#like in the stealable shit

[eggs-can-draw]

Drinks!

[some-stars]

i have absolutely NO patience for anyone being shitty or judgmental or othering about addicts, not just because of my ethical principles and baseline compassion for other human beings, but because i have personal experience with how inseparable substance abuse is from mental illness and other kinds of inescapable suffering. i got high on cannabis and benzos all day long, 6 days a week for two years because i had severe treatment-resistant depression (aka i had tried EVERY legal treatment available without improvement). when i found a medication that made it go away almost entirely, i dropped down to maybe 3 times a month purely for fun and after my day's responsibilities are done, within days of starting to feel better. and now i feel like shit again and i've been getting high several times a week as literal self-medication. because, you know, i'm in horrible pain and it would be cruel and inhuman for someone to tell me i had to ignore the one tool i had access to that would reduce my suffering, just so i wouldn't be an ~addict~, which is of course the worse most disgusting worthless thing a person can be.

i know that there are many addictions that are more physically damaging and that people continue to crave physiologically even when they start recovering from the mental or physical pain that drove them to drugs in the first place. i am very, very fortunate that due to my life circumstances i have no access to meth or heroin or more dangerous stuff like that. but it is sure as hell a lot less difficult to resist even those cravings when the pain that they were used to alleviate is drastically reduced!!!

anyway this is all just me restating the rat town study that proved almost all drug addiction is caused by capitalism and/or trauma, and weakening capitalism and building rewarding caring societies eliminates substance abuse almost entirely. why the fuck would you scream at and shame people experiencing unspeakably terrible pain rather than the forces and people who caused/failed to treat that pain?

[raccoonfallsharder]

Hi! I just wanted to say I've been reading through Window Across the Galaxy - inching forward but reading it - and the way you write Rocket is so damn good. Though maybe I'm biased to hell and back because that is also exactly how I pictured pre-vol. 1 Rocket, haha.

The switching perspectives offer so much. I love how much they are misunderstanding each other.

Your work is inspiring me to want to work on my own wip OC fic. I've only just finished reading chapter 2 but I'm so hooked on Jolie and Rocket's tale. I love all these little snippets we get about her and her career as an artist/appraiser/restorer is so interesting.

A few questions, I know there are a lot of little references to the comics here and there, some I recognize from my own forays into reading those, and when I don't, I look it up because honestly, you add so much flavor and life to the worlds you write that I feel the need to know more. For the stuff that isn't a reference or at least a direct reference (as in a product from a known planet), how do you decide on names and other specifics? I personally long to do that in my writing but struggle with thinking things sound believable.

My other question is do you have any tips for writing Rocket? I know technically he hasn't said anything yet where I am in the story - semantics really, lol - but even through his thought process it sounds so much like him.

friend. sunshine. dewdrop. every time i see a comment or message or ask from you, i get giddy as a six-month-old puppy. you are SO kind and generous and I appreciate your words & support SO much

i’m gonna (try to) answer your questions behind the cut because I am a wordy bitch. also these questions are hard because i don’t often think about HOW my brain works so i will do my best.

but first i wanna say that i am SO excited & honored to have encouraged you to work on your own oc fic! if you end up posting here pleeease tag me ♡ and if not that’s okay too. when i started Window i thought it was going to be just for me and honestly it freed me up to do whatever the fuck i wanted, at my own pace, and that is part of what has kept it fun for me.

K BUCKLE UP THIS IS LENGTHY

so in terms of the shit I just make up (Glortho’s Equation, Spartaxian sugardrops, various fruits and foods and soap and recycling-compressors and other general NONSENSE). this is a layered process.

Almost everything I make up, I try to root in a canonical environment/planet, and I want it to make sense for the characters to HAVE it.

so eg, recycling-compressors came about because, like, they just need a practical way to store or get rid of trash. Are they jettisoning it into space every cycle? Dropping it on a landfill planet? Rocket’s comics-canon disdain for Earth + mentions of intergalactic human lifeform rights policies that Earth doesn’t honor leads me to belief that MOST space-folk embrace more sustainable practices. could be a recycling planet, but i didn’t want them needing to travel there every eight rotations or whatever so i decided having a compressor would allow them to have longer gaps between unloading. but like, you could do ANYTHING. maybe most intergalactic packaging is made from products that can be burnt as a clean universal fuel or something ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

similarly i wanted my best raccoon boy to have access to fish. but since he’s a broke-ass bounty hunter 90% of the time, it’s gotta be something inexpensive/accessible (or stealable) - which means it’s probably a cheap export from a planet with a lot of water. Hello, Morag (and the resulting Moraggian moonfish). Sometimes I’ll reference something already canonical in connection to something I fuckin made up just to increase the sense that all these things interplay with each other (zargnut-crusted moonfish sold by a street vendor on conjunction).

Sometimes I do the opposite. I try to imagine what a product from a planet would look like. eg Indigarran beeswax. I thought, what would Indigar export? It’s this gorgeous planet with a cathedral/palace/place of devotion made of glass. if i - an aesthetique lol - had a glass cathedral, I’d want that shit lit up with candles. Can you imagine how gorgeous that would be? Glimmering everywhere. That’s how i spent too much time dreaming up Indigarran beeswax ceremonial candles for a throwaway line somewhere deep in Window I think ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I also figure because of Kree imperialism in this region of the galaxy, a lot of shit is probably Xandaran. Relatedly if it’s a product associated with wealth, I’ll use Xandar or Spartax (also Atraxia but I think I made that planet up lol). I’ll use Asgard occasionally too but less often because it’s supposed to be at the other end of the galaxy. So if I’m referencing a luxury item, it USUALLY comes from one of these places.

For writing Rocket. I think @aliasrocket recently wrote something about this and I agree with like, every flawless thing they said. I listen to a lot of Rocket clips. I try to hear each spoken line in my head in his voice. Some verbs will end in a hard -ing, and some in a soft hanging -in’. I might also use a conjunction (even if it’s not a “usual” conjunction). Sometimes I use something like a liaison in French (I don’t know if there’s a word for it in English, but I basically smush two words together). Moreover, I’ll go back through Rocket’s dialogue on reread and just make sure I don’t go more than like 1-3 sentences without some kind of word-softening. Some examples:

“What’re you laughin’ at me for?”

“Why d’you wanna do that?”

In third-person narration from Rocket’s perspective (non-dialogue) i still try to use these sporadically, but nowhere near as often because I am trying to separate narrative voice from speaking voice just a little.

I also try to consider rocket’s frame of reference for everything from his perspective. What does he know about because he’s seen it? Heard of it? How did he see or hear it? did he learn about it from a fellow prisoner in the Kyln? Someone he did a job for in Conjunction? An alien refugee on earth? Iron Man? Did he steal it? Make it? Buy it? Was it given to him and by whom and why? How trustworthy is his source? How trustworthy does he think they are?

…

OKAY. wow if you made it to the end of this novel you are IMPRESSIVE and I hope it was at least a little helpful. if you have any other questions I will be flattered and happy to answer them and I’ll try to less fuckin wordy. ♡

you are a gem & a blessing & I hope your fanfic-writing brings you JOY

[cantuscorvi]

i saw something about boss fights on the dash and i thought it was fun exercise so i wanted to scribble some thoughts! raum's boss fight is probably more like one of those scripted ones you just have to escape alive from until you can find a way to kill him later

arena ; frozen lake/forest

phase 1 ; insufferable man shit talks you while sidestepping all your attacks. doesn't fight back. you take gradual damage from hands grabbing at you from under the ice. sometimes they try and drag you under and you get a QTE to escape.

phase 2 ; form reveal. big creepy demon crow man w/ multiple arms. lake arena becomes lots of little frozen islands. now it's your turn to dodge ice javelins from like 6 hands. if one hits you, you're immoblized for like 2 seconds while he moves towards you. if he touches you physically it's a one-shot where your atoms are frozen and you crumble to dust under the weight of your own mass.

phase 3 ; you escape off the lake into the surrounding forest. but what's that crashing through the trees behind you? hello motherfucker, chase scene straight outta Alfred Hitchcock's the birds(tm) featuring a giant crow trying to eat your ass.

special item interaction ; hand mirror -- a vintage silver mirror that you can use to dazzle him with his own reflection. works in any phase but can only use three times with diminshing effects. after the third time he steals the mirror from you.

stealable item ; crow pinion -- a consumable that gives you a very high charisma stat boost but permanently lowers your luck stat

[hetrosjistin]

No you know what, I thought I was done, but I'm not.

The problem with this shit is that it misses the point of having shit like the crows in Thedas at all.

You can't sanetize stuff and have it have the same impact, it's not just the hollowness, it literally reduces the conflict to a nothing burger.

You know why Dorian is, perhaps, one of my FAVORITE goddamn characters in the entire DA game series?

BECAUSE HE LITERALLY HAS TO GO THROUGH DEPROGRAMMING HIMSELF OF HIS RACIST SLAVER CULTURE! It's not enough that he wants to oppose the Venatori and all that nonsense. It's not enough that in inquistion, he literally went to the part of the world where he's taught they ENSLAVE people like him and burn out their brains if they're not good little obedient pet mages.

