#The Frameup job

[richardsphere]

leverage log: The Frame-up job

So we're starting In Medias Res with a gunfight/chasescene (Nate and Sophie are the ones being chased) --- Cut back to earlier. Parker Elliot and Hardison are in DC and staying for a while. Leverage Inc is closed for 2 days of break. (feels weird how they're putting 2 "its them on their own" episodes back-to-back.)

Nate is absolutely rambling about Mystery Street (1950), And is nice enough to exposit its historical importance within media (apparently its the first mainstream murder-mystery that was about forensics, which feels incorrect but I'm not a cinephile). Sophie is nice enough to cut him off from the spoilers. (Always like when a creator puts in a little "recomendation" list in their show.)

I refuse to believe Sophie is "having a guy come over" for her theatre's lighting grid. (there are a thousand reasons it should be Hardison, only some of which are Opsec/Bug Sweeping)

"you know you're not supposed to root for the criminals" "always root for the home team" Bit predictable and obligatory, give it a 7.5/10. --- Estate sale, dead rich guy named Jonas Galt (probably a reference to John Galt of Atlas Shrugged "will not shut the fuck up" fame). Sophie's trying to "view" his paintings.

"a father and son should leave nothing unsaid at the end". Ok so we're definitly setting up a second murder mystery. And the butler is ominous, but the butler is never actually guilty. As a tangent thats a strange history by the way, apparantly there never really was a trend in "butler did it" stories, plenty of "some low level labourer who'd be beneath suspicion" murders, like a postal worker or police agent, but it appears culture collectively imagined the butler-did-it trend out of thin air. Its weird that we have this "cliche" trope that never really existed.)

"you must think you're clever" "I deduced your location at a random event in under 20 minutes. I've had worse mornings". ---

"No pictures, no reproductions, never been sold or exhibited" Thats intriguing. (it verry much rules out any chance of our heroes switching it out with a copy)

Code is in a tiny envelope, (did not seem to be sealed with wax or anything, so could have been previously opened)

Ma Mystere's been stolen (insert obligatory "twist" here). --- Ok so we have a painting of which no one knows its appearance, that was stolen from a family vault. This brings a couple of issues. 1- This is not a Mona Lisa Scam. (you cannot sell fake Mona Lisa's if people dont know what a real Mona Lisa looks like) 2-Their stolen painting cannot be authenticated as the genuine article as only 2 people ever knew what it looked like (the painter, and the guy who put it in his vault).

Basically: This is pretty stupid painting to steal.

Now as for the how of the theft... I have 2 guesses: 1, its a fakeout. Two Davids style. Put something (fake wall) in front of the painting to make people think its been stolen, then when the case has been shut and declared unsolveable. Perp walks out with the actual painting after they've been cleared of guilt and insurance paid out. (remember, this is leverage. 25% chance its either an insurance scam, or Nate makes it look like you committed one) 2. It was never in the safe, Jonas Galt employed security through obscurity and merely pretended he had it in his vault, he had a sense of humour and put an empty frame there so that any would-be art-thieves would think they were the second thief to get to it and that Galt is just too pridefull to admit he lost a priceless cultural artifact. In reality the painting is just on the wall in his house somewhere with a frame that covers the signature (assuming the artist even signed it) Technically there's a third option combining the two: Layered vault. Its actually in the vault, and there is a fake wall to trick thieves into thinking that they're the second thief. But i think that one is slightly too complicated. (Planting that many hidden clues would cut into the shows ability to add a B or C-plot to the episode) --- Its Sterling, which combined with this episodes multiple references to Nate's past as an insurance investigator means that one of the family members faked the theft. (cause that is the insurance scam option) --- Ok so i dont know much about actual interpol. But based on the line that its a "new department" that he "himself created", We're gonna say that Interpol, in the leverage-verse, is basically just SHIELD.

