#idk why they treat nate's addiction the way they do

[buzzmcnab]

[ID: Four black and white gifs from Leverage of Nate Ford—a white man with short, messy, dark hair—wearing a light colored t-shit with a logo on the left chest that says "Second Act" above a sun.

1: Nate talks on a pay phone outside of a restaurant.

2: Nate puts his hands on Parker's shoulders and says something to her, she smiles warmly at his hands.

3: Nate sits with his arms crossed, looking fed up, while Parker and Jack Hurley, the mark, lean in front of him to talk to each other.

4: Nate leans back in a chair with his arms crossed, looking like he's trying to be casual. He speaks to someone offscreen.

END ID]

LEVERAGE APPRECIATION WEEK

NATE - DAY 5 - FAVORITE OUTFIT

rehab program t-shit

[cassiebones]

my takeaways from 2x05

1. Rue's mom is right. Rue is a pretty terrible person. You can see sometimes that she wants to be better and that she's fucked up from trauma and the mental illnesses she's suffered since she was a little kid, but she actively plans out how she's going to lie to the people she claims to love. She has this cycle that she tends to go through: lie, ridicule, abuse, apologize, repeat.

She lies to everybody about everything she does, pretty much. She lies to her mom, her sister, her friends, you name it. She rarely shows that she feels guilt until her lies are caught. When she's caught, she lies more, then attacks and ridicules the people who are calling her out on her bullshit. She says horrible things to her sister, who just loves her unconditionally, the way a sister typically loves another sibling. She calls her mom a bad mom, which is...somewhat true? Like, somebody brought up a great point about why the hell she didn't confront Rue about the SUITCASE FULL OF DRUGS SHE FOUND IN HER TEEN DAUGHTER'S ROOM before FLUSHING THEM DOWN THE TOILET (it was Sarah Schauer, I just remembered). Like??? If she had kept the drugs, she could have brought them back to Laurie and paid off the balance that Rue had already ingested. But she royally fucked Rue over there instead of using common sense and calling the cops or something. idk. I know her mom loves her, but I agree with Sarah on this.

Point is, Rue is pretty damn toxic to the people around her. She fucks everybody over and hurls abuse at them when she doesn't get her way. As somebody with two addicted older siblings, I sympathize heavily with Gia, who just loves Rue and wants her to get better.

2. Maddy needs to get over Nate. Cassie is right; they are toxic. That doesn't excuse what Cassie did, because it is super fucked up that she slept with her best friend's ex, no matter how bad they are for each other. But Maddy and Nate are constantly saying they're broken up and then they somehow end up back together. Nate is a piece of absolute shit. He manipulates people and ruins lives. So does Maddy. Maddy, who yelled R*pe and then refused to tell the truth when Nate literally choked her and even blamed the boy Nate beat the crap out of based on her fake allegation. I understand that Cal fucked Nate up, but that doesn't give Nate a single fucking right to do what he did. And that doesn't give Maddy the right to do the shit that she does. She deserves better than Nate, but also she can fuck herself a little bit, too.

3. Cassie needs to get over Nate and stop treating her younger sister like shit. All Lexi does is care about other people on this goddamn show. She especially cares about her sister and Cassie treats her like garbage for asking simple, reasonable questions. Nate is never going to love her the way that he loves/obsesses over Maddy. I honestly don't think he's capable of love. It's more like he possesses Maddy and Cassie. He obsesses over them to a terrifying degree. You would think a girl would avoid the boy who choked out her best friend (and they all know it was Nate who did it) but I understand that her daddy issues and the need to be loved by somebody makes it difficult for her. Still, she definitely deserves better.

4. Laurie is fucking scary. I am genuinely terrified of Laurie and terrified FOR Rue. Her monotonous voice and sleepy way of speaking gives me the heebie jeebies for real. She is definitely planning some awful shit for Rue and I just pray poor Rue can get away from her or find some way to pay her back for the drugs in a way that doesn't involve her being trafficked. Either way, I just know we're going to see more of her.

5. Fezco has a limit and we saw it reached. He has put up with so much shit from Rue. He understands how addicts behave. He knows their desperation and that he can't take anything they say seriously. He knows because he's grown up with them because of who his grandmother is. But when you fuck with his grandma...all bets are off. Rue just learned this and I doubt she'll be able to make her way back into Fez's good graces after that.