He goes there because it's right and that doesn't make him magically a perfect and good person. He's STILL flawed, he STILL has the baggage of his culture, and ADDRESSING IT is a constant fucking undercurrent of his dialogue and interactions throughout the game. How he is both proud of everything his civilization, the oldest extant civilization in the world, and horrified by the excesses of it's bad actors, and as time goes on his REALIZATION of how horrific each and every element of it is.

Like, when the Venatori take over minrathos. It's depicted as something ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE but frankly? That implies things were pretty okay before that!

What would ahve been SO MUCH MORE INSIDEOUS, would have been to show how LITTLE things had changed. Oh, have the burned out ruin of the hide out, have a few ventatori guards standing here and there, but now show how ABANDONED AND CALLOUS they all are. They don't -need- to set up a fucking police state, Tevinter already HAS IT IN PLACE. You don't NEED fucktons of venatori guards around docktown.

But by doing it the way they did they robbed so much of the substance of Tevinter from the game.

Like I'm actually on board with some of the changes. The Broodmother thing about the darkspawn was handled just about as well as it was ever going to be handled in Origins, so them all but abandoning them from the lore as time went on is a smart move IMO. Making significant changes to the dark spawn with the blight is a big deal, and a smart move.

But the draining of life from all the rest is unpardonable.

Have the Lord of Fortune -not give a shit- about other people's culture. It's pretty, it's bling, if it was so important why wasn't it better guarded? Why was it so stealable? Have that be a FLAW in their goddamn thing as FUCKING PIRATES.

Have the found family elements of the Crows, have them have a whole blood debt and true contract society thing. Have us confront the fact that if someone fails a contract their life is FUCKING FORFEIT. Play up the whole idea that found family can be JUST as toxic. Play up the idea that these orphans and street kids taken in by a fucking -assassin cult- effectively are molded to SERVE the interests of the nation as members of the 'family'.

I was -so- incredibly happy with inquisition where they CONTRASTED Blackwall so hard with the order at large. The Grey Wardens are a -death cult- created to fight the APOCALYPSE through wrote tradition and absolutely seething loyalty to the idea that they are the thin line against the darkness.

Play that up, show how god awful the anderfels are scoured of life by the blight and still infested with dark spawn. GIVE THE FIRST WARDEN A NAME AND WHY THE FUCK IS THIS GUY IN FUCKING MINRATHOS?! Play up the ENTIRE IDEA of what's wrong with them and contrast it with -our- experience of wardens from, basically, wardens who never actually underwent the indoctrination process.

Someone else on this hellsite said that the longer you think on veilgaurd instead of playing it, the worse it gets and goddamn is that the truth.

Problematic fiction is good because it coaches us through stories on how to fucking DEAL with actual bad things.

By sanitizing your fiction you rob it of it's ability to -teach- the audience any lessons beyond 'bad people bad'.

Why Fenris could Never Cameo in Dragon Age: The Veilguard

In the run up to Dragon age: The Veilguard, I was almost certain that Fenris would be our main legacy character from previous games. Not only has he been central in the comics released between DAI and DATV, he is an escaped Tevinter slave who's plot revolved around magisters, magic and the structural prejudices surrounding elves in Thedas. Not only that, but he's canonically in Tevinter killing slavers currently so he's geographically in the right place for us to meet him.

About halfway through the game though, it was clear to me: Fenris could never cameo in The Veilguard. Because he'd break it.

How the Veilguard treats Thedas is...odd to me, to say the least. I will be writing another post about how much I adored the expanded big lore in this game (the titans, ancient elves were spirits, where the blight came from etc.) and yet while these large lore expansions worked for me, the actual culture of modern Thedas is entirely softened, its sharp edges filed down until it's a sanitised fantasy world devoid of what made the franchise so vibrant and compelling in the first place.

So let's start with Fenris and slavery. In all three games, the reality of slavery is pushing at the corners of the world. In DAO Loghain allows Tevinter Magisters to enslave elves in order to raise money for his war effort. In DA2 Fenris is fighting to be free from slavers who will not leave him be, let alone the reminders that the city was built by slaves which are everywhere. In DAI one of the two possible mini-bosses is Calpurnia who was a slave, and characters such as Gatt and Dorian both show us how much slavery is tied into Tevinters culture and success.

But DATV the first game actually set in Tevinter where we get to see the famed Minrathous...it's like the game purposefully wants to avoid the issue. I can feel it tilting the camera away to not allow me to see. Slavery is mentioned, but never talked about in depth or as a specifically ELVEN problem in Tevinter. This might have been done to be less problematic, it feels ignored.

We are in DOCK TOWN. We are at the DOCKS. You would think that slaves from all over Thedas who are being smuggled and bought by various groups would be everywhere. You would think that the injustice in dock town would be partly built on the back of ships we've seen in the comics crammed with elves in chains. This is the world Dragon age set up for us. And yet...nothing. zilch. A tiny easily skippable side quest where we free a couple of venatori slaves, but only one of whom is an elf.

None of our Tevinter characters seem to have been influenced by their culture even a little bit when it comes to how they view elves; there is no moment when Neve fucks up and says something prejudiced, no moment when Bellara or Davrin are distrustful of her for being a Tevinter mage.

The same goes for Zevran; a character who epitomised the issues with the crows. The crows have consistently been characterised as very morally dubious assassins who kill for the highest bidder and who buy children on the slave market and torture them as they grow in order to assure that they reach maturity able to withstand torture without giving away a client's name. Zevran is very explicit about the fact that if you fail a contract your life is forefit.

Nobody responds particularly to you if you're an elf. Nobody trusts rook less for it in Tevinter. Nobody treats Rook any differently. Even DAI had better mechanics for this; with nobles in Orlais less likely to trust you as an elf.

Considering one of the main plot points of this game and what makes Solas sympathetic is the fact that he was fighting against the slavery of ancient elves...you'd think the game might want to mirror that in modern Thedas. It might want to show us how characters fighting to end slavery in Tevinter are similar to Solas and how the society Solas fought against was similar to the one that characters we love such as Fenris have fought against in modern Thedas. Maybe we'd want to explore how in a world of slavery like this, how could the answer NOT be to tear it all down? Maybe we should have that option at the end of the game so it really can chose whether we agree with Solas and his plans or not.

Adding Fenris to this game would entirely break the game because Fenris refuses to allow you to look away from this horror. He is a sympathetic character who had to learn to trust mages again because of course he didn't trust them. Of course he didn't. Fenris wouldn't allow the camera to shift focus because he's literally covered in the lyrium scars that show how slaves are used as experiments in Tevinter. Fenris WOULD question Neve on how she feels about elves and slaves. Fenris WOULD have things to say about Lucanis and the crows (let alone the fact Lucanis is an abomonation). So he could never be in this game; he'd drop a bomb on it's carefully constructed blinders to the very society its supposed to be set in.

And yet, in DATV, the crows are presented as...a found family of misfits and orphans? The politician who opposes the crows having absolute power in Antiva is framed as a comically evil idiot who doesn't understand that the crows are ontologically good. Yet...they're NOT. Crows in this game act more like a secret rebel group than an assassin organisation. We see no crow taking contracts with the VERY RICH venatori magisters despite being hired killers. We see crows just refuse to kill people despite having a contract because 'its crueler to leave them alive'. The crows don't feel like the crows here, they feel like a softened version of a cool assassin group who are cool because they wear black and purple.

Our pirate group are also sanitised; the Lords of Fortune are good pirates who only steal treasure that's not culturally significant. Theyve clearly read the modern critiques of the British Museum and have decided to explicitly stop anyone levelling similar critiques at them. There is no faction of the Lords of Fortune who aren't like this, no internal arguments about it. Everyone just. Agrees. And is able to accurately tell what a cultural artifact is vs. what treasure that you can have yourself is. Rather than showing us why a pirate stealing cultural artifacts might be bad (like in da2 where such a situation literally causes a coup and a war) it just tells us it's bad. But also pirates are cool so we still want them in our world.

This issue seaps into Thedas and drains it of any of the interesting complexity and ability to SAY anything that this franchise had before this game. It becomes a game about telling and not showing rather than the other way around. The games have ALWAYS asked questions about oppressive structural systems and their interplay with society, religion and culture and how these things can affect even the most well meaning character. Dragon age at its best IS a game about society and how society functions both for and against it's characters and what happens to societies built on cruelty and indifference. The best bad guys dragon age has given us are those who are bad because they embody these systems or have been shaped by them. Our main characters have had to wrestle with questions surrounding how to exist in these systems, fight against them, learn and grow.

Yet every group you come across in DATV is sanitised and cleaned up to the point of being as non problematic as humanly possible. None of our cast of characters have to wrestle with where they came from or the world that shaped them. None of them have to confront their own biases. They start the game perfectly non-problematic and end it that way too.

