#leverage Olympics

[leverageclips]

Leverage Redemption Olympics episode but Eliot can't go undercover as an athlete of a random sport because he's too famous as multiple athletes and so the crew must convince Parker to go in

[writer-at-the-table]

Sitting here watching olympic fencing and thinking about how great a setting it would be for a leverage fic (or episode)

"Lets go steal the olympics"

[trevisos]

i think the thing is magpie kind of always knew on some level that varric was dead but acknowledging that would have meant acknowledging This. and i think if she had done that before now she would have died

[tenobelisk]

idk man, i think a future olympics should focus more on age groups than genitals and hormones. think about over 60s volleyball with agnes slagging off derek for thinking the ball was out.

think about old vets fresh from the medals joining the crowd to cheer on some teenagers. thirty-something commentators leaving the mic on the chair to run in an event.

sure, the olympic retirement village gets a little crazy after dark but the games become a celebration of life's journey. a reminder that even though our bodies hit their peak, our mind and spirit carve a different kind of curve.

how fun it would be for a couple of nine year olds to be climbing up the side of a wall in the olympics with not one circumstance of birth separating them from being judged as equals. gangly little spiders climbing up trees at a picnic. but with medals.

and before you say bUt WhAt aBoUt BoXxi1i1i1ng?!?!? in what idealistic, theoretical future world is it acceptable to bounce your brain against your skull until you fall down or give up? i'm not against it, but it stands alone as an exception in its direct, intentional and continuous head contact, and so it must live or die as an exception. besides, you gotta give the straights and the trads something to feel good about, even if it's a violent remnant of their heyday.

[sachermorte]

friend told me I should let her set up a dating app profile for me and I committed to fake gagging so hard that I actually gagged a little for real. unsure if this was a socially acceptable response. will continue to monitor

[riverlark]

co-sponsored by the Brooklyn 99

the sport i’d add to the olympics is Stealing. there is no event or ceremony. whoever is able to locate and steal the medals technically earns them

[fourdiagnosesinatrenchcoat]

LEVERAGE TAKES ON THE NHL??? And Nate is on the side of how important enforcers are in hockey?? Is he fucking Canadian??

Ok it's a fake minor league team but the principle is the same.

Pick up Boy on Ice, the biography of Derek Boogaard, and tell me you ever want to watch another hockey fight. It's possibly worse than the fuckery they get away with in the NFL. Americans don't on the whole care about ice hockey so players with serious health complications from standard play barely even gets news attention. And Canada is so "it's not hockey without the fighting" that it's impossible to stop.

I cannot handle Eliot as a French Canadian player. I was supposed to go to bed. Dammit.

[123ohwell]

LEVERAGE GRIFT TRACKER

I FINISHED SEASON 1! Shoutout to @grandma-waldo for the idea

Extra details in the parameters and the job list. I kept a list of all grifts in order they occur through season 1. If I thought about it before hand I would have draw a line between each episode but oh well hindsight and all that.

Any questions? Yes I welcome them and I'll try to answer them. Want to know why I split something? Just ask - there was definitely an overthought process to my madness. Any ideas on adjusting job titles? I want to hear it please. I invested too much in this lol but it's been fun.

Season 1 was tough in trying to decide what the jobs would be while trying to keep them broad and trying to think so I wouldn't need to add anymore come later seasons . Also me and excel nearly got into a fight.

I'm going to do the rest of the show but that will be slow coming. When I figure out how to make a master list with links, I'll make one. Since this is like my 4th post on the topic and there will be a bunch more to come

Surprises and Revelations

- Hardison grifts in intense spurts

- there was only 1 real royalty grift in season 1??? And it was hardison?? But there were 5 Southern Belle/Beau grifts

- Sophie was the first athelete?? Ik I already posted that but it still shocked me (Olympic luge)

- Parker interacts with people more than most of the team - she thieves in the shadows but she talks to people often as a misdirection

- FBI and just an ordinary person (Civilian) were the most common grifts of season 1 > not surprised since everyone played FBI in pilot part 2

- runner up was The Damsel. Plenty of times the team did the Damsel and Damsel's Knight grift together as a misdirection. But going "oh no I need help" to a stranger/mark was more popular

- Hardison and Parker were the most likely to play the Damsel card

(Sidenote: i thought about wanting to know all the scams the team calls out in the show. "Burn scam" "the cherry pie" etc. But I think someone has already made a list but I can't find it. Also my family might kill me if I restart the show - again. I was already getting side eyes for skipping back a few seconds to check out who was grifting when I wasn't paying attention)

If you've read this far! Thank you! Hope you have a great week!

