#Istanbul HES Code

[nicoscheer]

uumutyildirimm Standing next to me 🫂 🤍

[mariacallous]

Donald Trump’s recent election victory is fueling international speculation over a possible deal to end the war in Ukraine. For now, much of the debate remains centered on what kinds of concessions Ukraine may be willing to make in order to secure a negotiated peace. However, the real question is whether Russian President Vladimir Putin has any interest at all in ending his invasion. The available evidence suggests that he does not. On the contrary, Putin appears to be as committed as ever to his goal of extinguishing Ukrainian statehood entirely.

For many years, Putin has publicly questioned the Ukrainian nation’s right to exist. He has repeatedly stated that he sees today’s independent Ukraine as an artificial state, and regards all those who disagree with this verdict as anti-Russian forces or outright Nazis. For more than a decade, he has sought to turn this toxic vision into reality via an escalating campaign of military aggression.

When Putin embarked on the latest stage of his campaign to destroy Ukraine in February 2022, he declared that the goals of his full-scale invasion were the “demilitarization” and denazification” of the country. During abortive spring 2022 peace negotiations in Istanbul, it became apparent that Russia’s interpretation of demilitarization would have left Ukraine disarmed and defenseless.

Putin’s representatives during the Istanbul talks called for the Ukrainian army to be drastically reduced to a minimal force of just 50,000 troops, with strict limits also placed on the amount of armor and types of missiles Ukraine could possess. Meanwhile, Russia would face no such restrictions. Crucially, the Kremlin demanded complete Ukrainian neutrality and insisted on retaining a veto over any international military aid to Kyiv in the event of renewed hostilities. These punishing terms leave little room for doubt that Putin’s intention was to place Ukraine completely at his mercy and in no position to resist the next stage of Russian aggression.

The implications of “denazification” are even more ominous. Putin has long accused Ukraine of being a “Nazi state,” despite the fact that the country has a popularly elected Jewish president and no far-right politicians in government. In reality, “denazification” is Kremlin code for the complete eradication of a separate Ukrainian national identity. In other words, Putin pretends to be fighting fascism order to legitimize his criminal goal of a Ukraine without Ukrainians.

The grim consequences of Putin’s “denazification” policies are already evident throughout Russian-occupied Ukraine. In regions of the country currently under Kremlin control, all traces of Ukrainian statehood and national identity are being ruthlessly purged. Ukrainian children are forced to study a Kremlin curriculum that demonizes Ukraine while glorifying the invasion of their country. Adults must accept Russian citizenship if they wish to access basic services such as pensions and healthcare.

Anyone regarded as a potential threat to the Russian occupation authorities is at risk of deportation, abduction, torture, or execution. While it is impossible to determine exact figures, it is estimated that thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been detained since February 2022. In most cases, relatives of detainees have no way of knowing if they are still alive. Britain’s The Economist recently described conditions in Russian-occupied Ukraine as a “totalitarian hell.” It is a very specific vision of hell that has been designed to remove all traces of Ukraine and impose an imperial Russian identity.

The most obvious indication of Russia’s genocidal intent in Ukraine has been the mass deportation of Ukrainian children, with thousands abducted and transferred to a system of camps where they are subjected to indoctrination in order to rob them of their Ukrainian heritage and turn them into loyal Kremlin subjects. In March 2023, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin in relation to these abductions. The UN’s 1948 Genocide Convention recognizes “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” as an act of genocide.

Russia’s own actions since February 2022 have made a mockery of the arguments used by the Kremlin to justify the war. At the start of the full-scale invasion, Putin claimed to be defending the rights of Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the east of the country. However, the Russian army has since killed tens of thousands of predominantly Russian-speakers in eastern Ukraine, while reducing dozens of towns and cities across the region to rubble.

Likewise, Russia’s attempts to justify the attack on Ukraine by painting it as a response to NATO enlargement have been largely debunked by Putin himself. When neighboring Finland and Sweden responded to Russia’s invasion by announcing plans in spring 2022 to abandon decades of neutrality and join NATO, Putin was quick to declare that Russia had “no problem” with the move. This indifference was particularly striking as Finnish accession more than doubled Russia’s NATO border, while Swedish membership transformed the strategically vital Baltic Sea into a NATO lake.

Putin has since gone even further, withdrawing the bulk of Russian troops from the Finnish border and leaving it largely undefended. Based on Putin’s remarkably relaxed response to NATO’s recent Nordic enlargement, it seems safe to conclude that he does not in fact view the NATO alliance as a security threat to Russia itself, and has merely exploited the issue as a smokescreen for his own imperial ambitions in Ukraine.

As Donald Trump attempts to implement his campaign promise and end the war in Ukraine, he is likely to discover that his famed deal-making skills are no match for Putin’s single-minded obsession with the destruction of Ukraine. In words and deeds, Putin has repeatedly demonstrated his commitment to wiping Ukraine off the map. In such circumstances, any talk of a compromise settlement is dangerously delusional. Until Putin is forced to recognize Ukraine’s right to exist, any peace deals will be temporary and the threat of further Russian aggression will remain.

[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!

[chadillacboseman]

This is the OC fairy 🧚 Use this ask to infodump about your OCs and send to 10 other blogs whose characters you'd like to know more about! ❇️

Alex Demir (Mortal Kombat) Alex is Turkish, raised in Istanbul and emigrated to the USA with his parents when he was 13. He's a certified college drop-out, but borders on being a chemical engineering prodigy. He can tell you the periodic table by heart, but may or may not believe that his friend Kate can talk to pigeons.

Alex is the resident Black Dragon explosives expert since No Face blew himself to hell. He practices extra care when it comes to civilian lives, but may hit the detonator a little too soon if you're the type of merc who isn't as careful as he is.

Alex has a heart of gold that refuses to harden despite his working conditions. After enduring a long period of near suicidal desperation, Alex persevered and now has a support system of friends inside the Black Dragon that keep him sane. He still calls his mother once a week, and his lie that he's working as a government contractor has held up so far.

--

Jeremiah "JJ" Mitchell (Mortal Kombat) JJ is former US Marine turned private military contractor and Earthrealm defender. An only child raised in Birmingham, Alabama, he joined up with the military at age 19 and served in several tours overseas. Unfortunately, luck was not in his favor when his transport hit an IED and he lost his leg below the knee while the rest of his squad was killed. Sent home with a medal and a prosthetic leg, JJ knew he could make more of a difference with his own command.

