imaslutforthecastofleverage88

[imaslutforthecastofleverage88]

Something something Nate seeing Sam in Hardison and making sure to preserve the part of him that's sweet and kind and endlessly selfless and wants to help people and warning him against going down a road he can't come back from.

Something something Nate seeing himself in Parker and guiding her cunning and strategic mind to make sure she's equipped for taking over the job and never has to feel the heartbreak and utter defeat he felt after Sam's death because Parker deserves to be happy.

Something something Nate seeing Eliot and knowing he's everything Jimmy could never be and respecting Eliot's loyalty and diligence and honesty because it's pure as gold and rare as silver.

Something something Nate seeing a chance for redemption in Sophie and making sure to wait for her to catch up just as she waited for him to get better because Maggie was the love for Nathan Ford IYS agent but Sophie is the only match for Nate Ford, the man who doesn't kill you, no, he lets God do it and just makes sure it takes.

Something something Nate Ford masterminding not just the crew but his family.

[imaslutforthecastofleverage88]

[imaslutforthecastofleverage88]

Immortal Eliot Spencer might be one of the more tragic AUs

Him figuring out he just can't—won't—die while he's still working for Moreau after one too many too close calls

Refusing to think about it beyond it being useful in a fight, ignoring the fact that he hasn't aged in who knows how long, its not like he still has people in his life he'd see die of old age

Meeting his family the leverage crew and putting himself between them and danger, first because he can and it won't hurt him, then because he wants to keep them safe

One job turning into two turning into— not forever, because forever is a terrifying concept, but longterm enough that he knows he will lose them eventually

The first con after that realization nearly going wrong, nearly getting one of them killed

Loving Hardison and Parker, and not knowing what would be worse, seeing them die young or of old age, knowing he'll outlive them one way or another

Seeing them love each other, love him, but still keeping his distance, because he doesn't want to put this on them, doesn't want their relationship to feel like the biggest con he's ever done

Till my dying day

It's the most honest thing he's ever said; it's the worst lie he's ever told

[imaslutforthecastofleverage88]

Okay it’s canon that Jacob Stone has an IQ of 180, so in the Stone triplets AU can we assume that Eliot and Alex have comparable IQs? They are all smart AF but with Eliot and Alex it just presented itself in a different way.

Okay so Eliot Spencer says "Distinctive"

Alex Walker says "Particular"

[imaslutforthecastofleverage88]

This is why I feel like Eliot wasn’t really adopted as a baby. I think he said that to keep anyone from asking more questions. But the idea that he was adopted at 12 or 13, that makes more sense.

12 year old triplet boys who were prone to fighting and starting brawls at school was not something Isaac Stone could handle like a decent human being, not after losing his wife. Generational trauma is a bitch. That’s no excuse, just an explanation.

Isaac Stone was an abusive POS, but when Eliot was adopted by Billy Spencer and his wife, and Alex was sent to live with Isaac’s brother in law Danny Walker, at least he was able to get his shit together for Jake.

And now Eliot has vowed to never let another man get away with abusing his children, not if he had something to do about it.

in the low low price job eliot is at the center of the gloat and the walkaway. eliot brings beer when he returns and is denied entry to the home he grew up in. when nate's at his lowest with alcoholism in the snow job eliot gets himself between nate and the rest of the team; pushes back in a way that draws his attention and keeps nate from lashing out at anyone else. we know eliot isn't an only child, thanks to the miracle job; his nephew would love bibletopia.

(low low price: eliot grew up in rural oklahoma. low low price: eliot hasn't been home since he was 18. what about eliot who performs landmarks of typical masculinity so well could result in such complete rejection from his god loving father? it's hardison eliot's able to confide this in. is it a question we really need to ask, after all?)

in the order 23 job it's eliot who knows on sight that the child with a broken arm is being abused. the kid's dad's social tie to the local cops: they drink together. when eliot and hardison impersonate cops in the morning after job, eliot demands they respond to a called in disturbance with a weapon, because there might be kids in the house.

where do you think eliot learned the relational dynamic he engages in with nate, and before that moreau? eliot left home because he "needed to get out of there". eliot has never lived a life free from controlling men. he may have left, but did he succeed in his escape? why or why not?

it takes eliot five seasons to mention his dad. he never mentions his mom. the carnival job does not center eliot in the gloat but as they walk away we get him centered briefly. nate's the one who says she's dead, but it's eliot who asks about the kid's mom. it's eliot who connects with her in a way it seems nobody has since that loss. in the future job eliot rummages in a car to provide facts so tara can pull off the psychic act. his voice wavers, when he mentions the breast cancer ribbon on the mirror. eliot never mentions his mom. eliot never mentions his mom.

would parker have ever mentioned the brother she lost, were it not for the fake psychic's violating reveal? why do you think eliot never mentions his mom?

fuck redemption's revisionist history. the original run said enough to paint a full and heartbreaking picture of eliot's family all on its own.