And this just...isn't what Dragon Age has been in the past. It isn't why I love the franchise. The whole game just felt, in a way, hollow. And this was a CHOICE and it is why the legacy characters are few and far between. Too many dragon age characters are just too...angry and complex for this game. You can feel them pulling their punches on this one. I have to imagine they did this because they didn't want to be criticised or have too much controversy? But I think it honestly goes far too much in the other direction and just makes it bland.

I can't imagine what I say here will be unique, but it is the basis for a LOT of my other thoughts on this game so I wanted to get it out of the way first. The softened Thedas and characters make this game by far the weakest in the franchise.

[anon-reports]

[M]

why do niggas straight up go 「don't steal my stuff :(」 ON AN APP THAT STUFF IS STEALABLE? AND THEY ACT LIKE THEYRE A GOD TOO 「please don't steal it <3」 女の子. why are you using a 「<3」 just delete your account already dude 😭😭 if you don't want hate , don't post! <3 if you don't want people stealing your art , don't post it babe! <3 no but srsly why do creators say "no stealing" n shit when people can LITERALLY STEAL IT?? stupid ass

[izzy-b-hands]

Ngl I'm stoned and this is a lil dumb, but hopefully there's enough silly funny bits to make up for it lol

anyway, in which Calico Jack gets a new ship, and goes shopping for a new crew! Well, poaching, actually. Stealing, really. Not even well, but he's trying.

Steddyhands, but it's not the main focus of this, that is reserved for Jack's Fuckery lmao. NSFW in some bits, but not too graphically. There are some stabbings as well, but it's all one person at least.

---

"Ain't she beautiful?"

Ed nodded. "She is. She's also mine."

Jack did a double take between Ed and the ship. "Nah."

"Yeah? Literally, on the side there: Queen Anne's Revenge. Izzy painted it on; you were with us that day!"

"That could be a typo," Jack protested. "Pirates are not known for spelling accuracy. Besides, I found her fair and square, floatin' along."

"Right, because we meant to go back and get her at some point. I had Izzy put up the 'be right back' sign on the helm, did it fall off?"

Jack frowned. "Might have seen such a sign. Recognized the handwriting."

"And stole my ship anyway?"

"Look, if you don't want your shit stolen, then don't make it so stealable," Jack muttered. "Besides, would you rather anyone else have her?"

Ed shrugged. "Fair point. You said you've got a new crew?"

Jack led him further down the beach, back towards everyone else laying out on the sand. "Well, not yet. Actually, that's why I was so glad to see you guys! How would you feel about a mutiny, and then you all come join me, and we sell Steve?"

Ed groaned. "Seriously? I screamed in your fucking face that Stede-"

"Steve?"

"No, Stede!"

"Who? We're talkin' about Steve, right?"

Ed dropped onto the sand mid-step. "I can't tell if you're fucking with me and trying to be funny, or if you honestly think we have a Steve and Stede onboard."

"Look, you wanted change, right? What better change than a little demotion? I captain, you can be first mate for me, and we'll sell Izzy and Steve."

Ed stood up with a start. "Hang the fuck on. You want to demote me to the arguably much shittier job of first mate, and you want to sell off my boyfriends?"

Jack raised a brow. "Oh. Both of 'em, huh? You always did like a challenge. Or you wouldn't have ever fucked me, right?"

"You're not really answering the question."

Jack threw up his hands. "Fine. We'll do this the hard way. I'll convince your crew to join me, then we'll sell you, Izzy, and Stede."

"Hey! You got it right!" Ed smiled. "But also if you do actually try and poach our crew, I'll do whatever I have to do to stop you, Jack. I don't want to, but I will."

Jack laughed. "Okay, you do that. You maim me or beat me to a pulp, big scary Blackbeard!"

Ed giggled. "I will! You're not nearly as good a friend as you were before too so I mean, maybe consider that. Kind of already upset with you! Won't take much more to really piss me off!"

Jack stepped closer. "I'd like to see you like that. Pissed off, ready to rip me apart. Bet you still couldn't."

"Jack-"

"I need a crew. Yours sucks, but I'm not in a place to be picky. Whoever doesn't agree with me can go in a cage with you and your boys, and we'll buy something nice for the ship with whatever we get for all of you."

Ed frowned. "Not that badly decorated, is she? I know Izzy said I've got too many skulls around-"

"It is a lot of skulls," Jack interrupted. "But nah, it ain't that bad. No, I just think it'll piss you off knowing I'm using that money to redecorate your quarters. My quarters, now."

"Everyone warned me that I wouldn't want you as an ex," Ed sighed. "Think I understand that now."

"I got a reputation to uphold," Jack grinned. "Anyway, don't mind me skulking around chatting up your crew. You can't stop me, nothing wrong with talkin' to people!"

Ed nodded as he watched Jack walk off, whistling as he kicked up sand. He needed to talk to Stede, ASAP.

--

"Izzy!"

"Jesus fucking chr-the fuck is wrong with you?!"

Izzy nearly dropped the wooden box of marmalade jars he was hauling from the Revenge's galley at Jack's appearance, though that was bullshit in and of itself. He had told Ed and Stede they'd inevitably want more than the few jars they'd grabbed so why not take more right away? But no, they were stubborn and didn't and now he couldn't leave them sans marmalade, that would be cruel-

"You keepin' the wives happy?" Jack's fingertip slide across the edge of the box. "Please tell me this isn't what y'all use for lube."

"Who the fuck would do that?" Izzy scoffed, then remembered who he was talking with. "Christ, no, they've just got a slight addiction to this with toast. Speaking of, I'm expected back."

Jack's hand slapped flat on the front of the box. "They can wait a little longer."

Izzy rolled his eyes. "I appreciate the intimidation tactic, but those two will come looking shortly, and they're hungry on top of it all. That is actually intimidating, so if you'll kindly get the fuck out of my way."

"Izzy," Jack hissed, leaning forward. "We could be so good together."

"I don't know if this is a come on or an attempt to make me join you as crew, but I'm not interested in either," Izzy said as he shifted the box onto his hip. "I only need the one hand free to stab you, Jack. I would love the opportunity. If you don't move now, then I'll take it."

Jack clucked his tongue. "Thought you'd be an easier target than this."

"Hm."

"Don't really know what to do now," Jack admitted. "It wasn't a come on, but, since we're alone here on this nice big ship..."

Izzy blinked. "Right. You do whatever you feel you need to; I'll go let Roach know we'll need to deep clean this area, and bring the boys their marmalade before they riot."

"Izzy, come on. You seriously don't want a chance at something new? Something more?"

Izzy scoffed. "As if you'd have me as first mate. No, I'm sure you'd take the first chance to kill, maroon, or sell me off. I'm not an idiot, Jack. Here's what you should know from here on out-"

With the box still balanced on one hip, he pulled a knife from his belt. "I am very happy with the current situation. Believe me, it surprised me at first too-"

"You are a miserable bastard," Jack interrupted with a chuckle.

Izzy nodded, then stabbed the knife into Jack's abdomen.

"Well then," Jack panted. "You meant it, with the stabbing."

"In all the years I've had to trail after you and Edward, making sure neither of you wandered drunk into the sea, have I ever lied to you about all the harm I'd like to do to you?"

Jack nodded. "You have threatened me a lot over the years!"

Izzy smirked. "And you didn't listen to a word of it. Now, I'm taking my knife back, and I'm getting this marmalade to the boys. And if you try to poach anyone else off this crew, so help me I will stab you until there's nothing solid enough left to stab."

He yanked his knife from Jack's flesh, and strode out. Thankfully, he hadn't gotten any blood on the box or any of the jars.

--

"Sup?"

Roach stared into the trees, specifically eyeballing the one he was pissing closest to. "Sorry?"

"Not bad," Jack popped out from behind one of the trees. "Your dick, I mean. Was flippin' through that book Steve has, what's-his-name did a good job drawing yours."

Roach finished and put himself away while pondering a response. "His name is Lucius, and it's Stede, not Steve-"

"Who is?"

Roach shook his head. "Forget it. Thanks, I guess. About my...yeah. I'm gonna head back to the crew, if you want to j-"

"Join! Me, no! But you, could join me, yes!" Jack grinned.

"Was your goal to make a pitch using the fewest words possible?" Roach asked. "Because you did it, but it was weird. Weird for you, which I think is an important distinction."

"So, you'll be my chef?"

"No! Nothing I said was anything about doing that!"

Jack frowned. "Shame. Your cooking is amazing."

At that, Roach couldn't hold back a smile. It was at least partially just Jack trying to butter him up, but fuck it, it was still complimentary enough.

"Would love to have that sort of fine work onboard the Quee-uh, the King Jack's... Revenge..Revenger."

Roach nodded. "Very sweet of you, but I'm good where I am. The offer to join us for a midnight snack still stands though; we're making s'mores!"

He peered down Jack's front. "Is that blood?"

"Just a little bit, Izzy didn't like being asked to join me, and boy howdy did he let me know! He's a scrappy lil guy, huh?"

Roach smirked. "What if I tell him that I met you out here?"

The color drained from Jack's face, though that might have been the stab wound as much as anything else. "No, you don't have to-why would he even want to know that, I mean...ah fuck it, you ain't worth it! I'll find a better chef!"

