#and hardison is still hacking history people! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

youareshauni · 3 years

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Silly BNHA x Danny Phantom crossover with little to no angst, the main four teenagers causing chaos in BNHA, confusing heroes, villains, and the government alike, and my own ideas + interpretations.

- Valerie, Tucker, Sam, and Danny all agreed to act as vigilantes together, but only if they come across crime. They don’t seek trouble out. - How much that works is left up to your imagination. - Valerie has been in the know for months now and they’ve worked things mostly out between each other.

- They’ve got some friendly ghosts with them, like Dora, which makes their temporary stay in this universe much easier.

- As in, they’ve created a home in a stable pocket dimension no outsiders can get in. Also, language translation.

- The adult-ish ghosts get identities and fake histories and documents - courtesy of Tucker and Technus - to be able to work, because they want something to do.

- Also, with the friendly ghosts’ help shadow-working with them, all of the teens appear to wield multiple quirks. Sam manipulates plants and shadows, Tucker controls light and software, and Valerie controls hardware and flies / hovers. They all have invisibility and intangibility.

- Valerie does the air equivalent of wheelies and the likes on her board in the sky to draw attention to specific places, like when a fire is burning in a building. She also smashes her board against villains’ faces, who can take it, when they’re attacking kids. She likes to take kids on rides when they want and uses it to save people. The board is the envy of every tech company and tech expert, but even if somebody should be able to catch it, it’d just ghostly teleport into safety.

- Sam does some intense urban gardening in the bleaker city parts, creating entire parks with plants that can’t be destroyed (All Might tried) or poisoned. These include those with edible fruit and vegetables. (Thankfully no ectoplasma taint.) Any attempty to wall the plants in leads to broken walls. Villains mugging innocent people get wrapped up in vines and / or shadows.

- Tucker hacks the government for fun and out of boredom, since the emergence of quirks led to technology stalling. So the kids discover early the government and Hero Commission’s corruption. He learns how to discreetly send money to people in need or get them important documents, like Hardison in Leverage. Tucker’s light powers help Sam’s plants grow and they also heal. When using his light, he gets a halo. Many come to think he’s a guarding angel.

- All Might is panicking because they are displaying ‘multiple quirks’. AfO wants their ‘quirks’. The Hero Commission wants to control them or get rid of them. The news: Ghost powers and quirks are unrelated. This universe also doesn’t have the tech to deal with ghosts.

- Danny has fun with this after several weeks of cat-and-mouse when a hero manages to slap quirk-inhibitors onto his wrist. He just grins smugly while he sinks into the floor, stealing the inhibitors.

- Valerie says, “Is this supposed to do something?” with her own new ‘accessories’ on her wrist, still controlling her board. She continues to show up the heroes while rescuing kids, all who adore her.

- Since superpowers are normal in this universe, Danny gets more comfortable with being spooky.

- Should the LoV try to recruit / catch them, they will get pranked to hell and back. Also haunted. The group stops all silliness once they learn just what AfO intends with the LoV and the Nomu.

- Overhaul, though. Overhaul instantly gets to see the worst of Danny’s horror after the others have saved Eri. They destroy every formula, all data, almost each sample of the quirk-destroying drugs except for the very few they take. *glares at AfO*

- Several important and secret documents from the Hero Commission get leaked. Documents that paint them in a horrible light. Whoops!

#danny phantom #boku no hero academia #bnha #crossover #long post

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onyxbird · 2 years

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Okay, but what about a "We never had a hacker who wasn't Moreau's" hell AU? Elliot left Moreau as per canon, but Hardison has been working for the man off and on this whole time. WHO WOULD BE ABLE TO DISCOVER HARDISON'S HIDDEN TRACKS?? Even Elliot, who knows how Moreau works... is gonna find something that Hardison hid? And Hardison's anger/heartbreak in the Scheherazade Job. Because he trusted... he finally trusted these people and Nate turns around and does THAT???

O.o Well, my first impression is that you are plumbing new depths of Hell AU and have reached circles too awful to contemplate…

My second impression is that I'm not sure it would be compatible with Hardison's character in the way it is for Eliot (who canonically did work for Moreau) or Parker, who has a darker history than Hardison and started the series with a decidedly more tenuous moral code. Could a Hardison who worked for Moreau even resemble the canonical Hardison who has always been at the heart of what holds the team together? If he didn't, would the team ever form?

But OK, let's consider this horribleness in more detail:

Hardison is canonically 24 years old at the end of season 3 ("The San Lorenzo Job"), which implies he's 20-21 in "The Nigerian Job." If he's undercover for Moreau, then he's worked for Moreau long enough that he's trusted to 1) be turned loose on a job with minimal supervision and 2) grift two other thieves and Nate Ford (not one of Hardison's strong suits in canon, especially early on). Moreau having him continue to work with the team would mean he's trusted to keep that up on a very long con in close proximity to one of the best grifters in the business.

I don't think it's stated whether Dubenich told Parker, Hardison, and Eliot who else he'd hired, but Nate's discussion with him implies they'd probably be picky about who they worked with even for high pay. In that case, Moreau would know Eliot was part of the job (could be part of why he sent Hardison, which is an extra layer of yikes). That would further up the stakes on Hardison's grifting—Eliot's sharp, and he hates people conning their own teams, so any reason to suspect Hardison worked for Moreau would blow things up fast. (If Moreau didn't know about Eliot pre-Nigerian Job, he would by the time the team decided to continue working together.)

To have already built that kind of trust with Moreau, I think he'd have to have been working for him for more than a couple of years, so we're talking about him getting pulled in while still a kid (probably not as young as Parker got her start, but mid-teens?).

Pre-series canon Hardison seems to have been largely focused on providing for Nana (and probably foster siblings), building his reputation with challenging jobs, and funding luxury/fun for himself. Moreau could probably offer something for all three of those—promise that his family would be provided for as long as he worked for Moreau, provide challenging jobs (mixed with more mundane hacking work), and indulging Hardison's desire for luxury. IMO, Nana's medical bills or similar family crisis (possibly manufactured or exacerbated by Moreau) would be the most obvious way to pull him in.

Where things break down for me is how Moreau would keep Alec Hardison apparently loyal to him without fundamentally shattering/changing the Hardison we know. My inclination is to say that Moreau could string Hardison along for a while without him realizing what he'd gotten into, distracting him with charm and luxury and dangling fun challenges in front of him without telling him about the bloodier sides of the business. But Hardison in canon is insatiably curious. How long would it be before he started digging and realized what kind of business he's in? Or before the warnings/reprimands/threats required to keep him from digging clued him in?

Then what? It's Moreau, so he definitely would be willing to threaten Hardison's family to keep him in line, but how much can you really afford to use a genius hacker who is only working for you out of fear for his family without worrying about subtle sabotage? It doesn't seem like a situation where Moreau would send him to work unsupervised with an unknown team (especially not a team containing one of Moreau's former favorites who got away).

...Of course, there might also be a logical resolution for this that my brain is simply refusing to see due to the aforementioned "too awful to contemplate" assessment of this AU. 😉

(☠️☠️☠️ OK, it pains me to even say this, and anyone already traumatized this AU concept should leave before it gets worse, but...I think a more plausible version of this AU would be for both Eliot and Hardison to be undercover for Moreau, although I'm not sure why Moreau would be invested enough to devote two of his people full-time to this project. I could see Eliot feeling sorry for this poor trapped kid, Hardison latching onto Eliot due to him being nicer than the rest of Moreau's operation, and Moreau shamelessly using this to manipulate both of them--if Eliot wants to protect the "innocent" little hacker, he'd better make sure to keep him in line, while Hardison knows that if Moreau sends Eliot after Nana as a punishment for betrayal, Eliot's "niceness" is only going to extend as far making the execution quick.)

#alec hardison #damien moreau #worse than worst aus #undercover hardison au #undercover eliot au #leverage aus

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aethersea · 3 years

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May I request 41 - First Kiss and 94 - Hair Brushing/Braiding for the Leverage OT3, please? (Also extra bonus points if you give Eliot beads in his hair like in The Ice Man Job, because we didn't get NEARLY enough of that in the show) Thank you!

I cannot believe I wrote this whole thing out and then never published it. I’m so sorry, it’s been at least twenty-four years since you sent in this ask, please accept my humble apologies and also this ficlet.

However, this prompt is just pure fluff, and I hate to tell you this but I am not a fluff writer. I just can’t pull off that unadulterated sweetness. I am in this fandom for the shenanigans, first, last and foremost! So this fic is now a 5+1 of Eliot and Parker trying to seduce Hardison.