Thus was born Falcon Company.

An old friend, Jason Geller, offered him friendly competition in the form of Red Claw Mercenary Group, until greed reared its ugly head. There is no honor among thieves, and there is no code among mercs. When contracts started to get poached and Falcon Company's men began running into deliberate setups and bloodbaths, JJ took matters into his own hands.

Jason Geller died with a bullet in his heart and JJ wiped the slate clean.

Or so he thought.

--

Jesse Geller (Mortal Kombat) Jesse is the younger brother of Jason Geller, former commander of RCMG. Upon his death, the position of leadership was thrust onto him, as was the undying need for revenge.

Jesse is a certified sociopath. There is no jilted lover who broke his heart, there is no father who beat him or mother who neglected him. There is only a minuscule piece of metal embedded in his prefrontal cortex rammed through his skull when he was ejected from a vehicle in a rollover crash.

A strict regimen of anti-psychotics kept him in check for a long time until the death of his brother, which sent him into an uncontrolled spiral. Jesse is obsessed with prolonging his life for as long as possible, and is painfully aware of his flaws and shortcomings. As a result, he utilizes the Malleus Mark V armored exoskeleton, which greatly enhances his strength, speed, and aim. Without the suit, he is physically weak, a fact he that infuriates him.

As the new commander of Red Claw, Jesse uses his position to satisfy his bloodthirsty and ruthless desires, often choosing to be on the frontline, where he can be up to his elbows in blood and viscera.

[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

[marigoldbaker]

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.

[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.

[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

[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.”

[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/

[writtenexplorations]

A Theory of Unity

8,535 words

#

Janine Thomas, born in the year nineteen-forty four, in Luckey, Ohio, was in equal parts determined and grateful. Determined to defeat the stereotype of the country girl eaten up by the system, after just a few days into the new job, that’s for sure. Grateful that Marie Ivson, class nineteen-sixteen, had since taken her under her wing. It had been a tough first week in her new role at Langley.

It was a cold morning of February when agent Sayeb came out of the elevator at the 11th floor and walked straight to the Director’s door, looking like he hadn't slept in a day or two.

"Jenine, when is the Director back from his meeting with the President?"

"This morning at 0900, and we expect him to be at his desk by 0950. I have to warn you Sayeb, no more favors and no more tricks. Do not get me in trouble again. The earliest I can book you in for a meeting is Thursd…"

"I have a code yellow. I need to see him today."

Marie, who had so far pretended to be lost in her typing, looked up from her glasses and said:

"A yellow? This isn't you jumping the queue is it? You know we log these, right?" she said.

"I am serious. Book me in, as early as possible. And get him a coffee. He’ll need a large one for this."

#

In the 15th century, Anselm the Archbishop of Canterbury tried to prove the existence of God using logic in what went on to be known as "the ontological argument”. It was something like this:

Let’s define God as something the which of, no greater can be thought of. Now, consider that this greatest conceivable being could exist in the mind alone or in the mind and in reality at the same time. Would all agree that to exist in both the real world and the mind is better than to exist in the mind alone? If so, this entity must exist in reality too or else it would not be the greatest conceivable. Therefore: god must exist.

...

#

"You have five minutes Sayeb, go ahead, brief me."

"Yes Sir:

On December 5th our team in Ankara intercepted orders from the Directorate to locate and approach a certain, uhm, Tarik Özcan, professor of Applied Mathematics at Boğaziçi University, in Istanbul. Our operatives on the ground were instructed to monitor the subject, with the double goal to develop an understanding of the KGB’s modus operandi and prepare to track the individual, if the enemy were to successfully recruit him as an asset. We had no prior intelligence on this individual.

On January 18th operatives captured credible intelligence material indicating a plan to kidnap the professor and forcibly move him to an undisclosed location within the Soviet block. As a response, our monitoring was upgraded to be 24/7.

On January 22nd the Directorate's order was changed to target assassination of the highest priority with additional instructions to remove or destroy specific material present in his office. The order was marked Тайфун, which we understand to be a code authorizing destructive, high-profile techniques if needed. Basically a class of targets of such importance that the secrecy of the operation is secondary to its immediate fulfilment."

"Do we know what they were after?"

"We did not, at the time. But the fact they wanted it so badly gone and forgotten, made us want him more. I immediately authorized the extraction and safekeeping of Professor Özcan while we evaluate the situation. He’s en route to Idlewild as we speak."

"So? What was it, do we know now?"

"Yes we do."

"Go ahead dammit, don’t keep me waiting, Sayeb!"

"There is no easy way to say this so I'll go ahead and say just as it is. And Sir, I’m afraid we're going to need more than five minutes."

#

… of course, any one person with a dose of common sense would make the comment that we are all thinking: logical fallacy.

If I think of something full of good qualities, and existing is a good quality, can I expect the thing I imagined to exist? You think about a wallet stuck with notes in your right back pocket, and, easy as that, become rich for the day . That's pretty much what some contemporaries of Anselm used as a criticism. The first attempt at using logic hadn’t gone very far. But the fascination for its possibility, well, that stuck around for the following millennium.

….

#

"Let me play back what I think I just heard you say: This guy has mathematically proven that God exists. Beyond doubt. Plain as that. And the Commies are shitting their red pants, because the entire Marxist bullshit doctrine has it that religion is the opium of the masses and a tool of oppression. It turns out: God exists, America is right, and a hundred million angry Russians may soon be storming their palaces and send them to meet Him."

"Oh I wouldn’…"

"This is so fucking grand. Have we had this work validated by our side?"

"Sir, we have, and I believe this is exactly where the question becomes, ehm… interesting. 

The calculus was independently verified by Professor Anna Ackermann, from the Technical University of Berlin; she is a serving US intelligence asset of fifteen years. Also by Professor Enrico Freme, of the University of Pisa. He is an American citizen by birth, war veteran, personal friend of General Brooks since 'fifty-eight. And by Professor Abel Wolowitz of Berkeley University, who is not connected to the agencies, but also a decorated war veteran and a patriot.

The work came back clear from all three."

"I love this. Get a team together. Ten more experts. Fly them to one location, no phones, no leave. Have them work separately first, then again together.

I need to be sure this is real before I pass it up the chain of command.