[ms-demeanor]

your life is goals on so many levels

question for you tho, how did you get into hackery? i've been trying to tech myself for years on and off and so far haven't found anything that didn't immediately overwhelm me.

The way you get into hackery bullshit is to go do hackery bullshit; I got into it because my friend from the coffee shop dragged me to a 2600 meeting and I liked the vibe so I kept coming back for the next 20 years (20 years next month, actually).

This led to me going to conferences, which led to me volunteering at conferences; doing all of that over time led to me getting to know people and their interests better and learning more about the landscape.

I don't do a ton of stuff that's actually all that technical; I do social engineering stuff (I've just got one of those faces that convinces people they should let you through the door) and training stuff. What I'm really good at is explaining to people who are more technical than I am how their inability to communicate with people who are less technical than I am is creating tremendous, exploitable vulnerabilities. This doesn't get you a lot of talks or any kind of cert, but it does mean you get to read a lot of interesting things and can provide a lot of insight and guidance while shaping security policies.

So I'd say see if there's a local infosec meetup (2600 meetings happen in a ton of places, DC Groups exist in a ton of places, there are a ton of hackerspaces in big cities that have meetups and open houses) and if there is, swing by. It's easier to learn stuff in a group sometimes, and it's easier to learn stuff if there are people you can ask for help, so see if there's a group where you are; see if they have any projects going; see if you can help. Participating in the scene will give you an idea of the kinds of things you might find interesting or might have a better aptitude for, and will give you an idea of who you can talk to to learn more.

The infosec groups I've been a part of have done everything from weather balloon launches to radio training to beer cooling to biohacking.

If you're interested in getting a security cert, you're probably better off signing up for a class with a set schedule and curriculum and having an actual formal structure. If you're interested in seeing what the scene is about and learning a bunch of stuff from a bunch of weird people, go to a meeting.

Anyway. Here's me at Defcon 16 with my buddy beemer and the goon badge that I was absolutely positively supposed to have and did not acquire through any kind of schemerey, thievery, or graft.

(I don't go to defcon anymore because defcon has been kind of shitty to me but I've gotta prove my cred and also it remains a point of personal pride that I've never paid to attend a con - either I volunteered and got in that way, or I leveraged social technologies to watch the future VP of security for Cloudflare knock a dude's tooth out with a bag of craisins)

Also that was 2008 and defcon was during the olympics and I was working at the newspaper at the time and the hotel was a goddamned zoo and I had to get my pages in but there was no way that I was going to use wifi in the hotel so I sent in ten PDFs via SMS by fiddle-fucking around and using my sidekick as a hotspot.

Sorry everyone's getting a story tonight I'm feeling old and nostalgic.

[ohforfrithssake]

Okay but look at the first photo and tell me that doesn’t look like a screenshot from Leverage

“Why is snoop dogg at the Olympics-“

WRONG QUESTION!

WHY ISNT MARTHA STEWART THERE WITH HIM?

[convenientalias]

SVSS Fic Rec List

I figured I'd make a fic rec list for the Scum Villain fics I've been reading lately, since that's been a large portion of my recent fic reading. It's 90% Luo Binghe/Shen Yuan, I am a simple woman. (I'm calling SQQ Shen Yuan for this list and original!SQQ Shen Jiu, to avoid confusion.)

Multichapter Fics:

Run For Cover--Modern setting, Shen Yuan summons a dangerous demon. Quite a bit of attempted murder!!! 56k.

