#??? whatever Eliot wants tbh

[pegasusdrawnchariots]

Not Shipping Tag Game

tagged by its creator @ninadove~ 🥂

For all relationships — OT3s, broTPs, besties, coworkers, families — that are just as fascinating as (if not more so than) what's happening in the romance department!

List as many/few as u wish & tag some friends :)

Before anyone yells at me: could u ship them romantically? Yes. In fact, some of these also feature on my top 10 ships poll! But that's not what this one is for. Sometimes people are intimate & codependent & silly & toxic & in cahoots & match each other's freak — all this without romance needing to enter the picture

Tagging: @ninadove @oatflatwhite @pixelated-glitter

@justbecringe @dying-suffering-french-stalkers @longagoitwastuesday & anyone else who wants to play! Just say I tagged u :)

Unhinged babblings abt some of these broTPs under the cut so as to spare yr dashes

(Liz don't look at the Leverage one)

Mulder & Scully: yes I love MSR yes I love them as colleagues yes I love them as friends. All is true. For this poll, I have them included as toxically codependent worsties <333 I love how Chris Carter stripped their personal lives away bc Mulder is wholly devoted to the quest & Scully is wholly devoted to Mulder's devotion. Like, Mulder doesn't even have a bed. He eats, sleeps, & breathes this quest. & Scully took one look at him & was like "this man is insufferable & beyond compelling. I'm tanking my career just to see where this all ends up 👀" & they're colleagues. COLLEAGUES. What if we were each other's compass (Field Trip) & each other's pillar (Wetwired) but NOT each other's romantic soulmate (The Field Where I Died) 🥺 & we were colleagues? 😳 Again, I love MSR but Chris Carter's vision for whatever the fuck these two had going on was unparalleled & the fans pushing him to make Mulder & Scully end up together romantically was a MISTAKE there I said it. Seasons 1-5 my beloved. But whatever. Yr main stars are rlly hot & have insane chemistry I get it. The airwaves weren't ready for freak-matching of this proportion that stayed platonic 😔

Winters & Nixon: the Winnix agenda wouldn't be nearly as powerful as it is if they weren't before anything else & at the end of the day Besties :)

Renée & Roe: cute as a ship AND as friends, but the deciding factors here were: A) kind M/F friendships are important to me personally, B) I'm not by default shoving the One Named Woman in BOB into a romantic ship w the only guy she talks to, & C) imo if ur in the dark hell of trying to heal people in an active warzone while the bodies pile high & u won't even hear the shell that kills u, establishing a platonic link is ×100 more compelling than a meetcute w a dating prospect. to me.

Helen, Odysseus, & Menelaos: tbh 70% of the reason this is here is bc of the scene at the Trojan Horse. Where Helen walks around it mimicking the voices of the Greek generals' wives & calling each of them by name, & Odysseus is inside fighting for his life clamping his hand over their mouths & wrestling them back into their seats to prevent them from blowing the whole plan. Genuinely would love to see more of them specifically pitted against each other or working together. I would risk it all for One (1) crafty canny hero, let alone TWO. 20% of the reason they're here is due to the way Menelaos & Helen (but mainly Menelaos) talk abt Odysseus in rhapsody 4, when Telemachos visits them for news of his dad. Oh my god. Oh my god. & the remaining 10% is everything that goes on in the Menelaiad. John Barth are you fucking kidding me. Lives were changed

Cyrano & Roxane: listen no-one ships them as hard as I do (with the possible exception of @ninadove & Henri Le Bret) but THEY WERE FRIENDS FIRST. They were besties!! They were kids together, they learned how to be silly together, & they're silly together to the end (see the gazette scene)!! Also see the hushing scene 🥺💀 In the Weber version, when they keep going "chut ! chut ! 🤫" at each other, at some point towards the end they go "chut !" at the same time & instead put their finger over the OTHER ONE'S mouth >>>>>>> oh my GODDD oh my god they're so playful & fun & their friendship sustains me

Parker & Eliot: "teach me to like things" just kill me now that would be kinder. The intimacy the insecurity the vulnerability ༼;´༎ຶ ۝ ༎ຶ༽ Eliot possesses weapons-grade freak & Parker regularly leaves him in the dust, & he's visibly weirded out by this but that's as far as it goes. He regards her w such respect & trusts her about as much as someone like Eliot can trust. & Parker also clearly admires Eliot!! She sees a trait in him that she likes & asks for it directly!! Their friendship just GRAAFAHGFRGRHHFFGR. The moon emoji is there for that one scene in The Three Days of Hunter Job btw. Where Eliot tells her he's seen the rocky sets they used to fake the moon landing. "And they're gonna paint them red & reuse them for the Mars landing" BWXSHHFDKJ I can't with them

[aardvaark]

Ok so... What's your story for what the rest of the crew was up to during the Broken Wing Job? Who were they after, what happened with the monkey, etc.

ooh this is such an interesting question!! i know i’m gonna give a ridiculously long answer and i’m just gonna have to apologise in advance. there’s a tl;dr in bold at the end! also, disclaimer that i understand it was just meant to be a noodle incident and i respect & enjoy the choice to never reveal what actually happened. the ambiguity and whatever your brain makes up is more fun than any canon answer for something like this. but theorising can be a lot of fun too and i love to piece together the info we DO get!!

well, what we do know about what happened:

sophie grifted a curator to get a statue of a golden monkey

they also needed an actual live monkey: a snow monkey/japanese macaque. which are fairly common in japan, so it’s like extra weird that they’re not stealing some rare or highly sought after animal yk?

eliot had to fight someone (standard tbh) but he seems to have had time to prepare, like either a private meeting turned south or an organised fight

somehow sophie seemed to be receiving a medal and hardison was dressed as though he was a decorated japanese soldier at the same event, also receiving some kind of honour.

sophie & nate burned something at the end, something that nate didn’t know if sophie would be comfortable burning.

eliot met emperor akihito, who didn’t want eliot around his granddaughter (seems like eliot flirted with her or she flirted with him, considering their reactions).

