#Fallout Bart's posts

[luxlitemidnight]

I couldn't find my weed vape this morning despite it getting left on the coffee table last night. We thought maybe the cat knocked it off, but my roommate found it hidden on top of the bookcase behind some knick-knacks where normally it would never be found. This is the second supernatural-seeming bullshit to go down with my vape

So, haunted vape ig

[entropicbias]

star trek online with a youtube video.

(note, this is an old post, but i've decided to do more blogging like this here, so i remembered it.)

i decided to try out star trek online and live out my trekkie fantasies the other day. my first run in with the game was eons ago at a thrift store, but my current laptop is lacking a cd player, so i couldn't really try it out for sure. i don't know if it would work anyways considering it's a copy of the game from, what, 2010? what would be the point of that.

the first star trek game i ever played was the TNG game for the snes. i emulated it on my shitty old laptop. it was unfortunately a bust, cause i had no idea what i was doing.

speaking of tng, before i do my review, did you know a certain somebody used to make tng edits? can you recognize that flute sample?

anyway, my best friend dave (who doesn’t even have a tumblr) brought it up, assuming i’d never heard of star trek online. TCH! who do you think i am, you simpleton? naturally, i had to flex on him. whipping out the cd like some kind of seasoned star trek online veteran just to make a mockery of him. but really, the joke is on me, because let’s be honest, no one takes a self-proclaimed star trek online expert seriously.

so, i downloaded it off steam and ignored all the mixed reviews! i didn't stay in character creation for too long, but i tried to make him resemble me as much as possible. that's because my character's name is john kirk. he is john tiberius kirk.

john t. kirk of the u.s.s johnterprise. because enterprise is a restricted word (STUPID AND LAME?)

here is what i was greeted to.

quite frankly, i'm a little upset at the amount of diversity aboard. already i am seeing TWO vulcans. this is absurd. there is only one vulcan that should be aboard my ship, and he hasn't finished downloading the game yet.

OK! TIME TO PLAY THE FREAKIN' GAME FOR REAL! :D

after picking some of my skills (i chose to be aggressive, pistol handy, and uhh... i forgot the other one but believe me when i say it was good.)

i am meet this son of a bitch

captain...? CAPTAIN? OF THE JOHNTERPRISE? THE HELL YOU ARE! GET YOUR FALLOUT CLAYMATION ASS OFF OF MY FREAKING CHAIR! i thought you started out as captain? what is the point of naming my ship if i don't even get to be captain??? i need to show this guy who is BOSS.

the second thing i figured out about this game, is that if you walk into an object and believe in yourself you can actually gyrate with skill akin to that of a zumba instructor. so, i immediately had to gyrate next to captain isaac carrot to put him in his place.

it was a massacre for garrett. if i was you, "captain", i'd hang my head in shame and go back to being an ensign from being so hopelessly outmatched. it was also at this point i remembered that i could record my gameplay, which countered my ability to remember that my computer's cpu couldn't properly cool itself and i hadn't turned on my laptop fan. so amidst scanning some debris, my computer shat itself and died.

AND THEN RECORDED THE REST OF MY GAMEPLAY! watch it here. https://youtu.be/eeEs0el8Woo?si=djN9iLpkH3bGwNle there is some impossibly hard to read commentary there, and you may be wondering why i don't talk, and that's because i sound like bart simpson, so it's best that you just squint your eyes and pretend like morgan freeman's sultry voice is narrating my captions. if you do not want to sit through half an hour of shitty footage, then feel free to skip to 24:47 where i realize that you do not get a chance to meet captain kirk at the end of your first rodeo, and it genuinely breaks my heart. that is todays post, goodbye. update from jan 2025: i haven't touched the game since because i realized that i was just not going to be all that invested if most of the gameplay was from outside of the ship and i didn't have my very own personal spock.

-eb

[mysterycitrus]

You’ve talked about how fandom treats jtodd & dick, so what are your thoughts on how fandom treats dick & tim?

There’s this post that’s asking about people’s batfamily hot takes, and I was scrolling through the reblogs bc I love drama. One of the “hot takes” was calling dick a bad brother bc of the bruce lost in time comic era. Specifically saying that fandom excuses dick’s shitty behavior towards Tim bc his dad (Bruce) died and because of the stress of taking care of the city by himself. While Tim was hurting because of the deaths of Kon, Bart, Jack, Steph, and Donna (idk why they included Donna as Tim’s grief and not Dick’s??) and therefore Tim’s & Dick’s hurt and stress aren’t the same. According to this person, Tim was going through it and Dick was making it worse.

Now, I’m not going to claim I know how everything went down since I haven’t read those comics yet, but this feels like a gross misunderstanding of the arc.

From what I’ve seen, fandom tends to invalidate and villainize Dick during this time in favor of Tim. Dick is not being excused, in fact he’s being blamed for things that are either not his fault or just made up in order to whump Tim. Idk that “hot take” just rubbed me the wrong way because of how one-sided it was, and I guess it made me wonder about your thoughts about Dick & Tim since I tend to agree with your opinions lmao

fundamentally the issue is this — dick grayson existing and being a good person is an obstacle for fanon angst. dick grayson being a good brother means that jtodd can’t just slot into his pre-existing relationships with tim and cass and damian. dick grayson being a good friends means that he’s close with the titans and the league because he’s competent and trusted. dick grayson being kind means that he didn’t abandon tim, he was literally trying to keep everything together after bruce’s death.

not to try and make it a grief olympics but as much as people talk about everyone tim has lost (and i think they must have been talking about dana winters in that post?) people seem to forget that dick’s city just got nuked + the fallout of nightwing 93 + donna dying + jade dying + the titans falling apart + he was just locked in arkham himself. like… his dad has just died, he’s had to fight off his brother who’d just tried to kill both tim and damian and been given custody over a kid who doesn’t trust him

red robin 2009 has done irreversible harm to tim drakes character. people using that as the starting point for reading about him is bad. it’s a comic about a grief spiral, and it isn’t an amazing depiction of him either. but even then, people just seem to love straight up fabricating what’s in it.

dick tells tim that therapy might be a good idea. tim tells dick that he’s leaving because he trusts dick to let him do what he needs to do. even at his lowest point, dick is who he trusts most. those takes that’re like “tim drake was at his lowest point and then jtodd sees him and realises that he’s cool actually and they bond #jasontoddisagoodbrother #dickgraysonisabadbrother etc” because they like to posit that dick threatened to throw tim in arkham are so silly

that’s even ignoring how people just straight up lie about damian’s actions and how weird everyone is about ra’s al ghul. no, tim isn’t the only one he refers to as detective aside from bruce. no, tim isn’t one step away from being a mass murderer. no, damian didn’t try to kill tim— he was reacting to tim being suspicious of him. tim was beefing with a ten year old. why are u being so mean to the ten year old? (We Know Why)

ur right — it is extremely one-sided. im not one to pretend that canon is flawless by any means, but acting as though fanon is better just because someone online came up with it is also stupid. there are many many racist undertones with how jtodd and tim are interpreted, both separately and with each other. a lot of it is yaoi baiting dynamics, that a lot of fans don’t seem to want to admit. i won’t comment on how white people writing jtodd as latino and tim as asian can be Bad but like…. it’s all tied up together. people want these two characters to have suffered the most, because that justifies everything fans want them to do. they want them to be wronged. they want their idea of justice in their name

[suzukiblu]

Do you have any Cassie or Bart centric aus?

Lemme see . . . well, the poly Pockets AU cycles through Tim, Cassie, and Bart's POVs, though it's not technically either Cassie or Bart-centric, it's a Core Four fic in three points of view. I've also got a few Kon/Cassie WIPs but they're mostly from his perspective and I wouldn't call them particularly Cassie-centric, and same for most of my YJ polyam WIPs, though let's see what we've got otherwise!

I recently wrote this fic about Cassie grieving Kon after he's come back from being dead, which is from her POV and is about her feelings and thoughts on it.

Not-Kon/Not-Match is a WIP from Cassie's POV about Tim accidentally actually cloning Kon in his grief-spiral era and her being the first person to meet said clone.

Circe makes everything worse is also from Cassie's POV and is about her breaking up with Kon because she realizes she's a closeted lesbian, WITHOUT realizing Kon is a closested trans girl and how those facts might or might not align, and the fallout and self-discovery and angst coming from that.

My the Core Four meets Kon's objectification kink WIP is from Cassie's POV and features Bart running a D/s roleplay scene for the Core Four while they try out a new kink together.

I think that's about it, currently? And there's a couple of Bart-centric AUs I've considered taking a poke at, but I haven't yet taken the plunge on actually starting any of them so I don't think I have anything particularly focused on him right now.

. . . also this probably doesn't count as Cassie-centric, but there IS a WIP I haven't developed quiiiiite enough to start posting from yet that's from the POV of a clone of Cassie produced by the Agenda and what her showing up post-Sins of Youth does, specifically to Kon and Cassie's friendship but also to a few other bits and pieces of the superhero community and like, clone-related things in general.

[rainbow-tomato-draws]

Excuse me while I scream into the void; I just need a place to put my thoughts…

Mr burns: a post electric play is wacky, strange, absurd - insert-synonyms-infinity - play. It’s about the simpsons but not really. It’s also kind of a musical - but some might argue it’s not… The play is three acts with major time skips between each one which for some makes it a bit difficult to follow. Overall, most people who watch it are left with a weird experience they don’t know what to do with.

It’s also amazing and it changed my entire being in a way I can never truly describe. *spoilers for this show ahead*

I was never really a theatre kid. Instead, choir was the art I was known for among my peers - especially since I did it from elementary to high school. Theatre did interest me but it wasn’t a class option until middle school where -even then- I only got to pick one extra curricular so I stuck with the one I was familiar with and knew I already enjoyed.

However, I did have the pleasure of being a part of a couple of productions. Both are memories I cherish. But at the end of the day, despite my interest, theatre was never a field I really broke into…

But how is this relevant to Mr burns: a post electric play? Well because it single handedly made me understand not only how much I love theatre but also why I do.

The first act opens to a group sitting around a campfire with one of the individuals animatedly retelling an episode of the Simpsons. The mood despite this is tense. It turns out it’s because this group of people barely know one another and are only together because the USA is experiencing nuclear fallout… Nobody is truly sure how many nuclear power plants there are, or how close you really have to be to end up affected by it, or even really what the signs are that some one is being affected. People take down names of others they come across and when you meet someone new you compare in hopes of finding someone you know is still (or at least was) alive…

So to distract themselves they retell episodes of the Simpsons - a show that most people have seen at least one episode of - and can therefore relate to and use to connect with others.

