alittleleverage

[alittleleverage]

hardison is such a homemaker... always getting them fully furnished new bases, always getting them ID's and plane tickets. is it any wonder that parker is so attracted to someone who always makes others just that bit more comfortable, who cares so obviously, who will make you a home that you can go to and leave from unconditionally, even if you never had a home like that before.

[alittleleverage]

leverage season 2

[alittleleverage]

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.

[alittleleverage]

i guess while we're hardisonposting i think both hardison and parker have strong desires to belong, but with parker it's like "i have to NOT do the things that are going to make people reject me" while with hardison it's more like, "i have to DO things in order for people to embrace me." and i think that's where a lot of hardison's self-doubt comes from, which is that if he fucks up a job it means that he let people down; and i think it's why when he feels uncertain about what he's being asked to do, he'll be the first one to express how he's not qualified (trying to pre-empt ideas that this is in his wheelhouse, that this is reflective of what he can bring to the team). i think it's also why he complains about the stuff he DOES do for the team, as a reminder (to others and himself) that he is, frequently, useful, and i think he frames it as a complaint precisely because it removes the other person's obligations to try and reassure him and it can be played off as a joke. which is also my favorite part of his relationship with eliot, where he plays up a jokingly antagonistic relationship between them because that's the circumstances under which eliot can express/experience affection. because sometimes being annoying on purpose is a love language

[alittleleverage]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, as a fandom we don’t do enough with the fact that Hardison is canonically the forger and he made Old Nate. Like he is skilled. And I feel we can make cute OT3 fics with that.

Like Hardison needing to make a fake in a genre, not a specific painting and having Eliot and/or Parker pose for him.

Or make it sexy (semi-failed) where he’s like “pose naked for me” and his partners are like “sure weirdo (affectionate)” and he thinks it’s going to be sexy, but live nude drawing isn’t really sexy, but it can be very intimate, so it’s still nice and he gets emotional about how much they trust him and how they can be vulnerable with him.

Or Eliot has banned screens and Hardison is pouting about it, but then he finds a notepad, so he settles in on the couch and observes Eliot and Parker being domestic and starts sketching them. (Maybe Eliot later finds the drawing and gets emotional about it, because this is how Hardison sees him, not a murdering monster, but this soft, happy cook).

Or he makes a little drawing of Parker and gives it to her, because he’s sappy. And he doesn’t expect anything of it, because Parker is more of the money as a gift kind of person, but then they need emergency cash, so he goes into one of her safes and it’s in there on pillow in a nice frame surrounded by diamonds, because that little drawing he made her is as precious to her, like im crying that is so soft.

Anyways, Hardison is the forger! The possibilities are endless!!!

[alittleleverage]

thinking about how nate proposes to sophie using a fake name that they both know is fake because it's at that point that the name doesn't matter! deep in my heart sophie's real name is a macguffin that represents some ever-elusive "pure" sense of self that doesn't exist, and nate's quest for it mirrors sophie's existential crisis -- both of them think that they can find a "real" version of her underneath all the aliases, but it's not something that's out there, hidden and waiting to be found as much as it's just.... her. and when both of them accept that there's nothing more than just Her, that's when the name stops mattering! nate doesn't know her real name and never will because he doesn't need to! what always gets me about the nate x sophie relationship is that they're both so different and such imperfect people, but they ultimately accept and love that about each other (when he proposes, nate makes a little joke about stealing her an anniversary ring!). and i think knowing sophie's real name is about this promise of perfect union, of perfectly knowing another person, of knowing yourself in a way that's impossible. but their relationship is perfect BECAUSE it's imperfect, and when nate proposes with a fake name it's about loving the imperfect person behind all the different personas. he loves her whether or not he's calling her by her "real" name, whether or not there's some more "real" person to discover behind her many aliases, and in turn sophie learns to be loved by a name that's not her "real" one because she can trust that the person saying it still loves and accepts her as she is!!