Report back in ten days. Top secrecy. If this links to the press before we have answers, I will have your balls for breakfast. Keep the Professor indoors and happy. Get him whatever fucking food he misses from his homeland, a woman he wants one. Security 24/7 but out of sight, don’t spook him. I want you to come to me with something good. Something usable.  This is career-making stuff. Do you understand me?"

#

…

Thomas Aquinas. Kant. Hume. Many others. Tackling the ontological proof became one of the favourite pastimes of Western philosophers. Some tried to dismantle it, some tried to strengthen it. Criticism ranged from “it only proves the possibility, not the actual existence” to numerous ridiculed, perverted versions, which used the same logic to prove the exact opposite, or to prove true completely ridiculous statements. Politics often got in the way, depending on who-would-gain-what, from finding it right or false. The two warring factions never really managed to get a definite advantage over the other, or draw closer to a final conclusion.

…

#

Notification card 6789BY

To the attention of: agent Sayeb.

An item is to be collected from the central archive. Proof of identity will be required. Release in person only.

#

Walking to the interview room, Sayeb felt confident.

The interview brief was extremely thorough. There was a lot to go through, but with questions coming from every possible angle, he was sure to be able to write a good report. The dossier was about fifty pages long. Its contents ordered by colorful labels sticking out from its side.

Red was high priority. Mostly questions submitted from intelligence agencies; Blue and yellow were the academics, mixed backgrounds: philosophy, mathematics, history, theology, biology, physics; White came from the President and close advisors.

Sayeb stopped at the door and allowed a personal thought to come to him. “Am I ready to hear this?”

He opened the dossier at random and gave it a quick glance.

Red. “Has your work been directed/ordered/induced/coerced/instructed or persuaded by any third person or institution, known or unknown to you?”

Red: “Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: private property is a human right”

Blue: “Is existence a property or an attributed quality of things?”

Yellow: “How did you intuit that Kripke’s semantics could be used to define the accessibility relation as both transitive and non-symmetric, and to subsequently capture the distinctions of the your modal operators?”.

White: “Will the government of the United States and its officials be able to make contact with God before the midterm elections of next year”.

#

"Had I not been sufficiently clear?” he shouted, storming through the doors. 

The Director snapped the dossier off Janine's hands and slammed it on the table, in front of agent Sayeb.

"What is this supposed to be, some kind of practical joke? I asked for two things: make it clear, make it usable. Thirty-eight pages of mathematical gibberish and seventy more of written nonsense. Plus a seventy thousand dollar bill to fly and host experts that couldn’t produce a single line, a single line dammit, that I can use for the intended purposes."

"Sir, matters turned out to be more complicated than we thought…"

"No shit. And your job is to make them simple, so I’ll ask you one more time: is this theory of Mr Tarik true or not? "

"Sir, I believe so, but…"

"Straight answers for God's sake! Yes or no?"

"Then yes, it will be true, meaning it has not been proven false after many rounds of reviews, by several experts. 

"And does anyone working on this have any good lead to follow to disprove it?"

"It's a split field, Sir. Those that are the most motivated at disproving it, seem moved by a personal dislike of its conclusions and implications, rather than by issues with the methodology itself."

"And those that agree with it, what level of confidence do they have?"

"High, Sir. Sir, the methodology is unquestioned. My hesitance is related to the reports I received from several experts who say they experienced a, ehm, strong spiritual and emotional turmoil during their work with this material. Most of them seem... changed..."

"Alright; I’ll tell you what I think: this may well be a plot by the Soviets to drive mad our best scientist. They have been working on hypnosis and other shit like that for years. If this is what this is, damn those red devils, and may God help us."

"Sir, nothing indicates that possibility. The only opposition to this theory actually came not from scientists, but from the multi-faith panel of theologists."

"So I heard. Cardinal Dolan has been chewing my ears about this bizarre theory of god-that-is-not-god; why the hell is it so complicated to tell me in plain English. Has he found Him, or not?"

"The mathematical proof is as clear as it can be. It is hard to translate exactly into words how it gets to its conclusion, but I am told there is strong consensus on its validity. Mathematics is like, uhm, a music sheet. It does not translate into words, it is only accessible to those that can read it, if it makes sense."

"Fine but what does it say? What music does he play? A sad music? is it opera? Classical?"

"The theme is one of unity. It shows a way of seeing that all things in the world are interconnected, all parts of one. As far as we can tell this is possibly the biggest achievement of…"

"Oh please. Spare me the hippie bullshit. Where in here does it even speak of the God I pray to, the God of Jesus Christ. The one on the dollar bill?"

"Sir I'm afraid this theory will not answer any of the questions that were passed to us from the Administration. It is not something we can use against the enemy either. It’s more so…"

"So, in short, it's not interesting. Dammit. Bury it and move on.

Waste of fucking time. "

#

Suddenly, all at once and without warning, there was a strange kind of explosion. With it came, rather surprisingly, no sound at all that I can recall, nor fire, or hurt.

Only then, I realised the explosion did not surround me, but had generated within myself. Upon me came an immense sense of exaltation, a calm kind of joy, without any trace of tension, of wanting, of needing. It was followed by an intellectual understanding that I shall try to describe, knowing too well that such a thing can only be experienced, not conveyed by means of spoken, or written words.

I did not just believe, but I saw that the universe is one living thing. Complexly interconnected and yet, its unity so ostentatiously visible. Between things and beings, I came to see, there exists the same degree of separation there is amongst the drops of the ocean: a never ending exchange of essence, material, forces, and influence with one another. No change in composition, or density, or temperature, or direction of movement is independently determined by this or that particle, but emerges from all of them and affects them all at the same time. Such configuration of reality revealed itself without having never really been hidden, but rather, it was me that was finally able to see it, and to feel part of it. It became apparent, not as a new thought, but as rediscovered knowledge that I already possessed: that all things in this world are subject to the same cosmic order. That the very foundation of existence is co-dependent. That nothing originates from something else, but that all that exists comes from all the rest and has it within it. That all things, for separate we see them, really are one, like phalanges are of the same finger, and fingers are of the same hand, and the two hands are of the same person, who belongs to humanity, who belongs to the world. There would be no dots and drips of ink without the ink, the bottle, and the hand that threw it to the wall. The dots and drips are not because of them, watch it, but the manifestation of them. They are the bottle, the ink, the impact, the hand, the wall.

This principle of interdependence within matter, this order of dependent origination amongst the things that are, I believe, is what many have called with the name of the gods. Not to be intended as the supreme technocrat that all decides and overviews, but as the original order that is in all things.