Act two is 7 years later, the cast from act one are rehearsing something - a “commercial”! But it isn’t to sell a product - it’s a scene created to let people pretend that everything is normal. The characters drink Diet Coke and take a warm bath and watch TV. The interesting thing is that these commercials play between episodes of the Simpsons. Over the course of the past 7 years society really latched onto it as a source of familiarity and now there are dozens of theatre troupes who perform episodes. Each event and line of dialogue brought forward from random individuals who remember them and want to contribute… But recently there’s been tension due to the monopoly one group has over Simpsons episodes - actually more than that people have just gotten more bold, more comfortable. Suddenly it was like when the fallout was fresh, when some people “did what they had to” and others maliciously took advantage of the chaos… the scene ends abruptly in the middle of the cast being attacked.

Act three is 75 years after act two. There still isn’t electricity. This is the portion of the show where the musical element really takes hold. It’s also the hardest part of the show to describe… but let’s just say the Simpsons stayed very important (it was very religious in imagery - the whole thing akin to a ritual). The main cast is still here but they don’t play their previous roles - they play characters from the Simpsons (Bart, Lisa, Marge, & Homer Simpson + Itchy, Scratchy, and Mr. Burns). We get to see the episode recounted in Act one in a distorted reenactment that has many ties and metaphors connecting to the fallout from almost a century ago. Along side the cast is an ensemble that watch and interact with the main part of the ritual being performed by the main cast. This act is my favorite part of the show and is so trippy and bizarre to watch.

So, why do I love this show so much?

I love and admire theatre as an art form because it is more than just one - it’s literature, music, art, acting, you name it! People of all different skill sets come together to tell a story - it’s all a bunch of little moving parts to create something remarkable.

But, what I like about theatre is that it’s temporary.

People put in so much time and effort into a performance only a few get to see - and because each and every performance is live no two run throughs are ever exactly the same. Not to mention that every production is going to have different artistic choices! It’s so bittersweet, but exactly what makes it special. I could spend forever trying to retell the production of Mr. Burns I saw but only the people I shared that auditorium with will know what it was actually like to be there… And don’t take that the wrong way! I’m not bragging- I wish I could see that production again and take people to see it - but I can’t. Its on of those experiences anyone can have - fleeting, revolutionary, and dramatically changing but theatre is intentional with it and ultimately no matter what it is the audience that chooses to partake in seeing hours of hardworking before it’s gone.

I love Mr. Burns because so much of what it’s about is rooted in the concept of retelling stories for the sake of others getting the chance to hear them. It explores how the art of storytelling evolved and why people are so compelled people are to do so. Of how even in unsure, dangerous times people want to share, connect, and remember. And on top of it all - it doesn’t attempt to appeal outright to the audience.

I’ve seen people disappointed in lack of actual connection to the Simpsons. Others find certain scenes unnecessary (my own dad thought the entirety of ACT TWO could be cut and the show wouldn’t be different??). At the performance I attended a majority of the audience was empty from the start and before act one was even over that number still dwindled :/

I understand that not everyone has to like anything and everything! I just think that the overall this phenomenon ironically highlights the idea I was mentioned before. The playwright made this story then people brought it to life because they saw value in it and wanted to share - but it is YOU who chooses to be there, to participate, to appreciate.

And it just makes me think about my own experiences/participation with theatre and lack thereof due to my preconceived notion that I didn’t quite fit in there. Especially as I got older - the longer I wait the less experienced I am compared to my peers… But it turns out the only thing keeping me out of theatre wasn’t the lack of room for me to contribute to the story but my own my disconnect/interpretation with what was being presented.

And I think that is rather neat!

Thank you for staying this long! I hope you found the time spent to be worth it and that - if you are so inclined - you go out and see a local theatre production. No matter your experience, I’m sure it’ll make for an interesting story to tell.

[mayor-ghoul]

I once made an oc inspired by Bart from dirk gentlys holistic detective agency and she was called Francis

She wasn't a fallout oc but she was a post apocalyptic oc

[awhitehead17]

Core Four during a battle:

Kon: “Robin where are you?”

Tim: “I’m in a helicopter going after the detonator!”

Kon: ... “How did you get in a helicopter?”

Cassie: “Wait, you can fly a helicopter?”

Bart: “Helicopter? Did you just say helicopter?”

Tim: “Hey! Hey! Guys focus, get to the bombs!”

[minilev]

Posted 4,960 times in 2022

That's 1,159 more posts than 2021!

321 posts created (6%)

4,639 posts reblogged (94%)

Blogs I reblogged the most <3<3<3 :

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I tagged 2,241 of my posts in 2022

#horror - 112 posts

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Longest Tag: 139 characters

#everything in this adaptation except kurt and bart costumes (half of them which was not copied from the 1995 movie) production and the city (why did i decide to torture myself with rewatching GITS live action movie adaptation?)

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

2,260 notes - Posted September 24, 2022

#4

baby, it’s raining outside

2,717 notes - Posted July 18, 2022

#3

[x]

4,054 notes - Posted October 5, 2022

#2

(full)

5,298 notes - Posted September 5, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

See the full post

9,902 notes - Posted May 10, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[cebwrites]

my, my (how can i resist you?)

a/n: the vacation and tenderness they all (i) need (them to have)-

oc x canon, post-wano, nakamaship and fluff, poly (implied, and shown) he/they law word count: 1.3k

Tang and Strider dock, both Hiraishin and Heart Pirates heave a collective sigh of relief. The island they’ve found themselves on seems to be uninhabited with little to stock up on in terms of supplies but in comparison to the hell that awaited them upon leaving samurai-country - this was virtually time off.

The combined crews waste no time in off-loading onto the island and slip into relaxation mode; Law said that they’d only be able to spend a few days here but that only meant that everyone would have to make the most of it. Usually he’d disdain such lackadaisical behavior, but frankly at this point if Law hears one more word of Strawhat nonsense, mucking up yet another perfectly good plan, he’d combust into stress fueled flames.

So distraction is given a pass for now.

Everyone eases into their impromptu holiday without a second glance; respective first mates have abandoned their duties in lieu of beach-time fun (although some stick to their responsibilities out of habit more than others), typical friend groups all huddle up to discuss their interests with lots of overlap from other circles as the night draws on, couples, trios, and quads find a nice little corner to simply spend time with each other without needing to worry about work - even typically more solitary folk come out of hiding to enjoy the ambience.

Soon “a few days” turns to a week, but Law still can’t bring himself to tell everyone it’s time to leave yet. Not when he sees Tetsu and Shachi playing Shoulder Wars with Bepo in the water, Penguin chatting amongst Reiji and Rio, the latter with his legs across Migi’s lap, Mitsu exchanging recipes and laughing with his own beloved cooks. Across the beach Coco squawks in response to her girlfriend’s teases and Ikkaku’s all the happier to pile them on. 

Law can see Noire and Nabiil desperately trying to keep Fritz from falling into the water as he windsurfs, Alto and Uni help get sunscreen on the parts of Jean-Bart’s back that he can’t reach, while various Heart and Hiraishin crew members try to haggle a bargain from their resident tattoo artist, Izzy, too.  Least of all when he spots Kirin out of the corner his eye, napping in various spots throughout the day but always wearing a slight smile even in his slumber.

They’re all on a well-deserved vacation. Especially after de-throning two Emperors and fending off the fallout therein. Plus, with Dofla-fucking-mingo rotting in Impel Down, Law reasons, although the knowledge that this vile creature was alive at ALL made their bones ache with a decade-long rage, he has nothing else to worry about other than zeroing his focus on the One Piece, or rather, the Will of D, at his own pace.

Still, Kirin finds Law sulking away from the liveliness as usual, tucked away in their office among piles of old but well-kept books.

“Hiding away before the party even starts? It might be our last day here, you know. Our crews wanna have at least a little fun with both captains present.” 

“You’re leaving? When? It’s the first I’ve heard of this.” Laws brows furrow as he looks up to meet Kirin’s gaze, placing down his favorite bear-themed pencil.

“Nothing’s set in stone yet but Rio wants to get a move on before those kids get caught up in another storm. You know how he is. It’s fine, we need to get to another town to stockpile tools for repairs anyway.”

“Mugiwara-ya? Him and his ilk cause problems wherever they go,” Law snuffs, “Wonder when we’ll see the end of his competitive streak, though, if at all.”

Kirin cocks him a grin, brow raised and eyelids slack, “Who, Rio? I don’t want to hear that from you, Tora-o.”

The corner of Law’s mouth twitches at the accursed nickname, Kirin laughs. They will admit though, at least secretly and only ever to themself, that hearing it from his lover, his amor, in such a sweet tone despite the intentional mockery makes them all but want to kiss this insufferable man. So he does. Hooks his fingers into the loop of Kirin’s belt buckle, pulls him to sit on the arm of his chair, and leans up with clear intent. Kirin’s more than happy to oblige.

It’s only when Law swipes his tongue across the inside of the other captain’s mouth and Kirin makes an undignified noise in response that he realizes their true intentions.

“Law! You had coffee before I came in, didn’t you?” 

Kirin feigns offense but it’s hard to stay mad with his partner’s rare and ever-sweet laughter ringing wonderfully through his chest and ears. Almost as if... they were wedding bells. Kirin’s caught off by his own thoughts, brushing the idea far away for now and hoping that Law didn’t see his expression change. God, where did that come from? What would’ve been a mock scowl now sits as a mere toothless pout on tan features. Law’s head rests against their own jolly roger inked on Kirin’s shoulder, fingers intertwined as he lets the last huffs of laughter empty from his chest. He’s still smiling though, and Kirin wouldn’t do anything to jinx it for the world.

“I take it you still want me to go out there and socialize for our last day on this carefree island?”

“You don’t have to, Heart, but it would be nice. We wanna have fun with you, too.” Kirin brings up their knuckles to smooch with all the tenderness and devotion his heart can manage - Law tips his chin for a proper kiss on the lips, after. Had he been born with the ability to, Kirin’s wings would’ve fanned out in a flurry of ruffled feathers at right this moment.

“Hmm, since my darling asked so nicely, who am I to say no?”

Heart Pirates cheer at the sight of their captain emerging from the sub to join them - Kirin close behind, standard smirk of a smile already in place; his crew keeps their teasing about Law’s hermit habits to a minimum if only because of the warning look their own captain briefs over them when Law is too preoccupied with Bepo shoving plates of fresh food into his arms, well into the party mood.

The buccaneers greet the transition from dusk to nightfall with raucous laughter, excessive drinking, and gorging themselves on the bounty of seafood they could find by fishing and diving around the waters surrounded them, though the island itself was almost devoid of any edible meat. At least, not enough to justify hunting to feed a party of more than 30 grown adults when they already had more than enough fish and crustaceans to last. Plenty of herbs, however.

