#and some of the nate

[aardvaark]

i <3 when parker appears out of thin air

[nittroy]

When space whale design so good you can't just steal it to your own cosmoopera story so you have to draw your first fanart in years and revive your tumblr art blog to post it

[other version and image description under the cut!]

Ezra version ♡

[ID: A horizontal artwork showing Exra Bridger from season 2 of Star Wars: Rebels and the group of space whales, Purgil. The purgil are floating in space and one of them, closest to the viewing point, is positioned so that its eye coincides with one of Ezra's eyes. Their eyes are shining teal blue. Ezra is depicted in a somewhat abstract way, he stands waist high and the space behind him, but behind the whales.

In the second version of the image, Ezra is in the foreground, while the Purgil is only in the background. He is standing and holding his lightsaber, looking somewhat lost in thought. ]

[sainamoonshine]

Okay but so much of the character of Sam Vimes is influenced by him being a former alcoholic tho. I don’t think it’s possible to discuss his unbreakable moral code without also discussing his addiction.

There is significant parallels between how he does not touch alcohol EVER starting from Men at Arms and every other ways that he holds himself accountable in the books.

One minute late to storytime with his child would be one minute too much, because once you excuse one minute late then you can excuse five, ten, and then fifteen minutes late. -> one drink is too many drinks because one drink « tends to arrive in five glasses ».

« If you do a bad thing for a good reason you’ll do it for a bad one », « If one part of the machine breaks down it all breaks down » and « who watches the watchman? Me. » are all different ways of saying that Vimes cannot allow himself to make even one exception in how he behaves. Will not, yes, and that’s very admirable, but this will not is the result of a CAN NOT because what would happen if he did is not, in fact, unthinkable. On the contrary, he knows very well what would happen if he did break one of his many rules, and this is exactly why he doesn’t break them.

« One drink is one too many » is basically the center of his character’s moral code. And it hits so hard because he’s not being rigid for the fun of it, he’s like that because he knows. It’s a sliding slope and he’s been on it and at the bottom of it and he KNOWS how quickly it slides.

And it’s so interesting to see how he applies that core concept to all other aspects of his life, cultimating into the guarding dark.

[genericaces]

CHOOSE YOUR:

GRIFTER | HITTER | HACKER | THIEF | MASTERMIND

click for better quality! hq stills below:

[ghostlyarchaeologist]

"We're gonna need badges. There are three levels. Each successive level gets you better access."

Leverage S04E09 The Cross My Heart Job.

[kittennature]

i love being inspired by shitposts on the internet

[justafriendofxanders]

the thing that gets me about nate ford is that even when he's a criminal mastermind, there's still that kid inside him who went to seminary to be a priest and wanted to help people, but also when he was a kid in seminary there was definitely a freaky part of him that fantasized about being god's sword on earth or whatever. he cares so much! he wouldn't be doing *gestures vaguely* all this if he didn't. he just can't always see past his own desire for (self-)punishment and the idea that there's moral virtue in suffering. he's a control freak who needs god to give him permission to do anything, but also it's okay if he does it and feels really bad about it. yes he's a criminal and he hates criminals and also himself and yes he thinks he's better than everyone else. no i would not want to be his friend. yes i could watch him wear a stupid hat and be weird and manipulate/uplift/drain/support/love in his own way the rest of the team on my tv forever.

[shivvroys]

saw someone on twitter say shiv looked happier when she was with nate. NO!! the only time shiv has ever looked happy was that split second where tom suggested she fuck a woman

[horreurscopes]

*five days late with starbucks* happy birthday first name near last name deathnote <3

[badbucky]

every friend group should include...

[aardvaark]

romance nate & sophie style

[hacash]

I love that, on Ted Lasso, whenever a character starts acting weird or inconsistent with the show’s themes or whatever, it’s not just that the writers were sacrificing development for comedy or drama or whatever; it’s because there’s a thought process behind it. I was getting so uncomfortable whenever Beard was referencing Nate, because he wasn’t just pissed but downright spiteful - and for a show that is so much about nein schadenfreud and taking no shit but doing no harm, Beard trying to sic the team on Nate and throwing axes at pictures of his face just felt loaded with ick. It felt like the kind of revenge fantasy you’d see play out on a 90s sitcom, but not Ted Lasso. It felt cruel.

And then, and then we find out that Beard is Nate. Beard was shown kindness by Ted (like Nate), Beard was brought up from the worse place of his life by Ted (like Nate), and after all that Beard betrayed Ted (like Nate). And suddenly every spiteful comment and bitter look makes that much more sense, because this whole saga has been so much more personal to Beard, he’s seen himself in Nate’s actions, every single moment of seeing Nate’s betrayal play out in real time has been a poisonous reminder of what he did. Of course he was more pissed than Ted was.

And even if Ted has forgiven him, those final couple of scenes clearly show that there’s a little part of Beard that has never forgiven himself. He’s been repaying Ted all this time out of gratitude, but I wonder if it was also out of shame and guilt. (Halfway around the world is a long way to go to start a new job with your buddy, but those trying to absolve themselves from past misdeeds used to make lengthy pilgrimages for a reason.) I think there’s always going to have been that little nugget that always hated himself for what he did, that made it so easy to hate Nate as well. And that makes Beard’s reconciliation with Nate that much more beautiful - he’s forgiven Nate, but maybe he’s also finally forgiving himself.

[panevanbuckley]

Robert 'Rosie' Rosenthal in Masters of the Air

[gummy-sharks666]

Birthday boy :(

[gnar-slabdash]

I suddenly woke up stupid early on my day off with multiple weird random aches and pains and a revelation about the Leverage chess metaphors.

They’re all wrong.