This vision lasted but a few seconds; its memory and the implication of this experience, have remained with me ever since.

I have finally seen the curve after decades of staring at the individual points of a chart. I have seen the image in the painting after seing for so long nothing but the brush strokes. And what a joyful painting that is. The notion of separateness faded away, and a strong sense of unity has since emerged in me.

It has become pragmatically impossible to think of myself as separate from all of mankind, and all of creation. It seems absurd that I could once hold the notion of my birth as the beginning of me; instead, it is intuitively simple to concept my origin within the cosmic big bang.

How could I deny that what I call me is the result, not only of my choices and circumstances, but of all the choices and circumstances of all the people and all the things that ever existed, in all the places that ever were? How could I deny that the thoughts and actions that I consider “mine” share causes and conditions with the thoughts and the actions of those around me, and those that preceded me? I cannot think that my skin is where I end and the rest begins, since the very flesh of my body is made of the food I ate, the air I breathed, the sun I bathed in. And similarly, that those very things, are between them connected, and share roots in the movements of continents, the cycle of the seasons, the migration of birds, the patterns of weather.

If made we are, by the same, aren’t we really just the manifestation of one thing?

I am the history of this world, I am the weather of the sky. I am the Big Bang and whatever was before it. Everything, every person, every force, nothing else is, but the supreme order playing a part of itself.

Tarik Özcan, Notes to “A Theory of Unity”, published in April, 1974.

#

"Is that what your parents would say? "

"Oh, that is so unfair to say, Diane!"

"They raised you a good American, it's all I'm saying!"

"They raised me free and respecting of others, and that's what I am teaching my kids!"

"Is that what you think you're doing? because respect is definitely not the word Principal Lewis used this morning!"

"Look, if he doesn't want to recite the pledge it’s his constitutional right to do so! Principal Lewis can take this up with the d…"

"Don't make this a First Amendment thing, you know perfectly well it is not. His books are full of that hand thing. He’s not the same he was a few months ago. You know what's happening and you're pretending it is not!"

"I'm not pretending anything, Diane. This is a new word. You are the one hiding the head under the sand!"

"So this is okay for you?? Your fourteen years old gets suspended for disrespecting the flag, doesn’t stand up when the Principal enters the room…"

"Try and see it from his eyes, it’s hard to respect authority, when the difference between things blurs. I am sure it wasn’t done in disresp…"

"… your five years old comes home crying because she, and I quote her, “feels the hurt of the war in the desert place”.

"Shit, she must have seen the news from the Gulf, I didn't…"

"That’s not the point Eric! For starters, she’s five years old! When I was eight, our boys started coming home from Vietnam and you know what I did? I went to church. Mum and I prayed to God every night for them. We made home bakes and on Sunday morning we raised money for the injured. But their pain wasn't my pain, you understand?"

"I understand that this must be confusing but look, I am not moving them towards this. These ideas are out there. You can’t drive a mile without seeing a hand print. It’s on TV, people talk about it at school. It’s history happening, we cannot call ourselves out of it."

"I just feel so… surrounded… you know… they are pushing us out of this community…"

"Oh. Come here now. Honey, we still live here, and so do Nancy and Tom, Greg, Patrice, the Mitchell’s…"

"The Mitchell’s are with them now."

"I know hon, I know… Let’s give them a call. Invite them for dinner. I mean they just stopped coming to Church but I am sure they are not vampires. Carol used to love your roast. Maybe they can help us understand this thing better."

#

Ahem… Good morning. Take your seats, please.

…

Thank you.

…

I will now read the Holy Father’s greeting to the congregation in Italian, followed by His address in English, for the benefit of His honoured guests and the international press.

“Do il benvenuto a tutti i fedeli oggi riuniti in preghiera. Nella gioia di Cristo, invoco su noi tutti, l’amore misericordioso di Dio Padre. Il signore vi benedica, in nomine patris, filiae et spiritu santu.”

“Dear Brothers, dear Sisters,

While I cannot be with you in flesh today as I wished, it is with these words that I stand before you in spirit, to address an important matter that has captured the attention of many in our congregation, and the wider world.

New theories posit the existence of an overall order in the universe—a unifying force that some have equated with the divine, the ultimate truth. While we recognize the intellectual integrity and the profound rigour in the work, I wish to emphasise that the Roman Catholic Church and the Christian community approach it with measured scepticism.

Our stance is not at all one of rejection or dismissal, but rather, one that advocates a responsible approach that considers the theological implications and the compatibility with the Holy teachings.

The concept of an overall order in the universe, heralded as a unifying principle, resonates with the fundamental message of interconnectedness that our faith imparts. Indeed, the notion of unity can inspire us to seek common ground, to respect the dignity of all beings, and to work daily towards peace and justice.

However, it is important to clarify that while unity can be embraced, we firmly refuse the notion that "all things are one" in an absolute sense. Our faith teaches us that while there is unity and interdependence within creation, there is also diversity and distinction. Each individual, each being, possesses a unique identity and purpose within the divine plan. The delicate balance between unity and diversity is a reflection of the Lord’s wisdom and His intentions.

The notion of union amongst all things, cannot be reconciled with fundamental principles of the Christian faith such as the uniqueness of the individual, the immortality of the soul, and the distinction between good and evil, between God and the Devil. There is nothing that our loving Father and Satan have in common, for to have something in common, it would have to have originated elsewhere, and there is nothing above God our Lord and creator.

As we have for other scientific discoveries of this century, the Holy Church choses to approach them with humility and prudence, understanding that science, faith and reason are not adversaries but allies in the pursuit of Truth.

We pray to Jesus for His guidance in dialogue, while maintaining our commitment to the teachings and traditions that have guided this community for centuries.

Let us remain open to the wonders of creation and the mysteries of the universe, knowing that our faith can embrace and enrich the understanding of the world, without needing to question the faith itself. May He, at the same time, guide the hearts and the conscience of the scientists to recognise that faith reaches where rationality does not. That we, as the loved subject of the Lord Father, may never fully understand his wisdom.

May the blessings of the Almighty be upon you all. Amen.

#

Five, four, three, … , …

ON AIR

"Good evening and welcome! This is Jimmy Carmichael. It is 9 p.m in London and you're listening to ‘What’s happening’, a program produced and broadcasted by the BBC for BBC Radio 4.