If Marriage Was an Olympic Sport--Shen Yuan gets wifeplotted into a marriage hunt. Binghe, fresh out of the abyss, joins the fun. 34k.

Tarnished Gold--Binghe schemes against Gongyi-Xiao!Shen Yuan, and tries not to catch feelings. Immensely slow burn but I was living for it. 118k.

Heartbreak and Other Foreplay--Modern setting, Luo Binghe mistakes Shen Yuan for Shen Jiu and seduces him with revenge in mind. The misunderstanding doesn't last too long but it does cause some chaos. Also, this AU still has cultivation (and, notably, dual cultivation). 108k.

raised by winter winds--Shen Yuan transmigrates into a random Qing Jing disciple and becomes Shen Jiu's head disciple (their relationship is a complicated mess). When Luo Binghe arrives, he asks if he can take Luo Binghe as a pet. 35k.

you are who you love--Shen Yuan gets selective amnesia and forgets about Binghe post-canon. Binghe must seduce him in order to cure said amnesia the same way PIDW cures everything. 38k.

Tongfang--Shen Yuan transmigrates into a sickly young master who canonically is supposed to be a murder victim. Binghe is loaned out by Cang Qiong to work there seasonally. 24k.

Oneshots Or Short Enough I'm Pretending They're Oneshots:

Imposter Syndrome--Shen Yuan, Luo Binghe, Shang Qinghua, Liu Qingge, and Yue Qingyuan run into a doppelganger situation (Dungeon Meshi style, apparently, but easy to understand if you haven't watched Dungeon Meshi--I haven't). 11k.

petal and vine--Plant!Shen Yuan with amnesia, after Huayue City. 5k.

right from the start, i gave you my heart--Jinlan City confrontations grow more complicated when Shen Yuan gets pollened by an obedience curse flower. 11k.

I Want You To Be Happier--Shen Yuan gets full blown amnesia in Jinlan City. Binghe claims they're married and runs away with him. 12k.

Medical Diplomacy--Post-Abyss Binghe finagles an arranged marriage with Shen Yuan, leveraging that he can cure Without a Cure. 12k.

Consanguine--Prince!Shen Yuan and now-Emperor!Luo Binghe (they're siblings... sort of) are reunited after some misunderstandings of the past.

suno to zaraa ye phoolon ki vaadi--Plant!Shang Qinghua after Shang Qinghua gets killed, but he starts out as a tiny small child due to some miscalculations. Rare Mobei-jun/Shang Qinghua fic on this list!! 9k.

Cold Hands, Warm Heart--Unable to use spiritual power and stranded in the middle of nowhere, Mobei-jun has to watch while Shang Qinghua gets worsening hypothermia. The h/c is incredible. 16k. Once again MobeiShang!!! 16k.

Plastromancy--Shen Yuan is the Other Shizun in a sort of a Coraline AU. 16k.

I'd be interested in seeing recs from anyone else :D<3

[kevinsdsy]

I just want to hear jean say jock truisms. give this man a “LETS GOOO” and a back slap. makes me go insane

i have these saved up for upcoming parts for the socmed au

but uhhhh you’re now making me think about jean playing a match with the trojans AGAINST the foxes, against kevin (and neil), with NO PRESSURE— nothing at stake.

just kevin day, the son of exy, using his charm and name to convince the olympics committee, or whoever is in charge, to use the court after the official olympics exy games just because he’s so obsessed and there’s no way he has come all this way just to watch?

and they’re all just having fun and kevin is being his obsessed fanatic self who is yelling at andrew to take the game seriously and andrew is looking at him with a bored expression telling him this is his vacation and he’s not obligated to stand on the court in the first place.

and it’s not even an official match so jean realises he doesn’t even have to worry about not ruining the trojans’ precious image; so he plays a mix of the less aggressive tactics he’s learned with the trojans while also falling back to his more aggressive tactics— and he’s never used a mix of both tactics which even catches kevin off guard and they’re all just so determined to prove something even though it’s supposed to be a friendly game (but let’s be real when has a friendly game ever been friendly?)