Jack went crashing off into the trees, with a final bird flipped to Roach as he went.

"This is why we need piss break buddies," Roach muttered to himself. "Everyone thinks it's 'oh Roach is afraid of the dark', but no, it's weird shit like this! That's what we need someone with for!"

He made a mental note to tell Izzy about the encounter first thing when he got back. He had a feeling he would burn hot enough they could heat the s'mores over him instead of the fire.

--

"No."

"I didn't even say anything yet," Jack chuckled. "C'mon Jim. You and I haven't even spent any time together, and I bet you're jealous of the rest of them over it."

"Could you fuck off?" Jim asked sharply. "Even if I wasn't in the middle of this, the answer would still be no. Roach warned us you were hiding out and doing this."

Olu lifted his head from between Jim's thighs. "Seriously! You are really fucking distracting, and this is fucking rude! Would you storm into someone's bedroom while they were fucking and ask them to join your crew?"

"Have done that once before, actually," Jack said as he sat down by Jim's head. "Don't let me interrupt."

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" Jim shouted, and a startled cry went up from the campsite near the beach.

"Damn it," Jack hissed. "Thanks a lot; if Izzy stabs me again it is your fucking fault!"

Jim glared, held out their hand for a knife, and jabbed the one Olu handed them into Jack's arm.

"Now that's unnecessary," Jack scoffed. He yanked the knife out, then stood and darted back into the trees, just as Izzy and Roach came crashing into the clearing.

"He's gone already," Roach sighed. "Fuck."

"You know the ship would be more comfortable than here," Izzy commented to Jim.

Jim handed the blooded knife back to Olu, and tossed an arm over their eyes. "Yes. Yes it would be. But we thought we'd have more privacy in the fucking jungle! Than anywhere else! And we were wrong!"

"We'll go," Roach said gently, tugging Izzy by the elbow. "Sorry about all of this."

"Right, we'll get him the next time," Izzy nodded.

"Sure, great, thank you!" Olu shouted as they crashed back through the brush. "Should we try the ship instead?"

"Nah, at least they know which area to avoid now. Not exactly privacy, but I'll take it," Jim sighed. "You still good down there?"

"Wouldn't want to be anywhere else."

--

"So, we aren't hunting Jack down to kill him, in theory," Ed said. "Just to make him fuck off, or chill the fuck out and stop bothering everyone about joining his crew on my ship. That he stole."

"Yeah, you keep mentioning that," Frenchie noted.

"Yeah, well, it was a really dick move," Ed said. "So I think it bears repeating."

"The goal is to talk to him," Stede added. "If you feel you will be moved only to violence instead of words, then please come get one of us. That way we can try the talking bit, and if it doesn't work we always have violence as a solid back up plan."

"A note on that," Izzy said. "Do not get me for the talking bit, only Ed or Stede. I am on the side of violence first, so if you want help in any violence against him, that's when you find me."

Stede smiled and clapped his hands together. "Perfect! Everything crystal clear, we all have snacks and water... let's get going!"

Before anyone could take a step, Jack forced himself through a small gap between two trees near their camp. "Ah ha! Thought you'd- ouch, fuck-seen the last of old...hang on, fuckin' coat is stuck...there, the last of old Calico Jack?! Well, here I am!"

He was covered in dirt, blood, hair greasy and a mess. At some point he'd managed to lose both his boots but gained a new one that was nothing like his original pair.

"Okay, that makes things easier!" Stede said. "We need you to stop this, Jack. You're a sensible... well. You're a man who understands...no. You...if someone went around poaching your crew, if you had one, that would bother you, yes?"

Jack nodded.

"Well, that's our issue," Stede continued. "I respect and understand you want a crew of your own again. However, and I will speak plainly: you're a fucking menace. And if you think you should be scared of Izzy over this, then you're both right and wrong. Right, because he does want to stab you again, but wrong, because if you keep trying to steal my crew, I'll gouge your fucking eyes out with my bare hands. Ed taught me how to do that a few weeks ago, and I could use the practice!"

Dead silence.

Then, Ed, softly.

"Jack. I need to take Stede back to the ship, immediately. I'm going to give you two minutes to make it back to my ship that I'm going to let you keep borrowing-"

"Come on," Jack interrupted. "Just face it; I stole her fair and square! Also, weird seeing you hard in those pants when I'm not the one causing it. Kinda hate it, actually."

Ed glared at him. "As I was saying. You may continue to borrow my ship for now. You have two minutes to return to it before the crew gets to chase after you. Ship is safe, but if you have even a toe off it-"

He shrugged. "I would make sure I'm on the ship by then. Were it me."

"I hate how hot it is when you talk like that," Jack chuckled. Then, with a tired sigh, he burst into a sprint towards the Queen Anne's Revenge.

"Are you actually gonna send us after him?" Wee John asked. "Seems a waste of time."

"Can if you want, but he's always been a spry fucker. He'll probably be onboard and below deck before we know it," Ed replied. "But I do need to get Stede back to the ship-"

"Yeah, yeah, you wanna fuck his brains out for the eye gouging threat," Jim laughed. "We know; you aren't subtle."

Ed nodded. "So Stede, Izzy, and I will be busy for the rest of the night. You all...do whatever you want. Come back onboard, spend the night camping out here, whatever makes you happiest. If Jack bothers you-"

"Threaten to stab him," came the crew's chorus.

--

On the Queen Anne's Revenge, Jack bandaged his wounds. Maybe having his own ship again wasn't the right thing, right now.

At the sound of distant moaning, he looked out from his quarters with his spyglass. There, in the window of the Revenge's main quarters, he could see Ed and Stede and Izzy and shedding clothes...

He set the spyglass down after a moment, and pondered if they needed anyone in a role like that. To bring water, snacks, clean towels, more lube, etc.

He decided he'd start asking around with the crew in the morning.

[fitzefitcher]

I kinda want a list lol. I love seeing what kind of pairings people come up with, my favorites right now are Jaina/Rexxar (who doesn't love massive height differences) and Jaina/Dal'rend (I could see it going from trying to get under Thralls skin to "oh no I have real feelings for her")

you asked for it, so fair warning, it's not Exactly NSFW but I wouldn't exactly call it Good and Wholesome either wheezes

in no particular order, here is the full list (or at least what I can remember) of my preferred warcraft ships that are considered crack, either naturally or made so by time and retcons:

thrall/jaina/garrosh: I have nothing to say for myself. I will not defend myself nor will I apologize for anything. anyway jaina and garrosh being super into thrall but being petty rivals for his affection is extremely fucking funny to me. some points explaining the appeal:

playing legend of zelda and shipping link/zelda/ganon shaped my undeveloped child brain into having a predisposition for triads of good boy/bastard man/bastard girl. yes zelda and jaina are bastard girls do not question me on this

all of them have very Stealable Genders, especially when placed next to each other

thrall and jaina are besties, thrall and garrosh are besties, and jaina and garrosh very very slowly go from barely tolerating each other (mostly for thrall's sake) to realizing that they're kind of both in the same boat in terms of "someone has to watch out for this fucking idiot" (read: thrall) and also in terms of Being The Black Sheep Of The Family, getting shit for Doing Things Too Differently, and going largely unlistened to and unappreciated, even if it's within their field of expertise, so then they begin to grudgingly respect each other and catch feelings that way whoopsie doodle

thrall gives them both support, and hope for the world and what it Could be, and they've basically reached a point of "if anything happened to him I would kill everyone in this room and then myself"

thrall, meanwhile, enjoys whatever attention they'll give him, and uh. probably enjoys them fighting over him wayyy more than he should lmao

thrall/neeru fireblade: I don't know how I landed at the belief "thrall kept neeru fireblade in line by pretending to be a fucking idiot so he'd underestimate him and didn't realize how 99% of orgrimmar and tbh the horde as whole are violently attracted to him, neeru included, so now neeru thinks he's a himbo and thrall doesn't realize he's batting his fucking eyelashes at him but he is and neeru Would Very Much Like To Smash" but here we are

this is entirely onesided on neeru's part and entirely lust-and-pride-based and I do not know why I find it so goddamn fascinating but here we are

thrall/rend blackhand: see above. same basic principle of, "thrall doesn't realize he's attractive to the point of making people fucking insane, rend has never known basic kindness bc the blackrock clan is just Like That and thrall being nice to him one (1) time is enough to make him obsess over the man"

to be fair this is set entirely within the realm of my fel orc AU so they're actually kept the same basic age group, and they've actually like, met, and befriended each other lmao

aggra/zaela: at some point brain went from "I think they actually deserve a chance to be individuals," to "yeah, that, but now Together," because like. idk they deserve to be fiercely independent and to have their accomplishments not be overshadowed by their partners and Aggra Should've Been The World Shaman, Not Thrall, and Zaela Wouldn't Have Stayed With Garrosh during the first siege of orgrimmar if she was the same fucking zaela that overthrew her corrupt chieftain back in the twilight highlands BUT WHAT THE FUCK DO I KNOW, I'VE ONLY BEEN PLAYING THIS GAME FOR FIFTEEN FUCKING YEARS,