They herd Bepo into the Tang with his tipsy, giggly partner once the clouds seemed to roll away from to avoid another Sulong incident, although whatever those two got up to in the privacy of their sub was none of anyone’s business. A few others had disappeared with their own arrangements, too, but Kirin was content to simply lay on this blanketed patch of beach listening to his intoxicated boyfriend ramble about all the ‘funny fishies’ they saw while trying to catch tonight’s feast.

Law sits next to them a short while later, drink in hand and pleasantly buzzed, but not nearly as drunk as the unconscious red-faced samurai between these captains.

“Did Pen and Shach ditch you to go make out?”

Law snrks in response, “No worse than Tetsu and Izzy leaving you for the, what, broom closet where they ran off to? Usually we’d be racing against them.”

Kirin’s snickers muffle against the kiss he presses to Law’s cheek; Reiji shifts a little with something unintelligible muttered in his sleep below them - Kirin smiles, moving to lay his head on their mutual boyfriend’s chest.

“’M not really up for it tonight. Hate to say, but all that food’s made me sleepier than anything.”

“Yeah? Well, we’ve got the world’s best pillows right here,” Law shimmies a little lower too, resting on their elbow as the buzz sinks in from the last gulp to finish off his cup.

“I don’t know about sleeping on the beach, though, all that sunlight is going to make our hangovers murderous,” Kirin doesn’t get to finish, they’ve already been shambles’d into his room, Reiji and all.

“Oh, so you can get sand in my bed but when I drop a single crumb in yours-”

Once again Law cuts his train of thought short, this time with a kiss. Their head swims with a familiar airiness and both captains smell pleasantly of sake; they break to smile at each other, then Reiji’s slumbering face. The cap’ts press tipsy (one more so than the other) kisses to either of his cheeks, before each laying on a tit and knocking out for the night.

All things considered, it was a vacation well spent.

[luxlitemidnight]

System update,

So currently the Spain brothers (Arthur, fallout Bart, Oliver, and Sebastian) have been fluidly merging together a lot, into well, just Bart, who WAS actually the original tulpa. He ended up fragmenting due to his personality being unstable, but he may be re-merging, either into a fused state or a subsystem. Based on behavior and vibes I'm leaning more towards a more integrated subsystem.

Sebastian is new, and showed up at the same time as All Bart, who was an intentional fusion between Arthur, Bart, and Oliver, who appeared to be more than the sum of his parts. Well that's because Sebastian is that extra. As far as I can tell he popped into existence when the fusion broke back apart.

[chiefofboatwatsonstittymug]

Rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Send me an ask with the title that most intrigues you and interests you, and I’ll post a little snippet of it or tell you something about it!

Tagged by @boasamishipper but I'm not gonna sort it into fandoms, you get what you get haha

Jenkins fixit

Sidorov

Another Ethan/Hunley fic

Ethan/Luther post-Fallout

Ethan/Luther/Hunley post Fallout

Post-movie

Long term effects of mimics prompt

Another

Extremely late Darkest Night gift

That one angsty canon divergence that's like 10 years old

Post-canon

Richard saves Newman

???

Jack/Vasily/Ramius

Superbowl

Jack/Bart

Crew - Melekhin

Another thing about Vasily christ I'm predictable

***

Speed 1994 Fixit

Oceans Basher/Reuben

Minority Report

John/Marcus

Sad Gay Cowboys and Also Paden Is There

Paden/Stella

Poly Cowboy Funtimes

The Last Shot

Richard Lives Because I Say So

Louis/Hickman

Merle/John

Jurassic Park OT3

Boromir Lives

Forgiveness and the power of Gay Love

Merlin lives

36 pt 2

76

The Plan

Pizza AU (Ferendo vos Vincam)

Leon/Mark

Best Case Scenarios

Another Anthony Lives Fic

Nathan and the mob

Hitwoman!Grace AU

Finch/Marconi

[swissmissficrecs]

Favorite fics of 2012

2012 was when things really started happening in earnest in the fandom. There was a veritable explosion of fic, and many of the absolute classics were posted. I have something like 15 pages of bookmarks from that year, and as such, it was incredibly hard to narrow things down to a manageable number for a rec list. Here are the ones that I felt are the must-reads, that have stuck with me the longest and strongest.

A Cure For Boredom by emmagrant01 (81K, E, Johnlock, John/OCs) They'd never talked about sex in the year they'd known each other. Well, that wasn't quite correct: Sherlock had never said a word about sex; John had bemoaned his personal dearth of it on many occasions.

A Goose Quill Dipped in Venom by Polyphony (52K, M, Johnlock) Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, is called in to a very ordinary although brutal murder. Something is badly out of tune with the whole scenario and Sherlock finds himself becoming more and more obsessed with the crime - and also with the victim.

Across the Sky by Mazarin221b (23K, E, Johnlock) Top Gun AU. After an accident that nearly cost the life of his previous RIO, Lieutenant John Watson (Call sign Doc) has grown reckless and arrogant, but an even better pilot than he was before. A heroic maneuver and complete chance sends him and his new RIO (call sign Copper) to Fallon, Nevada, home of Top Gun.  Problem is, the ghosts of John's past could cost them more than just the Top Gun trophy—it could also cost John a chance at happiness.

An Avalanche Of Detour Signs by gyzym (56K, M, Mollstrade) In which Molly Hooper gets a job, gets a degree, breaks a heart, has her heart broken, falls in love, keeps a secret, saves a life, runs a morgue, falls apart, pulls it together, and finds exactly what she didn't know she was looking for--not necessarily in that order.

Applications and Practices of Basic Arithmetic by 1electricpirate (128K, M, Johnlock) After Reichenbach and in order to 1) Keep Sherlock alive, 2) Keep John alive and 3) Get Sherlock home to England as soon as possible, Mycroft devises a plan that will not only incentivise John's continued sanity and survival but force Sherlock to come running. It is a perfect plan, though perhaps less than ethically sound. He has no doubts that using frozen samples of your younger brother's sperm to create children for his husband to care for falls deeply within the realm of socially unacceptable behaviour, but it is efficient, and that is what matters most.

Ava Watson verse by keeliethompson1 (347K, M, Johnlock) Five year old Ava Watson's life is changed forever when her Daddy's old friend comes calling.

Be Here Now Universe by Todesfuge (181K, M, Johnlock) John Watson was already fighting demons when he and Sherlock met. With Sherlock's suicide, it all comes flooding back, forcing Sherlock to intervene before he's solved the persistent riddles of Jim Moriarty and his game. Together they find that something darker lurks behind Moriarty, forcing Sherlock, John, and Irene Adler into an even deadlier game with a much more dangerous foe.  Begins six months after the events of The Reichenbach Fall.

Burn Down & Reignite by augustbird (20K, E, Johnlock) When love isn't enough.

Castle and Sand by grey853 (158K, E, Johnlock) Sherlock and John both have difficult pasts that affect their evolving relationship. When John prevents a mugging, it sets off a dangerous chain of events that not only impacts him, but his whole family. In the end there's a wedding and a honeymoon, but will there really be a happy ending?

Cinnamon series by lbmisscharlie (150K, E, Johnlock) When Sherlock invites John to live with him, he fails to mention that he's a single father to a four-year-old girl.

Collared by VelvetMace (83K, E, Johnlock, John/Sarah) In a world where the British Empire is still strong and slavery is her economic backbone, John has become a terrorist for the abolitionist movement. He is caught by Mycroft, enslaved, and given to Sherlock for training. The goal: To test a new kind of slave collar with the power to break even the strongest willed fighter. One that will make even John learn to love being a slave.

Common Grounds by couchbarnacle (66K, M, Johnlock) John Watson is working at Holmes Manor for the summer and is caught up in the whirlwind that is Sherlock Holmes. Teen AU.

Electric Pink Hand Grenade by BeautifulFiction (67K, E, Johnlock) "If Sherlock's brain is a hard drive, then these attacks are an electro-magnetic pulse." Sherlock Holmes does not do anything by half, not even a migraine. It falls to John to witness one of the greatest minds he has ever known tear itself apart, and he must do his best to help Sherlock pick up the pieces.

End of the Story by kres (53K, E, Johnlock) Post-Reichenbach. The return, the fallout, the pieces you pick up.

Equilibrium by augustbird (12K, M, Johnlock) At Baskerville, John is infected by a virus that turns him into a genius. But when the infection progresses into neurodegeneration, it's a race against time to save himself. Flowers for Algernon fusion.

Given In Evidence by verityburns (97K, M, Johnlock) Coming back from the dead can be a complicated business. With a new case on the horizon, rebuilding a life is one thing... rebuilding a friendship quite another. For Sherlock and John, things may never be just the same...

Hearts At Home series by yalublyutebya (74K, M, Johnlock, Viclock) A series of stories chronicling the intertwined lives of Father John Watson and Sherlock Holmes.

Just a Kiss by emmagrant01 (19K, E, Johnlock) Five times John and Sherlock kissed because of a case and one time they kissed for real.

Limping Forward series by bendingsignpost (58K, E, Johnlock) As the newest instructor at St. Bart's, John has been explicitly warned to never do Sherlock Holmes any favours. Too bad the sex is so good.

More Things Than Are Dreamt Of series by 1electricpirate (37K, E, Johnlock) In which John is (reluctantly) a wizard, Mycroft is (apparently) omniscient, and Sherlock is (surprisingly) oblivious.

Murderous Imprint by MojoFlower (52K, E, Johnlock) Sherlock should be focusing on the series of brutal vivisections Lestrade has brought to him. Instead he's distracted by a most amazing and unexpected experimental opportunity from the basement apartment of 221C. Will he figure out the one in time to stop the other? And does he need help in order to do it?

Renegades by augustbird (39K, E, Johnlock) Sherlock Holmes takes down Moriarty’s syndicate.  He also takes John Watson with him.

School For Scandal (orphaned) (222K, E, Johnlock) Sherlock lusts from afar. John tries to fool himself. (Boarding school AU)

Spectrum series by thisprettywren (95K, E, Johnlock) In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

Stranger at the Gate by bendingsignpost (85K, E, Johnlock) As far as initiation rites go, kidnapping a human doctor from a defended town ought to seem extreme. When James Moriarty offers him the challenge, Sherlock never considers saying no. (Fantasy vampire AU)

Northwest Passage by Kryptaria (95K, E, Johnlock) Seven years ago, Captain John Watson of the Canadian Forces Medical Service withdrew from society, seeking a simple, isolated life in the distant northern wilderness of Canada. Though he survives from one day to the next, he doesn't truly live until someone from his dark past calls in a favor and turns his world upside-down with the introduction of Sherlock Holmes.