1. Parker thinks they need to give him gifts, so she goes through her stash and picks out the largest, fanciest jewel she’s ever stolen. Then she realizes: Hardison likes stories. He spends hours giving their aliases histories and pets and allergies and favorite foods, he can get a whole sordid history of jealousy and betrayal from a single corporate email chain, and Parker knows for a cold fact that he writes little stories with his online friends about being wizards together.

She goes through her stash again and picks out the most cursed thing she’s ever stolen.

It’s a jeweled statuette, almost as tall as her forearm, made of gold and studded with precious and semi-precious stones. Mysterious deaths have befallen five separate owners of this thing. Its base is dented from the time it was used to bludgeon Owner Number Three to death. The tiny rubies it has for eyes follow you across the room.

Parker puts a bow on it and leaves it in Hardison’s room while he’s sleeping. He wakes up to this horrible little statue watching him from his bedside table.

He texts the group chat, Hey did anyone put an evil little gold guy in my bedroom last night? But Parker chickens out and says nothing (drunkenly betting Eliot that she can seduce Hardison is one thing, but admitting that she likes him is something else altogether). Everyone else texts back variations on “nope.” (Except Sophie, who just sends back a string of heart eyes emojis and a wikipedia link. She loves cursed artifacts.) So Hardison puts the statue away in a closet somewhere and figures he’ll deal with it later.

Parker is mildly offended that he put her gift in a closet. She goes into his room the next night and puts it back on the bedside table, where it clearly belongs.

This goes on for a week. Hardison puts the statue in a desk drawer, then in one of the cabinets in the office downstairs, then in the dumpster down the street. Every day he wakes up to those glittering red eyes watching him sleep. He’s asked his internet buddies if anyone knows a good exorcist. Hardison doesn’t really believe in curses, but also? What the fuck. What the fuck.

2. Eliot assumes the drunken bet will be forgotten by morning. What kind of world would it be if people always followed through on promises they made while they could barely stay vertical? So he spends the morning nursing his hangover and cleaning his knives. Cleaning guns is no good while hungover—all the snaps and clicks of popping things in and out of place sound like actual gunfire when you’re hungover, it’s a nightmare—but knives are quiet and have no moving parts. Buffing and polishing them is soothingly repetitive work, and every once in a while he can throw one at one of the dartboards on the walls and reassure himself that his reflexes are still sound even after that much tequila.

It’s only when he gets Hardison’s text about the golden statuette that magically appeared in his room overnight that Eliot realizes Parker’s actually going for it. After some internal debate about whether he’s going to stoop to this or not, Eliot decides what the hell and starts making plans.

Eliot agrees that gifts are the way to go, but not stolen gifts. Not things. Anyone can give a thing. Proper wooing is about giving experiences.

Eliot plans for three days. On the fourth day, he and Hardison have their irregularly scheduled monthly coffee date, and Eliot texts him beforehand to say he wants to do it at the brewpub this time. Hardison arrives to find a deceptively simple meal: basic country fare perfected through years of experimentation, made with the best ingredients Eliot can get his hands on. And Eliot, after all, is still a retrieval specialist. There’s very little in the world he can’t get his hands on.

And yet the night ends and somehow he has not gotten his hands on Hardison.

This is just not right. Eliot knows how to deploy a smolder, okay, Tangled reference aside he is damn good at flirting and he knows the looks he’s giving Hardison are clear as day. It’d be one thing if Hardison had turned him down, or if he’d been uneasily unwilling, or even if his eyes had widened slightly in suppressed panic and he’d abruptly found a reason to leave. Eliot can take rejection, bet or no, and he’d have bowed out graciously without a fuss. But this was much, much worse.

Hardison didn’t even notice he was flirting.

He’s going to have to up his game.

3. “How do you seduce people?” Parker asks bluntly, turning up at Sophie’s door just past midnight.

Sophie, despite the hour, is utterly delighted by the question.

This goes as well as you would expect.

4. Eliot’s taken a lot of dates to sports games. Hardison may prefer sparkly elves with purple lightning magic to a decent MMA fight, but baseball is the American pastime. Eliot gets them perfect seats, hot dogs from the best vendor in the stadium, even chilled beer that he smuggles in without letting it get warm. It’s going to be a perfect game.

And it is. At first. Hardison, it turns out, has a lot of opinions about baseball. What he does not have is an understanding of the rules. They’re not even into the second inning by the time Eliot finally snaps and starts arguing with him about it.

They make it all the way to the fifth inning before Eliot realizes that Hardison’s basing his complaints off the rules of a game from a Star Wars novel.

They’re at the bottom of the eighth before Eliot will speak to him again.

5. Eliot and Parker are drunk again. This is not intentional. They didn’t even mean to come to this bar, but the smoothie place with the fried oreos that Eliot had brought Parker here to try was playing such incredibly bad music that they’d ordered the oreos to go and fled. The bar was just the coziest looking place on the block, and of course they’d ordered drinks to avoid being rude––Eliot had entertained himself for a few minutes scouring the menu for something that would pair well with fried oreos and popcorn chicken.

And now they’re drunk. The conversation has, perhaps inevitably, turned to the ongoing bet.

“I tried everything!” Parker wails. “I laughed at every joke, I touched my hair constantly, I got him talking about things he likes.” She thunks her forehead on the bar. “All that happened is now I know the complete history of orcs in western literature.”

“Hardison wouldn’t know flirting if it pinched him on the ass,” Eliot grumbles.

Parker slaps his arm. “No pinching Hardison!”

“I’m not going to—I don’t pinch people!”

Parker’s ignoring him. Eliot pouts and takes another sip of his drink. He’s not entirely sure what this one is––it’s blue and kind of fizzy, that’s all he can say for sure. Parker took over the drinks menu several glasses ago, and she’s been picking them based on what has the most fun name to say. Eliot’s pretty sure the alcohol content’s been doubling with each order.

“Eliot,” Parker slurs, “we need to work together.”

“What?”

Parker lifts her head from the bar and frowns at him, the way she does when she’s figured out the obvious solution and is just waiting for everyone else to get on the same page. It’s adorable. It’s always adorable, but right now her eyes are wide and slightly unfocused from the alcohol and she’s listing sideways a little, almost as if she’s unbalanced, and it is the most adorable thing Eliot has ever seen. Parker’s never unbalanced, but some part of Eliot’s fuzzy brain thinks she’s about to fall on top of him and cannot wait to catch her.

“You can’t seduce Hardison,” Parker points out. Eliot is drunk enough to get offended by this, but too drunk to get out a complaint before she continues, “I can’t seduce Hardison. But if we work together, the two of us can definitely seduce Hardison. Together.”

Eliot stares at her. Then he takes another sip of his fizzy blue drink. Later, when questioned, he will blame his next words on that drink.

“Worth a shot.”

They take Hardison to a movie. They research for three weeks beforehand. They find the best movie theater in town, with the nicest seats, the biggest screens, and concession snacks that Hardison likes, and they buy tickets for the midnight premiere of the superhero movie that Hardison hasn’t shut up about for the past month. Parker even hacks into the theater’s computers in a last-minute fit of nerves and cross-references the credit cards with drivers’ licenses to make sure the people sitting in front of them won’t be too tall.

Parker witnesses a kidnapping in the parking lot while the boys are getting popcorn. They don’t even stay long enough to catch the commercials.

+ 1. “Hey Eliot,” Hardison says during movie night, a little over a week later. “Remember the Ice Man Job?”

Eliot groans. “I try not to.”

Hardison throws a piece of popcorn at his face. “Shut up. Remember how you did your hair for that one? With the little—those little beads on, like, a braid?”

Eliot shoots Hardison a suspicious glance. “Yeah, I remember.”

“Teach me how to do that.”

Eliot shoots Hardison another, more deliberate look, this one pointedly directed at Hardison’s complete lack of braidable locks.

Hardison rolls his eyes as if that’s a silly detail to get hung up on and leans forward to dig around in one of the boxes he has under his coffee table. He emerges with a ziplock bag of plastic beads in no time flat and hands it triumphantly to Eliot. Then he yanks a few cushions out from behind Parker, who’s sitting on his other side, and puts them on the floor in front of him. “Sit here?” he asks Parker, patting the cushion pile.

Parker takes a moment to consider being offended at having her cushions stolen, but curiosity gets the better of her and she just plops down between Hardison’s legs, grabbing the bowl of popcorn as she goes, and waits.

Hardison lifts her hair with sudden gentleness, drawing it over her shoulders and letting it fall down her back in a golden wave. His fingers brush against her neck. Parker shivers. Eliot is distantly aware that he’s gone perfectly still, focused with a hunter’s intensity on Hardison’s dark, graceful fingers carding through Parker’s hair.

