yeahabsolutelynot

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some people are afraid to be cheesy. I live my whole life on the charcuterie board

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i don’t know who anyone else would be but i do know that if leverage was performed by the muppets instead of human actors miss piggy would be sophie

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I still think the most devastating enshittification I've ever seen has been picrew. One of the few dress-up game websites left that's not flash-based and it's become DRENCHED in ads. You can't open the home screen without being blasted by at least three or four ads. You can't open two picrews in a row without watching a video ad first. When you have a picrew open the ads cover up the different options and sometimes even stack on each other so you have to hit like 2 or 3 different x buttons to get it to go away, only for more to appear seconds later. Evil world

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Okay, you know what? After reading this post, I jokingly said we should all just make a pact to reblog it five times a day forever. So I'm gonna do this louder for the people in the back:

AO3 WAS CREATED BY FANS, FOR FANS

AO3 IS RUN BY FANS (VOLUNTEERS, NO LESS)

AO3 IS PART OF THE NON-PROFIT, ORGANIZATION FOR TRANSFORMATIVE WORKS

AO3 IS NOT OWNED BY ANY COMPANIES AND DOES NOT EARN REVENUE

AO3 OPERATES ON DONATIONS FROM FANS

again:

AO3 WAS CREATED BY FANS, FOR FANS

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S2 Ep. 7 "The Two Live Crew Job" best episode of Leverage there is. Parker and the other burgular being autistic about pickpocketing, picking locks and releasing birds to disable security systems. Elliot and the other hitter beating each other up sexily and after like 3 mins of that deciding to fuck about it. With handcuffs. And the fact that she shot him in 2003 in Myanmar does not deter them. Nate and the other mastermind stalking around each other like disgruntled tomcats. Sophie being mad that barely anyone showed up to the funeral for one of her personas. Chaos, absolute bastard man that he is. Hardison being perfect as always.

1000/10 episode no notes.

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*cracks knuckles* Okay who's ready for another sad headcanon/observation/commentary?

The client in the "The Future Job" is a man who wants the team to help his sister, whose been conned into spending thousands of dollars on a psychic who claims to be able to contact her recently deceased husband.

The psychic becomes the Leverage team's mark, and during their initial recon, it's revealed that Parker had a younger brother, who died at a very young age and Parker feels guilty about his death.

At the end of the episode, Parker approaches the client and hands him an envelope full of cash - all of the money that the psychic took from the client's sister.

Overcome with gratitude, the man hugs Parker. Now at this point in the series, Parker still isn't comfortable with physical contact, especially with a relative stranger, like the client.

But after a moment, Parker's discomfort fades and the expression on her face becomes one of sadness.

Here is where my headcanon comes into play: Parker is remembering her brother, who if he had lived, would be about the same age as this man, and if my observations about the child in "The Two-Horse Job" are correct, would look strikingly similar to this man.

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i hate it when people ask me to "explain my thought process" like hell if i know

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Leverage textposts part 25/?

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y'know, thinking about the picture I sketched of eliot's moral injury and shame and coping by not feeling, I'm struck once again by how solid he is when we see him. he's very immediately someone who's healed enough to see a scared kid, and care, and go out of his way to help. after four years or thereabouts, he's honest enough with himself - able to face his shame, the wrongs he's done, to hold it and not flinch from it - that he can tell nate frankly what that does to a person, why he doesn't think nate wants to do that too.

and he left moreau. before the team, before the work that let him help people, before he loved and was loved by his new family, he woke up enough to leave behind the worst thing of his life and do something a little less mucky.

maybe it was the worst thing. maybe that's what jolted him awake, what cut through the self-protective fog of Not Caring and let him feel shame and remember that the shame was right. maybe it was something kinder - toby's influence, just taking some time to kick in. love and acceptance he didn't think he deserved at the time; didn't think he deserved enough to go back to post-moreau.

but he left moreau, before the team and the work and the love, and as much as he - like parker - wanted to flee their fledgling team when it seemed doomed at first to shatter on impact, he went back. none of them needed much persuading.

I'm just glad, I guess, that he woke up and started to grapple with all this before we even saw him. the team was formative, and he may well see them as the turning point, but he took his first steps before meeting them, even if he didn't know which way he was going. even if he didn't see a way forward. and I'm just really glad he did.

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With Leverage...

Y’know one of the first things that caught my attention was how much psychology and body language they have in the show? And not just psychology and body language—but ACCURATE psychology and body language???