Our Brave Boys by unknownsister (29K, E, Johnlock) John worked himself to the bone to get into military school. He meets Sherlock Holmes, who doesn't want to be there at all. Sherlock simultaneously insults him and turns his curiosity up to eleven, in mind and body. As if John doesn't have enough to deal with.

Our Enthusiasms Which Cannot Always Be Explained by withoutawish (32K, M, Johnlock) The list that is tacked haphazardly on the refrigerator of 221B reads, ‘Kidney(s), and/or a full cadaver (preferably male, late 30s, under six feet tall), bag of fresh toes, sixteen cow’s eyes (corneas retained), dual exhaust hand –held flame thrower, an unopened first edition copy of Joseph Conrad’s 'Heart of Darkness', and no less than ten abhorrently gruesome murders in the upcoming month.”  The one neatly hanging next to it simply reads, “Sex.” One of these lists is not John Watson’s. If John Watson were to put what he really wanted in list form, to live in a land somewhere beyond ‘almosts' now that Sherlock Holmes has indeed returned to him, he would never be able to look his flatmate in the eye ever again.

Tennis series by Jupiter_Ash (216K, E, Johnlock) John and Sherlock are professional tennis players and it’s Wimbledon. One is a broken almost was at the end of his career, the other an arrogant rising star tipped for greatness. It should have been a straightforward tournament. It really should have been. How were they to know that a chance encounter would change everything?

The Bone Fiddle by htebazytook, Vulgarweed (61K, E, Johnlock) Appalachian AU! In November 1973, Vietnam vet John Watson returns to his family's old home in Arthel County, West Virginia, deep in coal country. His low expectations include recuperation and boredom. Instead he finds a ruined landscape, a series of grisly murders, and one of the world's weirdest neighbors.

The Brave and The Cunning series by thequeergiraffe (95K, E, Johnlock, Adlock, Sarah/John, Sheriarty) This series will have one fic per Sherlock episode, with series one being set in John's 6th year (and Sherlock's 5th) and series two being set in John's 7th and final year at Hogwarts. Fics will have similar (but nowhere near identical) plots to the actual BBC Sherlock episodes, with most locations being replaced with HP-universe settings. This series is set well after the Second Wizarding War and involves next to none of the HP characters, instead using Sherlock characters and the occasional minor OC.

The Fabric of Life (orphaned) (156K, E, Johnlock) The fabric of life rearranges itself around the re-emergence of Sherlock.

The Good Morrow series by greywash (216K, E, Johnlock) My post-S2 series where everyone has a lot of feels about everything and plausibility is stretched unto breaking. Also: fucking.

The Great Sex Olympics of 221B by XistentialAngst (58K, E, Johnlock; John/OCs, Sherlock/OCs) John Watson thinks Sherlock Holmes should admit that he, Watson, is more of an expert on sex than Sherlock is.  But Sherlock refuses to concede the point.  He comes up with an experiment plan that will resolve the issue.  The results will determine who wins the prize.  But sometimes even the best thought-out scientific study has unexpected consequences.

The Green Blade by verityburns (72K, T, Gen) As a serial killer hits the headlines, the police are out of their depth and the next victim is out of time. With faith in Sherlock Holmes at an all time low, this is a case which will push loyalties to the limit...

The Iceman Cometh by Polyphony (60K, M, Johnlock, Viclock) An intriguing puzzle tempts Sherlock to accept Victor Trevor's invitation to the French Riviera, but all is not what it seems. Frustrated by the case and increasingly concerned about an absent John, Sherlock uncovers far more than he was meant to and is forced to become a fugitive, pursued by those on both sides of the law, as he fights for his freedom and the lives of all those around him.

The Making Of by emmagrant01 (58K, E, Johnlockstrade) In the aftermath of Sherlock's death, John Watson and Greg Lestrade take comfort in each other.  But of course, Sherlock isn't really dead, so this is all about to get complicated.

The Paradox Series by wordstrings (98K, E, Johnlock) In which what's in Sherlock's head is never going to get any better, and John is nearly thrown out of his flat.

The Prize by Trillsabells (101K, E, Johnlock) On 29 January 2010 an unknown Event wiped out 98% of the population. This is the story of the survivors, four months on.

The Quiet Man by ivyblossom (157K, E, Johnlock, Warstan) "Do you just carry on talking when I'm away?"

The Sustain Stories by maybe_amanda (151K, M, Sherlolly, John/Sarah) "So now you're behaving like a six year old 'cause he didn't take you along on his honeymoon?"  Lestrade said.  "Grow the hell up."

Through the Looking Glass by obsidienne (106K, M, Johnlock) When you chase criminals over rooftops, death is always a possibility. We woke up in 1889 instead. Which is not a place two men in a relationship want to be.

To Light Another's Path by BeautifulFiction (128K, E, Johnlock) Teaching John to observe seems to be a losing battle, but when Sherlock falls ill and submits himself to John's care, will he realise that there is more to life than the science of deduction? Meanwhile, there is a murder to solve, and John must try and convince Sherlock not to sacrifice his own health for the sake of the case.

Watches 'Verse by bendingsignpost (66K, E, Johnlock) First, he is shot in Afghanistan. Second, he wakes to a phone call in Chelmsford, Essex. Third is pain, fourth is normalcy, fifth is agony and sixth is confusion. By the eighth, he's lost track.

[theteams-notebook]

Character/Moments Playlist!

And here is the beginnings of the character/relationships/moments playlist!

You can find it right here!

And here is the setlist!  Obviously for both playlists, I’ll be adding onto them as more songs are added.

Original 3 (Wally, Robin, Kaldur): Soldier, Poet, King - The Oh, Hellos (This song just makes me think of these three and their friendship)

West-Allen Family: Family Tree - Caylee Hammack

The Team: People Like Us - Kelly Clarkson (Enough said, honestly)

Wally West: Thunder - Imagine Dragons (With how upbeat this song is, it definitely matches her personality)

Cadmus Invasion: Break the Rules - Charli XCX (They literally broke the rules to get into Cadmus)

Wally and Roy (Post-Fallout): Memories - Maroon 5 (After they made up, they definitely sat around and reminisced about their time together before he left)

Wally and Roy (Fallout): I Built a Friend - Sophie Pecora (This is from Wally’s perspective about Roy leaving)

Wally (Pre-Rescue), Roy (Post-Reveal), Conner: Broken - Anson Seabra (All three have felt like they’re not human or less than human at points in their lives)

Robin (About Wally): Favorite Record - Fall Out Boy (He likes to listen to her talk about whatever she likes)

Artemis and Wally: Wake Me Up - Avicii (I don’t have as good of a reason for this one, it just felt... right to make this a song about them)

Wally (About Conner): You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid - The Offspring (She’s been his number one supporter since day one)

Artemis: Bubblegum Bitch - MARINA (This song just radiates Artemis vibes for me, idk why)

The Girls: All Men Are Pigs - Studio Killers (Okay, I know all the girls end up in relationships in the end, but they would definitely jam out to this song)

M’gann: Everything at Once - Lenka (I think it reflects her desire to be whatever people want her to be in order to please them)

Artemis and Zatanna: Jenny - Studio Killers (You can pry Snaibsel from my cold dead hands)

West-Allen Family: In My Arms - Plumb (Moreso for the aftermath of Wally’s rescue)

Robin: Castle of Glass - Linkin Park (This song is nothing but Robin vibes and he would definitely listen to it)

Kaldur: King - Laruen Aquilina (He’s a king in my heart and he deserves all the love for putting up with his chaotic Teammates)

Zatanna and Wally: La La Lainey - Forever The Sickest Kids (They’re BFFs and you can’t convince me otherwise.  They team up to terrorize Robin)

Conner: Radioactive - Imagine Dragons (I feel like this would be a song for him as he was coming into his own and not trying to mimic Superman as much)

Wally and Robin: Alone Together - Fall Out Boy (They’re both troubled souls that found solace in each other)

Wally (About Her Friends): 7 Years - Lukas Graham (Just Wally reminiscing about her friends and how far she’s come)

The Team: Die Young - Kesha (I’m sorry)

The Team: Crazy Kids - Kesha

The Girls: Run the World (Girls) - Beyonce

The Team: Demons - Imagine Dragons (Who thought it was a good idea to put a bunch of traumatized kids onto a Team together?)

The Team: I’m Just A Kid - Simple Plan (Seriously, they’re just kids)

The Girls: Salute - Little Mix (The girls will save the day if the boys aren’t up to the task)

Wally and Robin: Electric Love - Borns (Try and tell me this isn’t a Birdflash song)

Wally West: Yellow Flicker Beat - Lorde (Just straight up Wally vibes up in here)

The Team: Save Rock And Roll - Fall Out Boy (This song just screamed “The Team” to me)

Conner and M’gann: La La - The Cab (A cute song for a cute couple)

Zatanna: She Likes Girls - Metro Station (I HC Zatanna as bi leaning more towards girls)

Wally and Dick: Shut Up & Kiss Me - Orianthi (Enough said, honestly)

Wally (About All Of The Boys, But Mostly Dick): My Best Friend’s Hot - The Dollyrots (Self-explanatory)

The Team: This Afternoon - Nickelback

The Team: New Americana - Halsey

The Team: When We Stand Together - Nickelback

Dick, About Wally: Body Language - Jesse McCartney (Am I going to add more Jesse McCartney songs because he voices Dick Grayson? Absolutely)

Wally (Season Two): Shatter Me - Lindsey Stirling, Lzzy Hale

Bart Allen (Impulse): short kings anthem - blackbear, Tiny Meat Gang

The OG Team (Post Endgame): Dead Hearts - Stars (tfw one of your friends sacrifices herself and then you can't stop thinking about her)

The OG Team (Post Endgame): See You Again - Wiz Khalifa, Charlie Puth (I know this one is cheesy but what can you do? It fits)

Nightwing (About Wally): Gone Too Soon - Simple Plan (Gonna be honest, I saw a Birdflash amv with this song a while ago and it's just been stuck in my head)

Wally (Endgame, In The Vortex): Helena - My Chemical Romance (So long and goodbye)

Everyone, To Dick (Post Endgame): Achilles Come Down - Gang of Youths (This kid did some crazy and reckless shit in between Season 2 and 3 because of Wally, you can't change my mind)

Dick, About Wally: The One That Got Away - Brielle Von Hugel

Dick, About Wally: Sad Song - We The Kings, Elena Coats (He definitely feels like half of a whole now that she's gone)

Dick, About Wally: I Hear a Symphony - Cody Fry (Okay this song can go both ways honestly)

West-Allen Family (Post Endgame): Family Portrait - P!nk (I know this song is about abuse, but the shattered family image fits them)

Dick, About Wally: When She Loved Me - Lyn Lapid (I heard this cover on TikTok and I literally hunted it down on Spotify to add to this playlist)

Dick, Kaldur, Roy (Clone), About Wally: Ribs - Lorde

Dick, About Wally: Mr Loverman - Ricky Montgomery (I know I have a lot of these but can you blame me?)

