#there are so many things i find compelling about sophie devereaux #but one of the most interesting things about her is that she’s a grifter #but she’s not a taker #nothing she does is one-sided #she teaches and she learns #she shares and she listens #she consumes art and she creates it #and she grifts the same way #sophie values physical treasure so much #but despite her insistence on stealing jewels and paintings and artifacts #she /does/ see the value in intangible things like experiences #when she steals treasure she doesn’t do it without reciprocation #she leaves something of herself behind #leaves something to her marks #a memory a story a discovery a feeling #she robs them sure but she gives them something too #sophie believes that every grift is an exchange and we never see her treat it as anything but #she pours her full energy into every con #she puts in the time and effort to understand her marks #crafts a persona /for them/ #and she becomes that person she pretends to be over and over and over again #every bit of a grift is real to her in some way #because that’s just who she is #sophie connects and understands and /empathizes/ so naturally with everyone #even people that disgust her #that brownyn’s complete lack of care is such a shock to sophie #who can’t even begin to imagine a grift that doesn’t involve connection #a grift that isn’t real #that isn’t romantic #that isn’t an exchange #and she’s not only shocked here #she’s offended #because she sees the parallels to her own history #knows to an outsider (or semi-outsider in harry’s case) that there /are/ similarities #that other people can’t see the way she feels about her grifts #that most people hear grifter and think taker #that they look at sophie and see her as bronwyn #greedy and callous and artless #opportunistic in every worst meaning of the word #and i think that realization pushes bronwyn just that much deeper beneath her skin