#agree this in istanbul

[rottenpear]

Re the earthquakes in Turkey || Feb 6, 2023

Do you know what makes my blood boil? Over 15,000 people died in 1999 in Turkey in a single earthquake - entire cities were all but razed to the ground. Do you know what destruction at that scale looks like? Do you know how long it takes to recover from it?

And the fault lines that go under this country are common knowledge, the next big earthquake was always a matter of when and not if - the next earthquake to hit Istanbul is also a when btw - and it's been 23 fucking years. Geoscientists have been banging pans and pots together warning--just for this. How are thousands of people still dying when we had 23 years to prepare? How can human life be so worthless?

And we knew, you see. My relatives in Istanbul also know - that the buildings they live in are probably not safe, that the earthquake is coming, that architects steal from construction materials and get away with it, that thousands and thousands of people would (will) die but so what? Only the very rich can afford to live in buildings that are earthquake proof and for the rest it's just the luck of the draw and this happens over and over again.

(you can rb this but please don't send me asks or messages)

[sab-teraa]

Not Mehmet defending these messages????

[bnbc]

Edge of the city

[cinematicnomad]

my upcoming work trip is probably the longest i've gone on since i started traveling for this job and i am already pre-exhausted. blue are days with international flights, yellow is for when i'm in india, and green is for when i'm in turkey. all in all, 27 days between the time i leave my apt and when i get home.

[cuubism]

thoughts had while traveling turned into a ficlet

[E]

-

After university, Hob had always kind of assumed they'd end up in the same place. He doesn’t know why he was so foolish as to think that. But he was always foolish about Dream.

Hob had stuck around in London. He liked traveling, liked seeing new places, but London was home. And it was nice to feel like he had roots somewhere. Like he was maybe sort of building a life.

Dream, meanwhile, had essentially vanished.

He’d picked up some kind of remote editing job that he could do anywhere on top of his writing, and took full advantage of it to bounce all over the globe. Hob didn’t even know all of the places he’d lived, Dream moved so often.

He’d been in Los Angeles for a while and apparently hated it. He’d been in Singapore for about six months at some point. Then he’d been in Istanbul— or was Istanbul before? At one point he’d been in a rural village in Slovenia.

(Hob got emails about these things.)

Then at one point, he’d been in Paris, which at least seemed to suit him a tiny bit better. Still hadn’t last long, though.

Now, Hob’s not sure where he is. He tries not to take it personally. Tries not to take it like he wasn’t enough for Dream to want to stay. Dream just had some things to figure out, he thinks. That’s all.

One day, seemingly at random, he gets a FaceTime call.

“Hob.”

Hob squints at the screen. It’s very bright. He can barely make Dream out. “Where are you?”

“Rhodes,” Dream says.

He pans the phone around to show Hob what must be just about the most gorgeous beach he’s ever seen. It’s a little cove with fishing boats bobbing, water still and sun-drenched.

Dream turns the camera back around. He looks like he’s been crying, eyes red-rimmed, eyeliner smudging. He’s sitting on the sand, phone propped on his knees.

“What’s wrong?” Hob asks, alarmed.

“Is it better,” Dream wonders, “to be full of despair on a beautiful beach, or does it not matter?”

“What d’you mean?”

Dream wipes at his eyes. “I. I thought if I just went. Somewhere. That it would get better. Death even said. Try changing your environment. I did. I did.”

“You did, you went to a lot of places, didn’t you?”

Dream nods, and sniffles. “Why didn’t it fix anything?”

“Oh, darling.” So that’s what it is. He’s just running away from himself.

“What is wrong with me,” Dream continues, “that. I am sat watching the sunset in one of the most beautiful corners of the world. And I feel nothing.”

“It’s not the corner of the world that's the issue,” Hob says, and Dream sighs, sniffling again.

“I want to go home,” he says, despondent.

“Come home, then.”

“Is that still with you? After all I’ve put you through?”

“Yeah, Dream.” To my peril. But Hob will never be able to turn Dream away. “It is.”

Dream nods. “Okay.” Then he stands. “I suppose I may as well go for a swim, while I am still here.”

“Not going to drown yourself, are you?”

Dream huffs. “No.”

He risks the fate of his phone taking Hob with him, though. Holds it above the surface as he treads water, hair increasingly fluffy and clumped together from salt.

“It really is gorgeous,” Hob tells him. The water is so, so blue and the sky so wide. “You’re making me jealous.”

Dream smiles faintly. “You would enjoy it better than I.”

“Maybe. I’m enjoying watching you though.”

“Oh?” Dream raises an eyebrow. Only his throat is visible above the water, but it’s enough. Hob can imagine the rest. His attraction to Dream’s never wavered. “Tell me more.”

“Come home and find out instead, idiot.”

Dream smiles. “Hmm.”

“Oh yeah, hmm.”

Dream’s smile widens. God, he’s so gorgeous. “You’re making me want to leave now.”

“Do it then.”

“Okay.” He starts swimming back to shore, and Hob laughs.

“I missed you, you maniac.”

“I missed you,” Dream echoes.

“S’gonna be okay, yeah?” Hob tells him. “So Rhodes didn’t fix anything. It’s alright.”

“It’s alright,” Dream echoes, eyes looking misty again.

“Just come home.” Hob can’t promise to fix anything. But he can promise Dream a home.

“Yes,” Dream agrees, sea water flowing around his throat, sunset in his hair. “Yes.”

-

Hob half-expects Dream actually won’t. That the flash of melancholic clarity will give way to his usual method of running, that Hob will get an email that he’s now in Samarkand or somewhere and isn’t actually coming “home.” Maybe London isn’t really home for him. He hasn’t been there in years anyway. Maybe.

But one day Dream wanders into the pub they used to get Friday drinks in, the pub Hob’s taken up bartending in, partly for the extra cash, partly to feel closer to Dream.

Hob drops a glass when he sees him, Dream flinching at the crash where he stands in the doorway. Hob ducks behind the bar to clean it up, heart pounding. God, he’s actually here. After three years.

When he stands again, Dream is standing right before the bar, looking uncertain. He’s terribly underdressed for the weather, hair damn from the rain, black t-shirt sticking to his shoulders.

“Um,” Hob says, wringing a bar towel in his hands. “Get you your usual?”

Not that Dream’s usual is necessarily the same, after all this time—

Dream leans across the bar and hugs him.

“My usual,” he says, voice so close to Hob’s ear now that he shivers. Dream’s damp hair tickles his cheek. Hob ought to get a towel and dry him off.

He hugs Dream back, leaning awkwardly over the bar. “Missed you.”

Dream hums, finally releasing him. He takes a seat on a bar stool, a faint smile on his face now. On instinct Hob takes off his sweatshirt—New Inn branded—and gives it to him.

Dream takes it, gaze lingering on Hob’s face as he pulls it on. He immediately looks less frigid, though.

“Is it still the driest red on the menu that you want?” he asks, and Dream laughs.

“Yes.”

Hob pours him one, sliding it across the bar. Their fingers brush. It feels, almost, like no time has passed at all. Nothing changed.

“So,” Hob says, grateful there are no other customers awaiting his attention. “Rhodes?”

“The last of many,” Dream says wearily.

“Looked beautiful?”

“Yes,” Dream agrees, and sips his wine.

“So.” It’s hard to ask what he really wants to ask. Are you actually back? Are you actually here for me? “Are you. You have somewhere to stay?”

“I am not wandering the streets,” Dream says with a half smile. “I have a hotel room. For now.”

“Still itinerant,” Hob says, before he can think better of it, and Dream’s smile turns sad.

“Yes.”

“Learn anything?”

“I learned that moving about doesn’t fix anything when the problem is inside of you,” Dream says. Hob winces at the phrasing of it. There’s no problem with you, he wants to say. But he understands what Dream’s getting at. “I do not know what does fix it,” Dream continues.

Hob doesn’t either. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be in Dream’s head. “Try staying here, then,” Hob says. “What’ve you got to lose?”

Dream studies him. “Indeed.”

It really does feel like nothing and everything has changed between them. But maybe not everything. And maybe it’s okay.

He rests his hand against Dream’s on the bar. “Finish your wine,” he says. “And come home with me.”

Dream takes a final sip of his wine, eyes locked on Hob’s over the rim of his glass, and licks the red droplets from his lower lip as he takes Hob’s hand.

-

Hob has him bent over on the bed, bobbing his head on Hob’s cock, before they’ve had the chance to pass more than a few additional words. Dream seems not to need words, anyway. His expression is finally slack and peaceful, neck craning, eyelids fluttering, as he takes Hob’s cock down, down, down, Hob’s grip tight in his hair. He hasn’t lost any of his skill in these intervening years, apparently. Or his enjoyment of it.

“Yeah, that’s it, darling,” Hob praises, thrusting up into his mouth. “Good. You’re so perfect at this.”

Dream whines, the vibration traveling through Hob’s body, reaching awkwardly around himself to press needy fingers to his own hole.

