participation in the pandiasporic community of Torah scholarship and halakhic analysis. Those who weren’t already experts in these subjects were assumed to have teachers and colleagues who would guide them as they interacted with halakhic texts. Rather than reading commentaries directly, Jews who weren’t engaged in the lifelong pursuit of Torah learning were expected to consult somebody with that expertise on any practical matter in which they needed guidance.

The printing press, by giving non-experts access to private book ownership, created demand for introductory texts for a general audience without a thorough background in thousands of years of halakhic debate. One of the most legendary texts to meet this demand was the Shulkhan Arukh, a halakhic compendium by Yosef Karo, which was first printed on the second of Elul 5325.

Karo was born into a Sephardi family in Toledo four years prior to the edict of expulsion issued by Ferdinand and Isabella. His family journeyed through a full range of the potential refuges found by Sephardi emigrants, spending five years in Portugal before that monarchy followed suit in expelling Jewish subjects, followed by years in Morocco, Nikopolis, Adrianopolis, Thessaloniki, Istanbul, and finally Tzfat in the Galilee. These travels introduced Karo to a wide range of Torah scholars and communal minhagim, and he began to harbor hopes of creating a halakhic code which would serve to unify Jewish practices throughout the diaspora. Karo’s main text, Beit Yosef, sought not only to state halakhic conclusions in an encyclopedic manner but to provide detailed examinations of the generations of debates behind those conclusions. The Shulkhan Arukh was a reference text which presented only the halakhic conclusions, without the details of the logic by which those conclusions were reached. While the book’s author and a majority of rabbinical sages of the time considered it insufficient for drawing conclusions about halakha due to its simplicity and far from traditional univocality, the book proved hugely popular with the Jewish masses, who wanted a reference text they could keep at home which would offer answers to daily practical questions. It was precisely what Karo and his contemporaries saw as the book’s oversimplification of a gloriously rich and varied tradition that made it approachable and beloved.

Karo himself realized during the process of composing his magnum opus, Beit Yosef, that his youthful hopes for bringing about global uniformity in halakhic practice were misguided. In his later years he spoke out against attempts to use his works to pressure communities with distinct minhagim or who chose to hold by other poskim to adopt his conclusions, emphasizing that Judaism was the process of engaging with halakhic reasoning and debate and should be defined by variety, not an insistence on adherence to any one set of halakhic rulings. And in fact his landmark code, which harmonized generations of Sephardi tradition, was soon joined by a commentary by one of Karo’s contemporaries, Moshe Isserles, which delineated the distinct Ashkenazi minhagim which differed from Karo. This text came to be known as the Mappah, or tablecloth, to the Shulkhan Arukh, or set table, and has been printed as an integrated part of the text beginning twelve years after its first printing. Other integrated commentaries followed as well, injecting the multivocality of Jewish tradition back into Karo’s simplified halakhic compendium. To this day, the Shulkhan Arukh remains the most influential and widely consulted single halakhic code ever compiled.

[phightinghottakes]

while Blackrock’s probably meant ti be russia-coded if i was held at gunpoint and had to assign phighters real life ethnicities medkit will always be from istanbul to me idc He is istanbul born and raised Subspace is from izmir by virtue of being my favourite phighter

— ‼️

what is Istanbul I’ve never heard of that place in my life

[jennycalendar]

upside-down-y

“What do I do?” said Willow. She sounded so little in that moment. Suddenly, Jenny wasn’t imagining that woman in a clean-cut black suit and heels, but the little girl in striped sweaters and white tights. “If there’s no—word—for it? I like being a lesbian, or I thought I did, but I can’t call myself that if I like Oz. And I think I do.” “You don’t need a word for it,” said Jenny simply. “I need a word for it,” said Willow, a stress on the pronoun. “Maybe people in general don’t, but I do.” “Maybe there isn’t one.” “I need—” Willow’s breath hiccupped. “I need the words, a-and the rules. To make sure I don’t—” Abruptly, Jenny knew who Willow needed to be talking to.

decided that, in lieu of tonight's blogging, now might be a nice time to post a tumblr-only exclusive that i've not yet figured out how to work into the canon of what you make! i would like to write a larger fic about willow's adventures at some point, & also figure out when this development will happen within the timeline, and once i do, i think i'll understand better how to work this thing in. (but it is definitely what happens.)

this requires no knowledge of my sprawling fic 'verse except for: it's an everybody lives/nobody dies au, jenny and giles are together with their eight-year-old son, this is a few years post-series.

read for -- giles and willow having frank and very loving discussions about sexuality, jenny calling willow "baby" because she's now a mom who does that kinda thing, briefest sleepiest calendiles child cameo!!!

~~~~~

Willow called at some godawful hour, late enough for it to be edging towards early-morning and for Jenny to be too tired to check the time. She happened to have been pulling an accidental all-nighter that had spun out from a few lines of code that just would not cooperate, so she managed to catch the phone before the second ring, hoping that it hadn’t woken up anyone upstairs. The shrill tone felt impossibly loud to her tired ears. “’lo?” she mumbled, rubbing at her eyes with her sleeve.

Anxiously, Willow said, “Jenny!” and then didn’t say anything else, her breathing nervous and rapid on the other end of the line.

“Willow.” Jenny was too sleepy to think. “You. Need something?”

“I don’t know! I just! Something happened and I can’t tell Buffy about it, and I can’t tell my mom, because she’ll think—well—she keeps saying she approves of the political implications of my lesbianism, so I feel like this is going to go over like a lead balloon, but I don’t know—I mean, I don’t think I’m straight again! It hasn’t—”

Jenny felt very much like this was a conversation that required her to be more awake than she was. Shuffling over to the kitchen table, she took a long sip of coffee. “The political implications?” she repeated skeptically.

“It’s just—we—” Willow took a wobbly breath in, then, in an exhaled confession: “I kissed Oz!”

For one bizarre, sleep-deprived moment, Jenny was convinced that she’d somehow been thrown back in time to 1997. “Oz?” she repeated. “Like, Oz, Oz?”

“Like Oz Oz!” Willow confirmed tearfully.

“Like your high school boyfriend Oz?”

“He was in Istanbul for some—thing—I don’t remember—and I wish I could say that we got drunk or high or something, but I was really only a little buzzed, and he was completely sober, and we were talking about everything we’ve been up to—he was the road manager for this really cool Eastern European band, and, and he’s been doing some networking with other werewolves, and oh, that’s part of why we met! We were talking about all of the complexities of connecting werewolves to resources that will help, and the stigma, and he’s really—well—he never really did much in high school, which I used to have such a complex about because I felt like he could do more than he was doing, but I guess I’ve changed because I just felt, I was so happy to see him doing things that mattered to him! And then that they also have a positive impact! And he’s still got that, that smile where when he looks at you, you sorta feel like you’re the only girl in the entire world! He still looks at me like I’m just the same, and I thought at first, you know, maybe that was why I felt all fuzzy and warm around him, because I’m a horrible person who gets off on validation, but then I started looking at him too and seeing that boy and—and—remembering—”

Jenny had absolutely no idea why any of this was a problem, but her ability to assertively interrupt the Willow-babble was significantly impaired when she was inches away from nodding off in between sentences. “Isn’t that good?” she tried, but Willow had not at all stopped talking.

“—and then we kissed and we actually did a little more than kissed, like, there was some over-the-clothes action and some grinding, except then when we stopped all of that, he walked me to my hotel! Like a gentleman! And he kissed me on the cheek and said he was really happy to share this moment with me, and who even does that??? What do I do now???? What if I’ve just—but I loved Tara so much! I still love Tara! I mean, I have NC-17 dreams about Tara, those wouldn’t happen if I’m straight! And I haven’t been with a guy since Oz, and I haven’t wanted to be with a guy since Oz, but now I want to—to call up Oz and be with him! Which, hello, so clingy, it was just one really nice month and then a whole bunch of kissing—”

“—wait, you’ve been spending a month with Oz in Istanbul and it’s only now become romantic?”

“WE WERE AT A CONFERENCE,” said Willow, as though this explained anything at all.

Jenny sat down at the kitchen table. “Willow—” God, she wanted to be asleep. “People can be bisexual,” she managed.

“But I’m not!”

“So you’re not into men?”

“But I am!”

She was going about this all wrong. “Baby. Are you into men or are you into Oz?”

A long silence. Then, timidly, “There’s not a difference, though, is there? You can’t be a real lesbian if—”

“Please God don’t turn into one of those witches,” said Jenny, who did not have the energy to be tactful. “Willow, there’s no way to be a real lesbian. There’s no manual. We define ourselves with the words that feel best for us, that’s what the queer community is about. What’s the word that feels best for you, right now?”

Another long silence. “I don’t know if the word is lesbian,” said Willow uncomfortably. “I don’t—I didn’t—really—question it? When it happened. It was Tara, first, and then Kennedy, and then a whole bunch of other girls, y’know, on account of the traveling, and then nobody at all for a little while, so I just—I wanted to kiss girls and I stopped looking at guys, and the only guy I ever noticed before Oz was Xander, and Xander, I didn’t know he was everything. They don’t tell you in high school what to do with someone who’s everything, they just say you should marry him if he’s a guy, but I don’t—I’ve never really wanted to marry Xander. We’re not like that. So I figured, Oz, he was just a fluke! Especially because of how everything with Tara happened, and I never thought any guy was pretty like I think girls are pretty, but—I don’t know. Oz is different. I don’t know how to explain it.”

Jenny leaned back against the wall, listening.

“I don’t know if the word is lesbian,” Willow repeated. “But—it doesn’t feel right to say that the word is bisexual, either. I’ve dated more girls than guys, now. I’ve built my life around imagining a girl there.”

“But Oz is different,” Jenny prompted.She was met with a tiny sigh in response. “Is that bad?”

“What do I do?” said Willow. She sounded so little in that moment. Suddenly, Jenny wasn’t imagining that woman in a clean-cut black suit and heels, but the little girl in striped sweaters and white tights. “If there’s no—word—for it? I like being a lesbian, or I thought I did, but I can’t call myself that if I like Oz. And I think I do.”

“You don’t need a word for it,” said Jenny simply.

“I need a word for it,” said Willow, a stress on the pronoun. “Maybe people in general don’t, but I do.”

“Maybe there isn’t one.”

“I need—” Willow’s breath hiccupped. “I need the words, a-and the rules. To make sure I don’t—”

Abruptly, Jenny knew who Willow needed to be talking to. “Baby, can you just stay on the line?” she asked gently. “Just for a second, I gotta—” and she set down the phone, stepping quietly out of the kitchen and into the unlit hallway, halfway up the stairs to the little landing between the first and second floor, where the bedroom door was still ajar.

Her baby was asleep in the middle of the bed, curled against Rupert like a little puppy; his dozing father’s arm was round his shoulders. Jenny leaned over the bed, carefully untangling a drowsy Art from Rupert. Art, always cuddly in slumber, whined; she ran her fingers through his hair, and he settled. “Rupert,” she murmured, shaking her guy awake. “Rupert.”

“Mmh?” Rupert stirred.

“Rupert, it’s Willow.”

Rupert’s eyes flew open. She saw the panic and gave his shoulders a reassuring squeeze, pressing her forehead briefly to his. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay. She’s okay. Nothing bad. She just needs to talk to you.”