ner'zhul/arthas: you know there's only so many times you can say "arthas is ner'zhul's sugar baby and ner'zhul picked him as his champion bc he's a dumb jock fuckboy horse girl and ner'zhul was very very lonely" before it stops being a joke

sylvanas/lana'thel: at first it was strictly in the context of DK AU but now I'm like "okay but what if Lana'thel DID bring the san'layn into the embrace of the horde though" so that's just where I am now, apparently

sylvanas/calia: "haha what if sylvanas just Married calia for lordaeron's throne, that'd fix the problem so fast" was a joke, too, once

sylvanas/nathanos/cromush: something something "all the queen's men." anyway I just want sylvanas to actually have people that give a shit about her and actually see her for who she is, and Cromush remaining in Lordaeron during the legion invasion event and also being on sylvanas' fucking boat during BFA made me have too many thoughts

sylvanas/zul'jin: this is. also within the context of my fel orc au. they're still enemies and sylvanas grudgingly and furiously throws herself at his mercy in order to save silvermoon from arthas and zul'jin thinks an elf asking him for help is about the funniest fucking thing. no they're not romantic yes they can't stand each other. I am here for them making each other insane and being forced to work together shipping is not inherently romantic do not @ me

azshara/anasterian sunstrider: fel orc au but also she's taller than him and also her naga "true form" is kaiju-sized also despite her being in "disguise" anasterian knows who she is at all times and also she wants to make him her sugar baby no I will not explain this yes kael'thas is extremely distressed yes they have a horrible brood of aquatic eldritch horror children

sylvanas/varian: licherally had more chemistry in the entire 30 seconds they looked at each other in the stupid legion announcement cinematic than any other straight pairing WoW has done on purpose ever

anduin/med'an: listen,

tyrande/vol'jin: I read exactly one (1) ficlet of it and have been fascinated by it ever since. consider this:

wombo-combo military and [non-Light-based] religious leaders with a taste for hunting and stalking

they should have a hunter's rivalry. they should have a hunter's rivalry and it should maybe end with them hunting each other. and by hunting I mean one somehow ending up pinning the other on the forest floor, bruised and breathless,

do not @ me

sylvanas/vol'jin: see above

garrosh/varian: I Shipped This As A Joke Once And Then It Wasn't A Joke And Time Made A Fool Of Me

nazgrim/taylor: see above and also taylor should've been a horseman. give them the thassarian/koltira treatment.

gul'dan/khadgar: Rivalry is a form of Orcish Courtship No I Will Not Budge On This

jaina/literally anyone & everyone in the horde: I find it extremely fucking funny that most of jaina's potential beaus in fandom spaces are horde-aligned and I Agree With The Notion Wholeheartedly, You Are Not Immune To Jaina Proudmoore

jaina also has the power of "makes people insane just by Existing near them and Being Nice" but it's only super effective on horde and actually you know what

thrall/literally anyone & everyone in the horde: See Above

talanji/anduin: can't a bitch have thraina 2 electric boogaloo in peace and can't a bitch also have somebody taller than anduin who will Put His Stupid Holier-Than-Thou Ass In His Place

arguably if varian was alive for this and anduin proposed a "but if I married talanji we could have lasting peace between the horde and alliance" it could turn into an ariel littlemermaid "BUT DADDY I LOVE HER," real fucking quick lmao

illidan/maiev: yes they hate each other yes they want to kill each other yes the lust for violence eventually turns to genuine lust I am here to watch the trainwreck of toxicity and mutually assured destruction no I will not apologize or deny this

this is also the appeal of varrosh tbfh

hilariously the best characterizations I've seen of illidan are typically in illidan/maiev fics bc like. his flaws and failures are actually addressed which is more than what can be said of WoW itself lmao

darion mograine/any (& every) DK: I just want him to be bullied. I just want them to bully him. it's what he wants, and it's what they want. they're fine. it's fine.

dia darkwhisper/gurtogg bloodboil/blademaster jubei'thos: it's the triad. it's the triad again. don't look at me.

dia accidentally cementing herself in my fucking head as a cassandra and/or "truth comes out of her well to shame mankind" type personality did not help this at all

and, lastly, apparently:

thrall/jaina. because time has made me booboo the fucking fool, and I am now old enough to see fandom youngins saying that it's Weird And Creepy To Ship Them Because Thrall is married and it's like. what are you, protestant

[kravkalackin]

A part 2 to this post featuring runaway undercover royalty kravitz 

Taako wouldn’t go so far to say he had taken an interest in the new guy. It just so happens that the dude was interesting, all on his own. They didn’t pick up people often, not for long at least, and they certainly didn’t tend to pick up guys like him. 

He was so obviously hopeless. He’d been standing along the side of the road when they found him, clearly half starving and inspecting a plant that well, probably wouldn’t have killed him if he ate it, but definitely would have made the next couple of days extremely unpleasant. He’d been so thankful at them stepping in, giving him some proper food and letting him hitch a ride. 

He was so trusting. 

Except when he wasn’t. 

There was clearly something he was hiding, but Taako meant what he said to him. They didn’t ask questions around here, not about the past. Sure, the topic wasn’t taboo, but you brought that shit up on your own terms. 

So it was kind of funny almost, watching the guy eat whatever food they put in front of him without a second thought, sleeping soundly with all his possessions in nice, easily stealable bags, but flinching like a firecracker went off by his ear at someone asking him his name.  

It was funny, and it was interesting, and most of all, Taako was bored. 

“Whatcha got there homeslice?” he asked, watching as the dude actually jumped. It was hard not to laugh, but he managed to smirk instead. Kravitz quickly turned around, hiding the weird case behind his back. He actually seemed to relax some at the sight of him, which was a little surprising. 

“Oh, good afternoon Taako. I thought you were making lunch?” he asked, and Taako shrugged. 

“Yeah, I got bored,” Taako said simply. Kravitz frowned at that, giving a nervous glance over towards the kitchen cart. 

“You... um, you didn’t leave anything out with like, fire? Right?” he asked, and Taako let his grin widen just a little bit more. He couldn’t help it, it was fun fucking with the dude. He waited until it looked like Kravitz was ready to go running and check on the cart himself before he broke. 

“Nah, I got Mag’s to cover me,” he explained, and Kravitz relaxed at that. 

“Oh, I didn’t know he could cook,” he said, and Taako scoffed at that. 

“Trust me, he can’t,” he said. It looked like Kravitz was gonna ask something else, so he quickly continued. “Anyway, what cha’ got hiding back there? Something interesting?” he asked. Kravitz looked nervous almost immediately, but there was something else there too. He looked almost... embarrassed. 

“Ah, no, no nothing like that. Just a little... little family heirloom, I guess you could say,” Kravitz said, and Taako was getting even more curious now. He looked like he was going to try to brush it off some more, but a bit to Taako’s surprised he relented, pulling the case back out and opening it. 

“Oh shit! Of course you’d be a bard,” he said, grinning at the violin that Kravitz pulled out. It looked like a fucking nice one too. Taako didn’t know much about instruments, but that thing definitely looked expensive as shit. 

“That- what does that mean?” Kravitz asked, a flustered look on his face. It was cute. 

“Well I’m just saying, it’s not your survival skills that have gotten you this far in life. All pretty faced and pampered like you are? Of course you come from the arts,” he said. Yeah, he definitely enjoyed that look on his face. 

“I don’t- that’s not- I-” he stuttered out, and as cute as it was Taako took pity on him. 

“You should play for everyone,” he said, and somehow Kravitz looked even more surprised at that. 

“Oh that’s not- I’m really not that good,” he said, and Taako waved away his concern. 

“And Merle ain’t that good at dancing, he still does it,” he said. Kravitz still looked unconvinced. Maybe it was a little underhanded, but Taako continued. “Look, no one’s gonna say it, but you have been getting a pretty damn free ride. You’re new at this, that much is obvious, but everyone needs to contribute something. We get you’re still finding your legs and all that, but a little bit of entertainment certainly wouldn’t hurt,” he said. 

He could see Kravitz’s resolve crumbling at that. Maybe it wasn’t very nice, but it was true. Plus, Taako never made any promise at being nice. 

“I suppose that is fair,” he said, taking a deep breath. “How about after dinner then? Give me some time to make sure it’s all... tuned up and in working order,” he said. It seemed like a pretty flimsy excuse, the violin was the most pristine item in a 100 mile radius, but Taako took pity on him and nodded. 

“Sounds great! Can’t wait my man,” he said, starting to head back to the other cart. He really should rescue the remains of lunch from Magnus after all. 

“Alright then. Um, see you later Taako,” Kravitz called after him. Taako gave a casual wave back. He was careful not to show it, but he was actually kind of excited. 

Kravitz was an interesting dude. 

Hopefully, he’d stick around long enough for Taako to find out even more interesting things about him.

[leverage-commentary]

Leverage Season 2, Episode 12, The Zanzibar Marketplace Job, Audio Commentary Transcript

Jeremiah: I am Jeremiah Chechik, director of this episode.