Hardison leans back, hands on his knees, and Eliot breathes again. “Well?” Hardison looks over at Eliot, a tiny smirk of challenge on his lips. “Show me how it’s done.”

Eliot is suddenly, brutally aware of how close they are. Hardison’s couch is obscenely comfortable, which is half the reason movie nights are at Hardison’s in the first place, but it is not large. Their thighs are touching. Hardison leans away, to give Eliot access to Parker’s hair, and he’s still so close that Eliot would barely have to reach out a hand to—

Eliot ruthlessly shoves that thought down into the dark where it belongs. He dealt with this, he dealt with this years ago, and accepting Parker’s stupid bet doesn’t mean he’s forgotten the way Hardison and Parker look at each other. It just means he doesn’t mind losing for a good cause.

So he keeps his tone steady and his fingers brisk as he shows Hardison how to braid the clunky plastic beads into Parker’s hair, and if he flushes with heat when their hands brush each other, well, nobody has to know. He’s been trained to withstand eight different schools of torture. It won’t show on his face. His voice never once falters.

Parker has had no such training. Her lips have parted, and her breathing is shallow. She’s staring glassy-eyed at the TV. Hardison can’t see her face, sitting behind her, but Eliot watches her carefully, worried that they need to call this off. Parker’s not used to intimacy, to closeness that means something, and for all the three of them have spent half their movie nights literally on top of each other, this is something else. This has weight.

Eliot puts a hand on her shoulder, pressing down just enough that Parker startles and cants a glance over at him. Eliot raises his eyebrows in question, and Parker glares back: don’t you fucking dare. Eliot backs off. Hardison, frowning in concentration as he threads a wisp of Parker’s hair through a green bead, graciously pretends he didn’t see the exchange.

Hardison gets the hang of the beading fairly quickly, and Eliot shows him a few different techniques. He’s almost managed to convince himself that nothing is actually happening when Hardison says, conversationally, “You two are really bad at this.”

Eliot glowers his confusion. “At movie night? You started this, if you wanted to actually watch Alien then you shouldn’t have—”

Hardison’s smile is soft, but Eliot decides for his own safety to focus on the laughter at its edge. “No, at this.” And then he slides his hand onto Parker’s neck, caresses her cheek, and isn’t the slightest bit surprised when she gasps.

Parker whips around, and there’s hurt on her face but it dies in the glow of Hardison’s gentle, unteasing smile. Hardison pulls her up with the lightest of touches, and she goes, eyes fixed on his like salvation.

They kiss sweet and slow, and Eliot’s heart twists in his chest and he can’t breathe. He needs to leave now before he shatters in half, but if he moves then they will look at him, and he would rather never breathe again than meet their eyes right now.

Hardison breaks off the kiss, gazing at Parker with something just this side of wonder, and then he does look at Eliot. Eliot flinches. He opens his mouth to…say something, make some joke or hasty excuse and scramble out the door, but Hardison raises a hand to Eliot’s face, slides his long fingers to cup Eliot’s neck, and pulls him forward, as gently as he did Parker.

It’s a chaste kiss, no more than a soft press of lips, because Eliot is too stunned to respond and Hardison doesn’t push. It lasts a long time. A whole era of change happens in the span of that kiss, as everything Eliot thought he knew tears out of place and then settles, gingerly, into a new understanding.

Hardison pulls away, his hand still warm on the back of Eliot’s neck. His smile is pure sunshine. Eliot finds himself smiling back, helpless.

Hardison’s grin turns smug. “And that,” he says, looking between Eliot and Parker, “is how you do it. Y’all are disasters, honestly, I can’t believe two master criminals working together couldn’t manage a single real date—”

Eliot heaves a deep sigh and drags Hardison into a headlock, pinning his arms when he flails. Parker surges to her knees and starts tickling him mercilessly.

They don’t finish the movie.

#finx writes #I didn't quite get Eliot's hair in there but I hope this works anyway #leverage #leverage fic #leverage ot3

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vickyvicarious · 3 years

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what do you make of Eliot's pre-show reputation for working alone? it makes sense for Parker and Hardison, who've always worked that way, but Eliot has a history of working as part of a team in various contexts

Yeah, it's definitely interesting! Really, Sophie never gets that label of 'always working alone' (and in fact later we see her bringing in Tara, which supports that she has friendly contacts still). It's just Parker, Hardison, and Eliot. And like you said, it makes complete sense for Parker, and even Hardison's hacking is just typically more suited to be done alone even if he is a social guy on a personal level. Eliot is different, given his history.

One thing I noticed a while ago, which is also interesting, is that Eliot's job by its very nature depends on other people. Sophie, Parker, and Hardison all steal what they want - as retrieval specialist, Eliot had to be hired. That's not to say he never just took something he wanted, necessarily, but his role majorly depended on people a) knowing of him in the first place, b) trusting his reputation enough to hire him, and c) being able to get in touch with him to hire him. I highly doubt he was handing out business cards left and right, so he had to have a network of contacts to at the very least pass his name along as an 'I know just the guy for the job' kind of thing. In fact, we see him bring in a friend on a con early in S1, and he is in contact with/does jobs for old military contacts throughout the show. (Once again, in the first episode Parker and Hardison were successfully recruited for someone else’s job, so it's not like that never happened for the others. But the general trend was that they picked their own heists; Eliot was hired on by other people.)

So we have a guy here who has a history of working on teams, a reputation as a loner, and yet still actively works for people who he has to keep on good enough terms to keep hiring him. How did that happen? In my opinion, it all comes back to Damien Moreau.

Eliot's timeline goes through some distinct phases:

Rural teen with a relatively poor family, I think they mention he played football; very all-American.

Joined the army with "a flag on his shoulder and God in his heart" or however that quote went.

Highly trained military operative involved in very classified operations.

Working for Damien Moreau.

Working solo as a retrieval specialist.

Leverage.

It's easy to track him through 1-3. He was recruited into the army with promises of heroism and glory, excelled at what he did, was eventually disillusioned. Getting from there to Moreau is a bit more of a jump, and likely didn't happen immediately. Given how protective Eliot gets over people he's working with, and how vigorously he hates betrayals of trust from his team, I think it's not unreasonable to assume that part of the reason he left the army had to do with whatever unit he was in getting very hurt. Likely in a way that made him feel he failed to protect them; maybe he was the only one who made it out of one specific situation. Maybe just a bunch of people he worked with got whittled down, or maybe it wasn't anything so deadly but he saw how little their lives mattered in the grand scheme of those in charge, saw how amoral the missions he was given were, and it was more of a gradual slide into illegality. There's also the detail that as he got into more and more classified work, he might be less and less likely to have a large group of people he could talk to/be a regular team with. Either way, I think Moreau didn't completely hire him straight out of the army, but there probably wasn't a tremendously long time between him leaving that group and joining up with Moreau.

*I originally thought Eliot didn't meet Toby until after he left Moreau, but a helpful anon corrected me on that! 'In the French Connection Job he says to Nate "I was out of the service and working for my 2nd PMC", doing wetwork.' He 'should've' killed Toby but instead stayed with him for months, 'learning how to cook and how to feel'. It certainly seems like he had gone some degree of numb after his experiences in the army and even since leaving it. His second private military contract/company... still implies he was working for organizations of some sort, though I get the impression he wasn't sticking around for terribly long times. Still, even if he then works solo retrieval type gigs for a while, I don't think he was nearly as insistent on working alone/had such a clear reputation about it, not yet.

Eliot no longer believed that he was doing good. He'd lost his naive patriotism and seems to have lost his religion for the most part as well. He didn't trust the system, but for the most part he still seemed to have faith in individuals. He still kept in touch with some old colleagues, he'd learned from Toby; he still wanted to be a part of something, even if that something couldn't be the US Army. He's a self-motivated criminal now but he still isn't averse to working with others.

Then comes Damien Moreau. Whether you read their relationship as romantic or not, it was undeniably important and personal. They knew one another well. Damien even still liked Eliot years after he'd left. There's good evidence for them having an emotionally abusive relationship where Moreau took advantage of Eliot's tendency to do things for those he cares about (I reblogged a great meta on this a little while ago). But essentially what we see here is that in all his time working for Moreau, no one else made such a strong impression on Eliot. Moreau definitely seems the type to play favorites and emotionally distance Eliot from other goons - Eliot isn't just another goon after all, he's the best. He's worthy of Damien's time and attention and specific assignments that only Eliot can be trusted to get done right. Whatever process of estrangement Eliot's superior skills may have begun, Moreau quickened until there was only one person who was the most important to him. Eliot didn't just work for him as a part of some vast criminal network by the end - no, he worked directly for and with Moreau himself. He was part of a team of two for all intents and purposes, regardless of how often he may have cooperated with others on specific jobs (though I suspect that got less frequent over time as well).