~~~~~

Willow waited on the line, listening to the crackly static, trying not to breathe too loudly for fear it would tumble into crying before Jenny came back. She heard rustling on the other end and held her breath, waiting, until Giles, his voice all rough and sleepy like it got during those old early morning research sessions, said, “Hello, Willow.”

“Giles,” Willow all but sobbed, feeling a rush of relief. “Did—did Jenny—tell you?”

“Some of it,” said Giles. “Just the loose pencil sketch, really. But I’d like to hear it from you.”

Maybe the Oz stuff wasn’t really why Willow had called Giles. “How do you know when to stop playing by the roles you made up when you were twenty-two and trying not to be the kind of asshole who destroys the universe?” she said, all in one breath. “I, I didn’t decide I was a lesbian because of the magics, but I decided it while I was in the magics, and I wanted to be good at being a lesbian, but now I’m worried that I’m not, if, if I kissed Oz and I liked it. I don’t know what the word is for that.”

“Bisexual?” said Giles.

“That’s what Jenny said but it isn’t that!” said Willow tearfully. “And lesbian doesn’t feel like it’s right either, even though it did for years before this!I don’t know what it is! I like girls and I like Oz, but I don’t like—I don’t want—I don’t think I want, but I don’t know—I wasn’t trying to look, after Tara, because I thought it was simple as—”

“Does there need to be a word for it?”

“That’s what Jenny said!”

A soft, tender laugh, the likes of which Willow hadn’t heard since she was in high school. She loved that laugh so much. It always meant that Giles knew the answer, and really, the problem wasn’t anything to be that afraid of, and five minutes from now, the world would feel okay again. “Willow,” said Giles. “Nothing in a person’s heart is ever finite. We are always—always—growing and changing past the words we used to describe ourselves five, ten, fifteen years ago.”

“But what if I—” Willow swallowed. “What if I change wrong?”

Giles didn’t answer for a couple of the worst seconds of Willow’s life. Finally, gently, he said, “Then you right yourself, if you can. Lean on others, if you can’t. We’re all muddling through. There’s no certainty that I can give you, as much as I wish that I could, but I can—” Now it was his turn to pause. A heavy one. “I can tell you that I love you,” he said, finally.

She had never heard him say that to her before. Not that directly, anyway. “I love you too, Giles,” Willow whispered. The whole thing felt faintly unreal: that she could say those words, and not snatch them back. Not watch his face contort uncomfortably as he tried to wriggle out of genuine emotional expression. “I just don’t wanna do what I did to everyone. And I don’t—if I was wrong, if I’m not—”

“I don’t think that you were wrong,” Giles countered. “You used the words that made sense to you at the time. Those words might not make sense with who you are now. Who you’re growing into. This is good, Willow. You questioning this is good, and healthy. I think…you need to become comfortable with the notion of not having that neat answer, or that label, if the notion of a label has become…restrictive.”

“I don’t want to not be a lesbian,” said Willow unsteadily. “It made everything make sense, when I found out about that word—”

“Does it help you now?”

Willow exhaled. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know. I don’t want to not kiss Oz. It feels like I got turned all upside-down-y again.”

Giles was quiet again. Then he said, “When I was in my twenties, my group, it was all men, save one. Diedre. It hadn’t been intended, her being a part of the group. We’d all wanted a place to…to be ourselves, free of societal expectations.”

Willow’s heart flipped over. This was not something Giles had ever talked about. She’d known, of course—pieced it together through Ethan, and what she’d learned, later, about the kind of magic Giles got up to, but to hear it from him was completely different. She wanted to say something, affirm that she was there on the other end of the line, but she was halfway afraid that he would change his mind if he remembered that she was listening. She held her breath.

“I…didn’t mind the notion of including women within our group, even then.” Giles laughed softly. “It wasn’t something I talked about with the rest, but I wasn’t—I’ve never really—it’s always been about the person, for me, you see. Ethan and the rest, though, they…it wasn’t usual for them to, ah, prefer the company of a woman. They abhorred the very notion. But that was simply how special Diedre was. To, to all of us.”

Something tight and knotted in Willow’s chest was beginning to loosen. She sat down on the hotel bed, curling her fingers around the phone, listening like her life depended on it.

“You, you don’t need to have the right words for it, Willow,” said Giles gently. “Lord knows we didn’t know any of them. And I’d never—endorse—the other sort of things I got up to back then, but I, I think I’ve spent a lot of time refusing to engage with the parts of my life that have been…joyful. All because I was ashamed of the person that I was then.”

Willow wasn’t ashamed of high school Willow, exactly. It was just that sometimes it was hard to reconcile Willow-then with Willow-now, and that wasn’t even getting into the Willow-in-between. “So, for them, it was…guys plus the one exception,” she said uncertainly.

“Do you need to know what it was?” Giles’s tone was mildly pointed. Instructive.

“If I don’t—”

“What if you don’t?”

“I mean, that’s why I’ve been traveling,” said Willow, halfway timid. “To learn stuff.”

“And what have you learned?”

Willow closed her eyes, half-afraid of the answer. Oz had smiled at her in the light of the full moon, unencumbered, gentle. He’d listened to stories about Tara and Kennedy and everyone with thoughtful patience. He hadn’t made a single move. The kissing had happened by accident, and because she’d initiated it, and the nice thing about Oz was that he didn’t question that. He didn’t have a whole bunch of things to say about whoa, hold on, didn’t you go gay and change your mind about me? He just smiled at her, like he saw her, saw right down into her bones, and like what he saw was good.

And she’d missed him so much. The pinwheeling way he talked about things had baffled her when she was in high school, but now, after years of traveling, it was nice to be with someone who had just as many strange questions and quiet observations as she’d been collecting herself. She liked hearing him tell his stories. She liked him. She liked the person he’d become, and the person that she was with him. The people that they could maybe be together.

“I think I’ve learned that I wanna kiss Oz again,” she said, barely a whisper.