Jessica: I am Jessica Rieder, one of the writers of this episode.

Melissa: Melissa Glenn, the other writer.

John: And John Rogers, executive producer of Leverage. And we switched to Irish whiskey, just for this one, we just-

Jeremiah: We did and it's doing the job.

John: It's getting the job done. Ah, the return of Kari Matchett. And by the way, we originally did not show the taser in that scene; that was added in post.

Jeremiah: That's right, it was added later. It was written as-

John: When people were going, ‘What happened? Was she beamed out onto a starship? What the hell was that effect?’

[Laughter]

Jeremiah: It was written abstractly. Kari is worth watching carefully for her subtleties.

John: Yes.

Jeremiah: She's just a delightful actress.

John: We really lucked out in casting- having Kari come in as the wife first season, knowing that we could then recur her, that was- that made a big difference. 

Jeremiah: She does elevate everyone's game.

John: Yes exactly. 

Melissa: Yes, she was great.

John: Wonder twins, where'd this episode come from?

Jessica: Oh my gosh.

Melissa: This episode, we- we knew we loved the idea of this episode, the idea of Nate in danger, the idea of Sterling being involved. But we just kept- we tried a lot of different versions of this episode throughout the season, and we had to kind of put it away, focus on a new episode, and then dive back in. And we stumbled upon the idea of bringing Maggie back in it as well. And so for weeks, it was ok: Sterling, Nate, danger, Maggie. And then just trying to find the right danger, the right, you know, the right kidnapping.

John: And then we actually sat down, I remember one day we were like, ‘Ok, what does Maggie do? Alright, now what is famous art?’ And we plowed through all the different stealable and collectable things.

Melissa: Yes.

Jessica: But ironically, this is the first episode that Melissa and I started writing of season 2, and it took all season. It was the last episode that we ended up writing, so it was quite the arc for us.

John: It's a bear- I mean some of these are a bear to break, you have to find the right setting, the right combination of characters. I’m gonna ask, I'm gonna break from the writing cause we've got a really cool sequence coming up. Jeremiah, how did you do this?

Melissa: Yes, a fantastic sequence.

Jeremiah: This was possibly one of my most favorite shots to do, and I'll describe how I did it in a moment, but I'd like everyone to pay careful attention to the tooth which will be hanging in the air-

[Laughter]

Jeremiah: In a few moments.

John: No, I like the fact that the whole set up to this- the fun was, originally it was written that you just heard his voice and Eliot broke into- 

Jeremiah: Here it is!

John: There's the tooth.

[Laughter]

John: I love the fact that you staged that we saw Sheppard- Mark Sheppard, come in. It adds the suspense to it that just makes it so much better.

Jeremiah: It just indicates that bad shit’s gonna happen.

Melissa: Yeah. The first time they landed on that table, it shattered.

Jeremiah: Now this is all one shot.

Jessica: Light.

John: Yeah.

Jeremiah: The interesting thing here was I had everybody freeze on certain poignant dramatic moments, and move the camera around, you know, with the steadicam and then unfreeze it at a perfect- and the actors- very difficult for the actors to do that. And they were so committed to doing this, as was Mark, that we enjoyed shooting this so much. 

John: You beat the hell out of Mark for quite a while that day.

Jeremiah: We did, and there's no one who enjoys getting beat up more than Mark Sheppard.

[Laughter]

Jessica: And his son was on set that day. His- how old is-? I can't remember how old he is.

Melissa: 10ish.

Jessica: About 10, and he had the time of his life watching his dad get beat up by Chris Kane. That was fantastic.

John: Well you know what? I'm friends with Mark and that was his big request for Christmas, was that could I get Chris to beat up his dad. And so it was like, I’ll gladly do that!

Jessica: Right. 

John: I'll gladly arrange for that.

Jessica: Yeah, it was really fun.

John: Now this is- now how do we wind up in the Ukraine?

Melissa: I believe we like the idea of the faberge egg. 

Jeremiah: It was originally somewhere else; Paris, I think.

John: Venezuela, I think.

Jessica: It started as Caracas, Venezuela, yup.

John: And then wound up- it really came like can you shoot Caracas, Venezuela in Portland? Portland doubles for a lot of things. 

Jessica: Doesn’t double for Venezuela.

John: What's interesting is you have this, sort of, very American-centric view of the world. We then started looking for cities and you call up flicker pages and stuff on Kiev and I like it; kinda looks like Portland and it's a lovely little city settled in a valley, lots of woods around it. From the mountain you would be hard pressed to which city you're in.

Jessica: It's true. I think at one point, there was one day where we all were researching Kiev and decided it sounded so great we wanted to move there. We just sort of fell in love with it.

John: Yes.

Melissa: Very Estonia.

Jessica: Oh, Estonia! Yeah.

John: Well we kept trying to come up with the, sort of, Mission: Impossible, third-world country. Remember that, Jeremiah? They used to have that sort of- 

Jeremiah: Balochistan.

John: Yeah that was this weird Latin American/Russain combination. And we kept picking, like, ‘Well let's pick these small Eastern European countries. Estonia. Estonia is the center of e-commerce in the world. Wow, Estonia sounds nice. Kiev has a beautiful culture. Wow, Kiev is beautiful!’ We have no bad place to go.

Jeremiah: To get there, basically they stand up with their passports of choice and they are in the Ukraine.

John: Yes. No shoe leather for Leverage. We’re there.

Jess: The beauty of television; things travel faster.

John: We had the traditional 1970s plane taking off shot, though, that was a nice choice.

Jeremiah: Yeah, very- yeah.

John: There you go. And again, this was a nice-

Jeremiah: Jeri Ryan just being superspy. And here we are in a lovely scene with the inimitable Matt Keeslar.

John: Matt Keeslar and-

Jeremiah: Now Matt and Mark Sheppard have worked together a lot on Middleman.

John: On Middleman. And you directed that show, right?

Jeremiah: I did, and produced as well. 

John: This is a full-

Jeremiah: So this was a lot of fun.

John: This is a rare four-hander. This is four very good actors kind of digging in, and Tim not with the team, which is not something we usually do.

Jessica: Yeah.

Jeremiah: This was a delightful scene to direct. Because again a) Mark and Matt really wanted to go at each other. Never really having played opposite each other that much in the series, and Matt always being the good guy. Here the roles are somewhat reversed, and in an unusual turn on this show, for Mark he's apparently the nice helpful man.

John: Well that was part of the fun. And I’ll let you two talk about it is, writing the old partnership they used to have here.

Jessica: Yeah, just seeing a glimmer of the friendship. You know, you could sort of see shadows of friendship that they used to have, and more of who Nate used to be and more of who Mark used to be- or Sterling used to be, too.

John: Yeah, and that little smile, too, has this moment of were good cop/bad cop we've done this a million times.

Jeremiah: Now here we have a lovely- I have to thank the art department here. They did a spectacular job creating just this wonderfully dowdy place, perfect paint chip, if I may say so.

Melissa: This office was amazing.

John: You know this was built in the 50s, this office.

Jessica: Yeah, totally it hasn't been redecorated since then.

Melissa: My favorite part is the rotary phone that we’re about to see. Every time he did the shot of the rotary phone, I had to almost leave the room because I was laughing so hard.

Jessica: It's true. Melissa had to actually leave video village a couple times cause she couldn't contain herself.

Jeremiah: I remember requesting, ‘I want him to have a rotary phone and I want him to dial allllll the numbers.’ 

John: All the way around.

Jeremiah: Because I know that would provoke Aldis in character, because first of all he's probably never seen the rotary phone-

Melissa: It’s true.

John: Didn't we talk about- you've actually never seen a rotary phone.

Melissa: No, I grew up with a rotary phone in the kitchen. I think maybe Rieder-

Jess: No, I'm not that young, I've seen a rotary phone before.

John: No, but you hadn't had one in the house.

Jessica: Oh yeah, no.

[Laughter]

John: You've seen one in museums, operated by dinosaurs calling each other before they went on hunting parties.

Jessica: Oh yeah. Right next to the display of fighter [unintelligible].

Jeremiah: Here we go.

Jessica: Yup, here we go.

John: And now he's gonna dial every number.

Jessica: Very slowly.

John: Wes and you can see Aldis-

Jeremiah: Watch Aldis!

John: Wes just staring. Just- oh the glare.

[Laughter]

John: Oh, that's great.

Jeremiah: That was worth doing. 

Melissa: I love it. It's just- yeah.

John: This was a lot of fun pairings in this episode, actually. This really- we were into the swing of, we know what couples, what splits we wanted to see, and we also varied it up a little.

Jessica: I think this is one of the rare episodes where we, sort of, how we- that’s part of how we broke the structure, was who do we wanna see play off each other? We really wanna see Nate and Kari in a room together, we really wanna- you know. And it was kind of fun to build around those pieces.

John: And this is interesting. We had a different way to get Gina in originally. Also, early was the idea that the team doesn't know that Nate has teamed up with Sterling and they get a call like, ‘It's Nate Ford and Sterling loose again and they're terrifying Europe.’

Melissa: Yeah, that is a great version.