And when Eliot realized how deep he'd gotten, how terrible he'd become? He left, and left Damien Moreau specifically behind. Maybe he took a break for a while, went underground... it certainly doesn't seem like he had a conversation with Moreau and resigned so much as he just ran. And when he returned it was as a solo act. What this tells me is that not only did his time with Moreau break Eliot's trust in himself, it broke his ability to trust others. Not everyone necessarily, but in a working capacity. It probably was not the first time he'd experienced betrayal (in some form or another, his time in the army definitely qualified) but it was the most personal. Eliot trusted and liked Moreau - and he did the worst things in his entire life for him.

He couldn't repeat that. He couldn't leave himself open to getting sucked in like that again. And what's more, at this point he really didn't need to. His skills were such that he could get the job done himself (and had perhaps even honed those more solo skills while working for Moreau), and doing so meant that he never had to leave himself vulnerable to someone else like that again. He didn't have to be responsible for someone else getting hurt, and he didn't have to accept that he'd put someone else in charge of who he hurt. Eliot starts being more careful not to permanently injure or kill people, starts getting more selective with his jobs, and makes it a requirement that he works them alone. He still has to accept jobs from others, yeah, but he has ultimate control over what jobs he does accept, and if he operates purely on a freelance basis without getting too involved with any one client, then he can avoid the emotional entanglement that lead to such horrific loss of judgement in the past. It's hard, because he is naturally drawn to other people... but Eliot thinks that letting no one in is by far the safer option for everyone involved. He still builds relationships with others in order to get his name out, and may do repeat work for certain people, but no one is going to own him anymore. He is good enough that he can afford to set the terms like that; when he keeps getting the job done the word will spread that even alone he is worth the money. Eliot relies only on himself and any relationships he has are necessarily shallow. Professional, brief. This extends even to friendships (that seem to involve infrequent contact for the most part) and romantic relationships (he has plenty of sex but doesn't get emotionally close to anyone, does not fall in love). He is alone - in fact he is emphatically and outspokenly alone, because he doesn't want anyone to get their hooks in him like that ever again.

(*Doing jobs like this also limits the likelihood, especially in the beginning, that he's going to end up working for Moreau again in any real capacity. As time passes and Moreau doesn't attempt to bring him back too hard, that may become less of an issue in his mind, but it could certainly be a perk at least as the start.)

Then of course we eventually come to Leverage. It's been a while since Moreau. Eliot has built a solid reputation for himself - and he is being offered a LOT of money for a job that promises to be fairly quick. At this point, he probably feels like maybe he can trust himself as part of a team again without getting too sucked in - he will just keep it to one job and go his own way afterwards. It'll be fine.

...And then he immediately gets sucked in, bonds right away and wants so badly to stay. But even then, it's because of Nate. Eliot knows Nate, trusts him to be the 'honest man', is certain enough of Nate's moral compass that it's okay to get drawn in if Nate is the one making the plans. If it weren't for him, Eliot would have walked right away. Eliot was never going to allow himself to be ruled by others again... but Nate isn't like any of those people, he is a good man. Eliot can trust him not to lead him into anything too morally wrong, and in fact the work with Leverage is a way to bring some good back into the world. Not redeem himself, that won't ever happen, but under Nate's leadership Eliot can do something good for once. He doesn't want to stop.

By the time he moves past trusting Nate's judgement so much, he already trusts and loves the whole team. Parker and Hardison especially, so now he has to stay to keep them safe... even from Nate's plans sometimes, when he gets drunk and reckless. Eliot is secure in his role as part of a team again - and he probably was very lonely without one for all that time. It's not really in his nature to work alone long-term. And a key difference this time is that everyone else gets just as invested as he, and there's a good balance of power and respect unlike all of the more hierarchical teams he was in before (army, Moreau, they would have clear command structures - hell, even high-school football has a captain and a coach). Nate is nominally in charge but they talk back to him and lead where they have the most expertise. They dedicate themselves to him as much as he to them, they change together. And they change for the better, together.

#leverage #eliot spencer #leverage meta #my meta #anonymous #replies

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july-19th-club · 3 years

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do i actually particularly value your opinion on media or do we just have the same birthday? i guess we'll never know! but you steered me well on soc so: i tried watching the first episode of leverage but i could not get into it because 1. gender and 2. it seemed like it was being silly when it should have been serious and serious when it should have been silly. do you have takes on this? is there a later episode i should have tried for my first go? whats the recipe for enjoying leverage

honestly unless you’re REALLY into the specific genre of ‘underproduced corporate thrillers from the early-mid aughts’ then you’re *not* gonna enjoy the leverage premier enough to be interested in the rest of the show, but you, zezander, are in luck because this ask has functioned as a sleeper phrase that triggers the release of the July’s Leverage Greatest Hits List, which i will herewith paste below. i’ve only listed episodes i think are really worth slowing down and enjoying, and i’ve included a few notes with each one as to why i think it’s worth the time; note that s1 was not released in the same order as it was aired so the order you watch it in literally does not matter at all except for the finale. without further ado:

SEASON ONE:

The Miracle Job (the first episode where things really have a rhythm; nate backstory that doesn’t suck eggs)

The Stork Job (strong parker/hardison ep.)

The Wedding Job (CHEESY - but extremely fun)

The Juror #6 Job (one of my personal favorites because i love a good trial bit)

The First David Job & The Second David Job (two-parter & v. good; maggie is here)

SEASON TWO:

The Order 23 Job (funny and fucking weird as hell)

The Fairy Godparents Job (another funny one & surprisingly touching)

The Three Days of the Hunter Job (god this one is weird. I love it)

The Two Live Crew Job (rival heist crew; sexy)

The Lost Heir Job (TARA! introduces one of my favorite characters)

The Bottle Job (the gold standard for bottle episodes and simple cons you can run at home)

The Future Job (STRONG parker ep. about fake psychics)

and honestly at this point just finish out the season it’s plottier but still good + i love jeri ryan

SEASON THREE:

The Reunion Job (another sneaky parker/hardison ep.)

The Inside Job (clever escape episode; not really a heist)

The Scheherazade Job (the hardison’s unearthly violin solo episode)

The Studio Job (lots of people really like this episode and it’s good, I just don’t watch it often because i don't really like country music. Alona Tal is in it tho and i love her)

The Rashomon Job (told in flashbacks from each character’s perspective; very clever)

The King George Job (hardison hacks history; his arms look great in that tank top)

The Morning After Job (a very clever con)

The San Lorenzo Job (OH this fucking episode. It’s just very well put-together and Goran Visnjc is the big bad he’s all throughout the season really. sophie SHINES)

SEASON FOUR:

The Long Way Down Job (emotional parker/eliot ep; features extreme winter mountaineering)

The Van Gogh Job (fan favorite; hardison & parker play star-crossed lovers in wwii)

The Hot Potato Job (fun roleswap ep. for sophie)

The Grave Danger Job (emotional hardison/parker ep.)

The Queen’s Gambit Job (incredibly clever sterling episode, good parker/hardison content)

The Experimental Job (this one is good but it’s a Lot for me; i’m not sure why that is tho. premise: the team infiltrates a psychological experiment, requiring hardison to go undercover as a frat boy and eliot as one of the experiment ‘volunteers’)

The Office Job (fan favorite; heist shot like the office; just a fucking bucket of fun. The Sandwich(™) is here)

The Girl’s/Boy’s Nights Out Jobs (two-parter - the team splits up for extracurriculars; return of tara and harley)

The Gold Job (hardison runs the con roleswap ep.; some good parker/hardison/eliot)

The Last Dam Job (lots of old recurring characters in this one, incl. Tara and Mr Quinn)

SEASON FIVE:

The French Connection Job (eliot goes undercover as a chef; eliot ensues)

The Gimme A K Street Job (extremely clever episode about cheerleading)

The D.B. Cooper Job (another good flashback-starring-the-team ep. a la the van gogh episode)

The Broken Wing Job (bottle episode *man punching stage* TWO)

The Rundown Job (thee ot3 episode; lots of good parker/hardison/eliot stuff; biological warfare)

The Frameup Job (the last sophie’s art theft adventures job & quite fun)

The White Rabbit Job (team confronts the ethics of pulling off the world’s toughest con)

The Long Goodbye Job (series finale, emotional and also quite good)

as you can see, i really like season four, and i’ll be the first to admit that the show has a slow start. but there are gems all throughout and i hope this helps break it down/give you a starting point!