She could hear the smile in Giles’s voice. “That’s lovely, Willow,” he said. “I’m very happy for the both of you.”

~~~~~

Giles went back to bed. Jenny and Art had taken up just about all of it, making it nigh impossible for him to lie down comfortably. An attempt to nudge Art a bit further towards the middle was met by an unhappy, half-awake whine that positively tore at his heart, so he resigned himself to sitting uncomfortably on the edge of the bed for three minutes before Jenny, half awake, said, “Honey. Are you being stupid again?” and pulled Art against her like a teddy bear, clearing space for him in the middle.

“Don’t solve all of my problems for me,” said Giles, lying down and reaching to squeeze her shoulder. Their arms encircled Art, who turned his head towards his mother, soft dark curls against her sweater.

[silly-boozer]

heeeey boozer !! tell me all about your current fav band I wanna hear ANYTHING and EVERYTHING !!!! + hope you're having a good day / night !!

Eesh, just one current favorite one? I have A LOT a lot so I might just mention two for your sanity.

I'll start with They Might Be Giants for the sake of your wonderfully themed profile. I would like to admit I am a bit of a newer fan, just a few months in. But I feel like I've found myself at home engulfing myself in anything TMBG related, usually bingewatching music videos or researching about their other albums. I've heard lots of stories about how people's parents introduced them to TMBG and it my case it wasn't like that. My parents have never heard of them until I brought them up. My younger brother and I are now TMBG freaks and I got him obsessed. He loves the science johns and pretty much the entirety of Flood, Lincoln, and Pink Album. We're going as the Johns for Halloween too, I'm being Linnell obviously because of my hair. My brother is pretty much the closest thing to a best friend I have that can enjoy TMBG with. We are trying to memorize a few songs so we can walk the streets and start singing them in sync on Halloween. His favourites are Istanbul (Not Constantinople), Don't Lets Start, Particle Man, They Might Be Giants, Ana Ng, Science Is Real, and Cowtown (mostly because of the music videos). My favorites at the moment are Lucky Ball and Chain, Let Me Tell You About My Operation, Ana Ng, Theyll Need a Crane, Can't Remember The Dream I had, Experimental Film, and When Will You Die. My favorite album is Lincoln.

I also learned that TMBG toured on in Michigan on my birthday?!? I was literally a month or two late. If only I discovered them later. I went crazy when I found out man. Hm what else can I say... OH I'm expecting my first TMBG CD in the mail and I'm pumped about that. I might get the Here Comes Science one for my brother and I at a later time. In conclusion TMBG is one of the greatest things that have happened to me, as well as all the rest of my favorite bands.

OKAY OINGO BOINGO!!! If you haven't heard about Oingo Boingo, it's a late 70s New Wave band with lead singer Danny Elfman. He is a composer for the music of many many movies including Tim Burton, The Frighteners, Men In Black, and etc etc. I love the music videos and the spooky feel of all their music. I categorize Oingo Boingo's music as evil ghost music. And apparently I was right when I learned Danny Elfman literally made all the music for Tim Burton movies. His charm really passed on well to Oingo Boingo's music. My favorite album is Dead Man's Party and still trying to figure out how to get a hold of that CD. But I did go to a used CD store and found Good For Your Soul which was better than nothing. I love lots of those songs on that album, but the entirety of Dead Man's Party I love more. Weird Science is such a Re-Animator coded song as well as other Oingo Boingo songs. On Halloween It's expected that I blast a bunch of Oingo Boingo songs throughout the house.

Anyways that's all I'll ramble about I don't want to kill your brain with my yapping. I would've rambled about Tally Hall next. It's a fine morning I'm answering your ask since I fell asleep last night after I answered the first few asks. I hope you're having a good day/night or in between yourself! Thank you for giving this much freedom to yap about what I love, ha.

send asks!

[averagejoesolomon]

WELCOME TO THE KIDS. God, we are not ready for this installment, I'm so serious. Matt and Rachel are going to kill us all. To say nothing of the upcoming spycraft and general ass-kickery. Thank you for reading this with me. If you're new here, you can read Full Circle in full on Ao3. Enjoy!

Chapter Two

Before Matt boards a plane to New York, he pastes an OTS-issued mustache to his upper lip and switches the passports in his backpack.

There are no direct flights from Washington DC to Moscow. The reasons for this span far and wide, but the most significant factor also happens to be the simplest—sheer distance. At nearly five-thousand miles as the crow flies, there ain’t a whole lot of civilian aircraft that can make the flight in one go, to say nothing of the fact that neither country is especially amicable to the idea of direct contact. As part of a global effort to reduce the friction between two nuclear superpowers, Morocco offers up its services as the geographical and political buffer between the two destinations, its liminal and atmospheric nightlife acting as the ideal backdrop for the world’s transfers, layovers, and delays.

The trip usually takes eighteen hours if flown straight through, but the gin joints can eat into a full day if given the chance. For his part, Matt’s latest trip takes thirty-seven hours.

But he can’t blame the bars this time around because he doesn’t stop in Morocco, and hasn’t since he picked up a Soviet tail in the CMN terminal last spring. For every US intelligence agent flying through Casablanca, there are five Russian officers waiting on the ground with direct orders to identify and apprehend incoming westerners. The behavior has become too predictable. The Soviets have become too prominent. As Joe puts it: an agent in Morocco is an agent in the grave.

So Matt begins with a trip to New York, then London, then Istanbul, where he switches passports again to fly to Dubai, so he can finally make his way up to Moscow. He survives off of complimentary peanuts and ginger ale, stopping only at the occasional newsstand for the latest local headlines and a fresh packet of M&Ms—one of the few candies sold consistently across international borders. Vigilant airport hours are balanced with the relative safety of the sky, and his only sleep happens alongside the low, rattling drone of jet engines in his ear.

By the time he lands in the Soviet Union, he’s already added a goatee and traded his honey blond hair for a bleached wig that more closely resembles his newly assumed Slavic heritage. After deboarding, he identifies the nearest bathroom to the gate and enters the last stall on the left. As instructed by his CO, he runs his fingers along the wall until he finds a ridge in the tile. He carefully peels back a damn near invisible panel, revealing the compartment Langley promised him. There’s a change of clothes. A pair of contacts. A note written on evapopaper: E ibvltn aely ldrm oor we uti I. The key to this particular skip code was already given to him in New York, which helps him decipher the message that a driver will meet him in Lot 2. Thank God he doesn’t need to hail a taxi.

He drops the note into the toilet bowl and watches it melt from the edges inward. After changing into the provided outfit, he silently shreds his old travel clothes to be discarded in various trash cans on his way to the parking lot. Finally, he pops both contacts in, replaces the panel, and flushes the toilet in case anyone is listening. When he approaches the sink to wash his hands, unfamiliar blue eyes blink back at him from where his own brown eyes ought to be.

Between the sporadic sleep and the changing time zones, he has no idea what the local time is, but the dark sky narrows his possibilities to either very late or very early. The weight of travel saturates every muscle, every joint, every step, but he can’t afford to turn off his senses and slip lazily into the night—not in Moscow. Never in Moscow. After five consecutive flights in less than two days, the hard part has only just begun.

The Soviet Union has always been dangerous to western agents, but the capital has only gotten more hostile in Matt’s time as an operative. Last summer alone, ten US informants were executed in the city, including two of Matt’s most reliable contacts. In the following winter, a handful of Russian specialists left Langley for a field mission and didn’t come home. The last time Matt was here, he met with a Circle informant named Omar who offered to talk in exchange for medication not available in Russia, but easily acquired at a US pharmacy with a forged prescription. Omar is dead now, too, and Matt suspects an assassin finished him off before the illness did. These days, Moscow is a loaded spring trap ready to snap at the slightest tick in the wrong direction, deadly enough that even a skilled Pavement Artist stands to don a disguise or two.

Despite the ocean between them, Joe’s voice rings through Matt’s head. It’s always strongest in Moscow, imploring him to pay attention. Notice things. This is the sort of place where it’s best to lean into strengths, so Matt jumps in with the rest of the red-eyed passengers as the mob progresses through customs, down to baggage claim, and toward ground transportation. From his pace to his posture, he strives to put on a seamless Soviet appearance.

When he reaches the lot, he identifies a license plate number he was instructed to memorize, then enters the backseat of the boxy beige Lada. The driver doesn’t look back when he says, “Nice weather we’re having, yes?” in the sort of thick, Russian dialect that only natives can pull off.

Matt replies in his own practiced Russian. “I hear rain is imminent,” he says. “But I seem to have forgotten my umbrella at home.”

Satisfied with the exchange, the driver shifts gears and squeezes out of his parking spot, working his way toward the main city. By now, Matt knows the streets of Moscow as well as he knows the streets of Hay Springs, so he pays close attention to the route, just in case the driver has been compromised in the past forty-eight hours. The two of them do not speak, wary of bugs. They do not exchange glances, wary of pinprick cameras sewn into buttons. Instead, they embrace their existence as total strangers, not eager to leave any impression of an alliance.

This suits Matt just fine. That is, until seventeen minutes later, when the driver takes a right-hand turn away from the city center, then another.

In this business, in this part of the world, two right turns are a surefire signal to any veteran agent that something significant is about to happen, though it’s impossible to predict whether he’s looking at a positive or negative outcome until the moment actually passes. That’s probably why Joe’s voice is in Matt’s head again, anticipating the worst and providing Matt with escape plans. 

The sidewalks look reasonably empty, easy enough to run.

The rear doors appear to be unlocked from the inside. 

If the doors are jammed shut from the outside, Matt’s shoe has an iron wedge embedded in the rubber heel, which will help him kick through the window.

The driver isn’t armed, but if he makes a move for the glove box, Matt’s best option is to choke him from behind.

The little Lada pulls up to an alleyway tucked between high-rise apartments and a seemingly abandoned liquor store. There are no streetlights. No witnesses. The driver shifts the car into park and says, “You exit now.”