Jeremiah: Note the old map behind Kari, it's a lovely-

John: Yes it's very nice. I love Kari says a thousand things about her relationship with Nate just in this, just in, ‘Oh God, I know exactly where this is going.’

Jeremiah: That look. And he of course backs out, totally backs down from his original stance.

John: And that actor’s great - is that Marty?

Jessica: Marty Ryan.

Jeremiah: He's fabulous, he was really good. And here we go.

John: Now it's- see yeah see? The two of them work the cases- you can see like, what I like- it's interesting, and this was a good choice Jeremiah, Tim’s a little scruffier than Mark here.

Jeremiah: Yes, well that was-

John: If you saw his old persona he would've been the really flashy one compared to Mark.

Jeremiah: It was purposeful, at least, not only in the writing, but the visual iconography Mark in a way controlling and driving. And being, you know, being in control. Of course, wonderful entrance of, you know- 

John: Parker, yeah. We never actually see her enter a room.

Jeremiah: You never see her come through a door, she's just there.

Jessica: No, she just- she just drops in.

John: That's actually a running thing we realized we had unintentionally done in the show. You don't actually see her come into the room a lot, she’s often just there.

Jeremiah: How pretty is this room?

John: That is a gorgeous room, where'd you shoot this?

Jeremiah: The museum.

John: Oh in that museum that we were in for 207? Yeah, oh it was fantastic.

Jessica: Yeah, that was a great location. 

John: This is also one of our more pure detective ones. It’s like it was a little bit of competence porn, like seeing the thief and Nate kind of use their brains to figure out exactly how this heist went down. 

Jeremiah: And you really feel the wheels turning, they're lovely, and this fake smile here is like-

John: And that's a callback, of course, to when she opened the van door. Lot of fun. 

Jessica: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John: It was interesting having Kari back. It was one of those things like, can she be the whole back half? We really liked to have her around.

Melissa: She was fantastic.

Jessica: Can we keep her?

John: This was one of my favorite bits. Talk about this running gag.

Melissa: Well this was just her bag of, you know, of escape bag, her on the run bag.

Jeremiah: Things that women on the run must have. 

Jessica: Yes, it’s perfect.

John: I love that it's ‘your first fugitive bag’ that Parkers put together here.

Jessica: Yes, that’s true. That was I think- this was one of my favorite bits in the episode, too, just the fun of it. You know, they are carrying on their whole, like, old married couple argument and Parker’s just down to business. I love it.

Jeremiah: Totally committed to organizing it and-

Jessica: I love it.

John: Yeah, also I like this, and Kari really established this in- for her first appearance, and again, it's again, when you're counting yourself very lucky when you get actors like this. Kari didn't play hostile to the team; Kari played like she genuinely liked them, she just didn't like Nate. And that carries through, and that allowed us to do this scene where, you know, Maggie and Parker actually have a perfectly lovely time together running away in Europe; it's just that Nate’s driven her out of her mind.

Jessica: Yeah, it’s true.

John: Really nicely done

Melissa: I think partially the team doesn't lie to her as much. You know, Parker doesn’t lie to her; she tells her exactly what she needs to know.

Jessica: I'm a thief, yes.

Melissa: Where as Nate is lying to her.

Jeremiah: Cause Kari does need a file, everywhere she goes and not just a nail file.

John: No, no. Just in case.

Jessica: Every woman does.

Jeremiah: And this presentation of the drink, it's very nice and very weighted. He’s poured it, he gives it, and-

John: And he takes it. 

Jeremiah: And he takes it.

John: That says something that Tim Hutton- pardon me, that Nate Ford did not intend on, and we- by the way, Mark Sheppard and I talked about that for an hour. 

Jessica: Oh my God.

John: He called me before when we were doing the rewrite-

Jeremiah: He talked to me for, like, five. 

[Laughter]

John: Yeah, five hours. Well you're on set with him, it's gonna happen. It was like the idea that Nate would take the drink without realizing that Sheppard had figured out that he was drinking again was a very big deal, and it actually pays off in the finale.

Jeremiah: Here we go, eastern european wardrobe.

Melissa: Oh this- their little bit.

Jeremiah: Trashy.

John: Yeah this is- again, I don't know what we would do without iPhones and picture cameras at this point; I don't think this show would be essentially unwriteable. I love her little weird, creepy look that Beth is running there; it's like vulnerable and predatory at the same time, it's nicely done.

Jessica: I don't know how people wrote shows like this before there were camera phones and cell phones. 

Jeremiah: They did, it was called Rockford.

John: It was called Rockford. What you would do was you bump into this guy in the parking garage, and you pretend to be a Texan who was looking to invest in his oil well. 

Jessica: That’s true.

John: And in that time you'd exchange briefcases with him, you know, it was just the camera bit that was tricky, yeah.

Jessica: That's true, yeah.

John: And Matt doing very hard-done-by very well. I also like, by the way, you guys did a very nice job of- if again, we never tell you where Tara Cole came from, but if you track how she looks, and what she knows, and what she can do, all the way six episodes, you get a pretty good idea of what she used to do before she became a criminal. And it was really nicely done.

Melissa: Yeah, it's a great scene with her and Eliot, kind of, squaring off their skills - the scene that’s about to come next.

Jeremiah: At least we think so.

[Laughter]

John: Well I would agree. She also- the fact that she can speak those languages that pays off in the finale, also. The sort of backdoor where she hangs up. Again, this is interesting because this is a really drive-y, hit the ground running episode, and it’s very investigatory. Oh, nice transition.

Jeremiah: Lovely transition.

Jessica: That was one of the challenges of writing it is, it is much more crime story than what we usually do. So making it a crime detective story that felt like Leverage was, you know, part of, I think, the challenge.

John: Well what also helps is we burn two stories an episode. We were actually talking about this in another commentary where, we do the wire, which is a con that most shows will do the entire show, we do it in an act.

Jessica: Yeah, it's true.

John: And we tell you it’s the wire, we don’t lie to you like some other crime shows.

[Laughter]

Jessica: That will remain nameless.

John: That will remain nameless. This show, the entire first half is detective story, and the back half is kidnapped. And so, you know, that also helps keep the pace up when you're doing something that's not our usual style. Yeah, she does a great job on this.

Jessica: And this day, we were losing light so fast, you know, cause it-

Jeremiah: This guy was good, too.

Jessica: And they did it so quickly because it was like, this is soon gonna become an exterior night scene if we don't get it done soon.

John: Oh the scary look, that was great.

Melissa: That was perfect.

Jessica: The three of them just knocked it out of the park, and they did it so quickly.

John: That's just my Irish whisky.

Jeremiah: Everybody has a lot to do in this episode. 

John: They do, and what I like is it's also a recurring thing that Jeri really found the character early; that kind of confidence where she knows what you can do, don't bullshit her, let's move it along, we have a job here, but without rushing you. You know, she really created a great character in six episodes. Now the blank envelope, of course, a classic piece of the famous Zanzibar Marketplace con.

Melissa: Yes, the illustrious Zanzibar Marketplace.

John: Where did you find and research the Zanzibar Marketplace?

[Laughter]

Jessica: It's kind of a funny story. You wanna tell?

Melissa: Sure. We were breaking the story and John says, ‘Oh, then they can do a  Zanzibar Marketplace,’ and we all said, ‘Sounds great!’

Jessica: Of course they can.

Melissa: And John left the room to go rewrite some stuff.

Jessica: Be brilliant.

John: And then I explained what the  Zanzibar Marketplace is. It’s like a marketplace that occurs when something is stolen very quickly. It's called a Zanzibar Marketplace because, like African markets, it springs up and then disappears and they move on. And then I walk out of the room.

Melissa: So John leaves the room and we all look at each other like, ‘I've never heard of that, I don't-’

Jessica: ‘Does anybody know what a  Zanzibar Marketplace is?’

Melissa: So we get out the laptops fast as we can, searching everything and there's no sign of it.

Jessica: Our poor writers assistant is, like, furiously looking for documents on Zanzibar Marketplaces.

Melissa: Can’t find it, can’t find it. So we just figured this should be how it works.

Jeremiah: People's imagination actually existed before Google.

Jessica: I don't know how people wrote-

John: Well no, cause they assume- cause I did it in, ‘This is a real thing’ voice and walked out of the room. I had no idea until I came in the next day they’d spent a night researching it.

Jessica: We did! Yes.

John: It's like ‘We can't find anything.’ ‘Oh I'm sorry kids, that was drunken bullshit. Did I not make that clear?’

Jessica: You'd think by season two we’d know the difference between real voice and drunken bullshit voice, but we’re still figuring it out.

John: Unfortunately they blend together.

[Laughter]

Jessica: And they really do.

Jeremiah: We figured, I guess, if you bought it, the audience would.

John: There you go.

Jessica: And we did, yeah.

Melissa: And we gotta make up more of the rule of exactly how it works, and what, you know-

John: The rules of the Zanzibar Marketplace, yeah, exactly.

Jessica: That was kinda nice.