“I’ll do right by you, darling, don’t worry, come here.” Hob pulls Dream off and hefts him up, sitting back so he can settle Dream in his lap. “Don’t worry, love.”

Dream looks down at him with wide, dark eyes, breathing hard, mouth open and wet. He swallows, says, voice thready, “I need you in me.”

Hob’s heart thumps, hard. It hurts. “I know.”

Dream pushes his cheek into Hob’s temple, lips smearing saliva over his skin, clutching so tight at Hob’s shoulders it hurts. “Hob.”

“Shhh.” Hob holds him close as he works him open, Dream crying out and clutching at him with each touch. God, Hob remembers what he was like. He really hasn’t changed at all.

When he finally sinks Dream down onto his cock, Dream lets out a long moan, then goes slack again as he shivers. Hob tries to breathe evenly and stay still, letting him adjust, no matter how good it feels to be buried in him again.

“It has been too long,” Dream says, when his breathing’s evened out.

“Didn’t have tons of adventures on all of your travels?”

Dream shakes his head. “Not the same.”

It’s not the same. No one Hob’s hooked up with in the intervening years has been the same, either. No one else makes this feeling rear up in him, like he would do anything for the man in his arms, like he would dash himself to pieces just to have him. It might not be a good feeling but Hob wants it nonetheless.

He doesn’t say all that. He says, “It’s not, no one takes me like you do, I’ve missed how gorgeous you are bouncing on my cock, missed how perfect it feels to fill you.”

“Yes,” Dream says. “It’s so good. I missed that. Please, Hob.”

Hob hefts him in his lap, bouncing Dream on his cock. Dream cries out, holding to him tight. “Yes—!”

Fuck, he feels good. He’s so pliant and wanting, need burning in his fingertips and his wet panting breaths by Hob’s ears. Hob would give him anything in the world.

“Came back just for this, didn’t you?” he says. “Didn’t you?”

“Yes, yes— I missed— oh, Hob!” This as Hob nails his prostate, Dream wailing and clutching at him. Yes. Hob remembers exactly how it feels to make him feel like that. God, it’s everything to make him feel like that.

“More,” Dream begs. “More, harder.”

Hob will give him more. More and more until he’s full up on it, until it’s enough for him to feel satisfied, enough for him to cease his wanderings and stay.

He fucks Dream harder until Dream’s reduced to incoherent wailing, throwing himself into Hob’s touch like to feel nothing and everything is a relief. And Hob feels everything, too: the tight heat of Dream’s body, the dig of his fingertips, his wet panting breaths—and more than anything, the overwhelming want. He wants Dream. He has always wanted Dream.

Dream comes first, pushed over the edge with Hob’s hands on his waist and his cock rubbing over Hob’s belly. He cries out, and then wraps his arms around Hob’s shoulders, holding tight as Hob chases his own completion in his body.

Hob closes his eyes as he comes, just floating in the feeling of having Dream around him. He’s missed that so much. He’s missed Dream so much, in these years he’s been left behind.

He doesn’t realize how emotional he’s gotten about it until he feels Dream’s fingertips tracing over his cheeks, wiping away tears.

“Sorry,” Hob says, voice choked, holding Dream close even as he gently slips from his body.

Dream strokes his hair. “Perhaps I ought to go,” he says quietly, but makes no move to get up. “I fear I am being unfair to you.”

“I’m the one that told you to come back. Wanted you to.” Even if it just breaks his heart all over again, when Dream decides he still isn’t happy, and can’t stay.

“Even so.”

Still he doesn’t move to get up. Hob runs his hands up and down his back, just feeling him.

“I don’t know how you do it,” Dream continues some time later, still stroking Hob’s hair. Hob’s long since buried his face in Dream’s shoulder. “How you. Can feel content.”

Hob barks a laugh. “You think I’m content?”

“Are you not?”

“I don’t know, Dream.” Content to be here, in London, maybe, to not need to uproot himself, chasing some nebulous sense of better, but content? While knowing Dream was out there somewhere?

“My mistake,” Dream says. He rests his cheek on top of Hob’s head. “Perhaps there is no contentment, then.”

That makes Hob laugh for real. He finally lifts his head, looking Dream in the eye. “You’re the most dramatic bitch I’ve ever met. ‘There’s no such thing as contentment'? Dream.”

Dream smiles, then leans in to kiss him. Hob sighs into the brush of his lips. There is such thing as contentment, he thinks.

“What if I don’t leave this time,” Dream says, when their lips part.

“You mean it?”

Dream nods, forehead leaning against Hob’s. “I am. Tired. And this. Is the first moment I have not felt fatigued in longer than I can remember.”

“I’ll have to tire you out better, then.”

“Hob.”

“I’m kidding you, love.” Really, all of Hob is leaping in cautious joy. Could Dream truly mean it? “I want you to stay. Let’s get cleaned up, yeah?”

Dream nods, and lets Hob help him up. They make their joint way to the bathroom, where Hob pulls Dream into the shower with him, and they hold each other close under the warm spray, and Dream washes Hob’s hair with careful focus, mindful of tugging it. Afterwards Hob gives Dream some pajamas to borrow, for all of Dream’s things are still in his hotel room. Dream cuddles up to him in bed, hesitant at first, until Hob opens his arms and assures him of his welcome.

The feeling of Dream laying his head down on Hob’s chest is heavenly. It’s dangerous. But it’s so good.

"I'm sorry," Dream murmurs, into the dark.

“For what? Leaving? You don’t have to be. It’s your life.”

“I don’t know quite what for,” says Dream. “I feel I am wavering about and dragging you along with me.”

“Maybe I want to be dragged along.”

Dream lifts his head to give him a look. “Precisely,” he says, and Hob feels skewered. Seen in his pathetic wanting. Like if he had more self-respect, he’d hold his inconsistent friend at a distance, not invite Dream right back in to break his heart again.

Dream’s decision to leave the first time wasn’t even about Hob. They weren’t really together, more on again, off again, falling into each other and then away. “Friends with benefits.” Only Hob had always cared more about the ‘friends’ than the ‘benefits.’ Maybe if he had made it clearer, Dream would have stayed.

Maybe he needs to stop making it his fault, when it wasn’t about him.

Only. The fact that it wasn’t about him also means that it was.

“Why didn’t you stay?” he asks, grip tightening around Dream’s shoulders.

“I wasn’t happy,” Dream says. The words feel like a shove to the chest. “I didn’t. I did not know how to fix it. I tried to leave. Then I tried to leave again. Only. You can’t leave yourself.”

“What makes it different this time?”

If London— if Hob— didn’t make him happy before—

“Maybe nothing,” Dream admits, quietly, still lying on Hob’s chest. “Maybe it was a futile chase from the start. And I should give up trying.”

“Dream—"

Dream plows on, as if he needs to get it all out. “I called you because. I was staring out at the ocean. I felt nothing. But I thought, ‘Hob would like it.’ And when I showed you, that did make me happy. For a moment. And when I told you how I felt… that made me happy, too.”

Hob wants to say something, but his throat is too tight. God, Dream always finds new ways to break his heart.

“I think that maybe contentment is not… for me,” Dream adds, fingertips stroking lightly up and down Hob’s side. “But the closest I've felt, in fleeting moments, is when I am with you.”

“Dream…” this time it comes out as barely a breath. “My love.”

“Still?”

“Yeah. Always.” Maybe Hob doesn’t have very good self-preservation. But it’s Dream. It’s always been Dream.

“For me as well,” Dream says, and Hob lets out a long, heavy breath.

“Now you’ve got to show me Rhodes in person,” he teases, to break some of the heaviness in the air.

Dream’s smile curves against his skin. “You will like it.”

“I’m sure.”

“I think I will like it more with you there,” Dream adds.

“Yeah?” Hob says.

“Mmhm.”

“I think you just want to ogle me on a beach.”

“If I’m to be in a beautiful place, I ought to have a beautiful man as well,” Dream says. The feeling of his rare smile still pressed to Hob's chest is devastating.

“Completes the picture?” Hob asks, chest tight.

“Yes.” Dream wraps his arms around him and cuddles in close. “I believe it does.”

[trexalicious]

Reblog! @grits-galraisedinthesouth keeps posting about H and Rachel meeting in 2015 in Istanbul on Twitter but they keep deleting her posts...🤔

The Best 48 Hours of Meghan Markle's LIE, I meant Life:

[sartorialadventure]

u/ChipHazardous:

"For a very long time the Roman empire was able to acquire silk through trade over 'the silk road' to China, but never able to unlock the secrets of producing it domestically themselves. Until 552AD, when two monks preaching in India then travelled to China, where they witnessed the guarded methods of using the live silk worm to spin the famous thread. Knowing the importance of what they'd learned, the monks returned to Constantinople to report directly to the emperor Justinian. He personally met the monks, heard all the details of what they'd seen, then asked them to return to China and find a way of smuggling these worms back to the empire. They agreed, and prepared for the 2 year ~6,500km (4,000mi) trek back to China on foot, hoof and wheel. Once back in China they acquired either eggs or young larvae, since the adults are too delicate for transport, and tucked them into hollowed bamboo canes for the long journey straight back home. Once the monks made it back to Constantinople (modern Istanbul, Turkey), domestic silk production slowly ramped up and the need for long journeys along the 'silk road' ramped down. Over time, this allowed the same type of silk monopoly which China had enjoyed through the prior centuries to now be established in the Mediterranean, becoming one of the bedrocks of the Byzantine economy for the next 700 years.