it’s in tokyo, japan - which is unusual for the team. the vast majority of their jobs happen in the US. when they go to other countries or interfere with international politics, it probably starts with a client in the US. eg the san lorenzo job happened bc they were already pursuing moreau, the stork job (in serbia) happened because of american adoptive parents, they interfere with another country’s politics in the scheherazade job bc of a journalist in the US, etc. so i think this probably somehow *started* with an american client and became international.

you made me go through john rogers’ blog to get more info, which is extremely evil of you because i always get sidetracked like 50 times on that blog and end up with a thousand new theories and character thoughts lmao. but from the blog:

VERY interesting information. in the rashomon job, the monkey statue is what eliot was supposed to "retrieve" from north korea for his client, and when he failed to do so, that client sent hitters after eliot and then made him steal the dagger of aqu’abi to make up for the statue. in the two horse job, a flashback to north korea in 2005 has people yelling at eliot "where’s the monkey?!", and since the rashomon job happened around 2005, that monkey is probably the same monkey statue. in other words, this goddam statue has been eluding eliot for YEARS. also, evidently, it must be very valuable and highly sought after.

unfortunately i can’t find the podcast but im thinking "money" makes a lot of sense and that maybe i don’t want to know what her answer was lol. anyway, somehow the con led to gaining cash that they felt it was best to destroy rather than give to the client or keep as "alternate revenue". i guess it was dirty money or perhaps just too easily traceable.

SO!

a US client somehow led to a job in japan where they got a valuable monkey statue and a real monkey, were awarded for something, fought someone, and then burnt a pile of money.

i’m gonna say the fact that there’s a real monkey and a monkey statue is not a coincidence… did they paint the real monkey gold and get it to attack someone who thought it was a statue?? did they claim the statue had come to life??

tl;dr - my best idea is that eliot heard through the grapevine that the statue that had been giving him trouble all those years had surfaced in japan. an old friend of eliot’s tells him that some Evil Guy TM (the episode’s mark) is trying to blackmail him & other retrieval specialists/thieves into retrieving it. the team decides that they will go undercover to steal it and put an end to the saga for good. so they all have to get cover identities and grift because they’d usually do a heist but parker is out. sophie eventually grifts her way into getting into whatever vault the statue is in, then they sell their mark the statue and are paid with lots of cash, they let the mark tell everyone he has the statue, then switch it with the real monkey to make the mark look like a liar or like he was imagining things etc. then they also expose tons of files on other Evil Guy stuff the mark has done.

the mark, however, is so high profile that he was in the same circles as the emperor, and the team had to meet him during the con. when the emperor hears that sophie(‘s alias) took down that Evil Guy who was exposed for lots of evil stuff, he awards sophie and hardison for their efforts. which is a whole thing, because obviously they’re now having to make sure their fake identities hold up under national/international scrutiny - classic "accidentally did so well that we caused ourselves more problems" leverage moment. somehow they pull that off successfully though.

i think the live monkey was released into the wild or returned to a sanctuary, cause i don’t think they’d harm an animal. i believe there’s a snow monkey animal park in japan, maybe it was released there? as for the monkey statue, it seems like it’s too dangerous to keep or even give to someone. like, eliot’s been attacked over it a couple times, you couldn’t give it to anyone who isn’t prepared to get into fights and be hunted down for it. maybe they placed it somewhere hidden in the animal park with the real monkeys.

um so yes this is ridiculously long now and i realise that it’s weird to like, cite sources on this fandom ask lol. but there you go! thanks so much for the question, i had a lot of fun trying to draw connections and figure it out!!

[eruditetyro]

tagged by @thriftdyke

let your spotify predict your 2024! shuffle your on repeat playlist, and the first twelve songs represent your 2024

I am using my repeat rewind playlist instead because this past week I've been on the more emo side of my taste and it was kind of depressing as far as predictions go. like velodrome by dessa and hollow by cloudeater and tired as fuck by the staves. SO. this is less depressing. choosing a better story.

January - When I'm Gone - Phil Ochs

so I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here. turning towards life and action in January.

February - Girls Against God - Florence + the Machine

well. not only are we turning towards life and action, we're fighting god. and asking people if they want to talk about our intimacy issues.

March - Priestess - Pumarosa

March IS a dancing month! also check out the intimacy between the singer and her subject here. month of secrets held between two people??

April - Glass - Blood Cultures

this one doesn't really have lyrics but it's a BOP. I associate this song with travel and dancing and nighttime. more dancing!

May - Beyond The Clouds - The Poppy Family

for the sun shines for those who look beyond the clouds... very sort of romantic quiet alonetime in the sun. daytime driving song. a peaceful and lovely month!

June - Altitude - Eliot Moss

this is a blues dancing song to me. it's sort of a bleak one. month of don't look down, don't look down, i know you want me to. it goes away if you want it to, but you smile and you stay because you want it !

July - Drunk Walk Home - Mitski

very July sort of song. perhaps I quit my job? or I have a little breakup. whatever it is, there's some catharsis from whatever sort of strain was happening in June.

August - True Love Will Find You In The End - Daniel Johnston

this is a promise with a catch. only if you're looking can it find you. some sort of new vulnerability, with or without love found-- might not be the end. we'll see!

September - Rock Star - Hole

hmm. some angst in september, but in a hot fun grunge rebel way.

October - Kill Me - indigo De Souza

yeah it's like that sometimes. distance between me and someone. irish goodbye from some party or other.

November - Geyser - Mitski

oh i see. it's about my relationship with myself again. whatever was going on with de souza in october gets metabolized and turned into strength. regular sort of cycle tbh.

December - Herr Mannelig - Garmarna

well, either i do some sort of ritual or i finally visit scandanavia? good winter solstice song. i just looked it up and apparently it's about a mountain troll who proposes to a young christian man who refuses her. fun!

tagging @walcutt @premiumgelato @unloneliest @adhdnarut0, anyone else who wants to try!

[percreates]

Here's my intro post thingy-

My name is Percival, but I'm cool with Percy or whatever nickname, they/he, 20

Fandoms and things I draw/plan to draw

Random things from my life and little sketches

The Doomsday Heroes (working title) - a NaNoWriMo story I did when I was 13 that I'm entirely reworking to make a comic (I might make a post with some early concept art soon!)