Risk assessment is a key component of any covert decision and, in that moment, Matt senses some serious risk waiting for him at the other end of that alleyway. At the same time, he also senses an even greater risk if he overstays his welcome with this native Russian driver who, by the way, has about a hundred extra pounds on him. Matt doesn’t need to be told twice. Hands up, he slowly exits the vehicle and prepares himself for the next piece of this rapidly evolving Moscow puzzle.

The instant Matt kicks the door shut and slings his bag back onto his shoulder, the Lada’s engine grinds into full gear with a squeal of the tires. He has officially run out of CIA instructions, but the good news is that he doesn’t have any time to doubt himself before his next priority makes itself apparent. The bad news is that his next priority should probably be to get away from the knife that was just pressed against his side.

The pointed end of the blade pokes along the muscle just above his hip. It hasn’t cut through his shirt yet, but one wrong move could change that and much more. “This is a nice surprise,” Matt says, sticking with Russian in a rushed attempt to keep his cover intact. “Where are we going?”

The answering Russian is good—excellent, even—but it has the subtle lilt of someone who learned it as a secondary language. “Is that all it takes to best you? One knife to the ribs and you roll over completely?” It’s a woman’s voice, and one of the few commonalities between the CIA and the KGB is the rarity of female agents among their ranks. Plus, the hold on the knife is petite and graceful, belonging to someone who was taught to fence before she was taught to fight. Matt decides he’s not up against a Soviet agent, but this ain’t a friend either. Not yet.

Joe’s voice is telling him to fight, but Matt’s curious enough to say, “In my experience, the person with the knife usually gets to make all the rules.” He continues with Russian, hoping that the woman will respond in kind and give him a chance to identify the accent layered below. “And, by the way, if you’re aiming for my ribs, you’re about two inches too low.”

She doesn’t disappoint. British accent, maybe. Or Australian. It really is impressively subtle. “Bold thing to say to someone with a knife to your side,” she says. “Remarks like that could get you killed.”

Matt huffs. “Maybe one day, but not today.”

She twists the knife a little deeper, pricking a hole in his shirt. “And what makes you so certain?”

“Because if you were going to kill me, ma’am,” he says, “I’d already be dead.”

This is a bit of a risky gamble. Few things make one human want to kill another more than spite, and Matt’s gone ahead and welcomed it with open arms. His mama always did say he had a real way about him, when it came to tempting fate. Thankfully, this particular bet seems to pay off as the knife finally falls away from his torso. The woman grabs him by the back of his collar instead, pulling him deeper into the alleyway. “You’ve taken all the fun out of it,” she says with a sigh. “Come with me. And don’t ever call me ma’am—that much will get you killed.”

This is a joke. He thinks. And jokes are awfully promising in a place like Moscow. 

At the end of the alleyway, another car sits idling. No headlights. No plate lights. Matt can’t know for sure, but he reckons the brake lights are probably cut, too. In the presence of a car designed for a perfect covert getaway, Matt recognizes this moment for what it is—not an attack, but an escape. A high-tech game of keepaway.

In this particular instance, Matt is not an agent. Rather, he’s an asset in need of transportation, and he’s just met his new driver. When this stranger opens the rear door and shoves him inside, Matt knows that she’s putting on a show for potential onlookers. When she says, “Stay down,” he understands that his silhouette can’t be seen driving through the city. It is not enough to blend in—not when he could have a tail leftover from travel, not when the customs office could have bugged his backpack, not when a patrolman might recognize him from another visit into the city and assign a car to follow close behind. Agents have been known to disappear between an airport and a safe house, which means Matt is only safe if he becomes completely invisible. It’s the sort of thing that can only be accomplished with careful timing, meticulous planning, and an appreciation for redundancy, after redundancy, after redundancy.

In other words, this plan has Rachel Cameron written all over it.

He’s managed to avoid the thought for the past thirty-seven hours—and, frankly, for the entire two years before that—but the idea of being in the same city as Rachel after such a long time away has him wishing for a knife to his side instead. Knife wounds, at least, are an isolated pain with one clear source. They can be cleaned and stitched up. Bandaged and healed. This business with Rachel pings around all of his insides, taking turns with his stomach, his heart, his throat, his lungs. Rancid regret rots his brain and radiates down to every last muscle. Laying alone in the back of a stranger’s car, staring up at the velvet interior, Matt gets caught in a loop of all the things he wishes he’d said sooner.

He didn’t expect it to all stop.

He never should have made her cry.

He didn’t think it would last this long.

He lies, sometimes. He’s sorry he has to lie.

He’s doing good, good, good as often as he can.

Matt has always meant to say these things to her, but the longer they went without, the harder it got to call. Now it feels like too much time has passed to say any of it—like apologizing will only serve as a bitter reminder of just how deeply they tore into one another. Like acknowledging it will only reopen scars that have only just started to heal over.

The longer they drive, the more Rachel’s proximity presses down on his chest, squeezing him into the seat. He knows he ought to count the seconds. Track the turns. Try to get some sense of where they’re headed. But Rachel Cameron fills every last available space in his thoughts and, God almighty, she would lecture him straight to high heaven if she knew how distracted he was.

Once he’s fully worked himself up into a tightly wound ball of unspoken mistakes, the tires hit a gravel drive. The car takes an awfully long route over bumpy back roads and heavily forested hills, which is especially impressive given the lack of headlights, before it finally slows to a stop. His driver turns to the backseat, moonlight catching on the curve of her cheek, an icy white steak against smooth dark skin. “Congratulations on surviving your trip,” she says, and Matt thinks it might be an American southern drawl hiding beneath her Russian, with the way her vowels drawl. “You may leave. Your bag, however, must stay until morning.”

Matt sits upright, his silhouette visible to the night once more. “Sure thing,” he answers. “It’s like I said—the lady with the knife gets to make the rules.”

This earns him a subtle tick of the stranger’s lips. Matt latches onto the near smile and vows to turn into a broad, toothy grin sooner rather than later. But in the meantime, he’ll settle for the semi-charmed side-eye she casts his way, just before she opens the driver door. “Bloody Hell,” she says as she exits, finally switching to English. “She was right about you.”

British. Damn. Matt should have trusted his gut.

Wait. 

He bolts out of the backseat and jogs to catch up. “Right about me?” he echoes, falling back into his own American English. “Who was right about me��right about what?”

The Brit’s stride is incredibly long, and would probably be better suited to a runway than barely-used backwoods paths overgrown with weeds. Matt has to quicken his own pace just to keep up with her. “Never you mind,” she says. “This way.”

“Doesn’t seem right,” he tries, “that you get inside info on me when I don’t even know your name—”

“This way,” she says again. “Surely I don’t have to remind you, of all people, that Moscow’s trees have ears.”

Matt has spent a significant portion of his career listening to conversations picked up by precisely placed bugs exactly like the ones she speaks of now. He doesn’t have the heart to tell her the surrounding trees probably aren’t bugged—at least not in the way she expects. The Soviets wouldn’t go to the trouble of tagging each individual tree, only to have an opposing agent uncover them within an hour of arrival. The birds, foxes, and deer, however, are worth a second glance. 

Either way, she’s right. The forest is no place for introductions. Instead, he follows as she hikes toward a tiny cabin tucked between one hillside and another. It appears perfectly plain on the outside, built from cedar logs and a tin roof. Shrubs and pines surround the perimeter, and Matt knows from experience that these are probably prickly and unpleasant, making it difficult for any unwelcome guests to get too close. The curtains are drawn. The chimney is without smoke. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say no one was home. 

They cover their tracks as they go, wordless right up until they reach the door. Mind split in the dozens of different directions demanded by good countersurveillance, Matt forgets to be nervous until the last minute, when the Brit knocks in a unique, four-rap pattern, then opens the door. The cabin’s light flashes into the nighttime forest, so they waste no time stepping inside. 

A new voice greets them. Then again, this voice ain’t really new. Not to him. He’d know this particular voice anywhere, even if he spent years, decades, centuries away. “Grace?”

Rachel Cameron waits for them just inside, seated at a small dining table at the center of a small kitchen. Rachel Cameron has lists, and blueprints, and notes scattered all across the tabletop, the chairs, the linoleum, splayed across kitchen countertops, and taped to cabinets, and stuck to the refrigerator with little black magnets. Rachel Cameron scans one stack of papers with the pencil in her right hand, then another with a highlighter in her left. Rachel Cameron looks up. Rachel Cameron meets his gaze. Rachel Cameron sighs.

Genius. He’s always known the word applied to her, though it strikes him anew. Rachel’s brilliance is better experienced in small doses, when he can slowly acclimate himself to the raw appreciation of it. The last two years have robbed him of his resilience and it’s like he’s seeing her for the very first time all over again.

Except it only takes a single moment for all of their history to come rushing back, filling the room from wall to wall, floor to ceiling, until there’s no more space for words, or gestures, or glances. Rachel looks away first, eyes falling back to a set of blueprints, and Matt follows her lead.

Thankfully, their companion cuts through the silence without a trace of discomfort. “Found your boy,” she says, kicking off her shoes. “He’s cheeky, this one.”

Matt starts to protest with “Oh, I ain’t—” at the same time Rachel says, “He’s not my—”

They both stop, and wait, and wait some more. Neither of them meet the other’s eyes. When enough excruciating seconds have passed, Rachel starts again, and Matt lets her. “Thank you for picking him up,” she says. “I know you were eager to stay in tonight, but—”

“But we aren’t taking any chances with this op,” the Brit finishes. “Understood. Really, Rachel. Though I will say, I was a bit surprised at how easily this one came along with a complete stranger.”

It is as if all of Rachel’s years of etiquette training hit her at once. She brings her fingers to her forehead, suddenly remembering. “Ah, yes, sorry. You haven’t been introduced yet.”