#leverage #zezander #i know other ppl have asked too so let this be a primer :)

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some-little-infamy · 4 years

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Dance With Us

(3x02 The Reunion Job - Coda Fic) (Read on AO3)

Eliot doesn’t care that no one bothers to respond to him once the mission’s over. He’s out of the office, he got to take his frustrations out with a few deserving human punching bags, and he’s fine. Let them have their fun… he had his. This is what he does. He doesn’t need all that.

He definitely doesn’t need to keep dwelling on how he heard Hardison ask Parker to dance before he pulled the com out of his ear and went back to Nate’s. He had plenty of those moments of his own back in actual high school, let the nerds have theirs now if they want. Whatever.

The problem is: the more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that they were never moments he cared about. Even now, names and faces and, well, other assets, blended together in his memory, not worthy of any real distinction. Much like every other aspect of his life, it was always about the challenge, about the conquest, and then moving on. It never meant anything.

He definitely doesn’t need to dwell on the implications of that line of thinking, that if he were there with Parker or Hardison it would’ve meant something.

Half of a six-pack later, Hardison and Parker get back first.

“Where are Their Royal Highnesses?” Eliot asks, eyebrow raised when Hardison closes the door behind him.

“Couldn’t pull them away from their adoring fans,” Hardison quips. “So we left them for a few extra dances. Something tells me they didn’t even notice.”

Eliot lets out a ‘humpf’ sort of noise, because Nate and Sophie aren’t the only ones wrapped up in themselves tonight. Parker and Hardison haven’t stopped sharing these quick, knowing glances since they walked in, and even though it’s barely been a full minute Eliot’s had more than enough of it.

Grabbing the handle of the six-pack to take his last 3 beers with him, he’s surprised to feel Parker’s hand reach out with a firm grip around his wrist. “Thought you were going to show us how it’s done, Mr. ‘I’m The One Who Went to School Dances’?” she says.

“What?” Eliot asks, tensing instinctively when the lights dim, only for an almost disco-ball effect to project from the television screens on the wall accompanied by the opening chords of a slow rock ballad.

“You aren’t getting out of dancing with us that easily,” Hardison elaborates. Parker’s already leading Eliot by the wrist, which she still hasn’t let go of, over to where Hardison stands waiting expectantly.

“Us?” Eliot repeats, eyebrow raised.

“Well, on the way back we argued over which one of us would get to dance with you, and I won, but I also accidentally made Hardison cry so I felt bad and we agreed we’d just all dance together.”

“I did not-” Hardison starts, but one narrow-eyed glare from Parker has his lips snapping shut instead.

Hardison slides his right arm behind Parker’s back and holds his left hand out for Eliot to take. Parker holds her right hand out to do the same, and Eliot just stands there looking between them as if this must be some sort of joke.

“I don’t need your pity dance,” Eliot says, unable to find it in himself to feel anything other than defensive. That had to be it. He knows he made a few comments over the comms about no one checking in on him but he meant for them to sound sarcastic… maybe more of his actual disappointment bled through than he thought.

He knows he doesn’t quite fit in here. Nate and Sophie have their cat and mouse game history. Hardison and Parker have their secret spy stuff, with covert hacking and undetectable break-ins. All he has is violence and a short fuse. He’s the muscle, and if they didn’t need him he would’ve been gone a long time ago. He’s fine with it. Really. He doesn’t need this. He doesn’t even want it.

Except that doesn’t explain the way his heartbeat rises more staring down Hardison and Parker than it had fighting off guys twice his size earlier.

“I don’t pity anyone,” Parker says, motioning more exaggeratedly with her hand now, shoving it forcefully in his direction to take. “It’s the three of us. Always. Out there, in here. Doesn’t matter.”

The way Parker says it is the way Parker says anything - blunt and honest, which is the only reason why Eliot doesn’t doubt her words. It’s the reason instead of going back to his beer Eliot shrugs off the gray hoodie he still has on so that he’s left with just a tan flannel and his red-orange undershirt for better mobility before holding his hands out to take Hardison and Parker’s.

There’s a slight frown on his face at the immediate realization that his hands, rough and calloused, are such a stark contrast to the smooth, soft skin of the ones holding them… but even Eliot can’t frown for long when he looks up to see Hardison grinning like a damn fool and Parker giving that excited little half-smile he normally only sees her with before she’s about to jump off a building.

Without another word, they’re moving, perfectly in sync from the first step, in a three-person waltz that shouldn’t work as well as it does.

It’s perfect. Which is why he has to say something and ruin it, before something else does, not trusting the moment to last.

“This is a little ridiculous,” he points out. “No one waltzes at school dances.”

“Oh? Would you prefer something else?” Hardison asks, dropping Eliot’s hand. For a second Eliot is convinced that he did exactly what he set out to do - kept the people he cares about at arm’s length - and is surprised at the immediate disappointment he feels at succeeding. A moment later Hardison brings his hand back up to grab Parker’s, stepping closer so that Eliot is now sandwiched between them, Parker pressed against his chest, Hardison against his back.

They’re a comforting weight on all sides of him as they slow in pace down to a gentle sway back and forth. The knot in Eliot’s stomach over the assumption that he fucked everything up dissolves as quickly as it formed.

“Better?” Parker asks, her eyes searching his face to read his reaction, to make sure that it’s honest. He knows that if it isn’t, if he really wants to push them away and end this - whatever this is - he could do it and she’d let him. One hint that he doesn’t want this and she’s gone. They both are.

It’s tempting. Old habits die hard and this job would be a hell of a lot easier to do if he didn’t let himself get too attached in ways he shouldn’t be… then Hardison leans his head down just enough to rest his cheek against the back of Eliot’s head while they sway and the little stutter Eliot’s heart does tells him it’s a bit late for keeping himself in check as far as attachments go.

“Better,” Eliot agrees.

In fact, when Parker tilts her head to rest her cheek on Eliot’s shoulder, the three of them moving just a little bit closer in the process, Eliot might grudgingly admit to himself it’s the best he’s felt in a long time.

#leverage #eliot spencer #alec hardison #parker #eliot x parker x hardison #listen i don't know what this is and I've never written them before #but i just left that episode with a lot of feels #and I want some OT3 love #so here we are #elle writes a few deadbeat lines

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adventures-in-a-world-of-fiction · 4 years

Text

Leverage fic idea

Eliot has a kid. I don't mean he acquires a kid in the course of the fic, I mean he already has one.

Years ago, he was with a woman and she ended up pregnant and wanted to carry the kid to term. At the time, Eliot was mixed up with the worst kinds of bad people doing the worst kinds of jobs and he knew that it wouldn't be safe for a kid to be around him. Instead, he put together some money to ensure that the kid would be taken care of. Maybe the woman gave the kid up for adoption to a nice family, maybe she decided to be a single mum, maybe she met someone else and they decided to raise the kid together, but whatever happened there, Eliot decided it was better for all of them if no one ever knew he was connected to the kid. He didn't want his many, very dangerous enemies getting it into their heads to target the kid. So his name appeared nowhere on the birth certificate and nothing official ties them together in any way.

But the parent(s) know who Eliot is.

After a few years, Eliot extracted himself from like likes of Moreau but he still didn't think he was safe to be around the kid and the parent(s) raising the kid were great, so he would just pay them a visit once or twice a year in secret, see his kid briefly, hand over piles of unmarked, non-sequential bills, and then leave again. Sometime close to birthdays and holidays, he'd find a way to send a card from somewhere in the world that wasn't wherever he was living at the time, but he'd never sign it. He wouldn't look the kid up online in case someone could hack his search history.

So the only people on the entire planet who knew Eliot had a kid were Eliot, the parent(s), and the kid themselves, who was older now and had been told about Eliot being their biological dad. Absolutely no one has any idea, and Eliot makes it a point to keep it that way.

When he runs across kids on jobs with the Leverage crew, he's so protective of them because he does what he would want someone else to do for his kid. He thinks about that kid at times like that, but he's got so used to keeping them a secret that he never mentions it even to the others on the crew.

But over the years, Eliot has given the kid methods to get in contact with him, to send a message if needed, because he's still afraid that no matter how careful he is, someone will find out and target the kid, and by now the kid is old enough to be trusted with something like that. So he gives the kid some way to always get in touch with him if ever there's an emergency.

Then one day, when he's in the middle of a job with Hardison and Parker, he gets the signal. His kid is in danger. And the first thing Parker and Hardison ever hear about this kid existing is when Eliot tells them they have to drop a job halfway through and travel across the country to save them.