Tonight we welcome Sir Christopher Hope, long standing political editor for the Daily Telegraph, and professor Justine Liu-Fisher, recently appointed Head of Divinity Studies by the Faculty of Theology and Religion at Oxford University.

It's been around for a while now, but it's becoming harder and harder to ignore. From the worrying news of instability coming from abroad, to a looming presence in our very own streets. Is this a passing trend, an emerging a new word order, or an excuse for political unrest? We are talking, of course, about Unity.  

Let's hear from our guests. Professor Liu-Fisher, good evening, help us understand. Where does this story begin?"

"Thank you, Jimmy and good evening everyone. We can place the beginning of this story in the early 60s when the basis of today's world scenario was first cast."

"What are those basis, and what is so significant about them now?"

"In the summer of 1961 news began to spread that a proof of the existence of God had been found by Tarik Özcan a Turkish mathematician of Anatolian origin. Or at least, this is what it was called at first, and probably what created much of the attention his work received."

"Are you saying it's not?"

"I am saying the name is controversial to say the least. We need to understand the background in which these claims were made. During his formative years, Turkey had undergone a process of profound modernisation and transitioned to secularism. We cannot underestimate the influence this must have played in the mind of someone coming from a rural and conservative context. Having said that, let me be very clear: the work itself is absolutely sound. It’s been known and discussed for more than thirty years now, and not a single crack has been found."

"Then what is the problem with it?"

"One of the problems, if we want to call it this way, is that mathematics at the level which he used is accessible to very few people outside the academic world. And for those few, there is no discussion to be had. The proof is incontrovertible. The public debate, in a way, centred itself around the meaning and the interpretation of the theory, and is often led by those that have about it, rather than it. Much of that debate emerges from the numerous texts he subsequently wrote, as various appendix to his work. It’s entirely possible that he worried about his work becoming a tool to further undermine the religious traditions or even thought of as a heretic. What we know is that, despite his best intentions of clarifying his stance, his written work created a whole array of misunderstandings and splintered interpretations, on which people from various backgrounds, political, philosophical and religious have since got hung on."

"Sir Christopher Hope, you're shaking your head. Tell our listeners, what doesn't convince you?"

"Well, Jimmy, there is a lot that doesn't. For a start, I have an immediate diffidence for someone that speaks of “unity”, but finds himself at the centre of so much trouble. On one side we have all seen the news coming from East and West. Pakistan, Iran, Yemen are seeing waves of violent protests against the perceived permissiveness for these new ideas by the elites. We have reports from at least fours countries in South America where the same is happening, forcing the hand of local governments to brutal repressions. In Europe, we have seen Italy, Greece, and Israel, taking steps to ban the sales of this text as well as the teaching of its predicament. And France, known to have a strong history of laicism in public life, has recently declared the handprint a religious symbol and forbidden it to be shown in schools and government buildings.

I think the word is recognising this for what it is. And that is an obscure new creed, bringing trouble to any respectable community around the world."

"Professor, let us come back to you about this. You authored a book titled Unity: Religion without prayers. It was published last year by SGL and is about to be reprinted. The title already tells us a lot. Is it a religion then? and if so why is it not preachable?"

"The title is a little play, Jimmy. Many people across the globe can intuitively connect to Unity and are profoundly changed by it. And yet, for the first time, this is a system of belief that doesn't ask us to do anything. No prayer, no struggle, nothing! To answer your question: I don't think Unity was born as a religion, but as a scientific paradigm, that is now taking the form of a religious belief, rather than a religion. By this I mean: It is not organised and hasn’t exhibited any form of proselytism. It spreads naturally, without needing to be preached at all. 

Now, if I could very briefly address the comment made by Sir Hope, I would like us to be honest and admit that the trouble and the violence is mostly brought to and not by the followers of the new creed."

"Well, and I say that we should not underestimate the subversive power of these new ideas. The very structure of power which guarantees our safety is at stake. Beliefs that emphasise unity will in time erode the very institutions we know and count on. They are on a collision course with the idea of monarchy, nations, private property, personal freedoms and responsibilities… "

"Professor do you share those worries?"

"I understand where the worries come from, yes, but I don't share them."

"Jimmy, does she meane that none of these things are going to happen, or that she has no problem with undermining the bases of civil society?"

"What I mean is: first of all, the idea of universal unity is not at all as new as you make it. It goes back to very ancient times and is visible throughout the history of western and eastern philosophy. It has been called Brahmā by the Hindus, Logos by the Greek, the Monad by Plotinus and the Neoplatonists, Dao by the Chinese, and of course also in recent times Tawḥīd, in Islam. The basic concept is absolutely not new. What is new, is that now we know it to be true. It’s no longer one of many theories, but a logical reality. This puts it ahead of others interpretations of reality, for sure. This theory is as significant for the history of humanity, maybe more significant actually, than when we first put the Sun at the centre of the solar system. I don't see the point in fighting it. It’s not going back into its box and it can't be ignored.  When I say I do not worry, what I mean is that, I am a historian, and as such I recognise that we are at a crossroads, but also that we always have been. Has the world ever not been shaped by something?"

#

"Welcome back to “What’s Happening”, here in the studio with us: Sir Christopher Hope, political editor at the Telegraph, and Justine Liu Fisher, Professor of Theology and Religion.

Sir Christopher, in the first half we discussed the origin of Unity, and painted its portrait, for what we can. You have been a political editor and foreign correspondent for almost 30 years. Are you worried about what you see? And should we be too?"

"Thanks for the question Jimmy, and the short answer is: I am not panicking, I don't think anyone should, but I am concerned."

"Okay, and that's coming from a man that's covered the height of the Cold War crisis, the youth movements, the defence of the Falklands. What is it that concerns you about this?"

"You see Jimmy, the first element of concern is that movements normally form around something that they very clearly want to achieve. This was true for the the vikings, the puritans, the marxists, the miners, the anti-monarchist, the feminists, and all sorts of fads and extremisms that this country has witnessed in the last twenty centuries. But this? This has no apparent purpose Jimmy, or structure, or spokesperson. It's like watching a crowd forming in front of your house, with no apparent reason. Would you not, at least, be a little uneasy Jimmy?"

"Well yes, I would very much be!"

"And the second reason is that it seems to be escaping most attempts to regulate it or study it. Not in a single country has it been registered as a religion, a political movement, a social group or what have you. Its refusal to be categorised is a suspicious attempt to fly below the radar of civil society and government rules."