“Not unless you count my putting a knife into his side,” she says.

Matt clears his throat, finally finding his words. “In this business, that’s sometimes the only introduction we get.”

The Brit smiles again. It’s still not the full grin he’s looking for, but it’s closer. “Quite right.”

Rachel studies the pair of them, analyzing something Matt can’t see. She squints back and forth between them, her face twisting into something sour, as though she’s not sure she likes what she’s looking at. “Right,” she says, slowly. Then, clears her throat. “Right, well, anyway. Grace, this is Matthew Morgan. Matthew, this is Grace Harris—”

“Baxter,” Grace cuts in.

“Right,” says Rachel, squeezing her eyes shut, remembering again. Matt’s not sure he’s ever seen Rachel forget anything, and he takes note of the fact that she’s gone and forgotten twice in a sixty-second span. A data point he’ll save for later. “Grace Baxter.”

Grace Baxter holds out her hand to shake, meeting Matt with a far firmer grip than he’s expecting. He feels a couple of knuckles pop in his own hand, and resists the urge to call out. “It’s so great to finally meet you,” she says. 

That’s an awfully interesting choice of words. “Finally?” says Matt.

Grace does not elaborate. “My husband is around as well, but he’s being a good little agent and sleeping off his jet lag while it’s still dark.”

Matt, who hasn’t had more than two hours of consecutive sleep since DC, can’t quite hide the longing in his reply. “Smart man.”

“Outrageously so. It’s infuriating, really,” Grace agrees. “You’ll see him at breakfast tomorrow, but in the meantime we should all probably join him. The last thing we need is four exhausted agents trying to run an op in Moscow.”

Matt has about a million more questions for Grace Baxter, but none of them form quite right in his head. A fog fills his brain, clouding all of his better thoughts, and he reckons Grace is probably right. He’s useless to Rachel like this, and she’ll be the first to call him on it. “Sounds like a plan to me,” he says. “Do you think we ought to run it by the boss, first?”

Grace risks a glance toward Rachel, who has already returned to one of her blueprints. With Rachel’s attention occupied, Matt steals this chance to take her in. Her clothes are worn with travel and her shoulders slump with a need for sleep. Some of her curls have escaped the denim scrunchie holding back the bulk of her hair, falling into her face, and Matt remembers all at once that Rachel never did know how to stop, once she got started.

“Good luck,” Grace scoffs. “I’ve been trying to get her to sleep for hours. Maybe you can talk some sense into her. She’s been planning since the moment she walked in.”

Matt ain’t got any sense that Rachel doesn’t already have ten times over, and he doesn’t dare pretend otherwise. Thankfully, Rachel recognizes this and provides an answer of her own. “I’ve been planning for the past three months,” she corrects, just as she circles something on the page. “I just wanted to get some last-minute changes down before bed.”

Grace turns back to Matt. “You see? Hopeless,” she says. “You two may do what you please, but I intend to get some sleep. Pulling off a fake kidnapping at the edge of Moscow is exhausting work, you know.”

With this, she sends a playful jab into Matt’s side. Only problem is, Grace’s idea of a playful jab is most people’s idea of a full-on elbow to the ribs, and Matt has to catch his breath afterward. It takes all of his might not to let out an unmanly yelp in front of these two women. “Right,” he gasps. “See you in the morning.”

“Thanks again, Grace,” Rachel calls, not looking up from her writing.

With a wave of her fingers, Grace disappears behind one of the two available doors and shuts it with a twist of the lock. Matt realizes too late that her absence leaves just him and Rachel. Alone. Together.

This silence just won’t do.

“Flights good?” he asks.

“Yes,” she answers, scribbling away.

“Abby okay?”

Scribble, scribble. “Yes.”

“You okay?”

Scribble, scribble. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“No reason.” This is worse than the silence, actually. Out of questions and energy stores depleted, Matt decides that his only remaining move is one that has been employed by desperate agents for centuries—a retreat. “Listen, I think I might join the others and try to get some sleep. Unless you need me?”

Scribble, scribble. “Not yet.”

“Great,” he says. “Just point me to my bed and I’ll be on my way.”

Rachel’s pencil freezes mid-sentence. This is Matt’s first clue that something is horribly wrong, followed by the fact that her eyes finally meet his and this time, she doesn’t look away. “No.”

“Um.” Retreat, retreat, retreat. “Okay? I guess I can find it—”

But Rachel is already up, dashing through the sliver of a living room that hosts a single chair, a coffee table, and a throw blanket. When she reaches the second available door in the cabin, blood drains from her already pale face, turning it to an alarming, ashen white. Her voice is hollow and distant when she squeaks out a soft, “No, no, no.”

When it comes to Rachel, Matt is woefully out of practice, but it doesn’t take an expert to see the panic, and Rachel’s panic ain’t built the same way everyone else’s is. The sight of Rachel out of sorts is enough to get Matt’s heart really, truly racing. “Rachel, what are you—?”

She flicks on the light, and when Matt steps up behind her, he’s met with an instant understanding of the situation. “There’s only one other bed,” she says, spinning to face him as she explains. “Abby and I usually share. I booked the safe house when it was going to be the two of us, but between the hospital, and the flights, and coordinating our assets…” Sometimes Matt wonders how loud the inside of her head must be. He suspects she doesn’t realize when her words dissolve between inner and outer monologue. It takes some deciphering to understand her complete thoughts from start to finish. “I forgot. I’m so sorry, I forgot to account for the beds when I switched agents, I’ll take the couch.”

By couch, he supposes she means the ancient loveseat tucked away at the end of the bed. The leather cushions are scratched and cracked, and the silver shine of a spring peeks out from beneath the quilt laid across its back. A grease stain rests along the arm where agents have laid their heads for years and years before. Throughout his travels, Matt has seen more than his fair share of uncomfortable furniture and this one has serious potential to rank among the worst, but this is Rachel’s third strike at forgetfulness when she’s usually a home run hitter. She needs to sleep, and sleep well, and it simply won’t do, for her to sleep on that old thing. “I’ll take the couch.”

“No it’s my mistake, I should—”

“Rachel,” he says, and his hands fall to her shoulders out of habit. Out of familiarity. “I’m sorry, but there just ain’t no way I’m letting you take the couch.” She’s looking up at him with big, brown eyes. They’re glassy, and tired, and he spares Rachel her dignity by ignoring the twinge of tears sneaking into either corner. “She may be all the way in Nebraska now, but there’s no quicker way to get Joy Morgan to Moscow than if I let you sleep on that couch.”

She shakes her head. “Matthew—”

“I’m telling you,” he tries again. “My mama can sense that sorta thing, and believe me when I say she’ll shake down the entire agency to find this cabin and knock me six ways from Sunday, right upside my head.”

“You’re worried that your mother will intimidate CIA agents into disclosing the location of one of their most heavily protected safe houses?”

“You’ve never seen my mama when there’s a matter of chivalry at stake.”

“Matthew, I—” she interrupts herself, this time, freezing when she meets his gaze. “Your eyes,” she says, studying the intimate features of his face. “Your eyes are blue.”

This is outright nonsense, and even more proof that she needs to sleep. That is, until he remembers the light blue contacts. He blinks, as though he might be able to get rid of the color, because everything artificial seems so ridiculous now that he’s in the presence of someone who knows him to his core. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, sorry.”

With that, she studies him more deeply, and he notices the faint lines that have started to form where her eyebrows always furrow, the freckles she’s accumulated along her cheekbones with years of missions spent in the sun, the ease with which her lips fall into a tight, even line. Her eyes bounce between each of his, debating her next words before she finally says, “Why are you apologizing?”

Matt’s breath catches, and he knows this is it. The opening he’s been waiting for. But it’s late, and they’re tired, and they both smell like planes, and airports, and taxis. So despite the desperate words trying to crawl from his heart to his mouth, he settles on something softer. “I think we both know I’ve got plenty to apologize for,” he says, finally letting his hands fall. “But I think we both know this ain’t the time to do it.”

Genius. She’s always been smarter than him in more ways than he can count, and this moment is no exception. She’s smart enough to know that they both need clearer heads. That they both need a moment of quiet. That morning will come and they’ll both be better for it, and that tonight is no place for their usual fights. “I’m sorry I didn’t think about the bed,” she says, barely more than a whisper. “I didn’t mean to—”

“I know you didn’t—”

“I’m not mad at you.”

“I know you aren’t.”

“I’m so tired.”

She has this way of taking small words and making them feel big. Of making them span years, when they shouldn’t last more than a second or two. Rachel isn’t tired, so much as she’s exhausted, and burned out, and lonely, and weighed down—and she manages to convey all of this by simply shaking her head, and folding her face into her hands, and standing in front of him with all of the humility in the world.

He has this way of feeling her when she most needs it, in a way that no one else seems to be able to. Of hearing those great big words tied up in all of her small ones, and trying his best to say the right thing in response. “Let’s get some sleep, then,” he says, as though it’s the simplest thing in the world. “We’ll get some sleep, and when you wake up, you can tell me exactly what all of those crazy kitchen plans mean.”

Despite herself, she laughs. It's a pitiful, mangled thing, but it still counts. “They’re not as crazy as they look.”

And Matt can’t hold back a smile. “Well thank God for that, because they look…” he tries to find a word, but this is much like everything else Rachel does, in that it defies explanation. “I mean, seriously, Rachel, you’ve gone full Doc Brown in there.”

She shoves him, gently, and Matt makes a show of clasping at his chest in faux hurt. “They’ll make more sense in the morning,” she tells him.

“Everything will make more sense in the morning,” he assures her.

And she believes him. “Okay,” she says.

“Okay,” he says.

That’s enough for them, for tonight, for now. It’s all they need. And maybe tomorrow will be bitter and hard at the center of Moscow, working an op that Rachel has given her whole heart to, but right now is easy and safe. Right now, they’re old friends who need each other more than they knew. 

Rachel finds his eyes again, and sighs something that sounds like relief and regret mixed together. “At least let me ease some of my guilt by hunting down a truly outrageous number of blankets on your behalf.”