Star Wars (I like the prequels/clone wars era best, but am not opposed to some original trilogy love)

Original Leverage (I only watched a lil redemption and didn't care for it all that much, but og Leverage has been my favorite show for over half my life now, expect ot3 art)

Spider-Man and Spiderverse, I have a spidersona that I'll be posting eventually

X-Files (I've taken a truly unhinged number of reference screenshots)

Star Trek TNG (a hyperfixation I'd like to return to, I'm obsessed with Data and Geordi)

Minecraft (funny/neat moments and adventures of my oc and others on an smp I'm part of)

X-Men (once I've read more of the comics)

Potentially other marvel superheroes (but again, not until I've read more of their comics, it's a Thing with me, but I did love the goofy found family avengers tower fandom stuff before the mcu got so dark and depressing)

MCR

Doctor Who (I'm not caught up on the latest few seasons and it's been a long time since I watched past the 10th doctor cause he and 9 are my faves, but I'm sure I'll draw early new who art sometime)

Jackass (MAYBE.)

Apothecaria (if I get back to it, which would be fun! I kinda forgot it existed until rereading this but I did have some cool ideas planned 👀)

Potentially other fandoms I'm forgetting I'm in, or didn't add to the list, just whatever I'm into lately

Random non-fandom related references, I've drawn a reasonable number of random people on pinterest afsgsgsg

(my references and tips board has 27 nicely organized sections and a total of over 1600 pins, feel free to dm me if you want the link!) (Probably more, I haven't checked in a while tbh)

Pretty much any scene/shot from a movie or show I watch that makes me go "ooh I wanna draw that" and take a screenshot, it's a problem (I got a lovely one earlier though of Eliot Spencer with a bunny)

I'm learning to draw cause I want to start creating comics! I drew a lot in middle school and am finally getting back into it. I was never that good back then, but I'm super happy with the progress I'm making since coming back to it >:D

I think entirely in words rather than pictures (I believe that's called aphantasia?), so until I've got A Lot more experience and have built up a better mental library and muscle memory, most things I draw will be with reference, but I'm slowly getting better at drawing from imagination!!

Tagging system-

#my art (self explanatory, I'll also have #my comics sometime down the line and #my me for self portraits), #perc rambles (anything I post that's not art, I've potentially missed a few of these), #cool art (any art I reblog that's not mine), #comics (as in comics people have made, not like, comics fandom stuff), #spidersona (other people's sonas, I'll be tagging my own separately, probably as #spiderskate but I haven't decided), #tips and tricks, #pose reference, #resources, and if I draw for a fandom I'll tag said fandom. I'll have tags for various ocs I post, currently my only one is #benni enderman.

I think that's everything! Thanks for checking out my blog, enjoy your time here :D

[stickystarspectrumtroll-ocs]

pinned post ask game for allets and eliote: 🔮 ⚠ ♿ 💢 😒 ⛪ 📺

🔮 - Your character is having their future told by someone pretty shady. Do they call the fortune teller out or just roll with it?

Eliote absolutely 100% calls them out.

Allets tries to hear them out while also taking what they say with a grain of salt.

⚠ - What has your character almost done that made someone talk them out of or convince them not to do it?

Allets definitely eventually gets up to wanting to do / trying to do SOOOOOOOO many hairbrained schemes and ideas that reasonably a person ought to be talked out of or convinced not to do. Y'know, demon-summoning, raccoon-domesticating, breaking-and-entering, etc. Eliote and/or Finley definitely try for a bit to talk her out of it, but end up going along with it a lot of the time.

Eliote, it'd have to be something like pulling five consecutive all-nighters to work on something, or fortifying the house to a truly insane degree with like SO many locks and traps and electric fence type stuff.

♿ - Is your character in some way handicapped? (This includes physical, emotional, and mental.)

Eliote definitely has PTSD, quite possibly also anxiety and/or depression. Also insomnia.

Allets, there's probably gotta be some kinda CPTSD in there. Anxiety is also extremely possible. I'm also considering whether autism and/or ADHD makes sense for her, not sure.

💢 - What frustrates your character more than anything?

Allets: Failure to do things comes to mind. A lot of the time the feeling that comes with failure for her is shame, and sometimes fear, but there are probably some times where there's frustration. Apart from that, all that comes to mind is just. Mean, snippy people.

Eliote: She gets frustrated by SOOOOOOO many things. A very big one is definitely forced positivity though. She HATES that with her entire being, and the more of it one throws at her the more bitter and grumpy and angry she gets in response.

😒 - “Ugh! Not him/her/them/it again.” How does your character react to annoying people?

Eliote glowers and snarks and snipes and generally makes it very bluntly clear how annoying she finds them.

Allets tries her very very hardest to be polite but it is Painful. Once she makes friends with Eliote and Jewel and Luna she does at some point get to a point where she's able to complain about people to them though. Only to them. Still gotta keep her thoughts to herself for everycreature else.

⛪ - Is your character religious or spiritual in anyway?

Eliote's parents might've believed in and practiced some religion in a low-key but very wholehearted way. She might've hung onto a little of that.

Allets...I'm having a hard time deciding whether her parents are like, devout christians who drill some of the most toxic ideas peoples get out of christianity into her, or whether they generally consider religion to be stuff and nonsense. Whatever religious or spiritual beliefs they have get drilled into Allets, but she never really resonates all the way down with them. She'd probably be agnostic really, and probably find it interesting to learn about different religions. And tbh I think she'd kinda vibe with satanism really sdlkjflkXD

📺 - What would your character’s favorite TV show be? What’s their favorite genre?

I think she'd really really like Over The Garden Wall. And also The Owl House. There is SO much that would resonate hard with her about The Owl House. Also, while this is technically a Netflix show and not a TV show, I think she would LOVE Centaurworld. Also, while we're on Netflix shows, She-ra would DECIMATE her.