"Professor, do you have an opinion? Is it a religion then? A political movement? or is it something that belongs to the classroom and should concern no one outside the purely academic word?"

"To understand this, we ought to remember what the theory of Unity proves: the existence of a higher order in the universe, an interconnectedness of things beyond what we previously imagined. Some call it God, and I can see the appeal to do so, others consider it a significant shift in the understanding of our world, but without much on the side of spirituality. What is undeniable, though, is that the theory has spread incredibly fast outside of the scientific community, even with people that do not have the knowledge to follow the maths and see the proof for themselves. And we are observing spontaneous adherence to behaviours that are surely connected to the new light Unity has shed on the world. If I had to place a bet, I anticipate we may see a major shift in many aspects of life by the time the 2001 census comes around."

"We remind the listeners that in the latest census there was no option to select Unity as a religion, but estimates provided by the Office for National Statistics puts them at around four per cent."

"A wild underestimate, if you ask me, Jimmy."

"What would be your estimate?"

"I’m cautious at guessing, but it definitely feels low, just based on how much the topic is in the public eye, as well as the number of handprinted symbols all around our streets."

"Thanks for mentioning that, it’s actually something I wanted to cover tonight. You are right in saying that the hand symbol is now a common site all around the United Kingdom, and around the world. How does the British public feel about it?"

"How does it feel? Concerned, for sure. There are many in Britain today who feel their traditions have been under attack for years. The very best of British values are being replaced each time a hand poster is put on a shop window, or another of our walls is vandalised with paint."

"That would be understandably upsetting, for sure. Tell us what you mean by being replaced. What values do you feel most at risk?"

"It's our whole way of life really, isn't it? Once enough people believe that there's order to the world, and that we're all made of the same stuff, the very foundation of civil society starts crumbling. The belief that we are meant to bring order into this world is what elevated us from the tree monkeys we once were, taking us from prey of the sabre-toothed tigers to the top of the food chain. The exceptionality of human ingenuity is proven, wouldn’t you agree, by our ability to master the elements, to have left the planet and reached for the stars.

I worry about a belief system that undermines duality, exceptionalism, distinctiveness, excellence, and betterment. Even down to the most practical aspects of modern life. Would we have a parliament with no opposing parties? How do infrastructure, research, defence get funded when the idea of national identity is dissolved into a chaotic -we’re all the same thing- " 

"You do sound worried for sure. Do you think the threat is so serious, even with numbers so small?"

"It’s the pace of growth that’s concerning. It’s completely unopposed at the moment, that’s what is really upsetting."

"Do you share these worries Professor? I sense you probably do not?"

"You are right, Jimmy, I do not. First of all we should remind ourselves that the parliament of this country has never been in the business of policing what ideas and beliefs we can adhere to, and it may have a hard time starting with one that’s based on an uncontested scientific basis. But also, we're already seeing scientific progress being made on the back of this shift in paradigm, so I do not worry about progress being slowed. In fields such as medicine, psychology, physics, biology and ecology, more holistic approaches promise to unlock fast and unrelenting progress. I understand the concern of part of the public from a historical point of view. To draw a parallel we probably feel very close to what the late Western Romans felt when Christianity started to take hold in the emp..."

“And rightly so! Look what happened to them!”

#

"And we are just back after the break. This is “What’s Happening” on BBC Radio4. 

During the break our guests continued discussing the symbolism of Unity. Professor Liu-Fisher, you said something fascinating about the meaning of the hand symbol, would you mind repeating that for our audience?"

"For sure. I said that it’s somewhat ironic that a clearly human-centric symbol has become the most recognised for a theory that predicates the exact opposite"

"Indeed ironic, and maybe... baffling. How did it come to be this way? It’s one of the metaphors used by Tarik Özcan, isn’t it?"

"It is, but he used so many. Any of those could have become popular. We can’t deny that it is very simple, anyone can make it by just touching some wet paint and then a surface. There is surely a powerful symbolism also in the fact that each hand is inevitably different and unique from another one, but at the same time, when it represents Unity, it loses its uniqueness, to assume a universal meaning, to become part of the same concept as all the other hands. In the same way, its component parts, the phalanxes, the palm, the fingertips, are separated by visible lines, and yet we never fail to recognise it as a hand. We would never mistake it for a collection of fingers.

Last, I think there is an ancestral appeal to it too, it’s the earliest way humans have used to say I am here. I find it poetic that the very first symbol of humans distinguishing themselves from others, and from nature, returns to be the symbol of our reconciliation to it all."

“But, Professor, allow me a pointy question, for the benefit of those that are not persuaded by the new creed, or the science it’s based on: as long as you talk about an invisible order, a sense of connection, I think most common folks are happy to follow along. But much of the talk around Unity goes as far as denying the separateness of things. How are we supposed to believe something that’s so clear to our every day experience of life?

Am I not me, instead of you? Am I, very clearly, not a dog, a plastic toy, a seashell, a cloud, a fistful of sand?”

“Of course Jimmy. And for everyone who’s listening too, let me make this clear, Unity doesn’t deny individuality, at all!

You are undeniably yourself, and not someone else. Undeniably a human man, and not many other things.

But the question is, while being your own thing, can you deny being made of the same material, or subject to the same processes as…”

“Excuse the interruption, but this is a crucial point for me: so are we talking about levels of separateness? Looked at ,from far enough two people or two things, become indistinguishable, and all that?”

“Not quite, no. Unity works just as well at a micro level. Let me tell you: there is no difference whatsoever between the atoms of iron and copper in your bloodstream and those that make the wires of every recording equipment in this studio. Between the silica particles in your brain and those in the fistful of sand you mentioned. There is no doubt that the water in you at this very moment was once in a cloud, a raindrop, a river, inside animals and people, millions of times before being in you.

And so, while it’s possible to see what is you, it’s not possible to see it without everything else too.

Think of it this way: Unity denies the separateness between things. It denies that they are disjointed, while recognising that they are distinct.

I understand this might be complicated, or frightening, but the good news is, the world is already working this way, there is no threat of losing yourself by simply accepting to see it!”

#

"Thanks for picking me up, Sis"

"It's all good. I needed a break. I've been stuck for days again. How is Manny anyways? What have you two been up to?"

"Oh, not much, you know. We're meeting a couple of times per week to work on the motorbikes Uncle Ben gave us."