6. Jules did the right thing. Let me tell you as the person who has had to make the decision to tell her parents about what her brothers were doing in the basement. As the person who has found unused needles in the laundry room because they fell out of pockets. The person who has found vials of white rocks behind the toilet...it's fucking hard to come forward. It's hard to be the snitch. It's hard to face your addicted love ones after you rat them out. It's hard to face their ire and their ridicule and their screaming after you "betray" them.

Jules was right to go to an adult about Rue's drug use. Because Rue was about to kill herself. Her mom or her sister or Jules would have been the one to find her and feel absolutely horrible about themselves if Jules didn't say anything, because all three of them would have dwelled on the fact that they could have done something to save them.

Because of who my brothers are, I know too many who have died of overdoses in my life. I know how that can fuck somebody up, especially somebody who KNEW what they were doing and could have done something to stop what they were doing but didn't.

People coming at Jules and calling her a snitch can fuck right off because, yeah, she's a snitch, but she's trying desperately to save the life of somebody she loves. Flushing the drugs was a bad way of doing it, for sure, but her intentions are good. I wish I had been as brave as Jules when I was 17.

[pabst-belikov]

So, Jules and Cassie. I wanna focus on them because I identify with both :v

But, I wanted to say that maybe euphoria would be better if endend in just one season with more episodes. Season 1, perfect, coherent storylines, complete storylines, good dialogs. Season:two.

I'm kidding, I liked some things from second season. The colors, the way that they look different, in the first season, all the glitter, all the neon, decorotion and songs, all the aesthetic look more childishly. The second, I liked so, sooo much moooore.

But, the fucking >character development and dialogue<, TF WAS THAT???¿???

I thing the worst line that I heard from this second season was from Cassie, Sidney Sweeney deserve a fucking emy, because somehow she save this just because of her acting. The line is when she's in Nate's house, saying "you are toxic, you and maddy aren't made for each other" like, why? Just don't even fit yk, idk sounds weird and not real in the show universe. We had Fez background, we had lexi background, good, the most complete storyline is obviously from Rue.

Oh now she's sober... She almost was trafficated and no one's ever talk about that again. Leslie take the pills and floish them in the toilet. No one's brings that up again.

If i belived that this tv show have villains, the only two fucking people who act like true villains are Nate and Cal.

But, SOMEHOW, some of you guys just decide that Cassie and Jules are the worst people, who did the worst things. Jules it's not responsible for rue addiction, Cassie find a way to deal with her daddy issues, not a good way, but she found it.

Ok, so let's make everyone a villain:

Maddy didn't care about her friends too much. She is lil a bitch, lil bit selfish and stuff, she do it probably to fell in control about her life and keep with confidence strong. But one time, Kat do the same with her, she's a cunt.

Kat was not empowered, she sexualized herself to fell in control and feel aprovation. The first chance that she had when Etham, who was not her boyfriend yet, talk, JUST TALK with another girl, she decide fuck some guy and treat him like shit.

Elliot, I don't know HOW someone like this fucking guy. Manipulative, he's not bad as nate, but, manipulative in the same way. Just say something to rue or jules for his own benefit.

Lexi, the play was revenge. Pure, revenge. The only people who scape in her play was rue.

People just forget fast. Jules special episode is just soooo good. Her mom is an addict, who sent her to a mental hospital being a little kid for being trans. Her only one good and healthy and beautiful relationship is with her dad. She love rue "jules is selfish and cheat on her". Selfish like ALL THE OTHER CHARACTERS. I still don't know if I can consider if she cheat on rue, because they never said the relationship wasn't open.

Cassie, she did an abortion with what, 16? 17yo? Just her alcoholic (and iconic) mom, and her sister who she don't have the best relationship. She want love someone and be loved back. She was so desperate for that, that she think was an a good option fuck Nate... NATE. The same nate that abused her best friend. Cassie don't love nate. She just desperate for some comfort place.

And I don't need to say nothing about the brutal nudity right?

[ssweeneys]

How do you think Cassie and Nate's dynamic shifted since season one? Cause I went back and rewatched yesterday and like he was so mean to her talking about her and showing her nudes, pretty sure he had them saved on his phone. Very odd. Almost like he was a little obsessed with her. I know season two said he met Maddy first but I think Rue's narration can be a bit skewed sometimes. Idk to me it just seems like he's speaking out of a place of rejection like maybe he tried to get with her and she was like nope. I don't think Nate was ever her type to begin with.