As to favorite genre of media, I think honestly horror would be up there. She'd have a very deep fascination with horror. With all things spooky, occult, grotesque, and/or nightmarish. I've thought about the OC squad listening to TMA before, and I see her as being the one who'd most get into relistening to episodes for the statements and not just the plot or characters.

Eliote...it's honestly hard to say if ANY of the shows I watch (or know anything about) would be her favorite show. She-ra (though, again, not a TV show) might be a possibility? Precure? Infinity Train? Not sure. Allets would probably get her to watch Centaurworld and she'd probably wind up enjoying it a lot more than she anticipated. I think that might be up there.

As to genres I honestly have no idea sdlkghsdg;kjs;k

[chromaticramblings]

book review - the puttermesser papers by cynthia ozark

its been a hot second but we are getting back into books wahoo and what better way to do it than through a modern day retelling of old stories that refuses to call itself as such, written in a way that makes you question what's actually real the whole time you're reading it?

this was an interesting one.

(no spoilers at this point, no plot points revealed past what is on the inner jacket of the book. read on if you wish)

the plot of the puttermesser papers follows Ruth Puttermesser, single Jewish law school graduate past her 40s in NYC, struggling to live a life she's proud of. this isn't an easy task for her, as she is an idealist of epic proportions. she works in a government office, slogging through bureaucracy, believing that if each code written is followed perfectly, that it would cure society. unfortunately the other employees of the municipal building are more preoccupied with their prestige and salary than with actually doing their jobs.

Puttermesser is also a tad bit delusional. while priding herself on her reasonable approach to everything, it seems that even she is not free from some irrationality. at one point she wills a golem to life from houseplant clay. at one point she lives vicariously through George Eliot biographies so forcefully that the reader is left wondering whether she is still talking about the late writer or about herself. especially in her later life, some of her writings leave the reader wondering if the events earlier in the book happened at all.

overall i enjoyed this book, although it made my head hurt at times. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on Puttermesser's rise to mayor, with the golem's help; it was a creative incorporation of Jewish folklore into modern times that led me to doing a bunch of further reading on said Jewish folklore. (i am not Jewish so i cannot speak a ton on how accurate a retelling it is, although Ozark is, so i trust it has basis) i also enjoyed the chapter in which Puttermesser hosts her Soviet cousin for a time. her cousin Lidia is in some ways Puttermesser's opposite; rather than searching for keys to the ideal timeless life, she seeks to gather whatever opportunity is present right in front of her. their clashes, and consequent digs at political theories and their theorists, were quite amusing.

throughout her entire life, Puttermesser walks an uneasy line between reality and fantasy. she seems to try and avoid this through her methodical way of thinking, but instead she becomes further disconnected from the ins and outs of everyday life.

TLDR: kind of a mindfuck and probably intended for people with more of a grasp on classic literature and philosophy tbh. but nonetheless an amusing read. 7/10

(the following section includes some crucial plot points. if you do want to read the book, stop here, and be warned the last chapter contains rape you can easily skip (pg 220) if you need to)

Puttermesser insists on creating a better path forward through thought, and imagines herself as a citizen of the mind and thus more enlightened than the average NYC resident. this thinking ends up sticking her in the past. she is so obsessed over thinking about what was perfect that she ends up reliving the falls of these perfections, over and over.

she brings a golem into her life to catapult the city of New York into perfection, but as per tradition, the golem ends up sinking the city it helped to save, and Puttermesser with it.

Puttermesser is so concerned about living out the perfect George Eliot and George Lewes relationship reincarnated that she does not notice a modern day Johnny Cross weasel his way into her life, to doom their relationship into another repetition of the past for the sake of his art.

Puttermesser takes in a family member from the collapsing USSR expecting a meek refugee, and is shocked when she instead turns out to be a shrewd opportunist, right at home in capitalist NYC; in this chapter only, we see her worldview break a tad as she accommodates someone vastly different to her. in the end, the cycle of gain and loss continues for Puttermesser, as Lidia fucks right back off to the failing Soviet Union after milking NYC of all the profits she can. we do see, however, inklings of growth in Puttermesser as she reconnects with her long lost cousin Zhenya.

even in death, the goodness of paradise gives way to the hell of everything lost in the expanse of timelessness. nothing good is tangible enough for poor Puttermesser to hold onto for more than a moment, it seems.

in the beginning of the book, her Uncle Zindel (long dead, imagined in an attempt by Puttermesser to connect with her heritage) comments on her name, Puttermesser, literally meaning "butter knife"; it is soft, nonviolent, but also unable to create anything lasting of its own. unfortunately, this is a premonition, as nothing Puttermesser builds ever lasts. the butterknife is a direct contrast to the sharp robber's blade to which she ends up losing her life.

"There are deeply chamfered trains of thought out of which one does not escape, once in them; associations cut and dried from old time, which fit in each other like rings in a chain, so that he who has said A cannot help saying B or at least thinking it; and like links in a chain they are, too, in that in them the earthly and the heavenly are so interlocked one into the other that one passes willy-nilly, and whether speaking or silent, from one to the other." - from Puttermesser's reading, minutes before her death (Ozark, 214)

[hellframe]

To be serious, there's nothing too specific. Tartt portrayed Francis as a dandy, and it's just a coincidence that I had erratic interest in dandyism some time ago — for fun, it was nothing special, tbh.

And I've got curious about things in TSH that I couldn't understand, so I did some research.

There's an article in which Tartt was named 'a privately idiosyncratic T. S. Eliot freak' (J. Kaplan, 'Smart Tartt'). I wanted to know why, and how this Eliot's frame could help to interpret the novel. I found a lot of things in TSH that somehow recall Eliot's biography, studies, works, poems. A plenty of things, if you know what to look at.

It's hard to decide what information is relevant for TSH and what is not, but if Tartt wrote the novel for about 8-9 years, she did a lot of reading, I guess.

The 'Eliot frame' sometimes helps: if Eliot wrote about something, Tartt as his 'freak' definitely knew about it. Eliot liked Sherlock Holmes stories, and he wrote criticism on Baudelaire. Mark Twain is here because he is from Missouri, like Eliot and Henry Winter, and Eliot wrote an introduction to Huckleberry Finn.