It's crazy to think about these two guys. 1500 years before you or I were born, making their second multi-year, 6,500km trek back from China, smuggling two bamboo canes full of bugs which would fuel the economy of one of the world's largest civilizations for the next 700 years. I wonder if they knew and understood these possibilities when they went to scoop the worms from their baskets in China...Imagine the anxiety trying to keep them hidden and alive the whole way back!"

(source)

[gallusrostromegalus]

How does trash pickup, Recycling centers, &/or Hazardous Material Disposal work for Soul Society in AEIWAM? Is there a Kido-based ritual to break things down into Reishi? Are there Tech Repair Shops?

Sewage in Soul Society works really well but very dangerously because those fucking idiots built the city directly on top of an active supervolcano.

Let me back up:

There isn't a good consensus on how big the Seireitei is (Yoruichi says it takes 10 days to walk 1/4th of the way around the circumference, but whether that's her speed, the average person's or how long a patrol group takes is unclear), Or any real maps of the place, but it's generally agreed that

the city is LARGE. Yoruichi says it would take her and the kids ten days to walk to the next gate 1/4th of the way around the city. Maybe that's 8 hours average human walking speed minus 'trying to herd a bunch of teenagers' but that's still a long trip!

Even before the Seki-Seki stone wall was put up, the city was pretty much circular.

Unlike pretty much every real city, there's no river running through it. Where are they getting their water?

There is a Small but substantial and TOTALLY ISOLATED mountain in the middle of the city made of apparently hard-to-mine rock. A Lonely Mountain, one might even say.

The only visible natural sources of water I've seen evidence of are hot springs in both the Yoruichi/Urahara Super Secret Training Ground/Love Nest and the first division grounds.

Soul Society is run by jackasses and if there's a stupid way to do things, that's the way they're doing them.

In fact, the Soul Society as a whole is almost suspiciously Amestris-shaped, but instead of nefarious alchemy, it's negligent civil engineering

...all this leads me to believe that Seireitei is built DIRECTLY ON TOP OF the caldera of an enormous supervolcano. The city gets it's water from the aquifer of rainwater that's collected in the underground cracks and fissures of the Caldera, and the seki-seki stone wall is set up around the really convenient geographic barrier made by the rim of the caldera.

"Hey!" I hear some of you nerds objecting "Aren't calderas usually concave? Seireitei is convex, if anything!"

You're right! Most Calderas are concave! But they will absolutely fill in with sand and dirt over the true floor of the caldera over time and develop Mounts like the thing at the central part of the city and start to rise WHEN THEY'RE ON THE VERGE OF A CATASTROPHIC ERUPTION.

So yeah! The Gotei-13 has an almost infinite supply of hot water, and probably less than a century to figure out what to do before The Big Kaboom.

Anyway, back at sewage:

There's been a city where the Seireitei is since time immemorial, and even though it's done the istanbul-not-constantinopple shuffle a few times, very little of the actual infrastructure has changed. Empires rise and fall but the desire paths stay the same.

This is especially true in Seireitei, because unlike very nearly every major IRL Municipality, it doesn't have a river running through it, something that usually necessitates Sewer updates By Force. But compared to a river which is constantly moving around in it's bed, a volcanic aquifer doesn't move much until it moves a whole fucking lot real fast, so the undercity of the Seireitei has really had time to... Develop isn't quite the right word.

"Ferment" is closer.

Above-ground waste management is the provenance of the actual local city government- yes, there is a Mayor of the Seireitei that the Gotei-13 has to pay property taxes to. Yamamoto maintains a lot of goodwill with the Mayor by dint of sentencing ill-behaved shinigami to shore up the municipal labor pool, and by knowing the mayor's family for the last millennium. So you'll see Shinigami doing things like trash collection and street-sweeping, but they're just there on probation.

-But nobody wanted to deal with the undercity. It's got a soul of it's own. Washington DC, which is less than 500 years old as a city and on top of a swamp, has an undercity that goes down over half a mile. Imagine how deep the sunken buildings, abandoned secret tunnels, and sewer system of a city that's millenia old, not sitting on actual mud and constantly subjected to high levels of magical background radiation might develop.

An Appetite, for one thing.

The 11th likes to talk a big game, but the reason the 4th is in charge of sewer maintenance is because the only people with the guts for it were people who got degrees rummaging in the guts of living people. Sewer maintenance really is a lot like abdominal surgery, if you were able to walk around inside the patient.

It was Retsu Unohana's idea, actually. Chigiri was a battle medic and aged rapidly for a shinigami. She was old when the court guard finally went from "Yamamoto and his gang of assholes" to "A for-real governing body". Her successor, Kirinji was more interested in traumatic injury recovery than preventative medicine, for obvious reasons- his triage was constantly full of combat casualties and early kido experiment victims Blood Loss was still his #1 Killer.

But Retsu had been reincarnated in and spent her youth in South 80, in the utterly undeveloped conditions there, and held deep, personal grudges with Dysentery and Cholera. For all his talk of healing waters, Kirinji had no sense of the importance of water sanitation, and it was a continuous point of contention between them for her apprenticeship.

"FINE!" He shouted one day after a particularly nasty row. "IF IT'S SO GODDAMN IMPORTANT TO YOU, YOU HANDLE IT! FORM NOW ON, YOU'RE IN CHARGE OF SEWAGE, SLUDGE QUEEN!"

She made her first descent the next morning.

She did not return for six weeks, and Kirinji almost thought he'd resloved that particular problem when she reappeared from the depths, a changed woman. That long in the darkness, alongside the buried secrets and skeletons of the city, with the horrors that did not dare brave the sunlight- it would change anyone, and most would come up looking at least mildly haunted.

Retsu Unohana is not most.

She looks radiant, almost like The Kenpachi again, covered in the horrors of the underground as she used to be covered in blood. She thrives on a challenge, and excels at the art of purification, and now, she has been given the single greatest challenge of purification in history. There is something beautiful and terrible in her eyes as she explains that it does down at least five miles, look at this, she thinks it's from the neolithic era, and there are incredible boneyards of thousands of skeletons, and fungi the likes of which she's never seen before- She is ecstatic- a creature kept in captivity, finally released into it's natural habitat.

It's hardly a surprise, if you consider Minazuki. Stingrays are benthic creatures, right at the bottom of the river, deep in the muck and decay.

It's been a little over eight hundred years into her tenure as a medic, and she has tamed much of the beast. The upper levels are well-mapped and have been made clean and well-lit, enough that even the civilian sanitation forces of the city can regularly enter and work in them without any particular unease. Infant and preventable disease mortality has dropped astronomically. Nobody's had cholera since the 1800's . While they have other jobs, all members of the 4th division are required to take at least one tour in the depths of the undercity.

Horrors still lurk in the depths.

They're pretty sure they lost Tokagero Kenpachi chasing one of those, shortly before Unohana became captain, and she's been reluctant to let other divisions assist since then. The Fourth Division's Fourth Seat, rumored to be the unluckiest post in the entire Gotei-13, is permanently stationed underground, and she loves it that way.

It's only recently that the 11th has been allowed to come along on descents, after Zaraki vanished for two days and then emerged victorious from a manhole in the 5th division with a tentacled horror she'd been tracking for decades that lived at least three miles down. He apologized- he had meant to come up in the 4th to present it's corpse to her directly, but well, you know what his sense of direction is like. Anyway, I saw it scuttling around in the rain aquifers and we don't need it tracking literal shit into the water supply so I went after is and d'ya think maybe I can take the lads down sometime? They' get lazy between deployments and you have a triage up here to manage.

Charmed, she agreed.

---

Hm. I just re-read that ask and it's actually about dry waste managment.

Sorry. I got very excited about the sewers.

I am now about to get worse about trash.

I don't think they have plastic in soul society- given how bug-themed the 12th division is, I'm pretty sure the casing on Rukia's soul pager is made of Chitin, and if you break it, it bleeds. Also it makes people with shellfish allergies break out in hives.

Since pretty much all the waste in Soul Society is either recyclable or organic matter, I think those trash pits Yumichika and Ganju were fooling around with are really more like Kido-enhanced composting centers. All waste goes into them and the bottom of the pit is pulled out in a tray, like with a vermiculture tower, if the worms were eighteen and a half feet long and hungry enough to swallow anything that falls in the pit, because Mayuri is incapable of making anything that is not at least slightly awful.