Matt looks back to the loveseat and knows in his gut that there will not be enough room for more than one blanket. There is barely enough room for Matt, as is. Even so, he smiles at her. “Rachel Cameron,” he says. “I’ll always take any blanket you hand me.”

[ottomanladies]

Hello,sorry for bothering you,I have question there is version according to Sakaoglu(in Bu mulkun Sultanlari) and Alderson that Ahmed I had daughter Zeynep Sultan who had died after 1617 and had died young not in early childhood or in infancy like Esma Sultan,Zahide Sultan,Hatice Sultan and possibly Kosem Sultan(?) In Sicil i Osmani,it's also mention that she had died young and was burried in her father's mausoleum,also there is possible theory that she could be daughter of Mahfiruze,because Osman II had daughter too named Zeynep Sultan and from those names for sultanas doesn't appear later untill Ahmed III.Do you think could be possible that Osman's daughter was named after Ahmed's daughter Zeynep who may have been Osman's full sister? There is also version that Turhan Sultan could have possible 1 or maybe 2 sons who had died in infancy. Some mention that Turhan Sultan had second son Şehzade Ahmed who had died shortly after his birth,it's according to Öztuna based on Turkish Wikipedia(but I don't what excact book)and others mention (Turkish men,Ottoman Women:Popular Turkish historians and the writing of Ottoman women's history,page 206-Ruth Barzail Lumbrosso). Do you know more about it or if it's mentioned that indeed? According to some there is also possibile theory for Turhan Sultan to have anither son,as there is infant sarcophagus of Şehzade Mehmed Sultan Ibrahim'in oglu in the mausoleum of Ahmed I buried next to Şehzade Bayezid also son of Ibrahim I.

Hi! Well, Zeynep has a religious meaning:

Zaynab is the name of a daughter and a granddaughter of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and two of his wives: Zaynab bint Jahsh and Zaynab bint Khuzayma.

Öztuna says Zeynep Sultan died “very little” and was one of Ahmed I’s last children. If he’s right, then he couldn’t have been Mahfiruze’s, as rumours of her death had begun in 1610.

If Öztuna is not right, and she was born earlier, then maybe she was Osman’s younger full sister. What you said about the names is very interesting and could have happened, but as of now we cannot confirm it.

I have checked Turhan’s Wikipedia page and the source to that claim is “Öztuna, Yılmaz, Hürrem Sultan, Ötüken Yayınevi, İstanbul, 1978. (isbn=9754371415)”. The ISBN code corresponds to “Büyük Osmanlı Tarihi Osmanlı Devleti'nin Siyasi Medeni Kültür Teşkilat ve San'at Tarihi (10 Cilt)”, which is not a work I own. I do have several books of Öztuna, though, and this claim wasn’t reiterated in them. According to him, Turhan was the mother of Mehmed IV and Beyhan Sultan.

Still per Öztuna, these are Ibrahim’s children who died in infancy:

Şehzade Murad (22.3.1643-16.1.1644), buried in Ahmed I’s mausoleum

Şehzade Osman (8.1644-1646), buried in Ahmed I’s mausoleum

Şehzade Bayezid (1.5.1646-8.1647), buried in Ibrahim’s mausoleum

Şehzade Cihangir (14.12.1646-1.2.1648), buried in the mosque of Ahmed I

Şehzade Orhan (10.1648-1.1650)

Şehzade Süleyman, buried in Ahmed I’s mausoleum

Şehzade Ahmed, born and dead in 1642, buried in Ahmed I’s mausoleum

Şehzade Ahmed (2), born and dead in 1642, buried in Ahmed I’s mausoleum

Safiye Sultan, buried in Ahmed I’s mausoleum

Hatice Sultan

I don’t know how accurate this list is.

As for Barzilai-Lumbroso's dissertation, on page 206 there's nothing about a Şehzade Ahmed born to Turhan:

Turhan Sultan's transformation from a 14 year old Russian captive, presented to Kosem Sultan who had been the Valide Sultan at the time, to a powerful valide herself. Kosem was concerned that Sultan Ibrahim (1640-1648), who was considered mentally unstable, was the last male descendent of the dynasty, and "began to introduce a slave girl to the sultan every day for the purpose of producing a son. She gave Turhan to Sultan Ibrahim after a short training [period]. Turhan was a very beautiful attractive girl. Tall and well developed, her body was white, her eyes blue, her hair was reddish yellow... Turhan tied herself to sultan Ibrahim with her intelligence and coquetry…" Turhan, however, soon lost her favorite position, as Ibrahim became addicted to women. Feeling the Sultan neglected her and her son Mehmed she "attempted to argue with her husband.. .at the head of the pond. But the sultan's daughter took Turhan's child from her arms and threw him to the pond. The heir to the throne, Mehmet, almost drowned and died. Turhan Sultan saved her child with difficulty [and] withdrew from public life and began to live quietly." She returned to the historical scene, we are told, upon becoming Valide Sultan with her son's ascendance to the throne in 1648, only to find Kosem unwilling to give up her powers. The bitter struggle that ensued between these two women ended with the strangling of Kosem, usually attributed to Turhan, who then acquired absolute rule of the harem.

The only Şehzade Ahmed mentioned throughout the dissertation is Gülnuş's son.

[mariacallous]

Croatian Women's Network staged protests all over the country on Monday in solidarity with women in Bosnia who - shocked by a particularly brutal recent murder – are demanding more effective protection against male violence.

In the action titled "Women's Safety is the Responsibility of the State," women's organizations in Croatia submitted requests to the Ministry of Justice on Monday, advocating for enhanced protection for women against violence.

"Violence against women is a systemic issue that requires appropriate sanctions. The state must finally take a proactive stance on this problem and enact legislation that aligns with the Istanbul Convention and is not gender-neutral," emphasized Sanja Juras, coordinator of the Women's Network of Croatia.

About 50 women gathered for a protest in front of the Ministry of Justice in Zagreb on Monday, holding a sign bearing the message: “Women’s Safety is the Responsibility of the State”.

The protest briefly blocked a section of the city’s Vukovarska Street. The stopped cars honked their horns, responding to the call from their posters to “honk that the minister hear”.

The protest aimed to commemorate Nizama Hecimovic, the victim of a brutal murder earlier this month in Gradacac, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Nermin Sulejmanovic shockingly livestreamed his wife’s murder over Instagram, after which he killed two more people and wounded another three. Nizama’s murder has again underscored the inadequacies of state systems designed to safeguard women from violence.

On behalf of nearly 40 women’s organizations and initiatives, they called on the Ministry of Justice to improve women’s safety across Croatia and establish a working group dedicated to formulating legal solutions to address femicide.

They also want femicide defined as a distinct crime within the penal code, with comprehensive legislation that covers all forms of violence against women.

They also demanded the adoption of a national strategy encompassing all forms of violence against women, in accordance with the so-called Istanbul Convention – the Council of Europe’s 2011 Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence – along with the allocation of funds for its implementation in the state budget.

Throughout the day, protests took place in 18 Croatian towns and cities, including Zagreb, Split, Rijeka, Osijek, Pakrac, Mali Lošinj, Beli Manastir, Vukovar, Virovitica, Krizevci, Korenica, Sibenik, Karlovac, Zadar, Trogir, Korcula, Dubrovnik and Glina.

Women from all over Croatia were encouraged to halt their activities on Monday at 4 pm for 15 minutes, symbolically supporting the motto: “If Women Stop, Everything Stops.”

[kingsephir]

I'm so sick of being in Japan- I hate it here. I hate being the other, I hate how most Japanese people treat me and stare at me. How they're always like wow your japanese is so good! And I supposed to say "no no no"? NO! FUCK YOU. I say "yeah, i've been studying for 16 years now"

Today I got laughed at (in a awe isnt that cute sort of way not making fun of) when I said "otsukaresama", like the rest of my coworkers. Like I do, to this guy, every FUCKING DAY? And today you wanna be like, "oh her japanese is so good! look you're saying otsukaresama" LIKE IVE BEEN DOING IT FOR THREE YEARS DUMBASS. We've had full ass conversations in Japanese!!!!

And another thing! My male coworkers can barely talk to me!!!! Makes me fucking annoyed and lonely. Like they can't even speak japanese to me normally they have that weird ass no eye contact, like i'm accosting them sort of look and i'm like BRO. I JUST WANT TO KNOW WHAT PERIOD WE HAVE CLASS IM GONNA FREAK OUT RIGHT HERE AT MY DESK IF YOU DONT SPIT IT OUT. And the aforementioned "oh look you can say otsukaresama" guy cant even speak a whole sentance to me. And it's not an english thing bc he will just drop the end of the sentance in JAPANESE TOO. HOMIE THATS WHERE THE VERB IS IDK WHAT YOURE SAYING BC YOU DONT FUCKING FINISH YOUR SENTANCES *skreech*

I'm tired of my students being scared of me/suprised. Barely being able to talk bc what? they're afraid of mistakes or something idk? But they can't hardly spit things out sometimes- even in Japanese. They just like have an error code and stare blankly. Like homie. I just want you to say my COWORKERS NAME. SHES JAPANESE AND YOUVE STUDIED WITH HER FOR 5 YEARS NOW. AGHHHHH!!!!!!!

"oh you understand kanji that's amazing!" "yeah i took chinese too" and we've had this conversation MULTIPLE TIMES BEFORE. Do you just forget everything about me the second I leave your sight?? "Wow she knows to take off her shoes!" WELL DUH.

I'm just another human being!!!! Please treat me NORMAL!!! They literally CANT!!!!!!! Like maybe a quarter of them can but like ???????????????

I want OUT OF HERE!! I wanna LEAVE THIS GODFORSAKEN ISLAND. With it's earthquakes, lack of meat at the grocery store, suprise at every single thing I do, commenting on everything I do. Like leave me ALONE.

I so hope I can go to turkey this summer bc that's the only way i feel i can survive without freaking out. I was on my LAST STRAW today. I'm going to Turkey this winter then leaving Japan next year for the US. And trying to go back to school. I'm not cut out for teaching either. I don't like it, i've never liked it. I don't want to do it anymore or ever again in this capacity. Training is ok. Teaching? Kids? NO.

I do generally like the kids but I really wish they would just spit things out rather than just like blue screening. It's not scary it's okay. 😭 Our school is so chill and nice the english teachers are so nice to the students. We make sure they know it's ok to make mistakes idk.

Dude even in Turkey- even when they know i'm foreign- even when tbey are suprised I know turkish (mostly they just take it in stride- maybe a comment at the beginning then they go with it). They treat me like one of them immediately. They're so warm and friendly. Sometimes intimidatingly so but that's better than here (for me). Their country is so full of immigrants and tourists and tbh I only go to Istanbul or a small vacation town on the Mediterranean but like. Even in Tokyo I have problems (mind you way less than here but).

AGH. Rant over- I feel a bit better now.

[creative-anchorage]