and jean is actually having fun. he realises he enjoys not having to worry about which tactics to use and not having to worry about the consequences. so what if they lose? it’s not an official game so it won’t even have any effect of their standings and what if they win? he can use it against kevin as leverage for as long as he likes.

and i’m not even going to think about whatever the score is going to end up being because idek— i just like to think that whenever jeremy scores a point jean goes over to celebrate. then there’s cat who makes such a great move while defending against neil that jean and cat click their sticks together proudly.

not to mention exy is an aggressive sport after all, so maybe jean hits kevin a little harder than he’s supposed to but instead of feeling remorseful he says LETS GOOO and kevin scoffes and says: “i thought you trojans were supposed to be nice?” but his tone is playful and he doesn’t seem to care at all that he just got floored. jean helps him up and even though jean’s helmet is covering his face and it’s hard to see his expression kevin is convinced jean is actually grinning under his helmet.

and oh my god i’m ranting so much and barely covered the jock truisms but in conclusion I AGREE WITH YOU— ITS NOT A WANT ITS A NEED AT THIS POINT

[silurisanguine]

Possible unpopular Caterina Dellamorte opinion.

I don't see what she did as abuse in the way many now write her. She has been demonised as a monster and I think that is unfair. Did she perhaps push too hard sometimes? Yes.

Was her training any different than any other Crow? No.

Every Crow goes through brutal training in order to be the best at what they do and maintain their well earned reputation. Caterina had two family members left of the most important House in the Crows after the rest were killed in a war of succession. She'd managed to hold the title of First Talon not only to stay in charge but to protect what family she had left from those who would take it all from her.

She old guard. Lived through the worst of it. Seen what the Black Shadow did to House Arainai and other Crows that pushed their luck.

She's seen what can happen to other Houses... ones people no longer remember the names of. She doesn't want that to happen to Lucanis and Illario. So she trains them hard.

Trains them like a trainer hones the skills of an Olympic athlete to become gold medallists. Like a Shaolin Monk trains an initiate to become a living weapon. Like specialists train spec op soldiers to withstand conditions and situations most others wouldn't. It's painful, harsh and brutal.

But needed. They will become trained assassins...Master assassins. Because they have to be the best, they have to survive and stay on top.

Because there is no alternative.

They are both Dellamorte's. Even if they wanted to leave they'd be hunted down as leverage by other Houses or anyone the Crows have made enemies of.

The only way either of those boys could leave is if they abandoned everything including their name and that wasn't going to happen, they were kids.

And they wanted to be Crows. Was her punishments for failure harsh? Yes. But we have to realise they are of the setting. This isn't a contemporary story.

We also have no idea what Illario was like as a kid either, but if he was as flippant about training as he is about doing jobs as an adult, then we can guess what he was like as a teen.

Did she fail in the way she treated Illario like he wasn't as good? Yes no doubt there, she is partly to blame for some of Illario's issues. But not all of them.

Lucanis though, I see as the quiet one, the one who wanted to do well, to please his grandmother, the only family he has left and that's why he becomes favourite, because maybe he was present, willing and enthusiastic.

It's why sometimes she pushed him too hard and he failed. She's fearful and yes I do think she did fuck up with sending him to bed with no food... but that was a standard punishment at one point, as was using a cane.

Does anyone think a naughty step was around then or would have worked for a family dedicated to assassination??? Plus all Crows go through pain and torture resistance training. Rook would have too. Many seem to forget this aspect. Rook calls Viago's training torture. Lucanis says that he hated her once but grew to understand and respect her cruelty as a way to prepare him for the life of a Master Assassin. Her training saved his life countless times and probably saved him in the Ossuary. He wouldn't be here without what she did. And we see how in Lucanis mind prison His idea of her that holds him back. Spite words it as - both tenderness and terror. rage and relief. Fear of disappointment. She is an icon to him. She survived other Houses trying to wipe her House out. She's formiddable and he admires that even if it scared him as a kid.