#Eliot Spencer #fic idea #Leverage

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pale-silver-comb · 4 years

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17 questions 17 people

Tagged by @dannosteve223 @sgtbarnes107 and @leverage-ot3 <3

Nickname: Em, Emmy, Emela

Zodiac: Capricorn

Height: 5′9″

Hogwarts house: Hufflepuff (but I’m not entirely unconvinced I couldn’t get into Slytherin out of sheer want to be roomed in the dungeons where I can watch the merfolk go by).

Last thing I googled: Vegan Ben and Jerry flavours

Song stuck in my head: All Is Found from Frozen 2

Number of followers: 9,203 (I still can’t believe so many people are still with me after I changed to a multi-fandom blog and I got hacked by that horrible bot. I appreciate you guys so much *boops all your noses*).

Amount of sleep: I sleep better than I used to but it’s still very broken. Maybe 2 or 3 hours on and off throughout the night? 6 or 7 in total if it’s a good night?

Lucky number: 22 as it was the number of my Grandparent’s house

Dream job: Oh boy. As a kid I wanted to be Kathleen Kelly from You’ve Got Mail (without my business going under). When I was 17 I got a job in a bookshop and worked there for 9 years while I studied. All in all I would say that was a kind of dream job, except working in customer service is often very frustrating and draining. Currently, I am training to be a teacher which is another kind of dream entirely. Knowing I have the ability to play a part in helping kids feel good about themselves and reach their goals? Best job in the world, as hard as it is.

Wearing: My Sense8 Nomi and Amanita, Nancy Drew style t-shirt and leggings.

Favorite song: If it came down to it, my default answer for this is always Hallelujah. That song moves me on so many levels. Unfortunately, whenever anyone asks me this I feel compelled to then add “the Shrek version” which....is what it is. Don’t judge me.

Favorite instrument: To listen to? Anything with strings, really. I love the violin. A simple acoustic guitar is also lovely. (Violin and guitar. Emma, are you sure this isn’t your way of saying choose your favourite instruments based on if Alec Hardison and Eliot Spencer were instruments?)

Aesthetic: Mermaids. Water. Lagoons. Bisexuals, bisexuals everywhere. Candles. Books. Cowboy boots. Staring up at the night sky from the back of a banged up jeep. (Do these count as aesthetics or am I just listing things?)

Favorite author: That’s way too hard a question. I definitely have authors who I’d read anything by without even having to look at the book but I could never pick a favourite. Like @dannosteve223 it’s easier to name a favourite poet: Richard Siken (I know, I know, I’m a queer cliché).

Favorite animal noise: Ummm, any and all baby animal noises are adorable???? That’s narrowing it down enough, I think. You cannot make me choose. (Unless it’s a bird. I have a proper phobia of birds and if I hear or see one I will run the other way.)

Random: During the first year of my undergrad, I studied history. One class I took was Celtic Studies but the professors were very monotone and made me hate it, which in turn made it hard to study. When it came to the exam, I paraphrased the Boudica song from Horrible Histories for my essay. I passed and to this day I don’t know if that is a positive reflection on me or a poor reflection on my university’s standards....

Tagging anyone who would like to do this - that means YOU, darling person who is reading this - because this is always a fun way to let your followers know more about you and make unlikely friends! :D

#tag game #about me

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letmetellyouaboutmyfeels · 5 years

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I just spent hours going through the search results for ‘meta’ on your blog, and there’s so much interesting stuff there, and it’s way too late at night now, but it was so worth it. Anyway, I love your leverage meta and was wondering if you could talk about the leverage crew interacting/working with others? (ie two live crew job, the last dam job), especially when they’re allies and/or people they’re actively working against in different scenarios (like chaos)

First of all, thank you so much nonny, that means so much to see that you appreciate my meta! I put a lot of thought into it and it gives me such joy to see that others appreciate my rambling and overthinking about fictional characters. Truly, you have made my evening. ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

Second of all, this is such an interesting meta question and I’m excited to answer it!

Oh man, if anybody was in any doubt that the Leverage team are hugely protective of each other, their interactions with their allies would blow that misconception out of the water. Note that I’m not including Sterling in this because that would be a whole post by itself and I personally don’t see Sterling as an ally. He’s been their ally at times but they’ve never really trusted him--he’s more like a comfortable antagonist. But anyway.

When the team has to deal with an ally, or team up with anyone really, they close ranks. Mr. Quinn is a bit of an exception since Eliot has no personal beef with him (more on that later) but Tara, Chaos, Archie? Slamming the fucking door in their faces. Maggie is the only real exception (gonna tackle her last). No matter how many squabbles might be going on, no matter if the rest of the team wants to strangle Nate with a piano wire (in a loving way), once someone else is introduced, they prove what a family they have become by uniting as one and going, and whom the fuckst might you be?

Let’s start with the longest ally relationship they have: Tara

Tara was, I think, a great addition to the team. I think she really challenged them and in ways that they needed. Eliot, Hardison, and Parker all quickly latched onto Sophie as a mom figure (in different ways--Eliot behaves like an oldest sibling with her, he’s old enough not to need her anymore but he knows he can turn to her if he needs her and she’s his ally when they’re making decisions, but Parker heavily relies on Sophie for guidance). Having Sophie ripped away from them forces them to stand on their own two feet more. It forces them to deal with Nate themselves instead of using Sophie as a shield. And Nate, well, we all see how he falls apart without Sophie and tries to blame her when it’s really himself.

The team closes ranks around Tara immediately. Nate doesn’t kick her to the curb for two reasons only: they need a grifter, and Sophie trusts Tara. Tara’s beautifully unapologetic behavior (insisting on getting a profit from their jobs, not babying Nate) doesn’t help in keeping the team at arm’s length, but Tara knows her worth and knows they’ll come around, and sure enough, they do.

Oddly enough, Tara’s really great for the team because they prove to themselves that they really are a family by her being there. Season one’s theme, as stated by the producers/writers, is all about family, and in season two we see the team really internalize that and realize that it’s true, they are a family. Through the adversity of losing Sophie and having to adjust, they recognize what they have truly become.

(I would argue that this is also the season where the OT3 realizes how deep their feelings for one another are as a result, but that’s another post for another time.)

By the end of the season of course we see them accept Tara as a friend and ally even if they’re loathe to admit it because all the members of the team are loathe to admit when they’re wrong about something. But their interactions with Tara show the team how they’ve become set in their ways, in their dynamic, and makes them question why, and makes them realize what a family they are.

Which is why it’s such a beautiful ending with Nate going to jail and the feeling of betrayal when they realize he’s not coming with them--they’ve spent all season going oh shit, we’re a family, we’re really in this together, okay, and then to have Nate make his plan without them and to abandon them even if you can understand that he did it to protect them...

So yes, the team’s interactions with Tara basically show them what a family they have become and set the entire thing up for Nate’s sacrifice at the end of the season, bless you Tara, you queen, I’m single, please call me.

The other ally that the team has that they’re automatically sort of forced to accept (the way that because of Sophie they were forced to accept Tara) is of course Archie.

That motherfucker.

Look Archie is a charming bastard but he’s still a rat bastard and I will punch him in the face if I ever meet him and y’know what he’ll probably understand. The fact that in The Last Dam Job we see him say to his bewildered daughter “that’s my daughter” about Parker, proving that he STILL, after EVERYTHING, hasn’t introduced Parker to his family? Ahaha. We are in a fight, sir, we are in a MASSIVE fight.

Archie only appears in one other episode but like Nate’s dad shows us so much of who Parker is and why she’s the way she is. We’ve got Parker’s family backstory, her asshole father whom she killed, but there’s still a big gap between that and how she became a thief, and Archie fills that gap. And the way the team reacts to him is fantastic because the only one who closes ranks around him is Nate.

Nate, who also has a rough relationship with his father, Nate who treats Parker like his own daughter, Nate who mentors Parker into becoming a mastermind. Nate who was also a father. Nate hates Archie, because Archie should’ve helped teach Parker to become a person, and instead he taught her to become a weapon.

Hardison, Eliot, and Sophie? They are extremely protective of course and they are not fans of Archie, but they are a bit busy getting Parker to safety, they respect how important Archie is to Parker, and they are proud of Parker. They know who and what she is. They know that Archie will see the proof in the pudding.

But Nate, Nate is so goddamn offended, and I think this is the moment he realizes that Parker really is like family to him, and really takes responsibility for her growth. I think this is the episode where Nate goes, oh, she’s going to be my successor. Parker is going to be the new mastermind.

It’s so great to watch as Nate’s the one knocked off-balance by an ally, rather than the OT3, showing his hand more than the others.

