Everytime Someone Says Bring Back Nate, I Shiver With Dread.

Ok so i don't have the time to go in and get a screen recorded video with volume but look here

When parker says she wants to kill Dalton Rand, she's looking to Nate. She's asking Nate if they can kill him. Eliot volunteers to kill him. Parker turns to look at Eliot when he starts to speak. Eliot "I don't kill people anymore" Spencer volunteers to kill Rand of his own volition. Parker isn't even asking him, looking to him. He just cares so much about Parker being hurt that he volunteers to do something that hurts himself without being promted or asked personally. This is just something that means so much to me. This is only season 2 but the strong connections are already there

"I'm glad you found a family." -Amiee

"W-what... those guys?" -Eliot sputtering

Yes, Eliot. Those guys. The very same guys who you couldn't walk away from. The same guys who get on your nerves- but for some reason you protect. Those guys who have you wrapped around their fingers. Who remind you that your smarter than you think.

Those guys as in;

Nate who needs protecting from himself.

Sophie who needs protecting from her past.

Hardison who needs protecting from his mind.

Parker who needs protecting from the monsters she's lived through but are still around.

You, Eliot- you big teddy bear- decided they were worth it. So you stayed for them. You sir, stayed because they needed you.

Those guys are your family.

Poseidon and Sally being good co-parents is really healing something in my child-of-a-divorcee heart. Sally can JUST summon him and he will JUST arrive.

"you won't want to hear it"/"no, but tell me anyway" MEANS SO MUCH TO ME. Like yes! Poseidon bearing part of the mental load means a lot to me.

I suddenly woke up stupid early on my day off with multiple weird random aches and pains and a revelation about the Leverage chess metaphors.

They’re all wrong.

Look, I obviously adore the white knight/black king motif, and it works really well for that very specific discussion of Nate’s shift in morality and position at the opening of the series. But the show as well as I and other fans have then tried to take that equation and apply it to other jobs and to the crew as a whole. This is fun and awesome, but I believe you’re going to get it wrong every time if you start from the white knight/black king line. 

Because in all other situations, Nate is not the king.

Couple important things about kings in chess: 1. They don’t move much. They can only move one space at a time, and for most of the game they stay in their own little box, well guarded by other pieces. This is because 2. When the king is checkmated (threatened with capture and no possible escape), it’s game over. There is no more hope. This is the sole requirement for losing the game. No matter who else is in play, if the king is down, you lose.

This is NOT how Nate operates. Yeah, he makes the plans, but he doesn’t just hide in the office while everybody else carries them out. He’s almost always right up in there playing the most obnoxious guy you’ve ever met or smashing windows or something. And if Nate gets captured, it’s not game over, in fact, it often isn’t even a PROBLEM. Let’s look at a few times that happens, just for fun: - In The King George Job, Nate’s getting beat up and Eliot slightly panics and is about to run to help, when Sophie says “NOPE, don’t do that, I can fix this without blowing our cover” and saunters in at her leisure. The jig isn’t up and she’s not even particularly concerned about him getting punched. I love it. - In the Maltese Falcon Job, Nate sacrifices himself to save the team. This is a classic thing to do in chess and chess metaphors, but, I cannot stress this enough, you cannot sacrifice your king. That’s just called LOSING. -In The Long Goodbye Job of course the whole con is structured around Nate getting caught. I guess this one kind of makes sense because the whole point is to look like they HAVE completely lost, but then at the end it appears that Nate’s going to secret prison and everyone else is escaping WITH the black book, so they STILL would be losing Nate but winning the job. 

So if Nate isn’t the king, who is?

Hardison.

Let’s look at our points about kings again:

1. Doesn’t move as far or as quickly: Yes, Hardison ALSO gets out there and participates in the cons, everybody does. But Hardison does stay in the background more often, because that’s where his power is. He does the behind the scenes tech stuff and the remote stuff, he can wreck your shop without showing up through the power of the internet. He also does the forgeries of identities and objects, which are also done in his own space. At the same time, he has less physical power and less range – you don’t want him in a fistfight, or a gunfight, and his grifts are notorious for being a little… uh… interesting. So he has limited physical range and power but at the same time… .

2. The game is over if you lose him. That far-reaching behind the scenes power is absolutely vital for 90% of the jobs. He does the massive amounts of research and hacking legwork needed just to START a job, even before you get to actually completing the job. You are pretty much dead in the water without Hardison. But that’s just from a practical standpoint. Losing Hardison is also a crisis from an emotional standpoint. He’s our moral compass and our sweet baby brother and when Hardison gets in trouble there is no “well he’ll be fine for a few minutes” and no “well he kinda had it coming.” No, when Hardison is in trouble everything else grinds to a halt and everyone comes running. (See: The Experimental Job, The Grave Danger Job, The Long Goodbye Job.)

So like, yes Nate is in charge. But the king isn’t in charge on a chessboard, the king is just a piece with a very unique role, which Hardison fills much better than Nate does. So, now that we have our real king, who are our other pieces?

Queen: Parker. This has nothing to do with her dating Hardison. The thing about the queen is she can do a little bit of everything – she can move in any direction, making her the most dangerous piece on the board. Parker’s whole character arc is about learning all the different roles and how to access the whole playing field. She’s the only one who plans and executes an entire episode-length job by herself (okay, with a little help from her girlfriend). Plus, the other cool thing about a queen is she has a built-in transformation story – a pawn that crosses the board can become a queen, which Parker mimics by initially being dismissed as “the crazy one” and ultimately becoming the mastermind.