The compost is then shaken out for any spare glass or metal that made it into the compost and that's sent off to the 12th division forges to be recycled. it's baked to kill any dangerous pathogens and Giant Garbage Worm Eggs so they don't breach containment, and measured for nitrogen, phosphorus and other important plant nutrient content. Based on it's composition, it's then shipped out to farmers in the upper districts of the rukongai because "Free, A+ grade fertilizer if y'all don't start revolutions, pay your taxes and give us first dibs on crops" is an amazing incentive for rural farmers to not start backing the local warlords.

It was 12th division founder Uhin Zenjohji who came up wth the scheme- he remembered the lengths upper-district farmers were willing to go through to make sure their land remained fertile, what kind of demand Nitrogen was in, and the ravages of phosphorous runnoff, so he could kill two birds with one clod of shit by supplying farmers with 'free' fertilizer that kept them loyal to the court and was tailored to that area's nutritional needs and watershed capacity.

The fact that it kept a lot of swamp and waterway areas pristine so he could indulge his birdwatching hobby was a nice benefit too :).

NORMALLY, those pits are covered, clearly marked, and usually the site of a major traffic jam because that's the local collection point, but when Ichigo and friends arrived, Aizen had whipped everyone into believing they were being invaded by an elite force of super-assassins and not like. 4 high schoolers and a furry. All the street signs and markings came down, civilians shuttered themselves inside, and generally made the Seireitei as difficult to navigate as possible.

I wonder how much Zaraki's rotten sense of direction was exacerbated by that.

ANYWAY! That's my thoughts on trash! Deep undercity horrors and giant compost worms over an active volcano!

[probablyasocialecologist]

In Istanbul, a flotilla of ships is preparing to depart with 5,500 tonnes of aid and around 1,000 medics, lawyers, senior politicians and human rights observers. Its destination: the Gaza Strip. On Sunday, the Gaza Freedom Flotilla will begin making its way to the besieged strip, its fifth voyage in 14 years. While the journey would normally take three to four days, it is expected that the flotilla – initially comprising three vessels, one cargo and two passenger ships, with further vessels expected to join later – could be waylaid by Israeli forces. 

[...]

The flotilla is organised by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), which brings together 12 national groups from Canada, Malaysia, Italy, Norway, the US, Sweden, Spain, Turkey, South Africa, New Zealand, the UK and France. Altogether, delegates from over 30 countries will be represented on board. The flotilla’s crew and passengers – among them Che Guevara’s daughter Aleida and Nelson Mandela’s grandson Zwelivelile – will be unarmed. Their peacefulness will not guarantee their safety, however, as the Israeli state has a long and bloody history of targeting humanitarian groups. The flotilla’s first voyage to Gaza in May 2010 was a bloodbath: Israel sent a naval ship to meet it, killing 10 crew members (all of them Turkish, including one Turkish American dual national) and injuring 30. A UN report later found that Israel appeared to have executed at least six people in an “extra-legal, arbitrary and summary” manner; a Turkish state autopsy found that five had been shot in the head at close range.  Israel subsequently apologised to Turkey for the raid and agreed to compensate the bereaved families $20m. Further voyages in 2015, 2016 and 2018 saw Israel seize the FFC’s ships and detain and deport those on board. Israel has also targeted humanitarian workers on land. Earlier this month, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) food aid workers, among them three British citizens, in a drone attack on a marked convoy whose movements had been coordinated with the IDF. An Israeli investigation blamed “grave errors”, a finding WCK rejected.

[ladykailitha]

Around the World Part 9

And here we are at the end of the story. There is one more story left to be told. And that's "The Rise of The Fallen" which is scheduled to come out on Sunday. Then the second and final part will come out on Tuesday.

In this one, we get the reactions from Steve's other friends and Murray appears for a final fuck you to Nancy. With another sweet cameo from Vickie.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

~

They made their merry way through Europe, Murray keeping his eagle-eye out for fans and paparazzi alike, all while Steve took pictures of Eddie different outfits. His personal favorite was of Eddie standing next a group of Corroded Coffin fans at ‘The Shining” motel in Germany.

His hair was tucked up under a hat and he wore a baggy jeans and wore a fuzzy blue-grey sweater. He still had his scruff and the sunglasses almost made him look more like Johnny Depp, then Eddie Munson.

Eddie was sure to steer clear of blacks and leathers and to keep his hair out of his face. He even wore a bright orange wig in Romania and Vlad the Impaler’s real castle and not the one Hollywood used for their movies.

Everyone agreed he looked dreadful in the wig, but they couldn’t deny the damn thing’s effectiveness.

They parted with Murray in Greece. He had found a lovely little cottage to settled down in and so they bid their travel partner farewell.

There in while they were viewing the Hagia Sophia in Turkiye because Chrissy expressed an interest, they met Gareth and Shane.

“Eddie!” Gareth cried and ran into his arms for a big hug.

Robin and Steve were treated to the same bear hug from Shane. Steve held Shane at arms length and smiled. His twin looked good. There was a sparkle to his eyes that had been missing on the tour.

“You look great!” he enthused to Shane’s bemusement.

“Don’t I always?” Shane teased.

Steve laughed. “Of course you do, but you look...”

“Healthy,” Robin supplied.

Then Shane truly blushed. “Thanks. Someone suggested that maybe Muslim countries might be the way to go to avoid certain vices...”

“And how is that working out for you?” Steve asked with a smile.

“Good,” Shane said, “great even.”

They decided to tour the rest of Istanbul together. Just taking in all the beautiful sites.

Steve led Shane away from the group as they were saying their goodbyes.

“What’s on your mind, twin?” Shane asked, leaning up against the railing that looked out into the city.

“Eddie asked me to marry him.” Steve fiddled with the necklace as he spoke.

Shane gently took it from his nervous fingers and smiled. “What’s the charm on his necklace, then?”

“Wings.”

Shane’s smile widened. “Because of course it is. He’s going take good care of you, you know?”

Steve blushed and nodded his head. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

“Good,” Shane said with a soft smile. “Now tell me all about how he proposed.”

So he did. He launched into the whole story, including the mess in Venice.

“Nice to see he isn’t Mr. Perfect,” Shane said with a huff of laughter. “But good on him realizing he done fucked up, though.”

“Yeaaahhh,” Steve said with wry smile.

They walked back to the others and Eddie looked up at Steve and smiled. Steve smiled back.

~

Their tour through Asia saw them seeing haunted forests and beautiful tombs. They saw the Terracotta warriors and the Great Wall of China, Himeji Castle and Aokigahara in Japan, the Chaukhadi Tombs in Pakistan. Finally they arrived in beautiful India.

They stood in front of the one of the most well known tombs in the world. The Taj Mahal. It was even more beautiful in person than it was in pictures.

Eddie turned to Steve. “When I die are you going to build me as beautiful a tomb as this?”

“Yeah, babe,” Steve said, pulling him close. “Everyone will know the resting place of Eddie Munson, rockstar and best boyfriend in the world.”

Eddie blushed and ducked his head, his hair tucked away as had become the norm on this trip. “Shucks, Stevie. I thought you were going to say no.”

Steve laughed, giddy. “Never. Maybe we should start building it now, like the pyramids in Egypt so you can be interred with your guitar collection.”

Eddie’s went wide. “You do love me!” He wrapped his arms around Steve and kissed him soundly.

“The things they allow in public these days,” huffed a fond female voice behind them.

The four of them turned to see Nadia, Spence and a couple of well dressed young men that must have been Nadia’s brothers.

“Nadia! Spence!” Robin squealed and ran over to give them huge hugs. She even included the brothers in her enthusiastic greetings.

“These are my brothers, Indra and Jai,” Nadia said introducing them. “This is Spence’s friend, Steve, his boyfriend Eddie and Chrissy and Robin also Steve and Eddie’s friends.”

They all greeted each other.

“You know,” Eddie said with a huff of laughter. “If I didn’t know any better I’d say Stevie’s friends were social media stalking us as we’ve met up with everyone at this point.”

“You saw Simon and Shane, too?” Spence asked, tilting his head to the side. “I knew you guys were traveling the world, but Italy and Turkiye, as well?”

“We’ve been having a blast!” Robin said throwing her arms out. “Chrissy and I are heading back to the States after India, but Steve and Eddie are going to continue with Australia, some Africa and a couple places in South America before coming home to California.”

Spence bit his lip. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” He waved vaguely at Eddie.

Eddie grinned. “We’ve been taking the proper precautions and we wanted to extend our trip out a little bit more.”

Spence looked to Steve who nodded.

“Well,” Nadia said with her own huff of laughter. “If the biggest thing that happened was Boston and that was almost two months ago and you haven’t been spotted since, I think they’ll be just fine.”

Spence looked down at her with a broad grin. “You’re right.”

“You best get used to that,” the younger of the two boys, Jai said, “she is always right. Even our mom agrees with her most of the time.”