Putting under the cut simply because this got so fucking long lol and I don’t wanna clog up someone’s dashboard with my thoughts being all over the place. 

I wanna start off by saying, I agree that Rue's narration of things is a bit skewed. She's definitely not the most reliable or reputable source for information given that she's an addict (1) and her mental health is not at it's greatest.

I, personally always thought Nate had a thing for Cassie. In the Pilot when he brings up the sextapes to McKay he says that it doesn't matter if he likes her or not because it's irrelevant when McKay calls him out for digging her and then goes on to label her a whore. His attraction to Maddy was, he was led to believe she was a virgin and therefore she was untouched whereas with Cassie because of the emotional abuse and pressure from guys previously, he knew she wasn't. Nate's a very possessive human being. His way of gaining control in an uncontrolled environment is through ownership. It's why he treats women like their property, particularly how he did with Maddy throughout s1 and we get a small glimpse of in s2 when Nate is hounding McKay for info about his interaction with Cassie. Speaking to my boyfriend irl (from a real guy's perspective and he has a tumblr here so he may chime into this but...) some guys, like Nate, seek out those details when they're possessive types because it's a way for them to process it. Nate constantly belittling Cassie in s1 and making fun of McKay's interest in her does somewhat stem from a jealous place. He wanted to get into McKay's head about her and numerous times he succeeded in order to push the two of them away. Same with them at the gas station when he's asking Cassie so many questions and he sort of got into her head too. He's jealous, plain and simple. Cassie symbolizes a life Nate wishes he had, a love that's nontoxic and straight forward and structured. With Maddy it's the complete opposite.

Quote directly from Jacob Elordi about Cassie and Nate:

Sydney's perspective on Cassie's attraction to Nate too:

Keep in mind that everything we've seen thus far is a collection of flashbacks, memories, thoughts and real events. For the sake of storytelling, more elements come to light as necessary. So we really only get snippets of how these relationships started and there could be more to it that we don't know or will be revealed later on. Like with Nate meeting Maddy his sophomore year first before Cassie. For all we know, as Sydney suggests they could've had a flirtationship. There's obviously a familiarity there and these characters know each other. Like you said too, at one point he could've made a move on her and she rejected him.

More on the control thing from Jacob:

“I think he has an issue with control and losing one person would mean losing control of them,” Elordi said. “But I think there’s a much more sensitive side to it as well in that… I don’t know if you’ve ever been in love, but I think that state, you store it in your bones somewhere. I don’t think you ever really let go of that love for somebody.”

“I know as a teenager it’s incredibly hard to let something go. And [Maddy has] also known him through all of his bullshit,” Elordi said. “So I think he’s genuinely torn between loving two people. Which is the kinder way to put it.”

Jacob also says at the end of ep 2 in his interview that Cassie is helping develop Nate's character in a way where it does reveal his softer side. Their scene at the construction site just goes to show there's something about her he can't walk away from. Cassie is definitely more supportive and emotional and could bring out better qualities to Nate. Looking back on s1 there's a lot of hints towards Nassie. The pilot with him having her nudes saved, the carnival where he's questioning her relationship with McKay and Cal points and kinda goes hey, get you a girl like her. Cassie finding out she's pregnant and McKay brushing it off and basically guilt tripping her into getting rid of it. She says to him she didn't want to have a baby but she just wanted to dream about it for a moment. Cut to s2 where second ep, Nate is having dreams of what a life with Cassie could be and look like and how much happier he'd be if he had someone like her. They're very much on the same wavelength, I think and aside from Jacob and Sydney's chemistry, I do think it's fascinating to watch.

People are going to hate it and hate them for it. I get it. But, I do think it's necessary and it will be a learning curve either way. Plus, it offers both characters a lot of character development. How else will they grow if they don't make mistakes? I trust Euphoria. I may not always agree with everyone's actions but I love this show. I love the characters, every one of them and it resonates with me so deeply.

Also, I can be a little bias probably lol just because I've loved the idea of Nate and Cassie since s1. I've crackshipped them, rewrote them in AUs and shipped their faces so... that's just me. I'm not saying I condone what they do, how they do it, etc. It's entertaining and interesting to watch.