[tsarisfanfiction]

Costras del Corazón

Fandom: One Piece Rating: Teen Genre: Angst/Family Character: Law

What do you do when you find out something about a man who died thirteen years ago - something that might change everything you thought you knew about him - while trying to sort out what to do next with your life because you hadn't planned past the point you expected to die?

Law was happy to be back on the Polar Tang. While he was admittedly not free from his bizarre allies with approximately half of them now travelling as his guests, there were certain perks to the situation.

First off, he was in charge. The more sensible Straw Hats had looked to him for leadership when without their captain in Dressrosa (by which he means Nico Robin at least had the grace not to abandon him to the whims of Cavendish until he gave her the okay), but there was something satisfying about knowing that when he issued an order, it would be followed. There was no more fear of being overridden in his planning by something as simple as his fellow captain's hunger; while his crew were not afraid to voice their own opinions (he still remembered the dispute over their delay in entering the Grand Line, and let's not even start on convincing them to leave him alone on Punk Hazard with no back up), they at least still did whatever he ordered.

Secondly, and right now most importantly, he had his own room. It was a blissful paradise he had never quite managed to fully appreciate before his weeks travelling first on the Thousand Sunny and then, although not as torturous, on the Luffy-Senpai-Go (that was still a ridiculous name and he couldn't even begin to fathom how Mugiwara-ya had been able to stand that level of fanaticism aimed at him).

His own room. His own bed.

As much as he had planned to stick to the deck to keep watch on Caesar, the Straw Hats had had other ideas. Even if you excluded the obvious – their captain literally catapulting him into the men's quarters and onto a bunk – several other members of the crew had their own creative methods. It wasn't worth paying the extortionate fee that Nami-ya imposed for refusal and Nico-ya… well, he had been later informed by a tearfully sympathetic Robo-ya that he was not the first male to be on the receiving end of her inventive uses of her devil fruit when she wasn't immediately obeyed. At least Tony-ya's ridiculously cute kicked-reindeer face was only with the intention of persuading him to rest in the infirmary bed, away from the cacophony the sleeping male Straw Hats caused in their sleep.

Those were the only ones he could actively name, but Bone-ya had more than once played a lullaby that sent him to sleep without his consent. He could never prove it was intentional (even though it clearly was). That would not have been disastrous, except for the fact he always fell asleep on deck, and woke in some bunk or other in the men's cabin. This was where the act of conspiracies between the Straw Hats became clear, as if it hadn't already. For all that he was a walking medical miracle (and Law felt he was justified in his expertise on that particular subject), Bone-ya had no muscular mass to give him the strength to carry the tall individual that Law was. His bones were unsupported, and expectedly fragile, so it was clear that while a vital part of the plan, it was not him carrying the sleeping Law away from his guard post. That left Zoro-ya, Kuroashi-ya and Robo-ya as viable candidates. He dismissed Nose-ya for the terror the sniper clearly held for him. Tony-ya and Mugiwara-ya were not impossible, but he believed that Tony-ya would take him to the infirmary, and he liked to believe he would not be able to sleep through Mugiwara-ya's usual mode of transportation across the ship.

The point was, he was back on his own submarine, in his own room, in blissful silence. Three facts he swore never to take for granted again.

Especially with a guaranteed reunion with Mugiwara-ya on the horizon. He wasn't idealistic, but the fact was that somehow the insane teenage captain always seemed to beat the odds, especially as he had half his crew to return to (how could he possibly forget Marineford and the latent fallout from that?). Mugiwara-ya would return eventually, whatever Big Mom thought.

Still, for now he was going to take advantage of this blessed silence. His crew had orders not to disturb him unless in an emergency (by which he meant, and expressed, Kaido or any of his senior crew. Anything less could be dealt with by either Shachi, Penguin, Bepo or Jean Bart, depending on the situation).

Making sure his door was well and truly locked, he gently set Kikoku down on her stand before flopping with none of his usual elegance backwards onto his bed, staring at the ceiling. It was dark blue, matching the feathered jumper he owned. While the external panels of the Polar Tang were bright yellow, as well as some of the interior metal panelling, everything with insulation was either white (the infirmary and the infirmary only – Law had had enough of that particular colour) or some shade of blue. Blue worked nicely with the yellow, and more importantly had no immediately negative connotations. He didn't need his own ship triggering the residual PTSD he was more than aware he possessed.

He supposed it was a good a time as any to think about what had happened on Dressrosa. If nothing else, he needed to get a handle on his own mental state now that Doflamingo was out of the way, hopefully for good. At the time he'd been gunning for the bastard's death, but in retrospect, he was glad Mugiwara-ya hadn't dealt a fatal blow. His unexpected conversation with Sengoku had forcibly thrown new light on his situation.

Which was one of the things he needed to sort out.

Don't try and find a reason for someone's love. In retrospect, it was obvious. Love was instinctive – while he had to forcibly pull back his mental armour to admit it, he had never needed a reason to love his parents, or Lami. If he was brutally honest with himself, 'he's actually trying to save my life' was no reason to love Cora-san like he did, either.

If he had no reasons for his own love (and while he was at it, this seemed like a good time to remind himself that he loved his crew too, even if he wasn't as obvious about it as, say, Mugiwara-ya), then he should be able to accept that Cora-san had had no reason either. It wasn't exactly as if Law had given him many. He'd tried to kill him, then blackmailed him, and then spent the next six months of travelling being the most ungrateful brat it was possible to be. No, Cora-san had no reason to love him. But according to his memories, and Sengoku, he had.

It sounded so easy, when he laid it out in his head like that. Logical. If only his heart could accept what his brain was telling him. That Cora-san really could have loved the broken boy he was for no reason (while he was at it, this extended to his crew – what, exactly, had he done to earn their unshakable loyalty to the extent that not one of them had left while at Zou, despite the opportunity and everything he'd done).

He rolled over onto his front with a groan, burying his face in his pillow, and taking a moment to appreciate that it was his pillow, after so long. Law had not been one to feel pathetic notions like home-sickness since the first, and only, sleepover his classmates had organised and dragged him to when he was eight (he attributed that particular blip to the fact that Lami had come down with a cold that very day and his big brother instincts were screaming that he should be there with her, not awkwardly bundled in a sleeping bag in the corner of some classmate's bedroom watching the rest play games as he flicked through a medical journal two levels above what he was supposed to be reading at the time), but there was no denying that Kikoku, while an amazing weapon, was not such a brilliant pillow, and aside from the Straw Hat interventions she had been his only pillow since he'd disembarked on Punk Hazard all those months ago.

He almost hadn't come back to his pillow, his bed, his room. Let alone his ship or his crew, and there was more than a little guilt that came with that revelation. He didn't regret his actions on both Punk Hazard and Dressrosa, but the idea that his crew would have waited for him forever, if they had to, was sobering, and another revelation to add to the growing list.

Another revelation he should have realised years ago, but his obsession with defeating Doflamingo had overridden that sort of common sense.

And Doflamingo had nearly won. Had outsmarted Law at his own game because of the one ridiculous fact that no-one could have predicted, but Law still kicked himself for not anticipating it, if only because it fit so well.

Donquixote Doflamingo was a tenryubito. A fallen one, admittedly, but still one with enough sway he could get the newspapers to lie just to take down Law. He still didn't know how many members of the Family had known that particular tidbit. At the very least, it had not been openly discussed during the years he had been with them, and Baby 5 and Buffalo hadn't known then. They could never keep secrets from him (for him was a different matter entirely; he'd learnt the art of manipulation young).

Trebol had known. Vergo, too – hell, Vergo had even warned him, in his own twisted way. To that end, it was safe to assume Pica and Diamante were also aware, as his top executives. Law wondered if Cora-san had known. As the original Corazón, it was likel-

Law's blood ran cold.

Of course Cora-san had known. It would have been impossible for him not to have known that about his brother. Mainly because they were brothers and if Doflamingo was a former tenryubito, then that meant Cora-san was too.

He hadn't made the connection immediately. He should have done, fixated as he had been on the fact that Doflamingo had killed his own younger brother in cold blood. He'd told Mugiwara-ya, and probably several other people besides. His pitiful condition through much of Dressrosa had dulled his awareness more than he'd admitted, so who knew who else had overheard.

And yet, despite that, and despite being plainly told by Doflamingo what he was, he hadn't made the link.

He wasn't sure he was glad to have made it at all.

The tenryubito were cruel. He'd seen it on Saboady, at the auction house and even walking the streets. Never mind the fact that one of his own crew mates was a former tenryubito slave, although like the Sun Pirates in the past, he'd since had the brand covered by a creative and otherwise-unnecessarily extravagant tattoo of the Heart Pirates jolly roger. It had had to be as extravagant as it was to hide the hoof completely. Law's flag was not made for covering things up, unlike the Sun Pirates'.

Doflamingo had been a perfect example of a tenryubito. Cold, uncaring, and unbearably superior. He treated everyone outside of his Family as scum not even fit to dirty his unnecessarily pointy shoes, and even his own crew he was willing to cast aside if it came to it. If Law had to make a comparison, he'd say that they were the manservants. Of more use than trash, especially once trained, but inferior none the less. It was the attitude that made Law kick himself for not considering the possibility at all, despite its impossibility – he had sailed the Grand Line for three years now, he should know the impossible was simply par for the course on this sea.

Was Cora-san once like that? Law's stomach rolled uncomfortably, and he had to physically still himself while he regained enough control over his bodily functions not to vomit at the idea. The idea that Cora-san could be anything other than kind and loving to a fault was foreign and extremely unwelcome.

He pushed away his early memories of Cora-san with a scowl. Just because the klutz had acted cruel towards him, and the other children, didn't mean there was anything genuine behind the frown. He'd probably learnt those faces, that attitude, from his life in Marejois, but there was no way he'd ever done that for real.

Law decided it was best for his sanity if he stopped that train of thought right there before he started thinking the worst of Cora-san. The past didn't matter. Cora-san had saved his life, had taken him from hospital to hospital despite it being an exercise in futility-

Had spoken to the doctors in a manner that demanded obedience regardless of their personal feelings, and burnt down hospitals when he'd been disobeyed.

Law had found that touching, once. A sign of how far Cora-san was willing to go for him. A show of how much love the kind-hearted man held.

With his new revelation, it drew uncomfortable parallels to what he knew of tenryubito behaviour. An order, and excessive punishment if denied, just because they could.

You didn't need love to reach that level of indignity. Besides, he was certain the ability to love had been bred out of the tenryubito generations ago.

