God I love the episodes of Leverage that are like “yes Eliot is working class. yes he grew up surrounded by trades people and “menial” labourers. yes he knows so much about those jobs and will ALWAYS support those workers and their job choices.”
Because it’s something that really does set Eliot apart from the other characters. Like, Sophie is all about the finer things in life, and even if she did ever grow up poor or around labourers, she doesn’t exactly respect that life style. She’s all about getting away from that, if she ever was that lower class, which I don’t think she ever really was. Nate is Office Worker tm, just in vibes. That man has never seen a shovel. And while Parker and Hardison both went through the system, they’re both very city centric. And I mean, Parker has never once thought about real jobs or anything, ever. And Hardison definitely has a bit of a thing about age of the geek, and def starts out looking down on “menial” jobs.
But Eliot, throughout the entire show, is very much all about that. The mining episode in particular is such a favourite just because of the respect and care for these workers that Eliot shows. And I really like how different all of the leverage characters are, not just in skills but also in backgrounds, and how those backgrounds affect how they treat people. Eliot comes from a family of workers and a community of workers, and he holds those people in such high respect.
You asked me to teach you chess, and I've done that. It's a useful mental exercise. Through the years, many thinkers have been fascinated by it. But I don't enjoy playing. Do you know why not?
Because it was a game that was born during a brutal age when life counted for little and everyone believed that some people were worth more than others. Kings and pawns.
I don't think that anyone is worth more than anyone else. I don't envy you the decisions you're going to have to make. And one day I'll be gone, and you'll have no one to talk to. But if you remember nothing else, please remember this:
Chess is just a game. Real people aren't pieces. You can't assign more value to some of them than to others. Not to me. Not to anyone. People are not a thing that you can sacrifice.
The lesson is: Anyone who looks on the world as if it were a game of chess deserves to lose.
— Harold Finch, not knowing how to explain to his AI offspring that it should care about people (but doing his best), Person of Interest 4x11 “If-Then-Else”
I can only aspire to the level of spite that Brennan has achieved by creating an entire segment in his own gm talk show about the importance of snacks solely because Aabria and Matt made fun of him for eating almonds
Oh my gosh Beardsley that was SO SMART to figure out the people whose blood crystallizes are the people who TURN DOWN being brought back to worship Ankarna god DAMN
I love how the last of us is like. love doesn’t have to be audibly communicated. it doesn’t inherently have to be verbally spoken because sometimes it doesn’t need to be. sometimes it’s fixing a watch and offering it as a present. sometimes it’s packing crayons and paint to offer a sense of normalcy and childhood. sometimes it’s selflessly putting yourself between the face of danger and the person you’re growing to care about. sometimes it’s giggling late at night over dumb, silly little puns. sometimes it’s bonding over shared interests. sometimes it’s seeing someone in peril and keeping your eyes affixed on them to ensure that they see the light of day. sometimes it’s a hivemind adjacent level of understanding in which you and the other person can ride the wave of chaos by cognitively working together even at a distance. sometimes actions truly speak louder than words. silence can speak incredible volumes, and in a really touching way. some things don’t need to be said to have visible meaning