Then there’s the other main player during The Last Dam Job: Chaos

Oh Chaos. We all love to hate you. Chaos is absolutely everything that fuckboy nerds often are, the thing that makes women hide their love of geeky things, he is the gatekeeping asshole that thinks nerds are still the most oppressed class and probably goes on rants about fake geek girls.

The seething hatred that Parker, Hardison, and Eliot have for Chaos is hilarious but understandable, but what’s interesting is how nobody in the team seems surprised by what an asshole Chaos is. Sophie and Nate just kind of roll their eyes at him. Eliot’s angry at Chaos for Parker and Hardison’s sake. Hardison feels that his professional pride is offended, that anyone would ever consider Chaos and Hardison to be in the same category, and he’s angry at how Parker is treated by him. And Parker is pissed off by Chaos’s objectifying comments.

But none of them seem surprised.

You know the moments when the team is taken aback in disgust by someone, we see it all the time when a team member realizes just how awful a mark truly is. Even Nate has his moments where you can see him actively wondering if maybe he should just scrap the whole plan and throw the mark out the window. But with Chaos, it’s par for the course.

Because sadly, very sadly, as I said--Chaos represents what we expect nerds to be.

Okay so brief history recap, the whole ‘nerds get bullied’ was a thing that absolutely happened for a period of time back when reading comics and science fiction was considered lowbrow. Comics were for younger children, not high schoolers, fantasy writers were considered hack writers (you can read Ursula K. LeGuin’s excellent essays on the matter), and in fact a lot of parents thought reading comics and science fiction and the like was bad for you. Then when computers first came onto the scene, they were very new and difficult to navigate. Something parents are finding nowadays is how damn easy it is for their young kids to navigate and use electronic devices, and so kids will often, to the horror of their parents, get onto social media sites and see things they shouldn’t because the parents didn’t realize how easily their child could access and learn to use these things. Because back in the ‘80s, it was a lot harder to navigate the internet and computers. So if you were hugely into them, you were an outlier.

But those days of comic books, science fiction, and computers being things that only fringe communities got into are LONG gone. Women have always been a part of those communities although, surprise, nobody wants to mention it, and they’re even more so nowadays. Even when Leverage was being filmed, superheroes were cool! Several Batman movies had been wildly successful, the Sam Raimi Spiderman films had been box office hits, Lord of the Rings had won A MOTHERFUCKING OSCAR. In fact, it SWEPT THE OSCARS.

Geeks and nerds were no longer someone to laugh at and bully, especially straight white male nerds. And yet, these sad excuses for human beings continue to whine and bully and show their true racist, misogynistic, self-centered mindsets by insisting that they are bullied and ignored and can’t get dates because of their “nerdy” interests.

Newsflash: it’s not because of your interests, it’s because you’re assholes.

Chaos represents that. He is the WORST kind of nerd, and unfortunately, probably the kind of nerd that gets into the criminal world because he has a superiority complex and a chip on his shoulder. So if you watch the crew, they’re all pissed off by him, but none of them are surprised by him.

In fact, that’s why they recruit him for their team in The Last Dam Job!

Chaos tried to murder Sophie, he tried to murder Sophie’s old friend, he makes derogatory and objectifying remarks about Parker, and it’s all EXACTLY par for the course for hackers. Hardison is the hacking exception. He’s a gentleman, he’s black, he’s emotionally mature and aware, he’s thoughtful, and his “age of the geek, baby” catchphrase isn’t bitter and plotting “oh how I shall make you all rue the day you bullied me” it’s ecstatic and fun. He knows that the people who don’t appreciate his skills will come around in time. He’s not going to be an asshole about it.

The team recruits Chaos for the job not just because he’s the last person that their enemies will expect but because if they went out to find another hacker, they’d run into people who were just like Chaos in personality and behavior. Chaos is, at least (and ironically given his moniker), a known evil, he’s someone they understand and therefore can to a certain degree control. The team goes damn easy on him during this job. They could’ve taken the opportunity to make his life MISERABLE while he was distracted working for them. But they didn’t. They just roll their eyes and make quips about wanting to kill him.

Note that the other people in the Two Live Crew Job, the hitter and the thief, are treated very much as novelties. Eliot and Parker seem amused by them like they’re shiny new toys, but we also get the impression that they’re glad to see the back of them because the shine of these new toys would wear off rather quickly. Meeting someone who’s exactly like you is fun for a short bit but it can’t last--you’re too alike for any kind of relationship (platonic, romantic, or otherwise) to work long-term.

Chaos is hated by the team and they absolutely close ranks around him. Eliot and Hardison don’t even take their eyes off him and Eliot tells Mr. Quinn to do the same. The whole team works to keep Chaos away from Parker so that she doesn’t even have to deal with his presence. But given the insane revenge that the team has planned against others who’ve tried to kill them, and especially given that the last time someone made Parker upset Eliot and Hardison literally offered to kill the man, it’s unusual that they let Chaos off so easily. And it’s not out of a sense of “you’re our ally” honor. They screw over Sterling when he’s supposed to be their ally as well (although Sterling is also screwing over them, so...) so it can’t be that.

I honestly think it’s that they feel that Chaos is one symptom of a disease. He’s one type of cancer in a long, long line of cancers. Knock him down, and another incel asshole is gonna take his place.

So why bother? Why bother, when instead they can just keep Chaos on a tight leash. Better the devil you know, and thanks to his inability to shut up and his ego, they know Chaos very, very well.

Then we have Mr. Quinn, who is very interesting in that he’s one of those instances where you have to read into Eliot’s silences to get a lot about him. Now, unlike Moreau, I’m not saying that Quinn and Eliot were ever a thing. They could’ve been, sure, but I don’t personally get that vibe from them. What we get from Quinn is a window into how the rest of the criminal world sees Eliot.

Now, we learn in The Girls’ Night Out Job what the criminal world thinks of Parker. “You’re the Parker?” People know of Parker and how crazy she is, even if they don’t necessarily know her gender. We get a lot of what the criminal world thinks of Sophie, from Sterling to British nobility to everything and everyone in between. Hardison doesn’t have as much of a repuatation yet but as I’ve stated elsewhere Hardison is twenty-two at the start of the series, he’s still establishing himself, even in the relatively young game of hacking. But other than Damien Moreau, we don’t really get a huge look into what people think of Eliot (and Moreau isn’t even a proper look at Eliot the professional, he’s a look at Eliot the person, but I’m not recapping my entire goddamn Moreau/Eliot meta it’s under my tag y’all can go find it).

So Quinn is our one foray into how Eliot is seen by the criminal world, and the overwhelming emotion is: respect.

Unlike Chaos, or even Parker and her counterpart from the Two Live Crew Job, Quinn and Eliot respect each other and don’t take anything personally. They sort of accept that they’re on opposite sides out of a sense of honor--staying loyal to the person writing their checks--but it’s nothing personally antagonistic. And we see this with the other hitmen that Eliot tangles with 90% of the time. There’s no personal beef, it’s just doing their job, (and we get hilarious exchanges like Eliot being frustrated with amateurs, “how are you gonna improve,” etc), and that’s extremely fascinating considering how very personally Hardison, Sophie, Parker, and even Nate take it when they’re up against someone of their own field.

It all, for me anyway, harkens back to the talk between Sophie and Eliot in the boxing ring about Eliot’s rage and violence, and how he explains that he doesn’t let it own him and he has it under control. Being a hacker is who Hardison is, being a thief is who Parker is, being a grifter is who Sophie is (and that’s part of what spurs her season two journey to find herself), and Nate, well, we all see for five seasons how Nate struggles with his sense of identity. But Quinn and other hitter allies show us that being a hitter is what Eliot does, it’s not who he is. Eliot is a chef, he’s a boyfriend, he’s a lover, he’s a protector. He separates his identity from the job and it’s incredibly healthy of him and he’s possibly the only one of the team who can do that and I think that’s absolutely fascinating and another way in which the Leverage writing team uses Eliot to deconstruct the trope of the violent small-town white army boy hitman and blow it up to smithereens.

Because normally, Eliot would be the person most married to his job, the person least in touch with his emotions, the person constantly tempted by violence and to lose himself in his role. But instead he can walk away from it. In fact he wants to walk away from it, he wants to distance himself from the violent person he became and the things he did, he wants to become someone new (and did, when he fled Moreau and Toby taught him how to cook).

Mr. Quinn is our key to going, oh huh, hitters and bodyguards, ‘retrieval experts’, they don’t identify themselves with their jobs the way the other roles do, and that sets up a really interesting dynamic and I love it.

Finally, we have arguably the most interesting ally, which is Maggie.