These 'connections' must be something called intertextual analysis, or whatever. But I am just a little cat, and my little paws can't do serious studies.

Btw, there was a fine study by F. Pauw — "If on a winter's night a reveller": the classical intertext in Donna Tartt's The Secret History.

He gave a short account of references to Eliot in the novel:

But there's much more, and I haven't found anything about Eliot's intertext in TSH on web. So I make some trivial observations, keeping in mind that TSH needs a commentary, like Joyce's Ulysses.

I should say, there's an amazing cycle of lectures on YouTube 'The works of T. S. Eliot' by Victor Strandberg. It made me reconsider the way of reading TSH.

(Idk what's the problem with comments, it's not me it's tumblr.)

Francis Abernathy: fake pince-nez

I was wondering where Francis ‘borrowed’ this accessory, so let there be some observations.

First of all, there’s a sassy definition of a typical dandy by Paul de Saint-Victor (La Presse, 21 August 1859):

'Black Prince of Elegance, the demigod of boredom who looked at the world with an eye as glassy as his pince-nez, suffering because his disarranged cravat had a crease, like ancient Sybarite who suffered because his rose was crushed.'

Then I thought that red hair combined with pince-nez reminds of Ezra Pound, known for his dandyish style and some other unpleasant things.

[Considering that Henry Winter could be read as a projection of T. S. Eliot, I think it's logical to compare Francis to Eliot's friend Pound, who edited The Waste Land, btw.]

Pince-nez also wore Mark Twain, another elegant redhead. Speaking of Twain, he left a description of one notable encounter in his Autobiography (vol. 2, 1924):

'Last night I was at a large dinner party at Norman Hapgood's palace uptown, and a very long and very slender gentleman was introduced to me — a gentleman with a fine, alert, and intellectual face, with a becoming gold pince-nez on his nose and clothed in an evening costume which was perfect from the broad spread of immaculate bosom to the rosetted slippers on his feet. His gait, his bows, and his intonations were those of an English gentleman, and I took him for an earl.'

Dapper-looking, tall, thin young gentleman in pince-nez, giving an impression of English aristocracy at uptown dinner parties. Doesn’t it sound like Francis?

Another possible source is 'The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez', one of Sherlock Holmes short stories. This pince-nez belongs to a refined and well-dressed lady, who committed an accidental murder, and then committed a suicide.

Eventually, when I was reading a review on Baudelaire’s last oeuvre, among his notes about Belgium I discovered a curious fact: Baudelaire complained that Belgians sold pince-nez with plain glass as a fashion accessory.

So I put my nose into that piece of prejudiced decadent writing:

'The pince-nez, with its cord, perched on the nose. A multitude of vitreous eyes, even among the officers. An optician told me that the majority of pince-nez that sells are clear glass. Thus this national pince-nez craze is nothing more than a pathetic effort to appear elegant and yet one more sign of the spirit of imitation and conformity.'

Late Fragments: Flares, My Heart Laid Bare, Prose Poems, Belgium Disrobed, trans. by Richard Sieburth (p. 301)

Francis bought his phony pince-nez in Belgium. That's it.

[yardsards]

a canonically queer (with a musically-inclined love interest) pointy-eared magic user who has trust issues (influenced partially by their sister (whose name begins with L) who was their best and only friend as a young child) but acts aloof and cocky to hide it, begins begrudgingly giving magic lessons to a heavily neurodivergent-coded human child (who has a special interest in a certain book series and models their life goals around the protagonist of said series) and accidentally grows attached to and trusts that human child wholeheartedly

am i talking about them:

or them:

[wolves-in-the-world]

Thinking fondly today about how Leverage deals with Not Ideal Coping Mechanisms. Local dudes go to a wrestling ring to beat each other up because their town's dying and their jobs are shit and they need to find that control somewhere; Nate's obsession with the job, thinking a little more each time that he can control life, being what gets him through the day and what keeps him better at least than he was before; his drinking isn't the problem, it's the symptom of the problem, but it still needs calling out when it's going to get them into trouble.

The way Parker steals for the thrill of it, for the puzzle and the challenge and the chance to stretch herself. The way Eliot fights to exercise the thing in himself that would ruin his life again if he let it. The entire premise of the show which is very broken people seeking vengeance and justice through crime because they can't really do anything else with themselves.

[failedhero-archive]

mini headcanon :  also it’s really bothering me how Dean see’s what is usually considered ‘female’ traits as such a negative thing when he is such a ‘feminine’ dude. Taking care of people he loves? Sign him up for that shit. And he’s curious about make up and nail polish and he loves bathing/grooming as a form of self care. If he’s already attracted to a character that is male? It’s super fucking hard to write because he just clams up and won’t. 

If my son ever thought about himself the way Dean thinks about himself I would flat out cry.

[ijustwantagoodurl]

AAAAAA E L I O T BABE

[fawnnbinary]

listen. Listen. miles. listen. you are Driving me to Madness. i am frothing at the mouth. i am chewing on the walls. the concept of eskel in an apron has consumed me.

i have what you might call a Blorbo Formula (jaskier is my biggest exception tbh). Big Man. muscles. violent/traumatic background, highly developed combat skills. usually (not always) slightly long hair. Big Scary Muscle Fighting Man. but in his heart, he is Soft. he wants to cook food for the ones he loves. he want to nurture them and warm them and tuck them in at night. he wants to keep them safe and fed and loved! the bucky barnes/eliot spencer/dean winchester archetype is what i’m getting at. once upon a time, before i grew up and stopped being a girl and learned what a dogwhistle was, i might have described my Ideal Blorbo as a hufflepuff (fighting type).

eskel in an apron is e v e r y t h i n g to me miles i’m going feral. this ask is not to pressure you into drawing faster, it is just to let you know that whatever eskel-based apron-induced insanity you may or may not be experiencing, i am Right There With You. godspeed.