No. He refused to follow that line of thinking. If there was one thing he must not – could not – doubt, it was that Cora-san loved him. If he lost that conviction, then his crew would stand for nothing. Heart Pirates. His grinning jolly roger. Doflamingo had not been incorrect about the influence.

He shifted slightly, and froze as the movement brought his attention to the fact that his pillow – his beloved, never to be taken for granted again pillow – was damp.

It had not been damp when he had initially faceplanted it.

Plausible deniability could only get Law so far, so a single tattooed finger ran along the prominent bags below his eyes. The salty tear it picked up was unsurprising, but unwelcome.

He hadn't cried since Minion Island (tears of raw frustration and pain in Dressrosa did not count). Not since Cora-san had died (before that had been Cora-san saying all those things when he thought he was asleep, and then it was getting back to Flevance territory and that was still too raw so Law cut off his mental recollection then and there).

That now, thirteen years later, Cora-san was once again responsible for his tears did not escape him. It was always the ones you loved that hurt you the most, one way or another. Law was particularly aware of this (it was why he'd sent his crew away, to the elusive Zou and far far away from Doflamingo and his influences. If he lost the ones he loved a third time, he didn't think there'd be enough of him to even attempt to reassemble).

He had to trust in Cora-san. He had his memories, and while he could now see some aspects that had potentially stemmed from his social beginnings, Cora-san was too open, too klutzy, for it all to be an act.

He ruthlessly silenced the part of his brain – part that sounded a little too much like Doflamingo for comfort – that pointed out he'd been a successful Marine spy for at least as long as he'd known him.

He couldn't doubt Cora-san's motives. Not now.

Not ever.

It wasn't a watertight fix to his psyche. There were gaping holes that he'd only badly patched with worn tarpaulin and fraying ropes, but it would do for now. Cora-san had been a tenryubito. Cora-san had been an exception – kind and caring while his peers, his own brother, had continued their legacy of tyranny.

It didn't matter in the end. Cora-san was Cora-san and one day Law would have to truly analyse what that meant, what his saviour must have gone through and why it hadn't affected him in the same way as Doflamingo despite the fact that they probably went through it together.

One day was not now. He had other things to sort out.

Like the scabs Doflamingo had torn off with something as simple as lead bullets. Like the revelation that his revenge was over and he was still alive.

At least, his revenge should be over. Doflamingo was gone, defeated, and Cora-san was avenged (but not in a way that should unduly upset him, thanks to them not dealing a final, fatal blow). Law had focused on this revenge for so long – thirteen years, half his life and the entirety of the lifespan he'd never dared believe he'd have – that he felt he should still be at a loss.

Perhaps he would be, if he hadn't had his little revelation. If he hadn't let himself dwell on the edge of painful memories that had been supressed by his rage against Doflamingo.

But the rage was gone and the scabs had been torn off. Law had lived his life fuelled by revenge far too long to stop now. There was still the matter – the main matter – that he had involved himself with Doflamingo to achieve in the first place.

Flevance, the nobles that had fled, and the World Government that had used his home town for their own gain, and obliterated it once they could no longer profit.

The One Piece was a tempting target, sure. If he was honest, without his alliance with the Straw Hats – with Mugiwara-ya – he might have truly set his sights on it. The sole survivor of Flevance, becoming the Pirate King in a massive middle finger aimed at the World Government. There was definitely some appeal there, and there was no way he was letting that idiot Eustass-ya get his hands on it.

He might still head for it, just to make sure the red-headed menace didn't get it. But Law was no fool. There was only room for one Pirate King per generation, and it wouldn't be him. Somewhere along the line – he couldn't pinpoint the exact moment, but he was willing to bet the first time he truly felt the full force of Mugiwara-ya's haki that time on Dressrosa, when a single sandaled foot was the only thing between his face and Doflamingo was probably at least part of the lynchpin – he had fallen into Mugiwara-ya's pace.

He believed in Mugiwara-ya. Believed in him in a way he'd never been able to believe in anyone since Flevance burnt to the ground. Cora-san had come close, but there had always been the unspoken elephants in the room – a spy, a Marine, worked for the organisation that threw Law's life into chaos that first time, lies about health – that a young hurting Law couldn't quite push past.

There was nothing like that with Mugiwara-ya. He was straightforward and honest. Laughably so, for a pirate. He had no interest in planning, to the point that he would ignore anything that wasn't 'punch the problem repeatedly until it goes away' but in all his unpredictableness, he was predictable.

At least, there seemed to be a trick to it. Law hadn't worked out all the nuances yet – the other pirate had no right being so complex when he seemed so simple – but he was confident he had the main points identified. Loyalty. Trust. Empathy. Protectiveness.

He rubbed his right arm, over the stitches that held it in place while it finished healing (perhaps he should put it in a sling for a while, to reduce the stress, although that would worry his crew). Feigning death didn't mean he had been oblivious to Mugiwara-ya's reaction to its absence, let alone his presumed death.

It had taken more effort that he'd anticipated to stay limp and immobile while his observational haki picked up so many broiling emotions from his ally. At some point, perhaps as early as Punk Hazard itself, Mugiwara-ya had adopted him into his group of nakama. Nose-ya had confided in him, quietly after they'd set sail for Wano, that to be Mugiwara-ya's nakama did not mean you were part of his crew. Apparently they had other nakama, situated on many islands in both East Blue and the Grand Line, who Mugiwara-ya would do anything for.

It was said in the exact same tone Nose-ya had used when informing him of Mugiwara-ya's unusual definition of 'alliance', and Law found he didn't doubt him at all. Somehow, it was easier to accept his unwilling induction into Mugiwara-ya's nakama with this knowledge. Perhaps because he no longer had to fear he'd be dragged from his own crew by a rubbery limb and a too-large grin.

In retrospect, it had been irrational. Freedom was the most important thing in the world to Mugiwara-ya. He would never strip anyone of it, much less his own nakama.

On the topic of Mugiwara-ya, as well as his original topic of what he would do now, with the memories of Flevance surfacing in a way he hadn't allowed for years, a small recollection made itself known.

Mugiwara-ya had declared war on the World Government.

It wasn't as though he'd forgotten that little fact – that was not something one casually forgot, after all – but his attention had been aimed solely on the takedown of Doflamingo for the last two years, and much of the preceding ones.

Memories of a burning city had surfaced back when he'd first read that news, but he had ruthlessly quashed them, not needing the distraction when he was busy dealing with his other revenge.

But now that was over, and Flevance would no longer be compartmentalised into a neat locked chest in the corner of his mind. Lami, his parents, his classmates and the rest had gone unavenged for far too long.

Perhaps Mugiwara-ya's insistence that they were allies for far longer than just defeating Kaido wasn't such a bad thing after all. Together, they could bring the World Government to its knees.

Law's pillow had dried, and he smoothed out the wrinkles the moisture had left with the grin of a satisfied predator on his face.

Yes, that sounded like a plan.

[verdiprati]

Looking ahead . . . in spite of it all

The last time I published an unofficial list of Dame Sarah Connolly’s upcoming performances, it was with hesitation, knowing that she had months of treatment for breast cancer ahead of her and that she might need to withdraw from some of her performance engagements. That was in late October, 2019. I had, at the time, no inkling that a then-unknown respiratory virus would begin infecting humans over the winter and rapidly break out into a deadly pandemic, resulting in the widespread closure of public spaces and devastating the performing arts.

The change log appended to my previous unofficial schedule post shows that on March 23, 2020, I made the first round of edits to reflect corona-cancellations. Since then, I have been quietly monitoring the status of Dame Sarah’s scheduled gigs and crossing them off as their cancellations have become known to me. 

I have also picked up on a few new dates that we can very tentatively look forward to. It is hard to say how long the coronavirus crisis will go on; even when large, indoor public gatherings become possible again, some arts organizations may have had to slash their offerings—or may have succumbed completely—due to the financial fallout of the pandemic. In the meantime, we are starting to see some companies like the Bayerische Staatsoper, Wigmore Hall, and the Royal Opera House offer small-scale, live musical performances with no live audiences, just online streaming. 

Now that Dame Sarah is about to perform in one such livestream-only concert—tomorrow’s Das Lied von der Erde in Covent Garden, also notable for being her first live performance since withdrawing from the stage for cancer treatment over the winter—it seems like the right moment to refresh my list of her upcoming performances and start anew. 

See my current list after the jump.

This is the point in the post where I normally give a condensed list highlighting the cities where Dame Sarah is scheduled to appear in live performance, so that readers can tell at a glance whether she is coming anywhere near them. This list must now be read with a giant asterisk, as some performances may be online-only (so it doesn’t matter where you live), and others may be much more prone to cancellation than normal! 

That said—British performance sites on the horizon at the moment are the Royal Opera House (for online viewing only) and Wigmore Hall in London, plus the Lieder Festival in Oxford (also online only). Audiences in continental Europe might get to see Dame Sarah in Barcelona, Berlin, Hamburg, Amsterdam, or Luxembourg. An as-yet-unconfirmed operatic run may be in store for the 2021-2022 season in New York.

The usual disclaimers:

This is not an authoritative list. These are the upcoming performances by Dame Sarah Connolly that I have been able to learn about from Dame Sarah’s new website, Dame Sarah’s agent's website (Askonas Holt), Operabase, Bachtrack, Dame Sarah's Twitter, and generally ferreting around the web.

I sometimes list concerts that are not yet officially confirmed; you should of course check official sources before making plans and be aware that cast changes and cancellations can happen at any time. This obviously goes triple in the COVID-19 era.

I have added links to venue, ticketing, and broadcast information where available. Tips on new information are always welcome! Please contact me via email (verdiprati [at] selveamene [dot] com), Tumblr messaging, or ask box (plain prose only in the ask box; anything with links or an email address will get eaten by Tumblr filters) with corrections or additions.

[Livestream only] Mahler, Das Lied von der Erde at the Royal Opera House, London, June 20, 2020. With David Butt Philip and members of the ROH orchestra; Antonio Pappano conducts. The performance will be livestream-only; no audience will be seated in the house. Tickets are £4.99 and grant you not only live access, but also the ability to view the concert on demand for two weeks following the performance.

[New!] Recital at Wigmore Hall, London, September 16, 2020. With Malcolm Martineau, in the Wigmore’s 1:00 p.m. “lunchtime” slot. Songs by Poulenc, Roussel, Mahler, and Bridge, capped by a pair of songs newly written by Bob Chilcott for Dame Sarah. At the time of this writing, Wigmore Hall expects to admit live audiences of 10%-20% capacity during the autumn season under socially-distanced reopening guidelines, but the situation for live performance in the UK remains fluid, to put it mildly. The website says that “More details on how to access tickets will be released in the coming weeks. All concerts will go ahead, with or without an audience.”