Standard "clear your own name" plot. (I feel fairly certain James doesnt actually think Nate and Sophie did this, he knows them well enough that unless a billionaire is actually crying on the evening news its not Nate. Which means he's just decided that with these two forced to clear their own name, he gets to have a martini while the case solves itself for him) --- "Going on? What's going on?". My bet, secret birthday party. Sophie is lying about Parker Elliot and Hardison staying in DC. Gave him the single ticket as an obvious distraction. Then attended an art gala as a less obvious distraction. --- "there is an RFID tag on the painting itself, moving the painting should have triggered the alarm" Fake wall. Its a fake wall. --- someone (nate thinks Jonas the Corpse) changed the code... I remember his son was disowned. His son had access to code, opened the vault. Put in the fake wall. Jonas discovered the painting missing and was too pridefull to admit. Suspected his son responsible but couldnt prove it. Disowned him, Changed the code. --- Ok so my timeline was off, the painting was "stolen" (i mean hidden behind a fake wall seriously what set designer makes a Safe's internal walls PURPLE if not to set us up for a "fake wall" reveal) same day he changed the locks and same day he died. (son wasnt disowned for stealing the painting. Son "stole" the painting because he was disowned and wasnt gonna get no money in the will no more) --- Oh little re-introduction shots of the various suspects. Son is shown with fucking blueprints in front of boxes of unknown construction materials because its a fake wall. (I like the reintroduction shots, i dont know which specific whodunnit they are meant to reference. But I like them) --- Ok now we've got a plottwist: Lawyer dude says son was being put back into the will by dad. (dad knows son stole the thing, Dad is being blackmailed by son. Son is pretending he doesnt want to be put back into the will because he knows it'll look suspicious if he's happy to have been put back in the will.) Ghost of Christmas Past Nate is going full jesus, whomever comped his green-screen ass into the black-and-white flashback put him on the swimming pool. --- Ex wife actually thinks they were gonna remarry (no motive) Lawyer doesnt stand to inherit anyway. (technically he could be trying to invoke "the kids fight over the will, spend all the inheritance on their legal fees, lawyer gets the will" type shenanigans. But no way did Jonas give his lawyer vault access) --- Son went to artschool (read: knows the value of the paintings) and is a construction contractor. ITS A FAKE FUCKING WALL --- they all had an alibi for the times that someone was going in and out of the vault. (because the Son, who is a contractor has construction workers who work beneath him.) --- "I just got you off the hook for stealing that painting, now you want to steal the painting and another painting just to prove it isnt real?!" Love the delivery. 8.75/10

Nate going in with the Zhuge Liang Gambit. (look so obviously like you must be beaten that they conclude it must be a trap and get out your way.) Remember people: This gambit only works on people who are: 1-Paranoid 2-Well aware that you are a tricky little fuckface. --- Lovely work on the pronoun game by Sophie. "just give it her" Oh i see... Sophie modeled Ma Mystere she hasnt seen the painting she dated the painter! --- "Hey! I dont suppose anyone here has spent the last few years switching all the paintings in the house with forgeries!, while no one was looking?" Excellent delivery, great line. 10/10. "I did not think that would work". Simple line, simple delivery (twice), 9.5/10

Obligatory second murder! (she didnt do it, she just realised the son, who was an art student did it, which is why she's dead in the pool he's supposedly renovating) --- Everything is sunshine and rainbows.. Except i dont think for even a second that Jim would mistake this for a legitimate accident --- Ooh, catering. Good call Nate. --- "They'll hear a gunshot" "Place is empty". yeah, but Nate's pocket isnt. He's got Jim on the phone listening in to everything. --- "anyone else you'd like me to arrest for the same crime, or is three our lucky number?" subpar line, great delivery. 8/10.

turns out, it was a fake wall. who would've thunk

[aestariiwilderness]

Acolyte Spoilers #1

Okay so -- of the many, many, MANY things about SW canon that are both hilarious and horrifying in light of episode 1 of the Acolyte, this is the one that's sticking out to me now: So, apparently, in canon, Anakin and his "unorthodox" training that everybody in the Temple yelled at him for has officially now saved Ahsoka's life approximately 1033 times over instead of just 1032. Why? Because Osha out here, Jedi dropout, working for the Trade Federation on a case-by-case basis (who are talking over comms about how disposable she is!) because, and I quote/near-quote: the Jedi skills aren't transferable. And apparently, they don't really teach you anything else, not officially. If you don't have a master who cares about that kind of thing, maybe you don't get any kind of training that way at all. AND, evidently, if you leave or get kicked out, they don't give you any kind of job training, stipend, or post-Order care, as we saw with both Ahsoka and Osha. So that particular fun little fanon sop to the Jedi just died a lonely death LOL. So Anakin, by teaching Ahsoka an actual, marketable trade (mechanics) (why is that the only trade in Star Wars?? Guys, learn some basket-weaving) absolutely saved her life. (Again.) So, to recap: You're taken to the main government-sponsored (literally, from what I can see) cult, the Jedi Order, often as a baby so you have no say in it. There are laser swords, telekinetic space monks who have lived in power for centuries, a planet-city full of corruption, and absolutely no child endangerment or child labor laws. Your "brethren" can and literally do invade people's minds and control them without asking if it's convenient. You are ostracized for forming any kind of attachment; apparently, if you blink in vague confusion while a fascist green lady asks you if you're down with murdering your young former padawan for political convenience, you're too attached. (AND that is a whole hilarious post on its own). Key salient details will be left out of your file to aid in a coverup about your origins. The minimal amount of critical thinking will be done at all times, if you're lucky. And then, of course, if you dare to leave or get kicked out of this utterly Benevolent Cult in which you had no choice in spending your entire life, you...will have no resources, no job training, and be left to sink or swim. And then at any point the Jedi will have free rein to pop back into the life you've shakily managed to construct for yourself, arrest you immediately on the testimony of one (1) (non-human guy who might not be able to tell the difference between one human and the next!), and then get you crashlanded onto an icy death planet and hunt you down, laser swords out and ready to slice and dice you to death. Yep. Sounds about right. (Wait till you get to the human clones manufactured to die, Osha! That'll be fun.) Sooo -- any sane person's reaction to the Jedi Cult here should be:

@clawedandcute

[hughungrybear]

I forgot about the crazy cousin who was so jealous of Rak's success, she was actually stupid enough to think her sloppy frameup job would work 😅.

But then again, this series blatantly advertised (in ep 6, I think) that "jealousy is a form of love", so maybe the fucker just really REALLY loves her cousin Rak with all her devious heart. 🤷‍♀️

[contentment-of-cats]

Dark Fandom: Frameups and Fakers

Great Mother of Sockpuppets.

Okay - here we go.

Frameups and Fakers

Peering over the rim of my coffee cup, I looked at these posts from last night and decided that it's time to add to the reading shelf. 

Here's what happened, for the link-averse. False blogs were set up apparently to mimic BeeBee76, JadeSabre85, and Draculard (no blog to compare), then the actual parties were blocked by the fake blogs, preventing the real Jade, BeeBee, and Draculard from finding them. It is possible that these blogs are or could be used to send messages where anons are disallowed, divert traffic from the parties' actual blogs, or post content that is against community guidelines in order to get the parties deactivated by Tumblr.

Below are Real Beebee vs Fake Beebee and Real Jadesabre versus Fake JadeSabre. Drac does not have a Draculard blog on Tumblr, but is well known enough in the Thrawn, ST:TNG, and other fandoms with that name. In both cases, the elimination of a dash, or the last two digits of Jade's name leads to an empty blog where you would expect content. I use the search bar to go to someone's blog directly - I do miss my LJ feature where I could just click a name in the sidebar and boom!

Frameup 101

A frameup or setup is a maneuver designed to make someone appear responsible or divert blame for a given situation (such as a crime) using fabricated evidence and/or testimony.

I've also heard a frameup called a stitchup, though I'm not sure if that's a TikTok term or not. Generally, the person seeking to divert attention and frame another party is the perpetrator, though a third party may be acting to 'protect' the actual instigator and finds the framed party a convenient target. 

Some of the techniques used in frameups include: 

False flag - actions undertaken with a false identity, the intention being to blame the target person or group.

Joe job - old Usenet term for a spamming campaign using a spoofed email address.

Scapegoating - placing blame for one's bad actions on another party as the cause of said actions. 

'Just asking questions' - questions designed to sow doubt or create chasms in a group of people. For instance, "But how do we know that there's not a nanochip in the COVID vaccine? There could be, and it could be used to see who is complying with the New Order.  I'm just asking questions." 

Casus belli - 'cause for war' actions or causes used to justify hostilities. 

Gaslighting - manipulative behavior that over a period of time causes the victim to doubt their own powers of reasoning, validity of their thoughts, and even perception of reality. This leads to loss of self-esteem, stability, and self-confidence, leading to confusion and dependency on the gaslighter who is using the victim for their own advantage.

Red herring - information set up to be distracting and a distraction from the situation at hand.

Straw man - an argument or proposition intentionally misrepresented because it is easier to defeat than the actual argument.

In other words - know your bullshit because stalkers and trolls will use your credulousness to their advantage.

[ask-the-reaper-conspiracy]

We’ve heard a fair bit about the motives of the Reaper organisation: frustration with criminals escaping justice, hatred of corrupt nobility, desire for perfect order, blackmail, even just a professional doing her job. To my knowledge, Dr Wilson, we haven’t heard from you on that score. What was your stake in the matter?

"My stake?" "Well, past the first frameup with the Professor I... I didn't really have a choice in the matter if I was to keep my job." "Even if I disapproved, there wasn't much I could do against the Lord Chief Justice." "So I was just... a reluctant passenger, I suppose."

—————–

Check this page for credits

[asklordcaptaincastronova]

😶 + how much do you regret Amadeus? What do you regret? Why do you regret?

Quite a bit.

There's been a lot of murder, assassinations, frameups, petty theivery, grand theft, orbital bombardment.