“It’s frightening,” Indra said, with a nod.

Nadia just smiled up at Spence with find amusement.

“Yup!” Spence said, pressing his lips together. “Learning that lesson fast.”

Steve let out a laugh and soon everyone had joined in.

~

They toured India a little more with suggestions from Indra who was also a spooky fan and then they moved on.

Everywhere they went, Eddie had tried on a different look. Often blending in with the locals. There were exotic locales and spooky hotels. And in each place, Steve took a picture of Eddie incognito.

Steve laughed more in those four months then he had since he started being Abbadon in The Fallen.

Eddie was right, being a normal guy had its perks and getting to spend that with Eddie? Really made it all worth it.

Far too soon they were lifting off the runway in Mexico City on their way back to their lives.

“Well, Stevie,” Eddie said with a smile, “you ready to go back home?”

Steve nodded. “Yeah, I loved traveling the world. Especially with Chrissy and Robin. Seeing the guys doing so well. It really made it all worth while. But I want to sleep in my bed. I want to start writing again. I really didn’t that much while we were traveling. I learned so much out here about me, I almost can’t wait to be Abbadon again.”

“I learned a lot about me, too,” Eddie agreed. “I’ve rarely had a chance to be myself in the last ten years that I almost forgot where I came from. I’m not the leather and chains. I’m not the heavy metal rockstar. I’m just a poor schmuck from Hawkins, Indiana who got so fucking lucky.”

“You think you’re next album is going to reflect that?” Steve asked as he rummaged in his backpack for his book.

“Probably,” Eddie huffed in amusement. “After the third solely dedicated to you.”

“Only a third?” he teased. “Dustin was sure it was half.”

Eddie buried his head in his hands. “Why do we tell that butthead anything?”

“I figure it’s that open and round face of his,” Steve groused. “It just screams ‘trust me’.”

Eddie cocked his head to the side and then nodded. “Yeah, that tracks.”

~

Steve’s first stop after getting off the plane was straight to Vickie’s office. He needed to clear something with her before he went nuclear.

Vickie raised her head and smiled when Steve knocked on her door.

“Nichole said it was okay to just come in,” he said with a smile.

“And Nichole would be correct,” she said indicating the chairs in front of her, “have a seat. Tell me all about your lovely vacation. Thank you for sending me pictures by the way, it helped me and my team keep up on all the goings on and keep fan reactions to a minimum.”

“You’re welcome!” Steve said brightly, closing the door behind him. “So this is about the pictures, actually.”

“Oh?” she said, leaning back in her chair. “Do tell.”

So Steve did.

At the end of his explanation and question Vickie grinned. “I think that’s a beautiful way to do it. I’ll make sure she’s served before you send out the message and you’re all good to go.”

“I have an idea on who should serve her, too,” he said, grinning back at her.

“If you’re thinking of who I’m thinking of,” she said slyly, “then it’ll be perfect.”

Steve just smiled.

~

There was a knock on the door and Nancy went up to get it. She had just finished applying for schools to change her career from being an agent to a journalist. The thought of really getting to the heart of a story like she had on the school newspaper all those years ago, really lit something in her.

She opened the door and there was a short man with thick, wire glasses and a sneering grin.

“Wait, you’re Murray Bauman, right?” she asked. “Had I know you were coming I would have opened a bottle of wine to commiserate with. Both of us having been discarded like trash when Corroded Coffin was done with us.”

Murray shrugged. “It was time. I needed the push to retire. Got myself a lovely little cottage in Greece now.”

She blinked at him for a moment. “Then why are you here?”

“This!” He handed her a large manilla envelope and waved goodbye.

Inside was a cease and desist as well as a notification that she may have violated an NDA.

“Shit.”

There was another paper in the envelope and when she pulled it out, her heart sank. She slumped against the wall and let the picture fall to the floor. It was a picture of the London Eye in the background with Chrissy and Robin on one side and Steve and Eddie on the other and in the middle smiling up at the camera, clearly taken by someone else, was Murray Bauman.

~

Steve and Eddie were snuggled up on Steve’s bed, Eddie curled around Steve.

Steve hit send and put the phone down to wrap his arms around Eddie. “There. All posted across all social media. I’ve put us both on mute and Vickie is going to handle the next forty-eight hours.”

“I wish I could have seen her face when she saw the picture,” Eddie huffed with a grin.

“Me, too.”

Steve’s phone lit up once to confirm the post of: “Traveling with a rockstar is like playing hide and seek with fans. How many of you saw him but didn’t realize you were standing next to Eddie Munson?! Also, to the 'fan' who outed us in Boston, we know who you are and an NDA maaaayyyy have been violated. You'll speak to our lawyers soon! “

Eddie and Steve soon drifted off to sleep, content with their lives.

~

Tag List: CLOSED

1- @rozzieroos @itsall-taken @redfreckledwolf @zerokrox-blog @beelze-the-bubkiss

2- @gregre369 ​@a-little-unsteddie @chaosgremlinmunson @messrs-weasley @cryptid-system

3- @maya-custodios-dionach @goodolefashionedloverboi @val-from-lawrence @carlyv @wonderland-girl143-blog

4- @irregular-child @bookbinderbitch @bookworm0690 @forgottenkanji

5- @anne-bennett-cosplayer @yikes-a-bee @awkwardgravity1 @littlewildflowerkitten @genderless-spoon

6- @dragonmama76 @ellietheasexylibrarian @thedragonsaunt @useless-nb-bisexual @disrespectedgoatman

7- @counting-dollars-counting-stars @tinyplanet95 @ravenfrog @swimmingbirdrunningrock @lingeringmirth

8- @gutterflower77 @a-lovely-craziness @just-a-tiny-void @w1ll0wtr33 @sticknpokelightningbolt

9- @scoops-aboy86 @kurofuckingshi16 @watermelonmite @eyehartart @dreamercec

10- @little-birch-boy @yearningagain @micheledawn1975 @blondie1006 @sadisticaltarts

[gulnarsultan]

Hello! Long time follower and I love your page, especially the Magnificent Century content as no hardly writes for them.

Could it be possible to have a Yandere Sehzade Mustafa and a concubine reader who was brought along with Nurbanu. Like both were supposed to be part of Selim's harem, but Mustafa wanted reader when he saw her and strings were pulled to put reader in Mustafa's harem instead.

Thank you in advance and again, I love your work!

Hello dear. I am so glad to hear this. Thank you.😍🥰😘❤ ​​Unfortunately. There are almost no other blogs that write about Magnificent Century/ Kösem. Sad🥺. I hope you like it dear.💞

You and Cecily were captured and sold to the Ottoman Palace at the same time. Like Cecily, you were also a member of a noble family. Unlike Cecily, you were immediately chosen by Hurrem Sultan to join the harem of her son, Prince Selim. Cecily had to struggle to be chosen. You were taking lessons with you, Nurbanu and a few other concubines for days.

Prince Mustafa noticed you when he came to the Istanbul Palace. Your beauty seemed to tear the Prince's heart out of his chest. Prince Mustafa wasted no time in gathering information about who you were from the Palace staff. When he found out that you were chosen for his brother, Prince Selim, he was furious. He wanted you for himself and he knew he had to do something.

Without wasting any time, he immediately asked for help from his mother Mahidevran Sultan. Mahidevran Sultan did not turn down her son's request and agreed to help. Somehow they prevented you from becoming Prince Selim's concubine. To be honest, you were sad to be separated from your friend Nurbanu. You are going to the Sanjak that he rules with Prince Mustafa.

Prince Mustafa gives you many gifts. He invites you to his bed the most. Prince Mustafa's love, desire and wish for you never runs out. You are the mother of all of Prince Mustafa's children. You have more than one child together.

Prince Süleyman

Prince Ahmed

Nergisşah Sultan

Mihrişah Sultan

Prince Orhan

Handan Sultan

Prince Mehmed

[akajustmerry]

Hi

1 love your blog and podcast

2 I’m really enjoying your weekly Palestinian film recs

3. Do you have more recommendations for Arab and Middle Eastern cinema ?

Thank you ☺️

helloooooo, thank you 🥰 I have a whole sideblog which I don't promote enough called @swanasource where I and my co-mod @thatidomagirl frequently post middle eastern/SWANA film and films made by swana filmmakers in the film tag here:

I myself am still on my journey of watching more swana films (and non-english and non-Western films) so I won't claim to be any sort of exhaustive expert. but here are some of my favourites!

Salt of this Sea (2008). Dir. Annemarie Jacir. Palestinian film about a Palestinian-American woman heisting an Israeli bank

The Persian Version (2023). Dir. Maryam Kershavez. Comedy about an Iranian-American lesbian who gets pregnant after a one night stand and so decides to learn more about her family history.

Kedi (2016). A calming and beautiful Turkish documentary about the cats of Istanbul

Ali's Wedding (2017). A rom-com about an Iraqi-Australian Muslim who falls in love with the Lebanese girl from his mosque who's helping him get into med school.