[imaslutforthecastofleverage88]

parker died last in the long goodbye job and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone talk about it

we’ve already talked about how eliot has to die first (or he’ll die thrice)

but I think there’s something truly tragic about parker being the one to die last. parker, who always was alone in the world, who had loss over loss, betrayal after betrayal, for years and years until she finally found a family

she found people that loved her for who she was. she found two people that she fell in love with, the two people that loved her back with everything they had

one of them, she dropped down an elevator shaft and had to drag back to relative safety. the other she pulled close to her after he was shot through the chest

she saw both of them fade, one after the other, and then she was alone, bleeding out, in the back of the van

waiting to join them in the dark

[imaslutforthecastofleverage88]

“promise me- you’ll keep them safe”

“’till my dying day”

“you know, eliot, i’d say call if you need anything, but you never...never need anything”

“yeah, i did. and thanks to you... i don’t have to search anymore”

[imaslutforthecastofleverage88]

you ever just think about how the leverage writers gave us a canon polyamorous relationship confirmation in the long goodbye job?

like, they didn’t have to go that hard

but they did

parker, hardison and eliot are seen as a unit, working together in sync. there are callbacks to the pilot episode multiple times that are centered around their interactions.

and then there’s the “death” scene: aka, the scene that proves just how ride or die they are for each other. they die in each other’s arms. they die holding hands. what’s even more- the two in a canon established relationship are not the ones holding hands. no- instead, it is eliot who is in the middle. eliot, their hitter, their protector, their best friend. he was the one that was in the middle, holding hands with hardison and then parker. he is the one that reaches out and grabs hardison’s hand, reassuring him one last time and referencing an inside joke. parker then makes a point to move and grab eliot’s hand in her own- her literal last act before dying. you CANNOT tell me that is anything but pure, unadulterated love. they lived together. they breathed together. they died together.

AND THEN, as if that wasn’t enough, we had this scene in the final minutes of the show:

sophie: promise me, (looks at parker and hardison) you'll keep them safe.

eliot: till my dying day.

let's take a minute to acknowledge that literally a minute after nate proposes to sophie eliot says THIS??? something reminiscent of marriage vows about parker and hardison? he will protect them until his dying day and not a second before.

and then we have this:

nate: you know, eliot, I'd say call if you need anything, but you never... never need anything.

eliot: yeah, I did. (looks at parker and hardison) and thanks to you, I don't have to search anymore.

parker never had a family, not really, but it's been established that she knows she's not alone, that she has people that care about her, that she is loved (the white rabbit job). hardison had his nana and his family, but we saw at the beginning of the show he was eager to slide into this new found family of his. he cares deeply, loves deeply. and now, at the end of eliot's arc, he admits that all that time, he was missing something. he looks at parker and hardison and states with conviction that he doesn't have to search anymore.

they all have what they were missing at the beginning of the show- each other.

[imaslutforthecastofleverage88]

“No. End of discussion.”

“Eliot! That’s not fair.”

“Fairness has nothing to do with this, Hardison.”

“Excuse you? Nothing to do with this? So what have we been fighting for all this time?”

“Oh, don’t you dare bring our work into this.”

“You’re the one saying that being fair is not important.”

“Don’t put words into my mouth…”

“Parker.” Sophie asked softly, as she came to stand next to the other woman. “What’s wrong?” She eyed the two men in concern.

“Oh they’re just arguing.”

“I can see that.” Sophie sighed. “Why are they arguing?”

“Oh. They’re trying to decide who’s going to be tiny spoon today.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“When we sleep we have someone who’s the tiny spoon, because they’re being spooned by the other two.”

“And neither of them want to be the tiny spoon?” Sophie asked.

“No. They both want to be it today.”