Uh

Probably could have done a better job a quite a few things.

As to why... because regret is what I do?

[catboy-jesus]

The contrast between The Rundown Job and The Frame-up Job is amazing.

Parker/Hardison/Eliot: triple high five TEAMWORK!

Sophie: I was literally so desperate to get away from Nate I bought him a ticket to a film festival and lied about my location and he still somehow tracked me down. Now Sterling's here too. I Am Going To Scream.

[246bce]

Nate: I mean, for the next two days, Leverage Consulting is closed. No work, no cases. How will we pass that time? Sophie: With m u r d e r!

[hkwintermelon-blog]

[221btardisimpalawithloki]

mark sheppard has been typecast as the third-wheel to power couples who are just here to have a good time

[july-19th-club]

do i actually particularly value your opinion on media or do we just have the same birthday? i guess we'll never know! but you steered me well on soc so: i tried watching the first episode of leverage but i could not get into it because 1. gender and 2. it seemed like it was being silly when it should have been serious and serious when it should have been silly. do you have takes on this? is there a later episode i should have tried for my first go? whats the recipe for enjoying leverage

honestly unless you’re REALLY into the specific genre of ‘underproduced corporate thrillers from the early-mid aughts’ then you’re *not* gonna enjoy the leverage premier enough to be interested in the rest of the show, but you, zezander, are in luck because this ask has functioned as a sleeper phrase that triggers the release of the July’s Leverage Greatest Hits List, which i will herewith paste below. i’ve only listed episodes i think are really worth slowing down and enjoying, and i’ve included a few notes with each one as to why i think it’s worth the time; note that s1 was not released in the same order as it was aired so the order you watch it in literally does not matter at all except for the finale. without further ado:

SEASON ONE:

The Miracle Job (the first episode where things really have a rhythm; nate backstory that doesn’t suck eggs)

The Stork Job (strong parker/hardison ep.)

The Wedding Job (CHEESY - but extremely fun)

The Juror #6 Job (one of my personal favorites because i love a good trial bit)

The First David Job & The Second David Job (two-parter & v. good; maggie is here)

SEASON TWO:

The Order 23 Job (funny and fucking weird as hell)

The Fairy Godparents Job (another funny one & surprisingly touching)

The Three Days of the Hunter Job (god this one is weird. I love it)

The Two Live Crew Job (rival heist crew; sexy)

The Lost Heir Job (TARA! introduces one of my favorite characters)

The Bottle Job (the gold standard for bottle episodes and simple cons you can run at home)

The Future Job (STRONG parker ep. about fake psychics) 

and honestly at this point just finish out the season it’s plottier but still good + i love jeri ryan

SEASON THREE:

The Reunion Job (another sneaky parker/hardison ep.)

The Inside Job (clever escape episode; not really a heist)

The Scheherazade Job (the hardison’s unearthly violin solo episode)

The Studio Job (lots of people really like this episode and it’s good, I just don’t watch it often because i don't really like country music. Alona Tal is in it tho and i love her)

The Rashomon Job (told in flashbacks from each character’s perspective; very clever)

The King George Job (hardison hacks history; his arms look great in that tank top)

The Morning After Job (a very clever con)

The San Lorenzo Job (OH this fucking episode. It’s just very well put-together and Goran Visnjc is the big bad he’s all throughout the season really. sophie SHINES)

SEASON FOUR:

The Long Way Down Job (emotional parker/eliot ep; features extreme winter mountaineering)

The Van Gogh Job (fan favorite; hardison & parker play star-crossed lovers in wwii)

The Hot Potato Job (fun roleswap ep. for sophie)

The Grave Danger Job (emotional hardison/parker ep.)

The Queen’s Gambit Job (incredibly clever sterling episode, good parker/hardison content)

The Experimental Job (this one is good but it’s a Lot for me; i’m not sure why that is tho. premise: the team infiltrates a psychological experiment, requiring hardison to go undercover as a frat boy and eliot as one of the experiment ‘volunteers’)

The Office Job (fan favorite; heist shot like the office; just a fucking bucket of fun. The Sandwich(™) is here)

The Girl’s/Boy’s Nights Out Jobs (two-parter - the team splits up for extracurriculars; return of tara and harley)

The Gold Job (hardison runs the con roleswap ep.; some good parker/hardison/eliot)

The Last Dam Job (lots of old recurring characters in this one, incl. Tara and Mr Quinn)

SEASON FIVE:

The French Connection Job (eliot goes undercover as a chef; eliot ensues)

The Gimme A K Street Job (extremely clever episode about cheerleading)

The D.B. Cooper Job (another good flashback-starring-the-team ep. a la the van gogh episode)

The Broken Wing Job (bottle episode *man punching stage* TWO)

The Rundown Job (thee ot3 episode; lots of good parker/hardison/eliot stuff; biological warfare) 

The Frameup Job (the last sophie’s art theft adventures job & quite fun)

The White Rabbit Job (team confronts the ethics of pulling off the world’s toughest con)

The Long Goodbye Job (series finale, emotional and also quite good)

as you can see, i really like season four, and i’ll be the first to admit that the show has a slow start. but there are gems all throughout and i hope this helps break it down/give you a starting point! 