[alittleleverage]

tara cole my beloved

[alittleleverage]

that's what i THOUGHT you'd say you troubled ex-catholic father figure with control issues

#fjfjdhfhj ops tags are great #-> #he's like if a god complex fucked a martyr complex and then died in front of their child outside the opera

[alittleleverage]

My heart goes out to the guys on the Palmerston Beavers and Oregon Otters who suddenly lost their favorite teammate when Roy Chappell/Jacques Labert was unexpectedly transferred to another team

[alittleleverage]

Leverage 3x8 - "The Boost Job"

#her FACE on thats how i know 😭

[alittleleverage]

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE

#he wanted her to stroke his ego sooooo bad. they love lying to each other its so healthy & normal they prommy

[alittleleverage]

inexplicably one of my favorite dynamics in the show. normal people conversations

#funniest fucking nate eliot convo. youve known each other for like 4 years now you Know each other's weaknesses. #& you know he knows yours!!! & yet ! #something ab trusting eachother so so so much except for when you dont #also fun if its a bit between them but it doesnt Feel like theyre doing a bit

[alittleleverage]

i've been watching. leverage.

#pfttt

[alittleleverage]

So guess who just started watching Leverage.

[alittleleverage]

I love The Bank Shot Job because you've got this big bad boss that nobody can stand up to until a group of thieves get caught in the middle of a bank robbery (that they had nothing to do with for once). Then, all they had to do was say a few choice phrases in front of the witnesses and suddenly ALL the witnesses are saying the big bad boss was responsible for the robbery, and that takes care of that.

It's always nice to see the little people finally stand up for themselves to get rid of their corrupt leaders.

[alittleleverage]

thinking about how parker is so hard-wired to run away, but she keeps coming back to the team every time.

when she stabs that guy with a fork and goes radio silent for a bit, and hardison thinks she might never come back because even though he has so much faith in her, he’s already scared to lose her. but she comes back. she says "what?" like her return was obvious, and she doesn’t talk about what happened. when they split up after the second david job, and she stays so out of sight for 6 months that even hardison can’t find any trace of her, but she still comes back to watch sophie’s terrible acting just because she was invited.

like. this is a person whose childhood was a series of temporary houses and temporary, untrustworthy "families". whose adulthood has been a series of travelling, stealing, running - wash, rinse, repeat. she doesn’t maintain a presence in any one location because that would get her caught and imprisoned. consistency is against everything she’s ever learnt (had to learn, for her safety). but she keeps returning to the team. even when she messes up, even when she shows vulnerability, even when the others upset her or make her mad, even when they’ve had to be apart for a while. she keeps coming back.

something in her always tells her to go back, overpowering all the traumatic lessons she’s learnt and all the anxieties about how she’s too broken to have a family. i wonder what that’s like for her.

[alittleleverage]

Tips for writing those gala scenes, from someone who goes to them occasionally:

Generally you unbutton and re-button a suit coat when you sit down and stand up.

You’re supposed to hold wine or champagne glasses by the stem to avoid warming up the liquid inside. A character out of their depth might hold the glass around the sides instead.

When rich/important people forget your name and they’re drunk, they usually just tell you that they don’t remember or completely skip over any opportunity to use your name so they don’t look silly.

A good way to indicate you don’t want to shake someone’s hand at an event is to hold a drink in your right hand (and if you’re a woman, a purse in the other so you definitely can’t shift the glass to another hand and then shake)

Americans who still kiss cheeks as a welcome generally don’t press lips to cheeks, it’s more of a touch of cheek to cheek or even a hover (these days, mostly to avoid smudging a woman’s makeup)

The distinctions between dress codes (black tie, cocktail, etc) are very intricate but obvious to those who know how to look. If you wear a short skirt to a black tie event for example, people would clock that instantly even if the dress itself was very formal. Same thing goes for certain articles of men’s clothing.

Open bars / cash bars at events usually carry limited options. They’re meant to serve lots of people very quickly, so nobody is getting a cosmo or a Manhattan etc.

Members of the press generally aren’t allowed to freely circulate at nicer galas/events without a very good reason. When they do, they need to identify themselves before talking with someone.

#the last bullet point... iconic