She is there in his mind prison because he fears being a disappointment to her, now he is an Abomination. He admires her and doesn't think he's good enough to take her place as First Talon. That's no longer hate. That's admiration. He's not the teen, fearing disappointing her. He's the adult understanding her training made him as good as he is. Yet he fears he failed her by what he became through no fault of his own ( though there is probably a part of him that feels he failed because he was caught). But we do not see Caterina reject him once on his return. She never gave up looking for him once she knew the body returned was not his. We do not see her call him an Abomination. We see her call him her grandson. We see her name him First Talon. Because he is fit for the role. The only one who could be. Often the ones who don't want to lead are the best suited for the roles and she knows it, has known it all along. Illario would never have made a good First Talon. That job involves delegation, empathy and understanding of a situation. He is analytical, keeping logbooks and understanding responsibility - already perfectly suited to the role. Illario jumps head first into things and only thinks of himself, how being First Talon will be good for him. Lucanis would be doing it for the good of the Crows and Antiva. Caterina has failings. That is not in question. She should have been more there for Illario. Nurtured his good points rather than let his bad ones fester. But we do not know what he was like, only how he is now. But she is not a monster and her tough upbringing of Lucanis and Illario wasn't abuse.

[certifiedsexed]

It's fucked up that apparently people are calling you slurs and I hope the actual harassment ends soon!!! And it sucks that people are making things up about you to malign you; things should never come to that.

But I do feel like it really would be good to address the genuine criticism instead of just painting everyone who has questions as being just harassors? Like. You started posting about how non-transfems always have a "trump card" over transfems (one post specifically mentioning "cis intersex women") very shortly after Imane Khelif got harassed over the mere assumption of her possibly being intersex and or secretly trans, where her AGAB didn't matter to the bigots one bit. In fact, the mentions of TMA/TME terminology ONLY started appearing on your blog immediately after the Paris Olympics. For me, that was extremely eyebrow-raising.

I appreciate that. It's largely died down for the moment but I'm not sure if that's just momentary or not. Here's hoping.

I wasn't painting anyone who had questions as being harassers, that's very extreme language to use and I'd appreciate maybe reading my posts thoroughly before accusing me of things like that.

I said the people sending me slurs and messages simply calling me names and intersexist were harassers, I also explicitly said anyone who had questions or actually wanted to discuss the issue should still feel free to send me asks or whatever.

I also was not asked even vaguely about what you're talking about. I was only told that I was intersexist for blocking two intersex blogs and then I was accused of claiming something to do with intersex people and autism.

I had two people in my inbox mention the possibility people were upset that I discussed transmisogyny, but neither of them were sure and only guessing, so I didn't want to throw guesses out. [I did get a more concrete mention of this late last night tho from an anon!]

But no one else said any of the shit you're talking about to me.

I don't remember mentioning cis intersex women in particular but I might've. I had a lot of questions from people about transmisogyny but I did definitely say that anyone who isn't TMA or transfeminized does definitely have leverage explicitly over people who are in the context of transmisogyny. That's true and literally how every type of bigotry works.

I'll address the Imane Khelif bit in a second but first, I do want to point out that my blog started around that same time, Anon.

I didn't start posting about transmisogyny because of the Paris Olympics. I started this blog around that time and transmisogyny is one of the issues I've reblogged posts about and afterwards, gotten many questions about, that's all.

It had nothing to do with the Olympics; I don't watch them and while I paid attention to some of the issues that arose from them [the blatant ableism, sinophobia, COVID issues, intersexism, racism, etc], I didn't make any posts on my sex education blog with the Olympics in mind.

As for Imane Khelif, I do want to mention that what happened to her was not solely about the possibility of her being intersex and/or secretly trans, nor is it true that her AGAB didn't factor into what happened.

What happened to Imane Khelif was very explicitly intersexist but it was also extremely racist. I mention that because it's very important that's not left out of the conversation. It's a very common racist, misogynistic tactic that has been revitalized in current politics and to ignore the racism is to ignore a good part of the picture.

I also don't want to ignore your claim that her being not-transfem had no affect on what happened with her.