The Man Who Sold His Skin (2020). Tunisian thriller about a syrian refugee who agrees to let his back be tattooed and be part of a living exhibition by a notorious artist so he can get a visa.

Sirens (2020). A documentary about the queer Lebanese all-girl metal band, Slave To Sirens, set around the Beirut explosion.

In Vitro (2019). A short Palestinian sci-fi film about an elderly woman in an underground bunker trying to describe the world before to a young woman who's only ever known the bunker.

Cairo Time (2009). Dir. Ruba Nadda. Look, this film isn't perfect but It's about a white American woman who's husband is a UN worker in Egypt. She goes to visit him in Cairo, but her husband is waylaid so he sends his bestie played by the beautiful Alexander Siddig to take her around Cairo and oh my GOD the romantic tension of this movie keeps me up at night.

Butterflies (2018). One of my fave movies ever. A Turkish comedy about 3 estranged siblings who have to take a chaotic road trip to fulfil their father's last wishes.

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

I often wonder what was that one particular thing, ingredient X, if you may, that made Harry succumb to Meghan in June 2016?

I understand that he had psychological trauma from his mums death, from his dad's bourgeois parenting style, from the very fact that he was Windsor male for that matter. I also agree that he is quite simple minded, so now in hind sight we can say he is increasingly motivated by resentment towards his perfect brother, his own greed and need for adulation etc. But back in 2016, he was on a good path. Settling into his job. Enjoying the perks of his popularity. And it's safe to assume that both William and Harry, were used to the fact that women threw themselves at them both. So they also had some sense to know that not everyone had good intentions.

It's also been speculated that Harry did meet Meghan a year before in 2015, at Soho Istanbul (according to many bloggers). And may even have met her in 2014 at Miami (according to Shauna, Vintage Reads). So he had enjoyed her company and still evaded her clothes then.

And not just her, he probably had come into contact with many wannabes who he hooked up with and managed to shake off.

So why 2016? When everything seemed to be going so well for him? His family circle was fairly well grounded. He had an independent profile of his own royal work. He had a good team and loyal, competent staff. He had a great, extensive friend circle. He could have anything and anyone he wanted. He seemed nice, engaged with people, showed empathy and some commonsense when out and about. So I am so perplexed as to how and why, that "blind date" at Soho in May/June/July/whenever led to his spectacular downfall.

I know this isn't really the blog or the platform where we can psychoanalyse Harry correctly and succinctly. But it's just a question that I'm fascinated by. In 3 years, he lost every single thing he had - his family, his relationships, his work, his friends, his honour, his glory, his legacy, his prospects at any royal relevance. How were mental defences so down, so ineffective, how was he so walled-in into his trauma that he had no chance at being saved? It sure couldn't be as simple as greed for more money or a Hollywood lifestyle?

And let's be honest, Meghan isn't that great a catch where someone like him would just lay down everything at her feet and be like "here queen, feed on my guts, eat my flesh raw". Urghhh

I'm so confused and so perplexed.

All of Harry's friends and cousins were getting married and settling down in 2015/2016. That's a lot of peer pressure and expectations on him, even if it wasn't overt and directly applied.

And when everyone around you is coupling up, settling down, getting married, and having babies, that can give you beer goggles because now you're rushing through relationships to catch up with them. We've all seen it happen in our own friend groups, I'm sure. I've got a few friends who were so bothered by being in their 30s without partners and families while the rest of their friends are planning weddings and having babies that they marry the first guy who shows interest. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't.

That seems to be what happened to Harry. Everyone was settling down. He was feeling left out. So he met someone that suited his needs, said "to hell with the rest" and married her ASAP.

And also this: "He could have anything and anyone he wanted." isn't true. He wasn't getting the girls he wanted. He wanted someone like Kate - pretty, British, media-trained, from a good family, and well-off - and all those girls were staying far, far away from him. They knew what he was really like behind closed doors; needy, paranoid, cheap (he once made Cressida buy her own plane ticket for a trip he had invited her on), and heavily partying. The 'anyone he wanted' that Harry was going after wasn't into that.

Also, anon - if you haven't already, you might want to give Tom Bower's Revenge a read. Specifically Chapter 13, "A Troubled Prince," has a little bit of psychoanlysis of Harry that you might enjoy.

[buckets-and-trees]

First Night

I promised two anniversary fics this weekend, and it's still "this weekend" in a couple of time zones...

Series: The Brooklyn Boys Characters/Pairings: Stucky x female!Reader Word Count: 2.3k Summary: Takes place immediately after the events of the final part 10 Steve and the Best Friend. Dinner and a movie and...

Content Warnings: fluff, feelings, soft semi-retired superheroes

Additional Notes: Filling my ninth square for Bucky Barnes Bingo @buckybarnesbingo - U1 "Galaxy" and is the much spoken of (by me) PROMISED ANNIVERSARY EPISODE TO CELEBRATE POSTING PART ONE FOR THIS SERIES A YEAR AGO! These boys meant a lot to me back then and writing for them again to celebrate this with all of you has been a dream.

↠ Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

Bucky kisses the back of your hand, then stands from the couch, checking his watch. “Dinner’s about ready. I’ll go finish it off.”

As he leaves the living room, Steve scoots a little closer. He pulls you into a short kiss, then rests his forehead against yours, eyes closed, and you breathe in the moment.

“I know it’s so predictable to ask you about your day,” he says, “but I’ve been waiting for weeks to just have these everyday conversations with you.”

You smile, though you know he can’t see it. You’re sure he can feel it because you can feel it coming from him, too.

“When we went to dinner that night, I thought that was going to be the beginning of so many days like that, seeing you, texting with you, just sharing everything with you.

Your heart stutters and leaps, “I wanted that, too. I’m sorry it wasn’t–”

He stops you with another gentle press of his lips to yours and cups your cheek. “No, I didn’t mean to bring it up to make you feel guilty. Tony would say if you want to make an omelet, you have to break some eggs. I think we’re coming through for the better.”

In the time that you’ve spent with Steve, you’ve become aware of how influential and powerful his mood is in any situation, and right now he’s feeling a contentment that really does envelop you.

So you sit back a little in the armchair, but take his hand, and start talking. He holds your hand in both of his, idle stroking of the back of your hand with his thumb as he listens. You talk about the bookshop. Bucky has become a regular, but Steve hasn’t been in yet. You’re eager to share that with him soon, too. You tell him about an upcoming book launch event you solidified today with a local author – it’s their debut novel, but they’ve been a frequent friend of your shop for a few years. “Oh,” you suddenly remember to ask, “you mentioned before that you were getting a lot of chatter about some things happening in Turkey. Is that where you and Bucky went?”

“Yeah.” He grins, probably pleased that you remembered. “Turkey was… interesting.”

“I’ve wanted to go to Turkey! Mission stuff aside because I know that’s probably classified, did you get to experience anything?”

“Not too much, but we did get to see a little of Istanbul. It was beautiful.” He tilts his head a little. “I… would like to go back and see more.”

You plant your elbow on the armrest of your chair and prop your chin on the hand Steve’s not holding. “Steve, have you even been on a vacation?”

He shakes his head. “Only day trips or weekends once or twice upstate when I was a kid. We kept on the move and covered a lot of territory when we didn’t agree to the Sokovia Accords, but that was survival and trying to be of use while keeping a low profile, not traveling. And during The Blip, it never even crossed my mind.”

You squeeze his hand.

“We should go.”

“I’ve never done as much traveling as I wanted either. Couldn’t afford it when I was starting out, then… yeah, The Blip, and since the Second Snap, it’s been busy, but now…”

“Now maybe we have even more reason to make it something to prioritize.”

Butterflies flare in your stomach when he smiles at you like that. Your chest gets that happy tightness. This was why you said yes to them.

“So, Turkey,” you say, a little breathlessly.

“I’ll put it on the list.”

You’re melting.

“Dinner is almost ready!” Bucky’s voice calls from the kitchen. “Steve, come set the table!”

“France should probably go near the top of the list.”

Steve nods in agreement and pulls you up as he stands. He keeps your hand in his as he walks both of you into the kitchen.

“Bucky won’t let us eat in the kitchen, not even at the stools at the counter,”

“Damn right I won’t!” he says, already catching your conversation. “The French wouldn’t hear of it, and I worked hard enough for us to eat at the altar of a proper table.”

“Everything smells incredible,” you gush when you enter their beautiful kitchen. Every part of the brownstone you’ve seen so far is beautiful.

Bucky turns and flashes a devastating grin before turning back to his prep. “Glad you think so.”

Steve brings you to a stop right next to Bucky, who is fully occupied whisking egg yolks one at a time into a custard on the stove, a separate pan with melted chocolate set off to the side. You lean your hip against the counter so you can watch.

Standing behind him, Steve puts a hand on Bucky’s shoulder on the other side and leans over the stove to stick his finger in the chocolate, getting his taste before Bucky can stop him.