-eskel anon

he is fucking,,, he is making tea,,,, he is a big scary witcher but his heart is soft and it is kind and he wants to retire to his home in the winters and make tea for his family and sit by the fireplace to talk to them

@proheromidoriyashouto tagging u bc u sent me the apron guy this is your doing ksdjfhksjdgh

[grasslandgirl]

HELLO oh I am :eyes emoji: at every single thing on that list, your wips sound so. cool! absolutely dying to hear more about leverage ot3 amnesia ideas & juno steel and the case of the lost memories, whatever you are interesting in sharing <3

oh with JOY will i talk about these jade, with JOY!!

i'm gonna put this below a cut cause i'm gonna answer and give snips for both and it's gonna get LONG bc i Cannot Shut Up xox

for the leverage ot3 amnesia au i dont have a TON written, it was more just a collection of amnesia au ideas for all three of them that i was putting down so as not to forget them- i'm such a sucker for amnesia aus where the concrete memories are gone, but the sense memories and the gut instincts, and the muscle memory remains; and i think that trope carries over really interestingly to the leverage ot3-- parker who feels herself physically relaxed around these two strange men she doesn't know, eliot who instinctively lets these strangers touch him because some part inside of him he can't remember knows they won't hurt him, etc etc

i haven't written a ton of it, but i do have a dash of eliot pov i'll slide your way <33

Everything’s fuzzy. Eliot hates when things are fuzzy. He blinks against the crust in his eyes, but whatever room he’s in is clinically bright. His mouth is dry and his whole body is a single dull ache- heavy medication. Someone’s drugging him. In the back of his mind, Eliot’s furious about that; wants to rage until everything is burned out of his system and he can think clearly again, but he can’t remember why.  Why he’s- wherever he is. Why he hates mind-numbing medication so badly. Why he needs it in the first place.  The alarms in the back of his head are clanging- telling him, danger, threats, wake up, get up, fight your way out- but Eliot has to fight to open his eyes all the way.  He’s in a hospital. And- yeah, okay, that makes sense; even if it ignites the same anxious-angry pit in his stomach the meds do. Glaring halogen ceiling lights and clinical white walls and a softly beeping heart monitor and an IV plugged into his arm (he fights the urge to rip it out, if only for the moment) and- a man. Sitting in the chair next to him.

:)))) eliot pov my beloved....... i should write more leverage fic, huh?

and then SIMILARLY juno steel and the case of the missing memories is ALSO an amnesia au ksjvnskfjvnsfb

the concept was that at some point vaguely s3 on the carte blanche, juno gets a bad hit and loses all his memories of basically the plot of the show- so he can remember everything before the case of the murderous mask- but he doesn't remember anything with the kanagawas, or meeting nureyev, or the martian pill, or losing his eye, etc etc etc

so he wakes up on this ship- off mars for the first time in his life- still in a pre-s1 headspace, with only one eye and a bunch of people he doesn't know. and rita :)

tbh i only got like. a couple eps into s3 of junoverse and then never got caught back up (whoops) so like. idk what really happens during s3 and this fic was a big project in terms of like. going back to s1 juno characterization and foiling that against who s3 juno is and who s3 peter is, and how this kind of regression effects their relationship (or lack thereof, at the outset of the fic, bc they're not together yet) and while i did and do think it's really interesting, it was also like. a big thing to undertake and i got wary of like. characterizing juno effectively in it? and i wanted to slow roll him regaining his memories in bits and pieces and was having trouble pacing that effectively, and so it ended up on a back burner i never returned to </3 alas

but maybe someday when i finally go back and relisten to and catch up on tpp i'll go back and wirte more of it! in the mean time, have some snips:

He heard soft footsteps, almost silent, sliding across the hard floors of the ship behind him. Juno froze on instinct, senses sharpening to a knife’s point as he tried to focus on the steps over the blasting audio from Rita’s stream. If Rita noticed Juno stiffening, she didn’t say anything. Even though Rita had told him, again and again, that he could trust his fellow crew members aboard the Carte Blanche, that they were a family, Juno couldn’t shake the paranoia he’d known his whole life. He didn’t trust easy, he’d learned that the hard way over and over again as all the people he’d let into his life had betrayed or abandoned him. Except Rita. If he’d ever known how, Juno had long since forgotten how to be a part of a family, and this motley crew of criminals was no exception.  The footsteps neared, and Juno’s mind- as fuzzy and slow-moving as it still was, even three days after whatever accident he’d had- spun, trying to remember where the closest gun was, just in case. In his periphery, Juno saw the figure approaching. Tall, with taller hair and narrow shoulders- Ransom.  Some of the tension dropped from Juno’s shoulders. He still didn’t trust Ransom, there was something off about the guy, something about how he watched Juno and spoke so carefully around him that made Juno think he was hiding something. But there was something- a gut feeling Juno had about him. A deja vu kind of trust and comfort and uncertainty. Juno didn’t remember where it came from, but it was there. He trusted Ransom more than anyone else on the ship, other than Rita, even though that wasn’t saying much. Ransom came close enough to catch Juno’s eye. Raised his eyebrow in a silent question- the same one every person on the ship asked him every time they saw him: do you remember me yet? Juno shrugged, trying not to dislodge Rita too much. Ransom nodded, his expression never changing from the smooth, impassive mask he always wore. It itched at Juno, that impassivity. He wanted to know what was under it, wanted to know what Ransom was really thinking in that pretty head of his. The only people who were that careful and inscrutable were people with something to hide. Juno was a PI- he should know. As Ransom turned to walk away, Juno realized that the closest entrance to Ransom’s quarters was on his blind side. That he’d gone the long way around the ship to enter and exit within view of Juno’s periphery. Something uncertain and heavy and familiar squeezed in Juno’s stomach.