Knight: Sophie. I know, I wanted Eliot to be the horsie too, but this makes more sense. The knight’s deal is that it’s sneaky – it’s the only piece that can turn corners – and it can jump over obstacles. Sophie’s whole philosophy of grifting is that she shouldn’t need to know about safes or security systems, she should be able to bypass (jump over) all that by insinuating herself with the mark (being sneaky by playing a character to get behind enemy lines)

Rook: Eliot. This is the straightforward one – it goes in a straight line. It also literally represents the castle walls. It’s also so, so fucking helpful to have around, I fucking hate losing my rooks. It’s your solid right hand man, basically. Is this a little reductive of Eliot? Absolutely, but I’m jamming five complex characters into five predetermined boxes, it’s not all gonna be nuanced. And I think Mr. Punchy would like being seen as the fortress that everybody depends on, and to let all the nuance go under the radar. That’s where he likes it. 

Bishop: Finally, here’s where Nate is hiding. While the rook can only go straight (lol), the bishop can only go diagonally. Nothing can be straightforward for the bishop, he always has to come at things from an angle. Like, you know, constantly looking at all the different angles of a situation and finding the right angle to come at a mark from. Also, the bishops sit right in the middle right next to the king and queen. I don’t know that this is historically accurate, but when my dad taught me to play he told me that was because the bishops were important councilors to the rulers, they were the ones who had important wisdom that would tell them the best plan of attack. So the king here isn’t necessarily the one making the plans – that’s the bishop. And finally, apparently the bishop is called lots of different things in other languages, but we’re operating in English, which means it makes Nate a priest, and that makes me happy.

oh my god season four of leverage is fucking DIABOLICAL. how the fuck are you gonna open with the long way down job, and then hit with the van gogh job carnival job AND the grave danger job in just the first half ??? i swear to god i was shaking out of my skin all through the second half of the grave danger job. and where is aldis hodge’s oscar ??? the shaky voice the constant tears the frantic ripping at the inside of the coffin ?? i was literally holding my phone at arm’s length trying not to cry for him i swear.

i have to appreciate the directors here because i think they did a fantastic job focusing on harrison’s situation and really emphasizing the peril and dread the whole team was working through. the fevered search of the city, the awful moment when parker and sophie have to abandon their shovels and duck for cover, and harrison is left panicked and alone— that shit HURT y’all. it HURT. (i will say that the way the coffin was apparently uncovered off screen was a bit off— they only got a few shovels in before the guy started shooting, i thought, but oh well)

and obviously the hugging at the end. fuck kissing on screen hugging is where it’s at. eliot literally diving over gravestones to get to the coffin and pull hardison out and then clutching him like he’s trying to absorb the poor guy into his bloodstream ??? i will simply never be the same. and the perfect touch of beth riesgraf looking absolutely fucking devastated before turning away because she’s so so so wrecked about this but she’s not ready for that hug…. leverage writers need to square up because that was one fucked up episode and it also delivered on every characterization front ever. leverage is the gift that fucking giving y’all

My favourite trio closely followed by Parker Hardison and Elliot ❤️❤️

One of the reasons why I think that Lucy, Lockwood and George work so well as a trio is that they very much complete each other, making up for each other's weaknesses.

Like, Lockwood and George are a bit too aloof but Lucy is very emotionally mature. Lucy and George are a bit too flaky but Lockwood is a strong leader. Lockwood and Lucy are a bit too impulsive but George is levelheaded.

They're all very flawed and damaged kids but they raise each other up at every turn, effectively helping the others better themselves.

You know, they just work. They make sense. It's beautiful.

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

BOTTOMS (2023) + movie references and parallels

Kuroko no Basket will always have a special place in my heart, and this is one of the reasons why:

Her. Aida Riko. Everything about her makes KnB the best sports anime to me.

No, 'cuz the fact that this beloved sports anime made the coach of the main team a woman - a 17 year old girl at that - made a huge difference in the show for me. It's such a pleasure to watch Riko have just as much passion for the game as the team, for her to be such a key character in an otherwise widely male-dominated anime genre.

She makes sure to push the team to improve, doing everything in her power to make make them go past their limits (the roofrop ceremony, breaking Hyuuga's figurines, getting Mitobe to block Kagami etc), she always makes sure to get their spirits up, even if it doesn't always work out (getting them to go eat steaks, the lemon with honey slices), and she does what's best for them, even when they don't like it (pulling Kiyoshi from the Kirisaki Daiichi game, subbing the first year duo out, putting Furihata against Akashi).

Like, she's such a smart and relatable and real character??? The fact that she also gets her romance with Hyuuga, but is done so organically, and they're such good friends?? The fact that they rely on each other as coach and captain?? The fact that they founded the club together?? Plus, she is still able to have a deep friendship with Kiyoshi with no romantic tension or friction between the three of them?? It shouldn't be this refreshing to see a female character like this, but it is, which is what makes Riko so amazing.

And she's not the only one.

Momoi is also such a great female character that you rarely see in these shows. Yes, she's the feminine manager of an enemy team, but she's just as much part of the Generation of Miracles friend group as the others are, despite not being a player. The fact that she gathers information about their opponents and comes up with strategies to highlight her team's strengths and shut down the enemies is incredible. She also has a crush on the main character that is obviously unrequited, yet it's handled so gracefully?? She is who she is despite her feelings for Kuroko, and I love that for her, because instead of following Kuroko to Seirin, she chose to stay with Aomine. Her loyalty to her childhood friend is so strong and so pure that she never gave up hope that Aomine would find his love for basketball again. That he'd smile again– that she'd get her old friends back.

Truly amazing.

And an honorary mention goes to another female character whom I wanted to see more of:

"Kagami was written by a woman," yes, because Alex Garcia made Kagami, bitch. That's her son you're talking about. Alex being the one who taught Kagami basketball is so badass of her. She's Mother.

Let's hear if for the female characters of Kuroko no Basket!!! The rest of the sports anime world could never!!!