[imaslutforthecastofleverage88]

say what you want, sambucky and hardisoneliot are the same ship in different fonts:

insufferable coworker

serving looks on the job

camaraderie

it’s been a long hard day

bro power

hugs, of course

totally not in love

and their chaotic (iconic) first meetings

so if you sambucky fans want a smart witty tech guy in love with a smart grumpy punchy guy, I highly recommend leverage! five seasons plus the reboot that is running that has two seasons so far

[imaslutforthecastofleverage88]

breanna and ronald are wlw/mlm solidarity it’s true

breanna just slowly opening his eyes to the pyramid scheme until he literally runs away to be a musician but he’s so excited he runs back to tell breanna about it. she deserves a bestie outside of the crew, i nominate ronald

[imaslutforthecastofleverage88]

You know, it's a very tiny thing but I loved that moment where Parker being the Mastermind for the past few years shone through in this episode. Specifically during that moment where Parker was actually guiding not only Harry's 'bromance honeypot con' but for a moment cautioned Sophie that their mark was testing her. Like, this was such a FAMILIAR thing, only years ago it was Sophie that would have chimed in with that kind of observation. IDK I just thought it was neat.

[imaslutforthecastofleverage88]

Leverage: Redemption | 2.09 The Pyramid Job

[imaslutforthecastofleverage88]

[references to child abuse]

i am looking forward to how billy spencer's introduction may shift fanon, in part because i am interested in how interactions of race, class, disability, and family play out with this new dynamic. however, i also get if you are like me and are feeling kinda in a stink about having wips/emotionally-invested-into-hcs/published work jossed right now. theres been the Abusive Asshole White Bio Dad haunting eliot for a real long time in our works, and tbh i project a LOT of my shit onto eliot and that starts with an abusive dad that looks/acts a particular way.

its tempting to just shoehorn billy immediately into those molds just to Make Things Fit. which i think does a disservice to what is possible with canonverse eliot (should you choose to accept redemption as mainline canon, of course).

i want to put it out there that for your Abusive Asshole White Bio Dad needs, there is isaac, who is the father of jacob stone (played by eliot's actor) in the librarians. isaac is an alcoholic, works as an oil guy (so not quite the hardware store guy, but we can make do with characterization if not exact translation), drives an old car, and verbally abuses jake (and very easy to extrapolate from there). isaac appears in s2e03, which is an episode i would recommend because its actually quite well paced except for the fact its hella racist with indigenous culture.

anyway, know that from here on out, there will exist on my blog parallel universes, one featuring billy-as-dad and the other isaac-as-dad.

[imaslutforthecastofleverage88]

given billy's approximate age according to his actor's, if he went into the military he was likely in the vietnam war or (if you want to place eliot as younger than his actor) then billy was part of the round-up right afterward. likely was drafted if during the war, but maybe lets turn down the dial on anti-government resentment and said he signed up.

but even with that second scenario, seriously.

i reallllllly wanna examine eliot under a microscope for the twists in his damn head over how he valorized billy's stories, or how the fuck he thought that the military was a good path for him being raised in the relief of the most anti-military atmospheres in american history, especially in a household with a disabled Black vet?? how had the propaganda machine in school and in the media and whatever else already begin churning, so that eliot could hear the little stories billy told and connected that with heroic? how, perhaps, had eliot's whiteness facilitated a difference in perception of impact, power, and patriotism that dug deep past billy and his wife's hopes for another path for him? how did carson measure as the mundane horror of watching a town be drained by value!more and lost of industry work, versus the potential of out out out eliot saw in the military? theres so much to say about what football might have meant to him, also, obviously: who was that dream as a way out for, eliot or his father, considering what eliot actually valued?

IDK but man. this. this is wild. eliot! eliot! eliot, how did you get to the military as the solution from that household i s2g.

EDIT: adding in @the-ocean-is-trans's related and SUPER insightful comment on my previous post - i am currently sitting with "eliot wanted to join the military to be like his father who was his hero and his father didn't want him to join the military because he wanted more for his son due to structural racism he faced and in the end eliot went down a path of trying to correct on a personal level some of the larger scale injustices which he couldnt do for his father when he was younger" and im

BECAUSE LIKE. that's it? that's it. they are just. seeing this so differently. the closeness eliot feels to the situation is there, but the impact of it is just... not clicking. and so the painful PERSONAL parts of the war (such as being overlooked for the medal in likely of some white man) were not mentioned, over the actions. hence why eliot can hear one thing, but billy feels another

[imaslutforthecastofleverage88]

eliot critiquing the shivs lol “took a lot of time on that spoon, good job”

[imaslutforthecastofleverage88]

Not being funny if someone doesn't fucking love Eliot Spencer right now im going to climb into the screen and brush his hair and rail him until he cries why is nobody fucking kissing this man everywhere he's been hurt for his entire life im going to die. Hardison just asked him if he's alright and I burst into tears immediately I'm so normal and don't project even a little about this show