“Rogers!” Bucky growls.

You laugh, and Steve grins wickedly.

“It’s good.”

“Get to setting the table. Food’s already set, just going to finish this off and put it in the oven.”

“And pour the wine?”

“We’ve got a Syrah, right? Or any Bordeaux blend.”

“I’ll look and see.”

“Can I help?” you ask.

They both immediately frown at you. “You’re not lifting a finger the first dinner you’re eating here with us,” Bucky says adamantly.

You hold your hands up quickly in surrender. “Understood,” you laugh.

“Good girl,” Steve says, his smile immediately returning. “I’ll go sort out the wine.”

He squeezes Bucky’s shoulder before he leaves the kitchen.

It hits you out of nowhere. There’s a short constriction in your chest at seeing how easy that casual intimate gesture was between them. They’ve known each other for years and years longer than they’ve known you. You’re nowhere near close to that ease and familiarity with them yet. Will this work?

“Come here,” Bucky invites you in closer, and as you step forward, he tucks an arm around you and pulls you securely into his side while he continues whisking with his other hand. Did your insecurity show on your face? Did he merely suspect it? Or maybe he just wanted to hold you for no other reason than wanting to. Whatever the reason, it does soothe away that doubt that had tried to creep in. He presses a kiss to your temple. “I missed you. I don’t know if I would’ve been patient enough to wait much longer. Steve was adamant we had to wait for you to set the timing though.”

Your chest blooms with warmth. You’re glad they did wait – you had needed the time to think and sort out your heart so you could feel secure jumping all in – but it also made you feel good to know he’d been eager. You circle your arms around his waist and look up at him. “Thank you.” You could say more, but you think he knows. His eyes and a squeeze of his arm around you say that he does.  “Kiss me?”

“Always,” and he does. It’s a swift kiss because he is in the middle of the complexities of whatever he’s cooking, but he makes sure even the short kiss takes your breath away.

You only just manage not to whimper when he draws his lips away. Instead, you content yourself with resting your head against his chest. “Now what is it you’re making?”

“The boeuf bourguignon was easy to finish off, and I had decided something decadent for dessert was in order. Chocolate soufflé.”

“Damn, Barnes, you know how to impress a girl.”

He laughs. “Honey, get ready for a lot more of this.”

Your stomach flips, but he doesn't leave you flustered for long, diving into normal conversation while he continued working, Steve coming in and out of the kitchen to set the table. Bucky allows you to assist him as sous chef for only a moment, letting you to open the oven door when he was ready to carefully put the chocolate delicacy in to bake.

Then the three of you sit down to dinner, and it wasn’t an oversell to say it is one of the best meals of your life. The food is incredible, and simply being there with the two of them with the conversation, the laughter, the way they look at you, the way they look at each other, all of it is bliss. That bliss bleeds into Bucky taking the chocolate soufflé out of the oven and the three of you devouring the rich masterpiece. Then you settle in to watch a movie together, you tucked between them.

When you wake up, you are no longer tucked between your super soldiers, but instead tucked beneath a set of soft sheets and blanket that are unfamiliar to you, your head rests on a comfortable but foreign pillow, and your body feels the awkwardness of having slept in your jeans and button-down blouse. The latter wasn’t awful, but never ideal. Why were you asleep in your day clothes? You shift and yawn and sink a little more into the pillows and mattress, appreciating how cozy they are but wondering where exactly you were. You rewind your memory and start to recall a few of the last details in your mind – leaning up against Bucky’s side, Steve pulling your legs up across his lap and giving you a foot massage while the opening scenes of a movie played out.

They had let you choose the movie, and you’d gone with The Count of Monte Cristo, one of your favorites, but now you weren’t certain you’d even made it to the Chateau D’If with poor Edmond Dantes before falling asleep. Actually, you were pretty sure it was that soothing foot massage that had you lost to the land of the waking. You do have a vague half recollection of being scooped up from the couch into someone’s arms, but that was it.

It's clearly what landed you here.

You roll onto your back and smile. The ceiling is littered with carefully mapped out constellations, a glow in the dark replication of the galaxy. Adorable nerd, you think, and with a look around the room, the shelf full of books that covers an entire wall of the room and a neatly stacked pile of three books on the bedside table let you know you must be in Bucky’s bed. There is a low level of moonlight casting a glow across the room from the windows, and you remember the distinct thought you’d had about wanting to see how this man kept his books and what else was in his collection, but that would need to wait for daylight. You never would have dreamed this was how things would have played out all those weeks ago.

A little more alert, your throat feels a little dry, and knowing once the thought has crossed your mind you wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep without a drink of water, and it was clearly too late to go home (or late enough to absolutely justify staying in this very cozy place for the rest of the night and seeing your boys in the morning), you pull back the covers and shift out of bed. Sitting at the foot of the mattress you see a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt that are clearly meant for you, and a huge sleepy smile splits across your face. You discard your clothes, feeling immediately comfortable in the alternative – which smell like Steve.

Bucky’s bed but Steve’s clothes.

Your head spins happily as you pad quietly into the hallway and make your way to the kitchen.

Once properly watered, you make your way back to the bedrooms, carefully bringing the partially-refilled glass with you just in case you get thirsty again. It is so quiet in their home, but comfortably so. You will get to see more in the daylight, but you love how it feels already. You pause at the doorway to Bucky’s room, bite your lip, and turn to look across the hallway at another bedroom door.

You don't want to sleep alone in Bucky’s room when they are together in Steve’s.

Heart pounding just a little, you step across the hallway and slowly turn the doorknob, trying to open the door as quietly as you can. You step inside, but then stop and look around. This was an unoccupied bedroom – it had a bed, but that bed was empty, and this room didn’t seem to have much to it. It was a guest bedroom. A little bloom shoots through your heart at the thought that while they had wanted to give you every bit of privacy – leaving you clothed, giving you a bed to yourself – it felt intimate in its own way to know that they’d tucked you in in Bucky’s room, not the guest bedroom.

Not at all nervous now, you step back into the hallway, close that door, and make your way further down the hall, eager to find where these two impossibly wonderful men were slumbering and join them. The next door on the left was a bathroom, but the door on the right is Steve’s. Bucky is asleep, but Steve is sitting up against the headboard and had been engrossed in scrolling in something on his phone, earbuds in, but looks up when your movement pulls his attention. He grins and pulls the buds out, “Hi, Sweetheart.”

“Hi,” you breath, padding toward his side of the bed.

He nudges Bucky as you make your way over. Bucky groans.

“Told you our girl would make her way to us before sunrise,” Steve says to him, and that seems to bring Bucky around slightly.

Steve sets his phone on his bedside table, takes the glass from your hand to set it there as well, and pulls back the covers so you can hop up and crawl in and join them. Bucky immediately pulls you in to his chest, kissing the top of your head. You sigh as Steve closes in behind you, and between your two super soldiers, you quickly drift back to sleep, held safely in their arms.

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[eretzyisrael]

by Moshe Phillips

Dozens of Palestinian Authority diplomats around the world celebrated the Oct. 7 massacres, according to a new study. The revelations have important implications for anybody concerned about the prospects for Middle East peace.

The study was undertaken by GnasherJew, a group of British Jewish investigative journalists, and reported by The Jewish Chronicle based in London. GnasherJew is best known for exposing the antisemitic remarks made by Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader of Britain’s Labour Party.

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While the U.S. State Department, The New York Times, and J Street keep telling us that the P.A. opposes terrorism and wants to live in peace next to Israel, the statements made by the P.A.’s own representatives around the world say otherwise.

The investigators reviewed hundreds of social-media posts by more than 30 senior P.A. diplomats in the days following Oct. 7. Here’s a sampling of what these P.A. officials wrote about the most horrific mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust:

• Great Britain: Rana Abuayyash, consul at the P.A.’s mission to London, posted an image of an Israeli flag morphing into Adolf Hitler.

• France: Hala Abou-Hassira, the P.A. ambassador to Paris posted: “Israel bears full responsibility.” His colleague Nadine Abualheija tweeted: “A colonial state is not an innocent victim when its victims resist genocide.” Another P.A. diplomat in Paris, Jamila Hassan Eragat, wrote: “Don’t judge a group of people for rising up against their oppressors … violence is necessary for decolonisation.” 

• Spain: Khaldun Almassri of the P.A. mission in Spain shared a painting of people dancing with flags of the Palestinian Liberation Organization on Oct. 7. 

• Cyprus: “Palestinians broke through with so much excitement,” the official Facebook account for the P.A. embassy in Cyprus announced.

• Mozambique: The P.A. ambassador in Mozambique, Fayez Abduljawad, posted a graphic that read: “If you are silent when Israel kills Palestinians, remain silent when Palestinians defend themselves.”