Look, I obviously adore the white knight/black king motif, and it works really well for that very specific discussion of Nate’s shift in morality and position at the opening of the series. But the show as well as I and other fans have then tried to take that equation and apply it to other jobs and to the crew as a whole. This is fun and awesome, but I believe you’re going to get it wrong every time if you start from the white knight/black king line. 

Because in all other situations, Nate is not the king.

Couple important things about kings in chess: 1. They don’t move much. They can only move one space at a time, and for most of the game they stay in their own little box, well guarded by other pieces. This is because 2. When the king is checkmated (threatened with capture and no possible escape), it’s game over. There is no more hope. This is the sole requirement for losing the game. No matter who else is in play, if the king is down, you lose.

This is NOT how Nate operates. Yeah, he makes the plans, but he doesn’t just hide in the office while everybody else carries them out. He’s almost always right up in there playing the most obnoxious guy you’ve ever met or smashing windows or something. And if Nate gets captured, it’s not game over, in fact, it often isn’t even a PROBLEM. Let’s look at a few times that happens, just for fun: - In The King George Job, Nate’s getting beat up and Eliot slightly panics and is about to run to help, when Sophie says “NOPE, don’t do that, I can fix this without blowing our cover” and saunters in at her leisure. The jig isn’t up and she’s not even particularly concerned about him getting punched. I love it. - In the Maltese Falcon Job, Nate sacrifices himself to save the team. This is a classic thing to do in chess and chess metaphors, but, I cannot stress this enough, you cannot sacrifice your king. That’s just called LOSING. -In The Long Goodbye Job of course the whole con is structured around Nate getting caught. I guess this one kind of makes sense because the whole point is to look like they HAVE completely lost, but then at the end it appears that Nate’s going to secret prison and everyone else is escaping WITH the black book, so they STILL would be losing Nate but winning the job. 

So if Nate isn’t the king, who is?

Hardison.

Let’s look at our points about kings again:

1. Doesn’t move as far or as quickly: Yes, Hardison ALSO gets out there and participates in the cons, everybody does. But Hardison does stay in the background more often, because that’s where his power is. He does the behind the scenes tech stuff and the remote stuff, he can wreck your shop without showing up through the power of the internet. He also does the forgeries of identities and objects, which are also done in his own space. At the same time, he has less physical power and less range -- you don’t want him in a fistfight, or a gunfight, and his grifts are notorious for being a little. . . uh. . . interesting. So he has limited physical range and power but at the same time. . . .

2. The game is over if you lose him. That far-reaching behind the scenes power is absolutely vital for 90% of the jobs. He does the massive amounts of research and hacking legwork needed just to START a job, even before you get to actually completing the job. You are pretty much dead in the water without Hardison. But that’s just from a practical standpoint. Losing Hardison is also a crisis from an emotional standpoint. He’s our moral compass and our sweet baby brother and when Hardison gets in trouble there is no “well he’ll be fine for a few minutes” and no “well he kinda had it coming.” No, when Hardison is in trouble everything else grinds to a halt and everyone comes running. (See: The Experimental Job, The Grave Danger Job, The Long Goodbye Job.)

So like, yes Nate is in charge. But the king isn’t in charge on a chessboard, the king is just a piece with a very unique role, which Hardison fills much better than Nate does. So, now that we have our real king, who are our other pieces?

Queen: Parker. This has nothing to do with her dating Hardison. The thing about the queen is she can do a little bit of everything -- she can move in any direction, making her the most dangerous piece on the board. Parker’s whole character arc is about learning all the different roles and how to access the whole playing field. She’s the only one who plans and executes an entire episode-length job by herself (okay, with a little help from her girlfriend). Plus, the other cool thing about a queen is she has a built-in transformation story -- a pawn that crosses the board can become a queen, which Parker mimics by initially being dismissed as “the crazy one” and ultimately becoming the mastermind.

Knight: Sophie. I know, I wanted Eliot to be the horsie too, but this makes more sense. The knight’s deal is that it’s sneaky -- it’s the only piece that can turn corners -- and it can jump over obstacles. Sophie’s whole philosophy of grifting is that she shouldn’t need to know about safes or security systems, she should be able to bypass (jump over) all that by insinuating herself with the mark (being sneaky by playing a character to get behind enemy lines)

Rook: Eliot. This is the straightforward one -- it goes in a straight line. It also literally represents the castle walls. It’s also so, so fucking helpful to have around, I fucking hate losing my rooks. It’s your solid right hand man, basically. Is this a little reductive of Eliot? Absolutely, but I’m jamming five complex characters into five predetermined boxes, it’s not all gonna be nuanced. And I think Mr. Punchy would like being seen as the fortress that everybody depends on, and to let all the nuance go under the radar. That’s where he likes it. 

Bishop: Finally, here’s where Nate is hiding. While the rook can only go straight (lol), the bishop can only go diagonally. Nothing can be straightforward for the bishop, he always has to come at things from an angle. Like, you know, constantly looking at all the different angles of a situation and finding the right angle to come at a mark from. Also, the bishops sit right in the middle right next to the king and queen. I don’t know that this is historically accurate, but when my dad taught me to play he told me that was because the bishops were important councilors to the rulers, they were the ones who had important wisdom that would tell them the best plan of attack. So the king here isn’t necessarily the one making the plans -- that’s the bishop. And finally, apparently the bishop is called lots of different things in other languages, but we’re operating in English, which means it makes Nate a priest, and that makes me happy.

[numbuh424]

@nearsbday : DAY 7 - "FIXATION"

Wanted to get something with my Death Note OC in before the party ends 👀 Lee works part-time as a forensic/criminal sketch artist and one day Near asks her to draw L.

She wanted to be a successor but never made the cut, so she doesn't understand why Near is so fixated on the previous L when he already is L.