[shieldedsouls]

❝ You did try to kill his mother. ❞ (at Bucky)

@mstinteresting diego no

        “ No, I’m pretty sure he’s mad at me because I finished some equations that were up in his lab, ” the brunet sighs, rather comfortably curled up in his seat as he sipped at a latte. Tony had let him come and go as he pleased, which is pretty nice considering the completely understandable trust issues that are sorta rife in the whole group, until this morning when Bucky had tried to come in. JARVIS had given no reason for the lockout, and he’d definitely been moping a bit until Diego had started hanging out with him, but....yeah, that was probably it. All for actually writing down an actual answer or two. Okay, maybe three.

“ Besides, that job was a frameup. Although I definitely threatened Howard at least a few times back in the day... ”

[kyliafanfiction]

I almost feel sorry for the people the Leverage team hits, because they’re almost always left questioning their own reality because of how masterful the frameup job was.

I mean, that’s some serious headfake.

[chetungwan]

There are a couple of episodes of shows out there that are just Awesome. Great. Amazing. Like La Bomba from Farscape, or The Frameup Job from Leverage. And The Devil's Share from Person of Interest, because that's what I'm rewatching right now and just loosing it over.

I just. Reese on his unhinged rampage finally being brought to heel by Finch, being brought back by Finch, just like Finch has been doing from the very beginning.

Fusco's character development encapsulated, as he defines devil's share in his therapy session flashback and then arrests Simmons instead of killing him, because he's a better person now and he does The Right Thing, like Carter did.

The therapy flashbacks are so interesting, too, all of them.

And then Elias, at the end. Because as he himself says, killing Simmons is a bad thing that society should not strive for. Luckily, he is not part of society and has no wish to be.

"But you and I are not part of civilization... which means of course, that we can do the things that civilized people can't."

Characters like Elias who are very deliberately painted as Not Good and who know that they are Not Good and decide that, if this is their place in the narrative, they're gonna use this role as best they can fucking slay me every single time. And apparently, inspire run-on sentences.

[246bce]

Sophie in The Frame-Up Job

[unseenphil]

People tell stories...

about Ernest Boyd. They’re rarely pleasant stories, and are mostly based more on the idea of him rather than the man himself. 

There were plenty of reasons for it; he hardly talked to anyone, mostly just grunting in affirmation or negation, occasionally even verbalizing an “Ayup” or “Nope” as necessary for emphasis.

He worked as a caretaker, maintaining the summer homes on the tourist side of the lake during the off season. Keeping the gutters cleaned, the lawns maintained and keeping the local wildlife and the occasional teenager from squatting. Since this squashed a lot of potential fun, he was viewed as vaguely villainous by some of the younger folks of the Passage.

And then, of course, there was the fact that he was well over six feet tall and built like a brick wall, with enough prematurely white hair that if, for some reason, he took it in his head to run naked through the Passage, no one would report him for indecent exposure, they’d just call animal control, claiming that there was an albino gorilla on the loose. 

(Not that he’d ever take it in his head to do so; Ernest was about as stolid as he was solid, which is saying quite a bit.) 

There was one other thing about Ernest Boyd, of course, which was that, for all that he was a white-haired giant, people tended not to notice him; unless he called attention to himself, your eyes would slide right off him. That might be why the stories casting him in all sorts of roles were so popular- they were easier to remember than he was.

This was probably why so many people found it easy to believe when someone accused him of murder. There was an ‘idea’ of Ernest built up in their heads that was mostly there to fulfill the role of local boogeyman.

Of course, his family didn’t believe it at all; not because they didn’t believe he was -capable- of the crime, or anything. 

But, it was reasoned, if Ernest had killed someone, no one would have noticed, which is why it was obviously a frameup job. 

And that meant that Ernest’s grandfather had a new case to solve. Which, on the one hand, was good news; Ernest’ grandfather was an excellent detective, for a giant primordial man-fish hybrid living at the bottom of the lake.

But it also meant that Harry was going to have to talk to his cousin, and that had been an exercise in frustration akin to pulling teeth as long as he’d known the man.