[Livestream] The recital, like all the others in Wigmore Hall’s autumn 2020 season, will be streamed for free on their livestreaming site. It appears that you can also use this YouTube link.

[Canceled] Recital at Wigmore Hall, London, September 30, 2020. With Roderick Williams and Julius Drake; the first concert of the Wigmore’s Mendelssohn and Liszt series. Public booking is scheduled to open on July 14. UPDATE: As of July 31, this recital is no longer listed on the Wigmore Hall website. Update, August 22: see above for a newly-scheduled Wigmore recital by Dame Sarah.

[New! Livestream only] Handel, Solomon (title role) and Foundling Anthem with the English Concert, October 1, 2020. Also starring Sophie Bevan, Soraya Mafi, and James Way; conducted by Harry Bickett. Selections from both works will be performed as part of a concert titled “Handel – The Philanthropist.” Tickets to the livestream are free; donations are requested to both The English Concert and Bart’s Heritage, the fund for renovating St Bart’s Hospital, which will be the venue for the performance. 

[Livestream only] Recital at the Oxford Lieder Festival, October 10, 2020. With Eugene Asti (pianist) as well as “emerging artist” William Thomas (bass)—apparently part of Barbara Hannigan’s Momentum initiative, which is supported by both Dame Sarah and the Oxford Lieder Festival. Schumann’s Fraunliebe und -leben and Mahler’s Rückert-lieder bookend an assortment of songs by Haydn, Arne, Bush, Quilter, Howells, and Britten. The livestream ticket (£12, or £5 for under-35s) includes access to a post-performance Q&A session with the artists. Video will remain available until November 1. Notably, the £250 “Pioneer Pass” for the whole festival gets you bonus goodies including “Two guest tickets to Dame Sarah Connolly’s recital, to share with friends” and “Exclusive artist interviews and other content.” 

[New!] “Pappano & Friends” chamber concert at the Barbican, London, November 1, 2020. With Ian Bostridge, the Carducci Quartet, and Antonio Pappano. Tickets are being sold separately for a limited live audience (£20) and for a video livestream of the performance (£12.50). The listed program comprises just two works: Ralph Vaughn Williams’ song cycle On Wenlock Edge and an arrangement of Ernest Chausson’s Poème de l’amour et de la mer. I don’t really know either work, but a little googling suggests to me that Bostridge will sing the RVW and Dame Sarah will sing the Chausson. Tickets go on sale to the general public on September 11 at 10:00 a.m., and a few of the live audience tickets will be held back from the earlier Barbican members’ sale for the general sale, so if you want to try to attend in person, be ready to act swiftly at that time.

[Livestream] As mentioned above, there is a fee of £12.50 for access to the livestream. The Barbican website says, “We advise you to watch the performance live, but the stream will be available to watch back for 48 hours after the live broadcast.”

[New!] Mozart’s Requiem with the English National Opera, London, November 6 and 7, 2020. Fellow vocal soloists are Elizabeth Llewellyn, Toby Spence, and Brindley Sherratt. With the ENO Chorus and Orchestra conducted by Martyn Brabbins. As of this writing early on September 15, the ENO website says “Ticket details will be announced soon.” ENO plans to perform for a live, socially distanced audience; livestreaming has been mentioned only as a backup option in case government restrictions make it impossible to host a live audience in the Coliseum. 

[New!] Forum participation, International Vocal Competition, 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands, December 2, 2020. Having postponed its opera and oratorio competition until 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the IVC announced that it would sponsor a multi-day series billed as “IVC Mozart Masterclasses & More” late in 2020. Masterclasses will be led by Vesselina Kasarova, Roberta Alexander, and Thomas Oliemans; Dame Sarah doesn’t seem to have the same role, but the IVC promises that she will be among several “leading professionals” who will “talk with the participants about the future of their profession” as part of “a forum ... about the future as it now looks for (young) singers.” Singers who were born no earlier than December 5, 1987 and who can cough up €500 for the experience may register by October 1, 2020. Members of the public may buy tickets to the events beginning “at the end of August.”

Handel, Agrippina (title role) at the Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam, January 17-29, 2021. The production is Barrie Kosky’s (previously seen at the Bayerische Staatsoper and the ROH, and later moving on to the Staatsoper Hamburg). Ottavio Dantone conducts; co-stars include Ying Fang (Poppea), Franco Fagioli (Nerone), Gianlucca Buratto (Claudio), and Tim Mead (Ottone). As of this writing (June 19, 2020), single ticket sales are indefinitely suspended due to the coronavirus crisis.

Stravinsky, Oedipus Rex (Jocaste) at the Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam, March 10-27, 2021. In a double bill with the new commission From ‘Antigone’ by Samy Moussa. Other singers in the Oedipus cast include Sean Panikkar (Oedipus), Bastiaan Everink (Creon), Rafał Siwek (Tiresias), and Ramsey Nasr (Speaker). Erik Nielsen conducts; Wayne McGregor directs. As of this writing (June 19, 2020), single ticket sales are indefinitely suspended due to the coronavirus crisis.

Stravinsky, Oedipus Rex (Jocaste) with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Hamburg, April 10 and 11, 2021. Even though these concert performances follow on the heels of Dame Sarah’s engagement for the same opera in Amsterdam, the two gigs appear to be administratively and artistically unrelated. Her co-stars in Hamburg include Brenden Gunnell (Oedipus), Tomasz Konieczny (Creon), and Sir John Tomlinson (Tiresias); the MDR Rundfunkchor Leipzig supplies the men’s chorus. Alan Gilbert conducts. The program also includes Le sacre du printemps. Under a special policy instituted in response to the uncertainties of the coronavirus pandemic, tickets can be pre-ordered starting May 26, 2020, with payment due when it is confirmed that the performance will go forward, no later than six weeks before the concert. There’s some background information about the Stravinsky pieces on the NDR website.

Stravinsky, Oedipus Rex (Jocaste) with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester at the Philharmonie Luxembourg, April 19, 2021. Co-stars, conductor, and chorus are the same team as in the Hamburg performances, and the Luxembourg program likewise includes Le sacre du printemps. Tickets go on sale February 22, 2021.

[New!] Recital for St Luke’s Music Society, London, May 8, 2021. With Joseph Middleton. Repertoire TBA. Note that “during the COVID crisis tickets may be restricted to Friends only.” Tickets are £18 and Friends membership is £35; the tickets for Dame Sarah’s recital go on sale December 13. 

Recital at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, May 18, 2021. With Julius Drake. Songs by Mendelssohn, Liszt, Elgar, Debussy, Ravel, and Chaminade.

Elgar, The Dream of Gerontius with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Berlin, May 27, 28, and 29, 2021. With Allan Clayton and Roderick Williams, as well as the Rundfunkchor Berlin; Simon Rattle conducts.

[Livestream] The concert on the 29th will be livestreamed on the Berliner Philharmoniker’s Digital Concert Hall platform.

[Unconfirmed / details TBA] Tour with the Wiener Symphoniker, October 2-5, 2021. Dame Sarah’s name appears along with that of conductor and violinist Andrés Orozco-Estrada (who will take over as music director of the Wiener Symphoniker in the 2020-2021 season) in this list of orchestra tours on the website of agents Dr. Raab & Dr. Böhm. Details of the repertoire and cities for the tour will presumably be revealed when the Wiener Symphoniker announces its 2021-2022 season.

[New date!] Recital at Sant Pau Recinte Modernista [PDF], Barcelona, November 15, 2021. With Julius Drake. Part of the LIFE Victoria series of recitals; originally announced for November 27, 2019, but postponed due to Dame Sarah’s treatment for breast cancer; rescheduled for October 2020, and further postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Themed as a “Viennese journey by the hand of Alma Mahler,” the recital includes songs by Brahms, Wolf, Debussy, Alma Mahler, Gustav Mahler, and Zemlinsky. 

[Livestream? TBC] This article in the Catalan newspaper La República says of the combined 2020-2021 season that “Tots els concerts es retransmetran en streaming, independentment de si pot assistir-hi públic o no” (“All concerts will be streamed, regardless of whether the audience can attend or not”). I have been unable, however, to confirm this detail on the LIFE Victoria website or in the PDF of the combined season announcement. 

[Unconfirmed / details TBA] Brett Dean, Hamlet (Gertrude) at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, sometime in 2021-22. Allan Clayton, who starred in the title role of Brett Dean’s Hamlet at Glyndebourne in 2017, mentioned in an interview with the Telegraph that he would be reprising the role at an unspecified date and venue in the US. When prompted on Twitter, Dame Sarah indicated that she would be participating in the revival, too (“I shall be misunderstanding my confused boy again”). In a later interview with Opera News, Clayton reportedly specified that he would reprise Hamlet at the Met. The Future Met Wiki places the production at the Met in the 2021-2022 season (as does this New York Times article). Hat tip to Christopher Lowrey, who sang Guildenstern in the original production at Glyndebourne, whose tweet praising Allan Clayton brought the Telegraph interview to my attention. (No indication whether Lowrey will also be cast in the American revival.) Additional hat tip to the Tumblrer who submitted information on this topic via the ask box.

Previous versions of this list can be found under the schedule tag on this blog. This list published June 19, 2020. Updated June 22 to reflect the further postponement of the LIFE Victoria recital. Updated July 22 with the new date of the LIFE Victoria recital and the addition of the IVC forum. Edited July 28 to correct the closing date of DNO Agrippina to January 29 (not 27). Edited August 1 to reflect the cancelation of the September 30 recital at Wigmore Hall. Edited August 22 to add the September 16 recital at Wigmore Hall and update the Oxford recital with more details. Edited August 29 to add the English Concert livestream and fill in the repertoire for the September 16 Wiggy recital. Edited September 8 to add the Barbican “Pappano & Friends” concert. Edited September 15 to add the ENO Mozart Requiem and belatedly fill in some details on the Oxford Lieder Festival recital. Edited September 21 to add the recital for St Luke’s Music Society. I may continue to edit this list as I receive new information.

[meditationsfromthethirdrail]

Credentials and Credibility

I’ve written about polarization and about empathy, rights and responsibilities in the last couple of blog posts.  I have a long list of interrelated topics to cover before the November elections and I plan to keep plowing through them.  But I’m well aware that my voice is a candle in the wind, to borrow the phrase used by T.H. White in the title of his tale about King Arthur’s dream of a more egalitarian and peaceful society.  The number of readers of my blog thus far may barely run into double digits and that may never change.  We are all drowning in information (and misinformation) unless we are either so socioeconomically disadvantaged as to be denied access or are actively disengaged from media.  People in either category aren’t reading this.