The social psychologist Samuel D Gosling of the University of Texas has studied the personality traits of self-identified “dog people” and “cat people”. He found that cat lovers score higher on neuroticism and openness to experiences, whereas dog people are more extroverted, agreeable and conscientious. “I wasn’t surprised by the findings,” he says. “If you think about the role that dogs and cats play, they afford different types of interaction. If you like to go walking and get out and about, a dog is a more obvious choice. But if you are more introverted and like to sit in a chair and spend time at home, cats demand less social interaction.” But this is not to say that cat owners aren’t interested in the world around them. Far from it. Rather, they contemplate nature’s ineffable mysteries not on a muddy trudge through the park, but from the comfort of their own homes. “Openness,” says Gosling, “is about ideas and intellect. People who are high on openness tend to be more abstract thinkers, and more creative and imaginative and philosophical.” Not for nothing is the philosopher with a cat on their lap a beloved internet meme. The Turkish-American film-maker Ceyda Torun documented the rambunctious street cats of Istanbul in her award-winning 2017 documentary Kedi (“cat” in Turkish). Among the local people who loved and cared for these cats, one quality stood out: “Their capacity for philosophical thought and introspection,” she says. “It didn’t matter where they were from, or what level of education they had. You could see it in their eyes. They had that flicker of light. The light was on.” It is the wildness of a cat – how distinctly non-human they are – that draws us in. Unlike humans, who are social creatures who live communally, and dogs, which likewise live in packs, cats “are solitary hunters”, says the philosopher John Gray, author of Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life. “Female cats are deeply attached to their kittens. But that’s about the limit of cat attachment. Cats can grow fond of the company of particular humans. But they don’t need them.” Gray believes that “if you are the kind of person who wants to see the loyal, loving, trustworthy part of yourself in an animal, you will look to dogs. If you want to see out of the human world, into another world, where a different animal lives without these defining human needs, you will love cats.” In other words, loving a dog is like gazing into a particularly flattering mirror. Cat people look outwards, through a window into nature.

When she was growing up in Istanbul in the 1980s, says Torun, “cats were my best friends”. There was one cat in particular: a grey-and-white tabby with green eyes. Her name was Boncuk. “I was around six when she appeared,” says Torun. “I fed her and she stuck around. Even if I petted her too aggressively, she was never harsh with me. She adopted me and I was her human servant, fetching salami and bowls of milk.” What this relationship taught her, says Torun, is that “it is possible to love something, but not want to possess it”. Boncuk was her own creature, utterly free – requesting Torun’s assistance, yes, but never expecting it. They had a relationship that existed outside the servile ties that bind dog to master. “It’s about having that relationship with an animal,” explains Buzzel, “that chooses independence, but at the same time, chooses you.” Torun believes that the charm of a cat is even coded into their genetics. “We’ve messed with dogs too much,” she says. “We’ve bred them too much. They no longer resemble their authentic selves. That’s why people are so attracted to dogs that look like wolves. Because it’s that wild beauty that you don’t see in a chihuahua.” (Torun hastens to add that she has no particular animus towards chihuahuas. “Bless them,” she says.) ... And the contented purrs of a prone lapcat are a form of natural ASMR. “Probably the best sound in the world is the purr in your ear of a cat,” says Buzzel. “I don’t think any sound works better than that. There’s a natural therapy about it.” Mills explains that purring “is a care-soliciting behaviour. Cats show it when they are very happy, but also when they are seeking help and assistance, which is probably why cats do it when they die.” ... Buzzel has a unique insight into the dog and cat owning communities respectively. [...] “The sense of community is stronger in the cat world than the dog world,” he says. [...] If you have a dog, you love your dog. If you have a cat, you love all cats. You’re fascinated by everyone’s story about their cats.” But in truth, the distinction between dog lover and cat person is somewhat artificial. [...]  Torun identifies herself as a lover of all animals. “I wonder how much people make themselves believe they are a cat person or a dog person,” she says. “And part of that way of thinking is just a way to belong to a group. It’s tribalistic. It’s kind of unfair to cut yourself off from any possible relationship you can have with a dog or a cat by saying you’re a dog person, or a cat person. That’s limiting to me.” She never knew what became of her beloved Boncuk. [...] “She taught me smaller lessons about boundaries,” says Torun, “attachment, letting go. But the bigger lesson was of knowing that I am not alone in this great big world. If you restrict yourself too much to human relationships, it’s very easy to feel alone.”

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Kemal Ataturk, who strides the Turkish landscape like a colossus — significantly a bronze statue of him in a dinner-jacket (with the trousers cuffed) commands the Golden Horn — is in the position of a man with no more worlds to conquer. His reforms have been so drastic and so comprehensive that in cultural and social fields at least there is very little left to do. He abolished the fez, turned the mosques into granaries, Latinized the language. He ended polygamy, installed new legal codes, and experimented with a (paying) casino in the sultan’s palace. He compulsorily disinfected all the buildings in Istanbul, adopted the Gregorian calendar and metric system, and took the first census in Turkish history. He cut political holidays down to three, demanded physical examination of those about to marry, and built a new capital, Ankara, in the Anatolian highlands, replacing proud Constantinople. He limits most business activity to Turkish nationals and Turkish firms, abolished books of magic, and gave every Turk a new last name. He emancipated the women (more or less), tossed the priests into the discard, and superintended the writing of a new history of the world proving that Turkey is the source of all civilization.

Kemal Ataturk, a somewhat Bacchic character, the full record of whose personal life makes you blink, is the dictator-type carried to its ultimate extreme, the embodiment of totalitarian rule by character. This man, in personality and accomplishments, resembles no one so much as Peter the Great, who also westernized his country at frightful cost. Kemal Ataturk is the roughneck of dictators. Beside him. Hitler is a milksop, Mussolini a perfumed dandy, and Goemboes a creature of the drawing-room. At one of his own receptions Kemal, slightly exhilarated, publicly slapped the Egyptian minister when he observed the hapless diplomat wearing the forbidden fez.

No man has ever betrayed more masters, and always from motives of his own view of patriotism. In 1918, a staff officer, he was chosen to accompany Vahydu’d-Din, the Crown Prince, to Berlin, and there assist him in consultations with Hindenburg, Ludendorff, and the German high command. Three years later Kemal booted him, as Sultan VI, out of Turkey.

After the Armistice Kemal was sent by the authorities as inspector-general of the eastern vilayets to investigate a nationalist insurrection in Kurdistan. He was ordered to find and quell these rebels. He found them all right. But instead of crushing the movement he took charge of it! Within two years he brought victory in all of Turkey to the very organization his superiors had sent him to suppress.

In 1926, following a not very professional attempt on his life, he hanged what amounted to the entire leadership of the opposition. Among those he allowed to be sentenced to death and executed were Colonel Arif, who had been his comrade-at-arms in the Greek campaign, and Djavid Bey, the best financial mind in Turkey. Kemal had a champagne party in his lonely farm-house at Chankaya, near Ankara, to celebrate the occasion, and invited all the diplomats. Returning home at dawn, they saw the corpses hanging in the town square.

(In 1930 Kemal decided that totalitarian rule to the extremity which he carried it was a bore, and, uniquely among dictators, he proceeded to create an opposition, naming various men to be its leaders. Somewhat timidly, they accepted. Kemal wanted to see if Western democratic methods would work; he wanted an opposition bench to argue with in parliament. The system didn’t work. The Turks, with the memory of 1926 in mind, didn’t seem to understand. . . .)

...

Kemal’s early life was that of a rebel and above all of a hater. He wrote revolutionary pamphlets and even poems. He was sentenced to jail in Constantinople, but his skill as an officer made him valuable, and be was released. Although a “Young Turk,’’ his position was that of a suppressed oppositionist; he detested the Young Turk triumvirs, Talaat, Mavtr, and Djemal, a feeling they warmly reciprocated. But his reputation as a soldier was invincible, after service on the most remote, dangerous and hopeless fronts, and the way to his career was open.

That career is without parallel in modem times. Kemal engineered the congresses of Erzenun and Sivas and organized the nationalist movement, leading it to victory. Other people have created nations. Kemal’s job was harder. He took a nation that was centuries deep in rot, pulled it to its feet, wiped its face, reclothed it, transformed it, made it work. In 1919 Turkey was so crushed and broken that it would have welcomed renunciation of sovereignty and a British mandate. In 1922 Turkey was the one enemy state so strong that it practically dictated its own peace terms.

Kemal alone, it may be said, does not deserve credit for all this. The general program of westernization was planned by the Young Turks and he simply appropriated it The Greeks were destroyed by the duplicity of Lloyd George and the treason of the allies, also by their own incapacity, not by Kamal’s armies. Sultan and caliph were doomed in any case, and it is no tribute to Kemal that he kicked them out The Treaty of Lausanne was won not by Ismet Pasha, but because of jealous squabbles between the Western powers. And so on.

Kemal lives these days in Chankaya, a complete recluse. His model farm is his avocation ; a true megalomaniac, he designed the water reservoir in the shape of the Sea of Marmora! He married a woman named Latiii Hanum in 1923, but divorced her a few years later ; now he lives alone. He is the most inaccessible public character in Europe. King George V himself would not have been more difficult to interview. Unlike all other dictators, he keeps from the foreground; the Turkish papers do not mention his name half a dozen times a month. He has a group of soldier underlings and cronies with whom he plays poker. Rarely, he gambles at cards with foreign diplomats; he usually wins, then insists on returning his winnings. He still likes to drink.

The Turkish dictator differs from almost all others in that he had no socialist period in youth and even in maturity betrays not the faintest interest in socio-economic stresses. His only policy was Turkey for the Turks. He is certainly a revolutionary, but as far as economics is concerned he might be President of Switzerland. The theory that all nationalist dictators must bear to extreme Right or extreme Left breaks down on Kamal Ataturk, as it did on Pilsudski."

- John Gunther, "The Turkish Colossus," in Inside Europe. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1940. p. 477-481