"His old bikes? "

"Yeah, he was going to give them away as scrap and Manny told him we’d make it a summer project to fix them."

"By the way, I'm taking the 65, because the 32 was stuck to a standstill on the way here. You cool with that?"

"Makes no difference to me! They talked about it on the radio but I didn't catch why. Demonstration again?"

"Nah, just regular 6pm traffic this time. Hopefully, they're not all moving to 65 now.  Anyways, sorry, I stopped you. The bikes…"

"No worries. That's it really. Basically, one bike is a perfect outer shell, missing a few things on the inside, while the other one can run, but it's not allowed on the road without light, brakes, new tires…"

"So you're making one bike out of two?"

"Pretty much."

"Cool of you to give him your bike to fix his one."

"We’re not really thinking about it like that. We have two bikes, we’ll make one. That’s as far as we thought of it."

"Ah. Shoot, look at the traffic on the interstate, we’ll get bogged down on the first junction, I bet you five bucks."

"Yep, we’re quickly going from looking at the traffic to being the traffic. I've got cookies, do you want some while we wait?"

"Cookies?"

"Auntie made them. Manny wouldn’t touch them because he says the price to get one is you have to listen to her tell you there is no cookie without the water, the egg, the flour, and the heat of the oven. And there is no water without rain, eggs without chicken, flour without wheat. And so the cookie really is a small part of everything, and everything is in it…"

"Ouch. Heavy cookies."

"I don’t mind, to be honest. I like Auntie and her stories. Plus, I got cookies. You okay Sis?"

"Yeah ok. Just reflecting on the traffic thing you said. And this. And here we go. We're crawling. We have become the traffic."

“You got to be back already?"

"Not really. I wasn't any less stuck working on my thesis than I am here, really."

"Manny asked me what is your PhD thesis about but I couldn't really explain it to him. I mean, I said physics you know, but that's all I had. some new, advanced, badass physics, is what I told him."

"It's actually a fairly old problem I’m trying to solve. Scientists have being at it for, like, seven or eight decades: some think light is a wave others think it's a particle. 

“Eight decades! and still no winners??”

“Probably means they are both right."

"Can they? be both right?"

"So far, each part has devised experiments that prove their theory but without disproving the other. Trouble is: we cannot find a way to explain how they can both be right."

"No wonder you're stuck. How about we come out of 65 at the next exit, get a burger and wait the traffic out?"

"Okay four miles to the next exit though. At this pace, that's a fifty-five minute wait for those burgers. Jay, about the bike thing. How did you and Manny decide who’s bike is it going to be?"

"What? Why?"

"I'm just thinking, I don't know much about bikes, so maybe this is a stupid question, but what's the important part?"

"How do you mean? All of them of course. An engine wouldn’t do much without wheels, and vice versa."

"Yeah no, okay. What I mean is: say for example you take the engine and the wheels off a bike and you sell them, replace them with new ones. You wouldn't say you have a new bike. After all, it's still your bike, just with new things on. Then you take, I don't know the lights, the tank, and more parts until you change every single one, every screw even, then you would say it is not the same bike, I suppose? So what is it? Which one is the part that identifies the whole thing. The limit between being the same and being something else? Is that a particular component? A certain percentage of the whole thing?"

"Uhm, I don't know. It’s a bit useless to think about it this way to be honest, why would you need to identify that part anyways?"

"Okay then let me try and rephrase it. I had the feeling I was onto something but it escaped me. So Uncle had two bikes. He gave one to you and one to Manny. They are two separate entities. Neither of them works fully. You start swapping and replacing parts until you have, theoretically, two bikes in working order. How do you know which one is yours, if you’ve been swapping stuff. What is the essential component that identifies it as not the other one”.

"I don't know, the plate?"

"Oh come on. You mean that if you swap plates, you will start considering Manny’s bike as yours? No, come on, that’s not the core part of its identity, is it?"

"I'm not sure. I don't think there is a particular component. Is it the sum of them all... I think you have this wrong Sis, a motorbike is not one important bit and everything else just allows it to run. What you call a bike is the collective of all the parts, but also the interplay of all of its components. It’s how it feels, how it vibrates, how it sounds; you define it by all of its components and all of its behaviours at once, not by choosing one over the other."

"Say that again."

"Which part? It's how they work together? that? Why that smile? is it too crazy to say?"

"Oh, no. Not at all. In fact, nothing seems to be too crazy in quantum physics! I think you gave me the key to something little brother. Burgers 're on me!"

#

Jean-Marc Nguyen, born in the year two thousand fifty-four, in Seoul, Hanmin, was in equal parts determined and grateful. Determined to make the most of his fourth year at University. The foundational years had been tough, as they were supposed to be, for a course that had to cover the fundamentals of so many subjects and parts of knowledge. Grateful because he found every day as interesting as the first.

So many things had to happen in the right way, at the right time, for him to even be here. A free University course, in a unified peninsula, open to students from around the world. A process of many years in the making, involving millions of people connecting their stories to shape the present. It would have looked impossible to anyone in his grandparents' generation, and yet, here it was. Universities courses back then were strictly regulated, siloed, disconnected, and normally only three to five years long. Strange, also, was to think that people would be content to study one particular field and considered to have mastered it, in isolation from all the rest of knowldge.

It suited well to have picked only two courses in the first two years. That was Mathematics, of course, and Epistemology. At the end of the second year he had been able to read The Theory and see, something that the majority of students would take four, five, sometimes ten years to do. Not that they wasted any time, as knowledge can be approached from any side of course… but things were undeniably easier now. There is no mystery to writing music once one can see it as geometry; architecture was the natural consequence of biology and arts, well all arts are intimately intertwined with history, economic theory and psychology. All fields of knowledge are but colours on the same painting once one has learned to see.

It was a cold morning of February when the Professor, still dusting a few snowflakes off her coat, delighted the students by beginning the lesson as if mid-sentence, exactly where she left it at the break of the year:

“... a final conclusion that, as you know, takes us all the way to the twentieth century.

In the coming weeks, we'll explore and discuss the recordings of the early lessons by Alan Hoffman, to celebrate the just passed fiftieth anniversary of the first-ever course of studies in Applied Unity. 