• Guinea: Thaer Abubaker, the P.A. ambassador to Guinea and Sierra Leone, wrote on X (Twitter) that the Oct. 7 slaughter was “heroic” and that “liberation is the goal of every fighter who risks their life for the sake of freedom and jihad for God’s path.” He also accused America’s secretary of state of being “a Khazar Jew” and charged Jewish immigrants to Israel with bringing “scabies and contagious diseases to Palestine.”

• Zimbabwe: Manar Alagha, a P.A. diplomat in Zimbabwe, posted a video on Facebook of Israelis fleeing the Nova music festival concert grounds, adding the slogan: “Here to victory!”

• Ivory Coast: An official at the P.A.’s embassy in the Ivory Coast, Khattab Bayyari, showed a graphic of a terrorist paraglider and added the caption: “You are the soldiers of Allah in the field.” He also posted a photo of a man with a sign displaying an anti-Israel vulgarity.

• Japan and South Korea: The P.A.’s ambassador to Japan and South Korea, Waleed Siam, wrote on X/Twitter: “Zionism is really curse on all humanity,” and added, for good measure, that Israelis “have yet to find proof of their imaginary temple.” (Asked by the Jewish Chronicle about those messages, Siam replied: “I have Semitic origins myself.”)

• Turkey: The P.A.’s consul general in Istanbul, Hana Abu Ramadan, circulated a hate cartoon depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a devil with horns.

• United Nations: Khuloussi Bsaiso, a P.A. diplomat at the United Nations, distributed a Middle East map without Israel that had the slogan, “Palestine as it should be.” 

• European Union: Hassan Albalawi, the deputy head of the P.A. mission to the European Union, called the Hamas massacres “heroic.” Adel Atieh, the P.A. ambassador to the European Union, hailed the terrorists as “the people of the mighty,” who are fighting for “freedom and breaking tyranny.” Another P.A. diplomat at the European Union, Lema Nazeeh, wrote on X that the Hamas invasion was “decolonisation in tangible terms,” a day of “dignity and triumph.” 

And because no review of Palestinian Arab antisemitism is complete without a dose of old-fashioned religious bigotry, it’s worth noting that Salman El Herfi, the former P.A. ambassador to South Africa and France, who is now a top adviser to P.A. chief Mahmoud Abbas, posted a medieval Christian image next to a photo of a mother and child in Gaza with the caption: “The pain of the Mother is the same as it was 2,000 years ago. The same killer.”

The P.A.’s diplomats around the world are the “best face” of the Palestinian Arab cause. They are the P.A.’s most articulate and urbane spokespeople. They wear suits and ties; they speak the best English. One would imagine they would be the most concerned about appearing “moderate” in the eyes of the wider world.

Yet here they are—the P.A.’s most sophisticated officials—openly celebrating the mass murder, gang rapes and baby-burnings of Oct. 7. That tells you all you need to know about their alleged interest in peace with Israel.

[player1064]

Love your drabbles! I cannot stop reading and sharing them. I have another prompt if you are still taking them! It would be interesting to see Gaz defend his Jamie when he is invited as a special guest to that CBS show Jamie is on. Would love to see protective Gary against Kate Abdo with Big Meeks laughing in the background and Titi being torn between helping Kate or (rightfully) knowing when a battle is lost. Maybe a dib at Kate how being a host is easy money compared to being actual pundits & analysts

kinda obsessed w this prompt being sent like a day before Jamie ran his big mouth on live tv and got in trouble for it (though tbh he's ALWAYS running his big mouth and what he said abt kate not being loyal wasn't even up there with worst mistakes imo it's just the one that happened to go viral). but also YES I am obseeeeessed with the UCL Today gang's dynamic the banter.... the thinly veiled dislike between Jamie and Kate.... chefs kiss

Also, this ficlet can be considered part of the wife-gary saga and having said that I'm wondering if I should have that as a tag so the other prompt fills in that universe are easier to find......

---

“Joining us in the studio today is one of the most decorated British footballers of all time, with over a hundred appearances in the Champions’ league and two titles to show for it, it’s Gary Neville. Gary, welcome to the show.”

Gary, who’d been grimacing awkwardly through Kate’s introduction, shakes his head around a bit and then gives her a smile. “Glad to be here, I –”

“—hold on, hold on,” Jamie interrupts, “can we go back to the ‘two titles’ thing for a second?”

“Yes, James, I have two Champions’ league medals,” Gary says, turning to look at Jamie with one unimpressed eyebrow raised. “As many as everyone else in this studio combined, I believe. What’s not clickin’, can you not count that high?”

To Jamie’s left, Micah doubles over with laughter, but Jamie just shakes his head, reaching a hand out to Gary’s chest, pushing him back in his seat. “No, no, Gary, why don’t you tell our audience how many games you played to earn that second medal, eh?”

Before Gary has a chance to defend himself, Kate primly says “about thirty more across his career than you did, Jamie,” which sets the whole table off laughing again while Jamie sits glaring in the middle of it all.

*

Jamie, as the lone Scouser in the cast and the only one not to have won a Premier league (besides Kate, obviously, but she doesn’t count), often feels ganged up on at CBS. And to have Gary on as a guest, even though he’d agreed to the idea (and quite enthusiastically, though don’t tell Gary that), feels like an extra kick in the shin.

Because not only is Gary, Mister Manchester United, getting obvious favouritism from lifelong United supporter Kate, he has the more crucial advantage that nobody in America knows who he is.

This means that Gary on CBS is not ‘below-average defender who only achieved what he did through obsessive hard work and sucking up to Fergie’, no, Gary on CBS is ‘best full-back of his generation, Manchester United and England legend, one of the top 10 most decorated British footballers of all time, and David fucking Beckham’s best mate.’

When you look at it like that, it’s a lot harder to find something to tease him about.

Jamie still manages, of course, he’s spent the past decade making a career out of insulting Gary Neville and he’s damn good at it. Over the course of the show he’s able to get in a few digs about his nose, his hair, his weight, his dress sense. But that’s all appearance stuff, which is easy – one look at Gary and the jokes basically write themselves.

What that says about Jamie, the idiot who went and married him, he’s not sure.

Everyone around the table is joking about Istanbul, which is easy enough to do if you weren’t there, which none of them were, and it’s enough to get Jamie’s blood boiling. He’s getting ready to launch into a rant about how it was one of the greatest games in footballing history when Kate cracks a line about how Jamie’s successes were all dumb luck, and Gary’s face scrunches up in displeasure.

“Oh, I’m – I’m not sure that’s fair, really,” he says quietly, glancing back at Jamie as he does. “Don’t get me wrong, that Liverpool team were nowhere near Champions’ league winner quality, I’m sure James would agree w’me on that –” Jamie, very reluctantly, nods. “—I mean, they finished fifth in the league that season, got knocked out of the FA cup their first game. There’s always a bit of luck to be fair, gettin’ to a Champions’ league final, but credit where it’s due – they were a scrappy little team, and that win was well deserved.”

On Gary’s right, Thierry nods in agreement, which is quite possibly the highest praise Jamie’s ever received from the man, and even Kate gives Jamie an awkward little smile once Gary’s done talking.

Under the desk, Jamie drops a hand to Gary’s knee and gives it an appreciative little squeeze.

*

As soon as the cameras are all off Jamie wastes no time in grabbing Gary by the wrist to pull him onto his lap, where he sort of half-perches half-hovers because he’s nervous about putting all his weight on Jamie’s knees (even though Jamie keeps telling him it’s fine).

Gary makes no complaints at being manhandled, just smiles fondly down at Jamie and pinches his cheek. “Look at you, you vain fuck. What I said were barely complimentary and it’s still got you all over me.”

Jamie ignores this (because they both know it’s true) and surges forward to kiss Gary instead, paying no mind to the others still in the vicinity of the desk while they get their earpieces and microphones unhooked. He hears a groan from Micah, and an exasperated sigh from Titi, but they can both go fuck themselves because Jamie’s horrible bastard of a husband willingly said something nice about Liverpool on live television, and if that’s not cause for celebration then he doesn’t know what is.

When Gary breaks the kiss with a pleased little hmph and gets up to wander over to the snack table, Jamie is left to face his colleagues, all three of them looking at him with faces twisted in an attempt to suppress their laughter.

“Man like Jamie,” Micah says gleefully, clapping his hands together. “I knew you was bringin’ the missus on for a reason, this is like foreplay for the two a’yous, innit?” As soon as he finishes the sentence, he shudders at his own words, then adds “oh, ew, that’s like thinking about your parents, don’t want to know any more.”

“I think you’re onto something there, Meeks,” Kate laughs, “and here I was thinking he’d brought him on to show off his trophy wife.”

Jamie wants to protest that he did not bring Gary onto the show, he’s not the one who made the suggestion and it’s definitely not showing off or foreplay or whatever else his colleagues can come up with, but then Kate’s nudging him in the side with a smirk and saying “Trophy wife, Jamie, get it? Because he has a lot more trophies than –”

Jamie stomps off to go find his stupid annoying and very very successful trophy wife before Kate is able to finish the thought and prompt him to say something he might regret.