A quick note on Maggie: While she is an ally, Hardison, Parker, and Eliot seem to view Maggie as separate from most of their other allies because she’s Nate’s ex-wife. Tension with Maggie comes more from Sophie and Nate. Eliot does flirt with her and score the date with her but the moment he realizes who she is he seems to go on the date purely for spying purposes for Nate--her being Nate’s former anything immediately puts her in this special category for the OT3 where they’re more excited to watch Nate responding to her than they are anything else. The OT3 don’t see her as any kind of threat--they rightly recognize that any interpersonal issues attached to her are Nate’s to deal with, and the OT3 have always been good about detaching themselves from Nate’s problems, calling Nate out on them, and not taking on Nate’s problems like they’re their own.

And I love how they write Maggie. She’s an ally who’s a civilian and the team treats her differently as a result. The OT3 want her for juicy information on Nate. She’s never once treated like a harpy, like a bitch, as a one-dimensional prop for Nate’s backstory. Sophie likes and respects Maggie. Maggie is a foil to the team because she reminds all of them of Nate’s fallibility, and she really shows them how they’re seen in the eyes of the public. She likes them, she’ll even join them occasionally, but she doesn’t 100% endorse them, and the team knows it, so they use her judiciously. In The Last Damn Job they use her precisely because she’s not a criminal, and you know that the team would welcome her into their lives if she wanted it, but also maintain a distance out of respect. They all adore Maggie, they find her fascinating, and it’s such a delight with the way ex-wives or ex-girlfriends are usually written.

They say that to really know a person, you have to know their friends and their enemies. And that holds true in this show. To see the status of the team, you have to look at how they treat their allies and their enemies, and so through seeing their allies, you see the team better. And I love that. A+ writing.

So those, nonny, are my random rambling thoughts on the team’s allies! Sorry it took me a few days to get to this, I hope you enjoyed it!

#mads answers things #leverage #leverage meta

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mj-spooks · 4 years

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Hey Mia. Guess what I found. If you managed to guess a flash drive with all my middle school anime music, you are correct. It's nostalgic and cringey and so much more of me makes sense right now. Anyway, Leverage Crew by bad trends they were into as "kids"

This would not happen to me because all my cringey music from middle school is on my spotify and I listen to it on the regular lmao

Also let the record show that I do not actually believe in or support cringe culture, the only thing cringey is bullying people for liking a thing, or gatekeeping said thing

Okay so the thing is, I tried to google trends from the 70′s, 80′s, and 90′s but everything is fashion related, which does not seem to be what you’re going for? So I just... picked “cringey” interests that seem to fit them vibe-wise, rather than timeline-wise. The term “trends” is also being applied loosely in a couple cases to mean “interests” rather than actual trends.

I think that Eliot probably saw Fight Club once and thought “seems legit.” Not that he’s not smart enough to recognize the core message of the film, just, I can definitely see teen-him watching a movie about a bunch of dudes forming a secret society dedicated to punching each other and getting in on it. There were a lot of attempts to catch the boys (and two girls) involved but they never panned out because, well, first rule of fight club is...

Hardison, meanwhile, is The Matrix kid all the way. He had the coat. He had the sunglasses. There was a solid four month period where he tried to emulate that weird low gruff voice Keanu Reeves does in the movie. He started learning to hack in earnest because he legitimately thought perhaps he was living in a simulation and wanted to hack it from ~the inside~.

Nate is was one of Those History Guys. He watched all the documentaries he could get his hands on and would lecture about them at the drop of a hat. He was a nightmare to have in your history classes because he would. not. stop. arguing with the teacher. The best thing that can be said for him is that he’s at least more well-rounded than those people that know every single thing about, like, WWII or Julius Caesar. He was an equal opportunity know-it-all.

Sophie was a theater kid, is that even a question? She spoke in quotes that were only vaguely related to the actual conversation being had. She was physically incapable of standing still when she spoke, emoting with her hands and arms so much that the quickest way to shut her up was to hold them still. She made dramatic entrances and exits. She had a bumper sticker on her first car that said All The World’s A Stage.

Now then, Parker specifically is a fashion trend, because she very definitely dressed like Disney Channel stars circa early 2000′s. Picture her in literally any of Ashley Tisdale’s outfits. How easy is it? Super easy, because she did and you can’t change my mind. I would love to see art of this. She dressed like that and the only reason she doesn’t still is because it’s not exactly effective dress for thievery.

#leverage anon #leverage

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kilterstreet · 6 years

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Three of my favorite Leverage episodes

And why I enjoyed them (putting this under a cut because of post length and some spoilers):

Rashomon Job

- The team trolling and teasing each other. Sophie’s accents! (Those accents are the best.) Sophie revising her story to give Eliot a freaking corncob pipe! Hardison portraying himself as the life of the party, while Parker remembers him as the awkward dude shoving food in his pockets. Hardison remembering Eliot as a knife-wielding sadist who was making out with Sophie at one point (probably accurate on both counts).

- I like how after Sophie describes the head of museum security as someone who’s practically as smart as Nate, he shows up in Nate’s story as a bumbling weakling (although one who’s totally in love with Sophie).

- A nice look at the Parker-Nate bond, which doesn’t get that much attention in the show. They’re the only two people who are initially quiet about the dagger - and the only two who actually had their hands on it. Nate is the one who recognizes that Parker was at the museum that night too - and she then realizes that about him as well, and they exchange these fond looks. (One of the things I’ve always liked about the two of them is that they basically accept each other - she’ll matter-of-factly point out that he’s a drunk with serious control issues, and he’ll mildly note that she has a tendency to stab people, but that’s ok, he can work with that. They’re not quite father-daughter... more like irresponsible uncle and arsonist niece. Anyway, it’s a neat dynamic.)

King George Job

- “In a single day, I've gone from apprentice to journeyman to master,” says Hardison in what is probably my favorite line in the show (if I had to pick one). I also love Aldis Hodge’s delivery, making Hardison look like he’s caught up between genius and madness.

- Nice spotlight on the team’s various strengths: Eliot pretending to be a simpleton to make his opponents lower their guard, after which they receive a well-deserved beatdown and get tied up in a humiliating fashion for the police; Hardison hacking history with a combination of tech skills, art forgery, and obsessive attention to detail; Parker lovingly breaking into a safe while delivering a beautiful monologue about it (making it seem like a person with its own history) and then running an auction where she not only identifies fake items, but also recognizes pieces she’d previously stolen; Sophie stepping into a character that isn’t even just a character, but a real part of her life, and highlights an extreme form of that tension between real and fake (and what’s real and what’s fake?) that she lives every day; Nate navigating the chaos and mostly skulking around behind the scenes checking that the team’s efforts are all coordinated and on schedule (except when he surfaces as the kind of loud, attention-grabbing character he tends to play, and needs to get his ass saved by Sophie).

- Nate overhearing how a man who used to love Sophie drank himself to death. Ouch. The show sometimes confronts the darkness of the team and the way they’ve lived - here there’s an emphasis on Sophie. As caring as Sophie can be, and though she’s changed in some ways, she’s still incredibly dangerous; she can mess with people mentally and destroy them. Likewise, she discusses the consequences of her own actions stealing art over the years - was she hurting only very rich people who could afford to lose some art, or were the repercussions broader?

- That scene where they’re all sitting around the table and Sophie is explaining about the statue, and they’re all so into it - that’s one of the show’s strengths, the fact that they learn from each other and admire each other’s competencies.

The Frame-Up Job

- Sophie is my favorite character on the show, so I enjoy the big role she gets in this episode. Playing several different characters while carrying out a murder investigation (bonus for sitting on Sterling’s lap and ruffling his hair while referring to him as Chauncey). And the episode shows more about her background.

- This is a nicely layered episode. Not only the layers of crime (art forgery, murder), but also the layers in Nate and Sophie’s relationship and the way the trust is shown to deepen. (I also like how even though Nate doesn’t know what Sophie is up to during the earlier parts of the episode, he just rolls with what’s happening, has her back, even as he’s trying to figure out what’s going on.)

- Sterling! Sterling looking thrilled and enraged. Like he’s going crazy but at the same time he’s never had more fun in his life than right at this moment, working with (or against) Nate and Sophie. His job, his very existence, would be duller without them. He’ll never admit it. Ever. But he practically invites them to work with him at the end. He can’t bear to say good-bye!

- I love how Nate and Sophie look so dashing and elegant as they torment Sterling.

- The energy in this episode is so good - the pacing, the humor and wit, the poignant moments.

#Leverage #Sophie Devereaux #Nate Ford #Alec Hardison #Parker #Eliot Spencer #James Sterling

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