I did my thesis on the BAU and how they establish baseline behavior to be able to profile an suspect. And the amount of accurate phraseology that is in Leverage was mindblowing to me, cause fiction usually jacks that stuff to all heck. They talk about micro-expressions as not being able to be faked—but fabricated—and they talk about differentiating from a person’s baseline, and not the bullcrap about ‘oh they looked to the right so they’re accessing their imagination.’ And they’re so good about having the characters cover for their involuntary reactions through explanation and deception instead of pretending that they don’t exist. AND THEY HAVE EVEN SOPHIE MISREAD PEOPLE.

I love the cold-reading in the show. It’s awesome. And they don’t put so much focus on it that you feel like they’re stretching it, which was such a good call too.

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Nate’s struggle to be sensitive after the loss of his family yet always somehow being able to show the team that he cares about them in the most abstract ways. Abstract ways that they understand. And all the little ways they accept him while also pushing him to be better, to not drown in his grief because they need him. And he needs to be needed.

Sophie’s struggle to know who she is past all of her cons and fake identities and finally coming to the conclusion that she is who she is, with her family, and that’s enough. And it doesn’t matter what name they call her as long as they call her.

Parker’s struggle with wanting a family, yet always being pushed away or hurt with so much loss, and firmly believing she turned out messed up, until she found people that love all her quirks, that like the way she turned out and wouldn’t have her any other way.

Eliot’s struggle with his morality, believing he’ll never be redeemed, finding a family that accepts him for who he is despite what he’s done, people he has the honor of protecting every day, people who’s trust he would never take for granted.

Hardison’s struggle for a place to belong, bouncing around from place to place and job to job and getting into deep trouble just because he was bored, finally coming to have people that ground him, keep him focused, give him a purpose.

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I’m not sure if this is a Nate Thing or just a 2008 Thing, but it’s so funny how bothered he is that Maggie’s in therapy. Like, you both suffered a traumatic event. One of you is doing therapy about it, and the other is doing a crime spree about it. Maybe you shouldn't be the one judging here.

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You know Sophie was doomed from the start cause she was into him even when he had That Hair

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I love when the leverage team gets real fucked up with their cons! Just watched the first contact job, making the man think he was talking to aliens was already a wild choice but halfway through they just pivoted to driving him insane. Had him fully believing ET killed two people right in front of him and was gunning for him next. Screaming "I saw you die! You said they probed you!" in the middle of his press conference. This is the best show ever made!

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every so often you’ll watch an episode of Leverage where the Worlds Most Fucked Up Thing Ever happens, and you’ll be like "surely this is just a hypothetical, surely it’s hyperbole" and then you’ll look it up and it’s not only happened, possibly multiple times, but the situation was somehow even worse in real life.

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I like how leverage has a genius character and an autistic character but the autistic character isn't the genius character. the genius is a 22 year old black man with adhd who becomes an expert in anything you give him within 24 hours and the autistic character is a white woman who jumps off buildings for fun and once stabbed a man with a fork because he encroached on her personal space and sense of moral conduct

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its late but i just wanna ramble about how appreciative i forever will be for leverage and how they handled Parker as a character

she could’ve so easily been the same sexy cat burglar trope, there to look attractive for the Male Gaze. but instead they establish that she is Weird and Different but for not a second do you doubt she is Skilled and Intelligent. she is not good with emotions but she tries and she learns and really grows in such a genuine and soft way. but they never take away her uniqueness and Weirdness, letting her use her strange way of viewing the world to her advantage.

i also believe they probably didn’t go into creating her character realizing that so many of her traits read as autistic but they only lean into it more (especially in leverage redemption), showing how she never “becomes normal” and suddenly understands people perfectly. but instead creates flashcards to help her through social interactions even after years of grifting/interacting with people in general. and she has so many people who love her for her and never try to change the core of who she is or change what she herself doesn’t want to change/learn

i just think of the scene in og leverage where parker is distressed about liking food and asking eliot for help. and he so gently and calming explains things to her. the writing/characters never chastise her for not understanding emotions and instead reach her level to help her learn. they walk the line of having her be naive but never infantilizing her so well. she wants to learn about what she doesnt know but the whole series you know she is always perfectly able to take care of herself (and will stab/tase if needed)

idk im just very emotional over just the beautiful handling of parker’s character by the creators, the writers, and the actress herself. we always need more Weird Girls characters who are treated like real human people