[oslo2istanbul]

09.06.22 Oslo

Day One 9th June 2022 Overcast

9:20 Woke up from the Abyss 9:40 Emerged from my cocoon in the back of Heiko’s car. My neck and back were stiff as a board. Heiko asked if I wanted coffee. Not sure if he was being rhetorical.

9:41 I put my pants on and headed to the toilet around the corner from where we had parked our car. We were in a sort of big parking space near the ferry terminal in Oslo. A huge ferry that went from Oslo to Copenhagen loomed over us.

9:44 Found this bottle of whisky near the pubic toilet. Considered picking it up a selling it for gas money.

9:55 Back at the car heiko was taking out the breakfast things and had a a french press full of coffee, ready to pour. I poured us some cups as Heiko moved around some things in the van. The rest I poured in the thermo to keep warm.

10:10 Heiko and I made some cereal for breakfast. We cut up dried fruit and added it to the bowl. We sat in the back of the car and ate it.

11:00 After breakfast I faffed around trying to get all my busking gear together and it was in various places in the van. Eventually I had everything together including the AER amp that the AER people gave us for the trip and Heiko’s brother’s nice strat.

11:40 Left the van in search of a copy shop.

11:50 Arrived at the copy shop to print of the QR codes. They guys behind the desk was super lovely and was more then happy to help. We payed 40 crowns for 3 sheets of paper though.

12:05 Heiko and I walked up the hill toward Karl Johans Gate. The main shopping strip.

12:22 Found this nice spot next to some flowers by the Cathedral.

12:30 Began my set. Heiko sat in the cafe / bar a little way down to work on some Oslo To Istanbul admin.

12:45 Several songs into my set things looked pretty grim. Hadn’t made a cent and nobody was stopping to watch. Fortunately a guy sitting at the bar, with his arm in a sling, came over and gave me 50 crowns.

12:50 A short while later after playing ‘Delicate’ by Damien Rice. I spoke to a lady who worked in a stationary store up the street. She was a busker too, from England, and gave me some Oslo busking tips. She said I wouldn’t have to worry about the police. Apparently post covid everyone was more chill.

13:15 Finished up the set, I made around 200nk 13:20 Packed the gear up.

13:22 We started in the direction of the Opera house. We had walked on the building the night before and it was a pretty nice spot next to the water with a bunch of tourist. Seemed like it would be a good spot.

13:40 Set up here.

[placerdiario]

VAN GOGH: An Immersive Journey from Nohlab on Vimeo.

For more information: nohlab.com/work/van-gogh

In this journey, Van Gogh’s artworks and life are transformed into audiovisual storytelling in four parts, with digital interpretations and futuristic predictions. We start by diving into his subconsciousness and then witness the beginnings of his career. We chase the sun with him to the South, where he paints many signature works. His manic episodes take us to his hospital room in Saint Rémy, where he recreates endless scenery through his confinement window.

Through his eyes, paintings turn into living sceneries and futuristic 3D environments. Finally, an AI analyzes over 2.000 Van Gogh artworks and generates imagery in his style with high-dimensional algorithms and neural networks.

ROLE: Direction & Design TYPE: Immersive Exhibition DATE: 2022 DURATION: 18' 00" LOCATION: Royal Dublin Society, Dublin COMMISSIONED BY: Theatre Of Light

CREDITS DIRECTION & DESIGN: Nohlab VISUAL ARTISTS: Nohlab, Alexandre Le Guillou, Berkay Türk, Cue Istanbul, Emre Bayar, motionmatik MACHINE LEARNING & CREATIVE CODING: Hakan Gündüz MUSIC DIRECTION, SOUND DESIGN & MUSIC: Gökalp Kanatsız TECHNICAL CONTENT DIRECTION: Fehmican Gözüm TECHNICAL PRODUCTION: Creative Technology Ireland PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT: Catapult

NOHLAB TEAM CREATIVE DIRECTORS: Candaş Şişman, Deniz Kader PRODUCER: Yasemen Birhekimoğlu MOTION DESIGNER: Arif Yıldız, Candaş Şişman, Deniz Kader RESEARCH: Özde Karadağ, Begüm Tunçer, Yasemen Birhekimoğlu

DOCUMENTATION TEAM PHOTOGRAPHER: Roberto Conte VIDEOGRAPHER: Jonathan Mascaro VIDEO EDITOR: Teoman Küçükeren COLOR GRADING & POST: Candaş Şişman, Özde Karadağ

[cruger2984]

THE DESCRIPTION OF POPE SAINT JOHN XXIII Feast Day: October 11

"This is the rosary of Mary, considered in its various elements, which are linked together in vocal prayer and woven into it, as in a delicate and rich embroidery, full of spiritual warmth and beauty." -excerpt from The Holy Rosary. P 360, Journal of a Soul

When on October 20, 1958, the cardinals, assembled in conclave, elected Angelo Roncalli as pope many regarded him, because of his age and ambiguous reputation, as a transitional pope, little realizing that the pontificate of this man of 76 years would mark a turning point in history and initiate a new age for the Church. He took the name of John in honor of the precursor and the beloved disciple—but also because it was the name of a long line of popes whose pontificates had been short.

Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, the third of thirteen children, was born on November 25, 1881 at Sotto il Monte (Bergamo) of a family of sharecroppers. He attended elementary school in the town, was tutored by a priest of Carvico, and at the age of twelve entered the seminary at Bergamo. A scholarship from the Cerasoli Foundation (1901) enabled him to go on to the Apollinaris in Rome where he studied under (among others) Umberto Benigni, the Church historian. He interrupted his studies for service in the Italian Army but returned to the seminary, completed his work for a doctorate in theology, and was ordained in 1904. Continuing his studies in canon law he was appointed secretary to the new bishop of Bergamo, Giacomo Radini-Tedeschi. Angelo served this social-minded prelate for nine years, acquiring first-hand experience and a broad understanding of the problems of the working class. He also taught apologetics, church history, and patrology.

With the entry of Italy into World War I in 1915, he was recalled to military service as a chaplain. On leaving the service in 1918 he was appointed spiritual director of the seminary, but found time to open a hostel for students in Bergamo. It was at this time also that he began the research for a multi-volume work on the episcopal visitation of Bergamo by St. Charles Borromeo, the last volume of which was published after his elevation as pope.

In 1921, he was called to Rome to reorganize the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. Nominated titular archbishop of Areopolis and apostolic visitator to Bulgaria (1925), he immediately concerned himself with the problems of the Eastern Churches. Transferred in 1934 to Turkey and Greece as apostolic delegate, he set up an office in Istanbul for locating prisoners of war. In 1944 he was appointed nuncio to Paris to assist in the Church's post-war efforts in France, and became the first permanent observer of the Holy See at UNESCO, addressing its sixth and seventh general assemblies in 1951 and 1952. In 1953 he became cardinal-patriarch of Venice, and expected to spend his last years there in pastoral work. He was correcting proofs of the synodal Acts of his first diocesan Synod (1958) when he was called to Rome to participate in the conclave that elected him pope.

In his first public address Pope John expressed his concern for reunion with separated Christians and for world peace. In his coronation address he asserted 'vigorously and sincerely' that it was his intention to be a pastoral pope since 'all other human gifts and accomplishments—learning, practical experience, diplomatic finesse—can broaden and enrich pastoral work but they cannot replace it.'

One of his first acts was to annul the regulation of Sixtus IV limiting the membership of the College of Cardinals to 70; within the next four years he enlarged it to 87 with the largest international representation in history.

Less than three months after his election he announced that he would hold a diocesan synod for Rome, convoke an ecumenical council for the universal Church, and revise the Code of Canon Law. The synod, the first in the history of Rome, was held in 1960; Vatican Council II was convoked in 1962; and the Pontifical Commission for the Revision of the Code was appointed in 1963.

His progressive encyclical, Mater et Magistra, was issued in 1961 to commemorate the anniversary of Leo XIII's Rerum novarum. Pacem in terris, advocating human freedom and dignity as the basis for world order and peace, came out in 1963. He elevated the Pontifical Commission for Cinema, Radio, and Television to curial status, approved a new code of rubrics for the Breviary and Missal, made notable advances in ecumenical relations by creating a new Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity and by appointing the first representative to the Assembly of the World Council of Churches held in New Delhi (1961). In 1960 he consecrated fourteen bishops for Asia, Africa, and Oceania. The International Balzan Foundation awarded him its Peace Prize in 1962.

Since his death on June 3, 1963, much has been written and spoken about the warmth and holiness of the beloved Pope John. Perhaps the testimony of the world was best expressed by a newspaper drawing of the earth shrouded in mourning with the simple caption, 'A Death in the Family.'

Source: vatican.va

[mehmetkali]

THY GM Ahmet Bolat embarks on a 6-day intensive Far East trip

THY GM Ahmet Bolat embarks on a 6-day intensive Far East trip

Turkish Airlines (THY) General Manager Ahmet Bolat is embarking on a 6-day intensive trip to the Far East to organize tourism promotion programs before the launch of THY’s Australia Melbourne flights in the last quarter of 2023. Bolat will visit Seoul, Tokyo and Singapore as part of this trip and meet with officials.

Bolat announced on his social media account yesterday that THY carried 257,621 passengers yesterday and had an occupancy rate of 84%. Bolat, who said they are trying to attract more passengers to Istanbul from the Far East destinations, said they aim to increase the average tourism income in our country above $1,000 with the help of the Ministry of Tourism. Bolat also emphasized that direct passengers to Istanbul contribute more to THY than transit passengers.

Bolat also said they will go to Melbourne and decide on their starting points in Australia after meeting with the authorities. He said he will fly with THY to Seoul and then with other airlines for the next five flights to compare the seats, entertainment systems and other services. He asked for health tips from his followers for this busy schedule in six days considering the weather conditions there.

Bolat also said he gave an interview to the Japanese NHK television and talked about the “Stone Hills”. He said he feels more attached to these works left by our ancestors and invites those who are curious about the origin codes of civilization to come here. He said Niyazi Kocadağ, the Director of Şanlıurfa Culture and Tourism, declared him as an “honorary fellow”.

Bolat’s Far East trip is seen as part of THY’s growth strategy in the global market. THY will fly to Australia for the first time in December and add Melbourne as a new destination. THY also plans to increase its existing points in the Far East and strengthen its presence in the region.

The post THY GM Ahmet Bolat embarks on a 6-day intensive Far East trip first appeared on 0 554 1730000 I [email protected] / Güncel Havacılık Haberleri.

source https://www.aeroportist.com/thy-gm-ahmet-bolat-embarks-on-a-6-day-intensive-far-east-trip/