Hoffman, who was never a very spiritual man, taught Theory of Knowledge at a private college in Houston, Texas. Upon joining a local teachers association, he met and formed a long-term relationship with biologist Dr. Mary Anne Lewis. The relationship fostered his earlier interest in the field of entomology. When Dr. Lewis was appointed Visiting Fellow at Columbia University, he submitted a voluntary application to assist the Faculty of Biology, where he spent the following two decades, with various degrees of success.

We need to bear in mind that at the time, Unity was certainly well known, although still overcoming varying degrees of ostracism in public life and academic circles.

Hoffman’s most important contribution came to the spotlight during the team’s research on the social structure of insect colonies. Having observed the incredible breakthroughs in quantum physics during the first decade of the century, he was one of the first to apply Unity to non-mathematical scientific endeavours. He suggested and then helped formulate our current understanding of species such as bees and ants. For the first time, scientists stopped considering individuals bees and ants as the unit of their species, which may sound silly to say today, but came to see the Hive and the Farm as the living organism, and the individual insects as their manifested body. Nowadays, any five-year-old will tell you it is the Hive that is alive and the bees all have roles to play, similar to what the organs and the cells have in the human body, likewise, similar to what each human represents to life on Earth. 

These views opened the doors not only to the development of our understanding of insect colonies but the questioning of many other established fields. Hoffman subsequently became an advocate of Unity for research across the spectrum of all knowledge.

His work is, to this day, seen as fundamental to the theories of Hinkels and Bjorn, which you know to be at the very base of much of the world we live in today. Without further ado, this is an extract from his lecture, on June 6th, 2011:”

“...

Dr. Tarik’s work became a new lens, through which we could understand the old ways of thinking.

How peculiar, isn’t it, it that the human species forgot what is probably one of the most obvious things in this world. For several millennia we believed in a blatant contradiction to the facts of nature and we never even tried to question our assumptions! At some point in our shared history, it became convenient for us to develop a new identity: of being somebody who comes into this world, rather than out of it. As if there were somewhere else to come from. 

Let's take a walk around history. We begin this story with the ape-human. Perfectly integrated into nature, it didn't think itself any different from the monkeys, the birds and all other things. For millions of years. When their numbers allowed it, the ape-human found it safer to organise itselves in groups, small or big, depending on the resources available. Vaguely reminiscing the cosmic order we are part of but unable to put it fully in focus, we invented the gods. The tribes-man and tribes-women were born and quickly found themselves dealing with a multitude of conflicting interests: individuality, family, tribe; life outside the encampment and inside it; the laws of Man and the laws of Nature.

The ancient civilised world was, ironically, a world of even more staggering violence and uncertainty than the natural world, a fact that pushed humans to huddle even closer in their tribes. And how would such men and women relate to any divinity? In a world where submission and domination were commonly the only two ways to survive, we developed an idea of humanity submitted and dominated by the gods. How else could it have been?

It's not at all surprising that the idea of the Divine came to them first as a multitude of conflicting deities. The polytheistic pantheon is full of gods and semi-gods, requiring humans to balance carefully between their needs and their own, often tricking them or rewarding them unexpectedly.

This took many forms across the world, but in its purest form, lasted for ten to fifteen thousand years. Tribes tried to reconcile the tensions by organising themselves in even bigger groups, around a single figure with seemingly infinite power compared to the rest of them. And so, while the age of Kings and Emperors came, so started the shift to the idea of one God, the origin of all, responsible for the good and the bad, one that is both loving and terribly frightening.

This was, no doubt, an improvement on the state of chaos and uncertainty of the warring pantheon of divinities. But hardly made the world a happier place for the civilised-human!

For centuries, the political and the mystical supported one another in cementing the perception of a world ordered in tiers: the God (and the King it chose) in the top tier, and all its creations at the bottom, with the exception of man sitting squarely in the middle. Better than the rest, for being the only creation that is able to acknowledge and cherish its creator. But not good enough to sit next to it, bound to its mortal means and limits, attempting to scale up the ladder of creation in countless myths and legends. This position only intensified humanity's the efforts to distance itself from nature by mastering it, by bending it to its will.

..." You know now, the next step closes the circle.

Modern-humans came to find themselves in a world where their biggest threat came not from nature, but from the extreme consequences of living a segregated life from it. The mid-2020s were the perfect field for a systemic solution to spread like wildfire. The concept of Unity, was ready to become extremely attractive, aided by the tremendous scientific discoveries made through the new paradigm.

But of course, you will already be thinking, this is not the whole story. For the history of Man cannot be told apart from the history of all other things, no less that the history of any person can be without the history of their family, the history of the country, and of others.

We will shortly begin focusing on these connections, and by doing so we will be building the bridge to the next phase of human history.

Which seems to have, at last, after a long walk around, brought us right where we were in the beginning.

[brexiiton]

Turkish intelligence 'neutralizes' wanted terrorist in northern Syria

June 17 2023 at 3:37pm - Published in: Europe & Russia, Iraq, Middle East, News, Syria, Turkey

Turkish intelligence "neutralized" a senior wanted terrorist in northern Syria over his alleged links to thee MLKP, a far-left terror group, security sources said on Saturday, Anadolu reports.

Osman Nuri Ocakli, codenamed Yilmaz Behrares, was neutralized in an operation by the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) in Syria's Ayn al-Arab district, said the sources on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

Ocakli was behind many attacks in Turkiye, including the 2022 attack on a vehicle carrying the prison guards in the northwestern Bursa province, and was in the red category on Turkiye's wanted terrorists' list, the sources said.

He operated as the so-called leader of FESK, the armed wing of the MLKP, since 2000.

Having close organizational relations with the PKK, Ocakli moved to the Qandil region of Iraq in Nov. 2014 and started carrying out terrorist activities in the Rasulayn region of Syria in 2015.

As on April 2018, the terrorist responsible for illegal crossings between Turkiye and Syria on behalf of MLKP, became the "right-hand man" of Bayram Namaz, code-named Baran, the former MLKP's so-called Syria leader. He became "the 3rd man of the organization in Syria."

After Bayram Namaz was neutralized in 2019, Ocakli started his activities as an assistant to Zeki Gurbuz, codenamed Ahmet Sores, who was appointed as the so-called Syria Officer of MLKP, and continued his activities in Ayn al-Arab last year.

The MLKP was founded in 1994 and was added to Turkiye's active terror list in 2007.

The terror group is responsible for many attacks in Turkiye and northern Syria, including the 2004 bombing of a public bus in Istanbul that killed three civilians.