[i can't help another snippet, it's taking everythig i have not to give like three more on top of this, i forgot how good this au was skjfnvsfb sav from two years ago was crazy]

“Juno,” Ransom said, his voice infuriatingly even.  “Ransom-” that was the other thing. The other muscle-sense-memory bullshit that made Juno’s head ache. It felt- wrong, every time he called him Ransom. Every time Juno saw him, or thought about him or started to say his name, he had to correct himself, make himself say Ransom; instead of the other name he had rattling around in his head. He didn’t know where it came from, or why he associated it so strongly with Ransom, but Juno was ready to fucking know who Peter Nureyev was, and why he could’t stop thinking about him. Patience wasn’t ever a strong suit for Juno.  He bit the bullet. “Why do I have another name for you in my head, Ransom?” There. The flash of- of something, of emotion Juno had been waiting for. It was brief, something Juno might’ve missed if he hadn’t been looking so closely for any kind of reaction, but it was there. Shock, uncertainty, grief, flickered across Ransom’s face before settling back into his perpetual inscrutability.  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Juno,” Ransom said, but there was a tremor, barely there, under his composed tone. Juno had shaken him, and he was going to get answers, damnit, come hell or high water. “Really?” Juno challenged, and he’d forgotten a lot, but he hadn’t forgotten this: the chase, the interrogation, cornering somebody into admitting and confessing and telling Juno what he wanted- what he needed- to hear. “Then who the hell is Peter Nureyev?” There it was again; the flickering, uncertain emotion, the disappearance of Ransom’s composure, the twist in Juno’s stomach that meant he was onto something.  “I- Juno, do you-” “No.” Ransom’s face fell, if infinitesimally. “I don’t- remember. Not really, but there’s… I don’t remember you, but I look at you and my brain says Nureyev, and I don’t fucking know why.”

:))) i just reread this whole wip- and it's almost 7k long- bc i didnt remember a lot of it and. oohohohoho. god. i was deranged.

thank you again for sending in this ask, jade!! sorry (not sorry) it got so long skjfvnksfjbn

send me the name of a wip off of this list and i'll reply with a snippet and/or my thoughts on it !!

[vickyvicarious]

i hope ur ok with unprompted asks abt leverage bc today i am like this :-( because someone is posting hate on the OT3 in the OT3 tags. (not as a mistake either, they refused to use the right tags) tbh i am so so excited for the revival but this modern-day-esque toxicity is what i've been worried abt the whole time.

THE POINT OF THIS ASK: they said something that is wiggling in my brain, and i figured you may have a good perspective since i know you like the OT3 and are aware of/comment on fandom/media racism. they said the OT3 is popular because of fandom racism, because hardison is black and fandom wants to focus on the white guy (eliot). i think if this were true then people would just ship parker/eliot like ive seen people do in other fandoms not make an ot3? but wanted an opinion from another person?

Totally cool to send me unprompted asks! Whether Leverage or whatever else. And first off, sorry to see you've been experiencing nastiness in the OT3 tags. I personally never have, but maybe that's down to me not actually knowing what the commonly used tag is? I legit just found blogs to follow who post enough thiefsome content for me, and pick up more here and there, but I dunno where most people post stuff. leverage OT3? parker/hardison/eliot? hardison/parker/eliot? hitter/hacker/thief? something along those lines probably, I've found some stuff tagged under each but have no clue what the 'main' one is. (Also I came up with my own name for them and post my own stuff mostly under that so I really got no clue what most people do, haha.)

Anyway, I digress. On to your main point - well, I will give a disclaimer first. Pretty much the entire time I've been on tumblr I've mostly been in a happy fandom bubble and not even noticed a lot of the nastier discourse. Probably down to the way I pick blogs to follow and then mostly stick to my dash? But anyway, that remains true for Leverage. And in fact until I started my rewatch I was never really involved in the fandom, despite loving the show. I actually haven't read much fic yet either. So there's probably plenty going on I'm not aware of.

That being said, yeah I would agree with you that generally I think if this was racially motivated then people would just ship Parker/Eliot. I don't think people usually default to poly relationships, so I don't really think that is a good argument against one. The only exception I would say is if there's a huge trend of people shipping the three of them together, but only using Hardison as a prop for the other two. You know, if fic focuses mostly on Parker and Eliot and Hardison is just around to be supportive and not given the same level of depth, that kind of thing. However, in the fandom interpretations I have personally seen of the thiefsome, that isn't really the case. It can't hurt to be aware of trends if you do see them, but I don't think you gotta worry too much about this one.

People can be mean. Try not to let it bother you, maybe blacklist if possible (though I guess that ain't if they're intentionally using whatever the main tag is) or build your own happy dash bubble to retreat to. The people I reblog a lot are really nice if you need a starting point! ^_^

Edit - check in the comments for some other perspectives. Seems like there is a tendency to focus on Eliot more, though perhaps not in a straightforward a way as that person was saying? (I dunno what they were saying exactly though so I can't really speak to that.) Doesn't mean we should stop shipping all three but we can be more aware of how we do so, and make sure not to skimp on giving Hardison his fair share of emphasis! (Parker too obviously but you get my point.)

[suzukiblu]

do you have any headcanons for a Leverage a.b.o. ‘verse?

I have absolutely none but I sure can think some up for you, friend. 

The most immediate and logical headcanon I can think of is that no one in the group knows Sophie's secondary gender for, like, a thousand years. She just shows up acting like a different one every now and then and everyone else just rolls with it. Anyone out there hears anything about Sophie Devereaux, they just assume she's whatever variant of female they last saw her as and otherwise don't worry about it. There's no figuring it out, so there's no point in trying. She barely even has to use any special perfumes or anything, she's just THAT GOOD at controlling her pheromones. 

Nate's probably an alpha or beta, I don't think you'd get quite his personality from the usual omega. I mean, I would absolutely WRITE him as an omega just to prove that I could, but yeah, I'd likelier lean alpha or beta. Actually I think I'd say beta, he's not quiiite an alpha type to me. Also, easier to fly under people's radar/fuck with them as a beta. He can probably pass for an alpha when he tries but he doesn't usually try. He is TECHNICALLY still the pack alpha either way, just he doesn't really think of it in those terms. 

Parker is terrible at pretending to be any gender whatsoever, up to and including the ones people assume she is. It is just not her thing. She doesn't really have pheromone CONTROL so much as her pheromones just almost never actually DO anything, so people tend to be like ". . . you're what again, now?" Parker does not provide an answer. If someone thinks she happens to be something, well, that's their problem. Did I not mention her actual gender(s)? Well, neither did she. 