To ignore that transfems were largely disallowed from competing in the Olympics at all is absurd and to insinuate there's not privilege in being allowed to compete is not a claim that should be made. If not being transfem didn't affect Imane Khelif at all, she wouldn't have even been in the Olympics.

Nor would it have been as "controversial" as it was [because they likely would have had genuine evidence], nor would she have been allowed to compete afterwards, nor would she have the legal standing to be able to sue people for accusing her of being intersex and/or transfem.

I do understand being wary but absolutely nothing I said had anything to do with Imane Khelif or even vaguely denies or belittles what she and many other people have had to go through because of racism, misogyny, intersexism and transmisogyny.

Just to be absolutely clear, because the poor are absolutely drenched in piss from the way people keep trying to misinterpret my posts:

I did not make any posts on transmisogyny to argue that what happened to Imane Khelif was not awful, nor did I make any posts to insinuate cisgender intersex women do not experience oppression, nor did I start posting about transmisogyny because of the Olympics.

But if that's what people are upset about, I appreciate you letting me know, fr. It's absurdly convoluted and feels like a lot of assumptions were made but it's very kind of you to tell me and I always appreciate people coming into my inbox to discuss things.

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions. <3

[kiefbowl]

What do you think of the Olympics boxing controversy

Very disappointed how fast "online radfems" jumped to quick conclusions with no evidence. Same thing happened to Caster Semenya. I appreciate how much feminists want female sport issues to be taken seriously, but it's clear there is a racial component to this. Many white feminists are incapable of avoiding weird race science b.s., incredibly disappointing. I think people are exposed more than ever in very casual ways to a lot of black political theories, and instead of trying to understand them and internalize them, are eager to leverage them for online clout and self-aggrandizing even if they completely misattribute them. That why you get weird takes like "black women have masculine features" because it's like a weird bastardization of black feminists who have discussed the ways culture will prescribe gendered cultural implications to black women at the detriment of black women. Black women are always, always women. They're female. They aren't a biologically different category, to believe so is both misogynistic and racist.

Additionally, I find it frustrating that so many feminists decide that intersex athletes are this huge priority. The anxiety over natural testosterone levels in otherwise biological female athletes veers on weird gender science of how women should be, what women should be, and other bio-essentialist views. All for a very tiny portion of the population who are already vulnerable and marginalized. The best faith argument is that in some sports, high testosterone in women may skew averages and create records that are near impossible to break, but given enough time outstanding performances become outliners, so I just don't see the big deal to have this much anxiety over intersex athletes. Doping, yes. Male, actual unambivalently male athletes invading female sports, yes. One singular born and raised female African athlete performing exceptionally, and well within the means of human performance? Good god there's a lot at risk here if we become insensitive, unnuanced, racist pieces of shit. Even from a pure optics point of view, if you disagree with me we certainly don't move the needle in favor to critical examine how trans gender ideas impact female athletes if it appears to everyone we really do believe "women = dainty, women are incapable, black women are men."

And since I always get the weirdest responses whenever I talk about this, please spare me you rote arguments because I've heard it before. I'm truly not moved by the argument that female intersex athletes tend to outperform in the sports they're in. I don't care. Good for them. I hope they make big bucks and live well for the rest of their lives. I don't need to know their medical history, I just don't care!! :)

[ecstarry]

snippet from pt.3 of olympic villa au - full fic here

James had been devouring and teasing Regulus, slowly making him crumble, but all Regulus needed to have James at his will was stand there. He tried to conceal his immense desire but there was no point in doing it now. All the leverage James had built for himself was lost now that an angel stood in front of him, wanting him back just as badly. He could no longer tell who was in control. 

“Do you still hate me?” James asked. 

Regulus took a moment and pressed his lips together. Still backed against the wall, his hands reached for James' shirt and slid it off. The first half had been entirely on James’ terms, but the match was not over yet. Medals weren’t won by those incapable of maintaining power for the entire match.

Finally, Regulus touched him, and James could no longer tell what winning even meant.

“Yes.”