With all the competition for the attention of readers and listeners, if someone wants to be heard above the din, he or she either has to have a forceful personality and a good platform, or actually have something important to say.  I may not have either of those.  Readers will judge for themselves.  But it occurred to me that I ought to at least provide a little background about myself, which may or may not compel you to hear me.  So here it is.

My story is not one of hard knocks and resentment - it’s a success story.  There are a lot of ways to define success but I feel like I’ve grabbed a nice assortment of brass rings during my almost-seven decades on the planet.  I’ve had a long and happy marriage to an incredible woman; I’ve traveled extensively (six continents and all fifty states) and lived for substantial periods in many states; I have three degrees from a major college; I attained a modestly high position in a large, global professional services firm and was financially well rewarded for my efforts; and I have many hobbies and interests that make it easy for me to stay fully occupied in retirement.  Most importantly, I’m happy and at peace with myself and others.  One could argue that these successes may have caused me to be out of touch with those who’ve enjoyed fewer of them, but I don’t think that’s entirely true, and I’ll try to suggest why.

My parents were the son and daughter of a sharecropper and a truck farmer/itinerant salesman, respectively, in rural Mississippi.  They grew up during the Great Depression. They were married and gave life to my older brother when they were still in their teens.  My dad dropped out of high school to sign up for the Army and served in the European theater in WWII.  After the war he got a G.E.D. and served as a tractor mechanic for a while.  Around the time I was born he was hired by a prominent agricultural implement manufacturing company, which led to him being transferred from Mississippi to Maryland to Ohio to Idaho to Oregon and to Iowa in order to earn promotions, and with family in tow.  Later he also transferred to Texas, Missouri and Georgia, after I was left behind to attend college in Iowa.  In those days it was possible to rise pretty high in the ranks of a business like my dad’s, without a glittery collegiate resume, if you worked hard and were willing to uproot yourself and your family whenever it was called for.  So my dad eventually did rise fairly high in the ranks, and in the meantime my mom scrambled her way to a B.A., then taught high school English for a short time.

All’s well that ends well, as Shakespeare once said.  My parents came a long way from the dusty fields where they picked cotton for 50 cents a day.  My own road to success was much easier than theirs.  During most of my childhood our family was financially situated about in the dead center of what was then considered middle class.  My parents were not rich, although they accumulated modest wealth later in life, and they were always frugal, so I grew up with very few toys and a mostly empty closet.  My parents were not the type to devote much time attending to my personal pursuits, other than to quietly demand that I get good grades in school.  So I wouldn’t say I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I understand that’s a relative thing.  I certainly wasn't lavished with material things as a child, but I never went hungry or worried about having a roof over my head.

Aside from a base level of financial and emotional support and protection, the best thing my parents gave me was a solid education in a robust public school system.  This was a pre Betty Devos era.  Fortunately I had just enough innate ambition (or willingness to succumb to my parents’ expectations) and intelligence to perform in the upper tier, academically.  I could have done better but I often didn’t “apply myself,” as they say.  In retrospect I realize I had ADHD but few people understood or cared about that back then.

My college record was spotty at first, but ultimately pretty good.  I had almost no grasp of what I wanted to do with my life.   As a result, I had an abnormally extended adolescence, to roughly age 27.  Maybe I was a trendsetter; I see a lot more of that happening with young people today.  In any case I considered, at various times and among other things, becoming a Baptist minister (I was licensed and briefly attended seminary), an English professor (I have an M.A. in English and instructed freshman writing courses for three years), a novelist and poet (insufficient talent and discipline derailed that plan), and a hotel manager (nah).   A happy accident of my wandering and indecision was that I acquired a lot of knowledge that later paid off in surprising ways I’ll come back to later.  I was financially very poor the entire time, which gave me considerable perspective on what it means to be concerned about affording basics such as food and transportation.

I vividly remember the catalysts for my decision to enter the social mainstream. One was the fallout from a poker game I got into with some friends.  One of my “friends” was a notoriously unethical character who, one late evening when I was especially unlucky and perhaps too full of beer, lured me into some bad bets that resulted in a $700 debt to him.  At that time, when I was working several crummy part-time jobs to afford food and my $50 share of the rent on a slum-quality house we shared with two other guys, $700 dollars seemed like a million dollars.  I didn't realize and no one told me that on the very next evening the same group of friends gathered for another poker game as I was licking my wounds and trying to form a plan.  I was not present to witness the scene in which the guy whom I was newly indebted to suffered an equally humiliating loss - a loss that was forgiven by the victor on the condition that the loser would also forgive my loss.  My friends assumed that Bart (not his real name, or is it?) would inform me that I was off the hook.  He did not.

For the first time in my life, I devised a budget in order to determine how I could repay Bart the debt that didn’t actually exist, because that’s the kind of guy I am.  I believed, and I still do, that a person is morally and ethically responsible for meeting whatever commitments he or she enters into.  So  I scrambled for more hours working as a church janitor, a tutor and a library assistant; I ate Kraft macaroni and cheese almost every day (30 cents a box, if I recall); I stayed in my room as if I had contracted the then-undreamt-of coronavirus; and I turned over every penny that didn’t go for rent and minimal food to Bart in three monthly installments until I was finally clear.  I was six feet tall but my weight fell to about 140 pounds.  On the day I forked over the last $200, Bart skipped town, just as the news finally arrived that I wasn’t supposed to have owed that debt.

That sordid chapter concluded with me taking a job, out of sheer desperation, in a factory where I was paid a below-minimum wage to operate a machine which applied mailing labels to printed advertisements.  It was mind-numbing.  There were perhaps another 100 workers in that factory doing the same thing I was doing.  The output of each worker was measured daily by the factory management.  By the end of the first week I was the most productive mailing label attacher in the factory.  To keep myself from going insane, I approached my task as if it were a game and challenged myself each shift to beat my previous day’s output, which I always did.  During my brief lunch breaks I used to surreptitiously glance around at the other workers and I understood exactly what Thoreau meant when he opined that the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation.  I don’t know if he was right about “the mass of men,” but he certainly could have been describing that crew at the factory.

In my second week at the factory I met another newly-hired college guy whose wife and he were trying to save enough money to move to Los Angeles so he could take a shot at professional acting - this was his second job.  Chatting with him during lunch breaks, i was inspired by his desire to fulfill a dream and the difficult steps he was taking to do it.  I listened to him, I looked around at the hollow-eyed, middle-aged folks who had worked for years operating labeling machines, and I squirmed as I considered what a sap I was for racking up a poker debt and falling victim to a con man.  i abruptly abandoned the factory but I felt so discombobulated that I enlisted my good buddy John to drive out to Idaho with me so I could visit my brother and try to get my shit together.  By the end of that brief sojourn out west, the best job offer I could manage was from Roto-Rooter . . . to work in the field, as it were.  Wake up call!

If you’ve read this far you must be wondering how any of this supports the notion that I’m qualified to write about sociopolitical matters.  It doesn’t, except to demonstrate that I have at least a small measure of “street cred.”  But the best is yet to come.  When I returned to Iowa I found a better job in a hotel.   Initially I was a night auditor, which is a position that involves being a desk clerk part of the time and an accountant the rest of the time.  Only a small step forward, financially, but it gave me a taste for something I had never previously thought about doing for even one minute.  Accounting, I quickly learned, was something I had a natural aptitude for, and in some quirky way I found it interesting.  Once again I viewed my duties as a sort of game, but this was a game that lit up my brain much more brightly than did operating a machine to perform an exceptionally repetitive task.  

My whole life is a series of lucky breaks at critical junctures.  In this instance the break was that I met a co-worker - a guy who shared the hotel night auditor position with me - who had previously worked for a large CPA firm.  He had taken the part-time hotel job because he was trying to become a full-time stock trader and that’s what he was doing during the day.  From him I learned what it is that CPAs in a big firm actually do.  Let me assure you I’m not going to get into that subject, in case you were already feeling the dread.  (Thank God for actuaries - the only people who make accountants seem slightly interesting.)  Suffice it to say that I figured out how I could minimize the additional schooling I would need to become qualified to be a CPA and I decided to take a stab at it.

I kept the hotel job but started carrying a heavy load of college classes - accounting, math, economics, law, etc.  It so happened that I met my future wife, who was just finishing her Interior Design degree at the same college, about the same time I took the first tentative steps down my new career path.  That was even more fortuitous - I give her lots of credit for helping me stay the course.  The two years in which I went to college in the day, worked at the hotel at night, and struggled to get our new romance off the ground, was “character-building,” to say the least.  I can barely remember anything about that period, it was such a blur.  To give you an idea of how much of a blur it was, the major highlight I remember was driving with my new spouse to Des Moines to dine at Spaghetti Works.  $5 for beer-and-cheese spaghetti, all-you-can-eat salad bar and a glass of swill.  Heaven!

When the two hellish years finally ended and I received my B.S. in Accounting, I had already lined up a job in Des Moines as an auditor with one of the Big 8 (at that time) accounting firms.  Not long afterward, I passed the CPA exam and my wife landed a spot with a local design firm, and we were on our way.

Ok, at last I’m where I possibly should have started. In the ensuring three decades I continued to work as a CPA, becoming a partner along the way (meaning that I became one of the owners), and developing a specialization working with clients in the financial services industry - investment management companies and banking and finance companies, primarily.  This is the good part, folks.  My career soon took me from Iowa to New York City, where my background in English earned me the privilege of being a key designer and the principal author of new practice guidance for our international firm, which was just merging with another large international firm.  That put me in the spotlight for a time and gave me a leg up for promotion.  After the merger we relocated to Los Angeles, where I worked with some of the most prominent investment management companies in the world, and numerous banks, mortgage banks and other financial institutions.  Finally we moved to southeast Pennsylvania and I split time engaged with clients there and in California, and with our national financial services practice in New York.

Late, late nights on Wall Street helping to prepare financial offerings with hundreds of millions of dollars on the line.  Late, late nights at client offices in L.A., San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, New York and Philadelphia, managing teams of young accountants to deal with complex accounting problems under tremendous pressure.  Board meetings, fee negotiations, staff meltdowns, discoveries of fraud and malfeasance, financial crises in which I was an inside observer.  A 60-hour work week felt almost like a vacation compared to many weeks with even longer hours.  It was enough to give me PTSD.  I don’t want to overstate it - it wasn’t like actual life or death combat PTSD - but I still have nightmares ten years and more after the fact.

That’s a very quick summary of the 30+ years in which I obtained hard-won knowledge about global finance and economics - a period in which I also had a lot of experiences with politics, charitable organizations and other components of society I didn’t have time to get into today.  I still spend a lot of time staying informed about subjects ranging from psychology and mythology to current events and hard science.  There’s a ton I still don’t know.  But as my all-time favorite singer Joni Mitchell famously said, I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now.