Eliot . . . hmmmm. I really WANT to make him an omega, tbh, because male omegas are one of my favorite things, so fuck it, he's an omega. He will of course knock out anyone who gives him shit for this. Then again I'm also lowkey tempted by beta!Eliot but that's mostly because he's generally more chill than everyone else. So I could go either way, really, though beta might fit his personality best. Also, though, gender is obvi not the end-all be-all, so I'm still leaning omega. He is probably super cranky about his heats unless he has a partner arranged in advance and absolutely refuses to admit to how much time he spends nesting. 

And Hardison can be an omega too, let's go for broke. He acts much more erratic and anxious about heats than Eliot does but handles them better during the actually difficult parts. Also he nests shamelessly. Just SHAMELESSLY. He's less likely to want a heat partner than Eliot is but that's probably good for him because I think he'd be choosier about them. Possibly this is only because Parker exists as a person but possibly he is just picky. He's likelier to lean into his gender than pretty much any of the others, except maybe Sophie, who just leans into whichever gender is most convenient/useful at the moment. 

And of course it drives Eliot INSANE the moment he and Hardison get close enough for their heats to sync up. Insaaane. It also drives Hardison insane, but more in the sexy way. Parker is oblivious to both of their suffering and honestly might need it explained to her before they lose their respective minds. 

. . . really probably all of them would work best as betas, now that I'm really thinking about it, which could actually be kinda interesting to write if only because betas get the short stick in fic so often. That might also just be because beta seems like the easiest gender to be for a con artist, though, at least to me. Having heats/ruts/etc to worry about is a bit more inconvenient, and also the pheromones are probably more memorable. 

But yeah, I prefer grab-bags gender-wise, so I'd more likely write them as a mix of them if I actually managed to get my brain around a proper fic concept. 

[creativityobsessed]

your ship of choice + 12 for the soft fic prompt meme?

Okay, I got... a little carried away for this one, tbh. Leverage Redemption has me in my ot3 feels and back on my bullshit again, and. This happened. (Under the cut to save your dash.) Leverage ot3 x “you could say I’m fond of you”

Cross-posted to Ao3 if you'd rather read there

“No, hang on, what was that you said a minute ago?” Hardison asks, his voice loud in Eliot’s ear. Eliot ducks a blow from the guy on his right and then retaliates with a gut punch before focusing back on his left.

“I’m a little busy right now, Hardison!”

“He said ‘Be careful!’” Parker chimes in, helpfully. Eliot imagines she’s probably saying it as she uncurls from a pipe in the ceiling that has her dangling right over the priceless gem that is their target. Perfectly normally too, no sound of effort, but he supposes that’s what one gets when one practices hanging curls daily. He ducks again, and then stamps down on an ankle, hearing it crack in a very satisfying way.

“No, I heard that, he always says that, I’m just having a hard time remembering what happened after that,” Hardison says. This part of the con is where Hardison always gets mouthy, this is the part where Hardison has nothing to do, and he takes it out - Eliot jumps over the attempt to sweep his leg from the third guy, and grabs the gun out of the fourth’s hands, disarming it before tossing the parts in two separate directions - he takes it out on the rest of them by distracting them with his snark.

“Oh, after that he told us we had to come back, cause if we didn’t he’d be worried. Or did he say upset?”

“Parker! Focus on your own damn job,” Eliot growls, a hand to his ear.

“I’m all set, just waiting for you to cut the alarms. How’s that security detail coming?”

“It’d come faster if Hardison would stop pestering me.”

“I’m not pestering! I’m just, I’ve noticed lately that you’ve become, oh what’s the word?”

“Softer?” Parker chimes in.

“I’m not soft!” Eliot yells, and he narrowly avoids dodging one last hit before he shoves the last man hard enough into some crates that it knocks him out.

“Affectionate?” Parker tries again.

“I’m not…” Eliot pauses, and then lowers his voice. Nevermind that he just had a loud fight out here, he’s not yelling this, “I’m not affectionate, look, you wanna steal this thing or not?”

“Look, I’m just noticing that lately you’ve been real… protective of us,” Hardison says. Eliot just rolls his eyes and heads towards the security control room.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to say anything,” Hardison continues.

“Alright, I won’t,” Eliot interjects

“I just wanted you to know, we noticed. And, you know, we talked about it, and… we’re cool with it. All of it. Whatever you want.”

Eliot pauses. Is Hardison saying…? Hardison and Parker have been together for a couple years now, and they’re lovely for each other, he’s so happy for them. Maybe he doesn’t look too hard at why he always feels the urge to hit something when they’re being all lovey-dovey near him, but that’s just ‘cause he doesn’t do that. And because he’s happy for them.

But. If Hardison is really saying what he thinks he is… He takes a deep breath.

“Alright, look. Listen up, cause I’m only gonna say this once. Yes. I am protective of you, cause you’re my ffff-” he can’t bring himself to say family, because they’re not, not in the way he wants, “friends. You might even say that I’m… fond of you. Okay? If either of you gets hurt, I will hunt down the son of a bitch that did it to you. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Ha. Told you!” Parker barks, “Told you he wouldn’t say it.”

“Dammit Parker, I’m trying to-”

“No, no, no,” Hardison interrupts, “It’s okay. It’s alright. We hear you. You’re fond of us. We got it.”

“Dammit Hardison!”

“No, no, get on with the job, we’re all waiting on you, baby, just hit that button.” Eliot can hear the smugness in Hardison’s voice, and dammit, why are all the security dudes out, he wants to hit something especially after Hardison just called him “baby.” He whacks the button harder than necessary, just to get a little of that energy out. In the background he can hear Hardison chuckling and repeating “fond” quietly to himself.

“Alright, it’s done. Parker go!” Eliot says, one finger to the comm in his ear, desperate to get this con back on track.

“Parker going!”

“That’s my girl!” Hardison cheers her on. Eliot wipes his palms on his pants, cleaning off dust.

“And, hey, Eliot,” Hardison adds.

“Yeah, I know, I know, time to get out.”

“No, I just- I was gonna say, ‘We love you too.’ That’s it, just ‘We love you too.’ Come on man, you gotta ruin that?”