John: It was nice how it worked, not worrying about the-

Jeremiah: This is lovely, that he closes the computer; he doesn't want to know.

Jessica: Right, he doesn't have to talk about it.

John: That was tricky, actually, that was; trying to figure out exactly where Nate and Sophie are in their arc each one of these beats. And that's the thing is, Gina’s in every episode, so we have to figure out what her attitude is towards him. It's not just that he closes it, it's Gina giving him the close it sign.

Jessica: Yeah.

Melissa: Yeah, ‘Don't let dad know you're talking to me.’

John: Yeah, exactly. A lovely embassy.

Jeremiah: This ballroom scene, I have another one of my freeze/unfreeze multiplex camera sequences.

Melissa: This time with 100 extras.

John: Yes.

Jessica: Oh my god.

Jeremiah: With 100 extras which again was challenging but delightful.

Melissa: Oh so fun.

John: And Hardison in the van. Again, establishing, oh he had to rent the foreign van, that's right.

Jessica: Yup, and it smelled like cabbage.

John: Yeah. And Mark-

Jeremiah: There's a lot of complexity in the staging here, and these are things, obviously, that I just love to get up and do.

John: I love how Mark’s really playing this, but without overplaying it and letting you know- there you go.

Jeremiah: And now, there you go. And they look and now we follow, one continuous shot, there’s-

John: Now the trick is, you can't cut in these, you've got to-

Jeremiah: No, you cannot cut in these.

John: You have to stick with them or else the shot doesn't work.

Jeremiah: You have to get the timing exactly right and the pace, you have to imagine how far transitions go, and whoop Beth into a close up.

John: Oh it's a four-way, isn't it? That's right. It's nicely done. Sheppard to Hutton to Riesgraf and then back.

Melissa: And Beth’s in a very flowy dress.

[Laughter]

Jessica: Dress, right yeah, lots of material there. Yeah Beth walked in on set that day and I think everybody fell over.

Jeremiah: And- another, geographically placing everybody in the same- 

John: Oh that’s it and screw you, no. its-

Jeremiah: Act break.

[Laughter]

John: If that's not an act break, I don't know what is. I love- Matt Keesler is a particularly gifted actor, by the way, in that he can play a leading man. He can play Johnny Squarejaw, he can play this sort of unctuous financier, and what's great is he gets to- oh look at the eyes.

Jeremiah: He can do that, and yet you know something else is going on behind those eyes. 

John: Yeah.

Jessica: It’s true.

John: I am always tempted to just write six episodes that was Nate and Maggie fighting crime before they get divorced, just bang them out for the winter. It’d be fantastic.

Jessica: I'm all for that.

Jeremiah: Here we go, another kind of fun little hand off.

John: And yeah, three-way pass. We actually wind up doing this pattern in the season finale; this particular handoff style. And it's nice, because by duplicating- and even with the same hand motion that Chris does, and by duplicating it in the finale, we establish that they've been working together long enough that they’ve got this rhythm down.

Melissa: They have the rhythms.

Jessica: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John: Exactly. Great dress on Kari.

Melissa: Yeah. And it was a dress she had to wear for the rest of the episode.

Jeremiah: Ages. For ages.

John: It's not Richard Kind in the finale in his bathrobe- he was in his bathrobe for a week on an oil tanker.

[Laughter]

John: Yeah, that's slightly more pleasant. And it was also nice because we got to define, sort of, what Jeri’s character was like, and she will actually, kind of, enjoy watching Nate twist on the end of a rope there. 

Jessica: Yeah, they developed chemistry with Jeri- well with Tara, so quickly that just made it so fun to write, so much fun to shoot that, like, just became comfortable and the play between her and Nate was so natural.

John: And this is- we don't usually send Eliot on the con.

Jessica: No.

John: This was a lot of fun.

Melissa: That is the official Zanzibar Marketplace.

Jessica: This is what a Zanzibar Marketplace is.

John: And now, as you may have seen on FBI files or in video tapes-

[Laughter]

John: No, there is nothing more fun than the awkward boyfriend/girlfriend meeting. Whatever paradigm you wanna-

Jeremiah: The exes.

John: Yeah, the exes awkward conversation yeah. And Nate’s veiled threat about how dumb and foolish and good looking the thief is. No it was all-

Melissa: Yes, yes.

Jeremiah: And Kari’s reaction. Always nuanced and always interesting.

John: Yeah.

Jessica: And we haven't talked about Sam yet. 

John: Anthony-

Melissa: Andrew.

Jessica: No, but his character name is Sam. Yes. And he was great, he came in, we sort of got him- we found him at the last minute and it was just fantastic.

Jeremiah: He was unctuous, in a redefinition of the word. 

[Laughter]

John: Unctuous squared. Yeah. No, and that's a nice beat there, too, that you never get the- That was a big thing that we wanted, there were two or three scenes that we needed to do between Tara and Nate. One of them being she doesn't stop him from drinking, and this was where we drop that one. And then the finale, the way she does stop him from drinking is actually taking his booze and drinking it; she doesn't lecture him, she just deprives him of it.

Jessica: Yeah.

John: Yeah, this is a great job. Is that a brand? Did smart computers pay us money? I don't remember getting that check.

Jeremiah: No.

Jessica: There is the Fabergé egg. The first one we ordered showed up- and Melissa and I picked it up. We forgot to check the size! 

Jeremiah: It was one inch.

Jessica: Yeah, it was one inch tall.

[Laughter]

John: Oh, that's great.

Jessica: The props guy came to us and said, ‘This isn't gonna work.’

John: We have a small problem. Where did Eric find the second egg?

Melissa: I think it was the same website and he just embellished it and made it one of a kind.

John: That's good. And this was a lot of fun; this was a lot of technobabble, figuring out how the webcam would work. I have to admit I’m fascinated by web cameras, I'm fascinated by the idea of open informational- this bright vital information also being open information that anyone can hack.

Jeremiah: Information must be free.

John: It must be- it wants to be free. But it shouldn't be.

Jeremiah: So they say.

[Laughter]

John: And then trying, basically trying to do the stall that would be echoed in the kidnapping stuff later. If you think about it, we basically set up everything that's gonna happen in the fifth act in this sequence.

Jessica: That's true. That was totally intentional.

John: It’s like we do this for a living.

Melissa: Yes. We’re getting there.

[Laughter]

John: Yeah, slowly but surely.

Jessica: Poor Aldis did a fantastic job. We gave him- we handed him just two pages of straight dialogue that he just had to spew out, and did a fantastic job just getting all of it, ‘cause-

Jeremiah: And made him look good doing it.

Jessica: Totally makes him look great.

Jeremiah: Which, as we know, is the most important. 

John: It is. It’s competence porn. It's good watching characters who are good at their jobs doing interesting things. 

Jessica: That’s really true.

John: It's one of the things that people like in television. And the biggest-

Jessica: This was so fun.

John:  It really was in the writers room was like, list the things that can go horribly wrong at a party. 

Melissa: For Nathan Ford.

John: You meet your ex, she's with a better looking guy, and then your ex wife and your girlfriend get along really well. It really just went right through the checklist.

Jessica: That is true, yeah, that was fun.

John: And also the idea, again, that your first instinct in a lot of these is to play the woman as being jealous and that's just really petty and, kind of, television. And the idea that Kari-

Jeremiah: I like doing this is a one, circling and having them play it out, with all those people around them isolating them like this. It was- 

John: Well it's kinda cool also that in a one- when we've got the sound off-

Jeremiah: And they finish.

Melissa: And they walk out of it.

John: In a one with the sound off, you can see the choices the actors make. I noticed this in one of the other episodes, you can really read the emotions when you've got actors this good. You don't need the sound; you know how this conversation’s going.

Jessica: It’s true.

John:  It goes up a little, down a little, up a little, they resolve, they're ok.

Jeremiah: Beth looking amazing.

Melissa: Yes that dress.

Jessica: Yeah Beth looking amazing.

John: And then keeping- and this was a lot of fun, actually, doing a sequence of Mark Sheppard as Sterling.

Jessica: And giving him to play more of the comedic, you know, side. Which we just don't see Sterling do very often.

John: No, and Mark is a ridiculously funny human being.

Jessica: He is; he was so great at it and just-

John: Now that room was originally a burn room. That was actually- remember that?

Melissa: Yes.

Jessica: Oh yeah.

John: That was gonna be a room that, you know, was in the embassies. And the CIA used the set up that if you press the button, everything in the room would basically be torched, but it was one of those things we never wound up using, but it was one of those really geeky research things that writers like that just don't work in the plot in the form.

Jessica: Don’t have room for it.

Melissa: Or don’t exist in locations.

John: Don’t exist in locations. I love when he grabs his face.

[Laughter]

John: He's just lovely. Yeah, you really get the sense that in the old days, Nate was the really straight uptight one and Sterling was the one who occasionally would do this sort of bullshit. The street punk.

Jessica: It's true.

Jeremiah: Mark just loved doing this. 

Jessica: He did.

John: Just, ‘you're such a kind man’.

Jeremiah: I think his son was on set for this, too.

Jessica: He was, yeah.

Melissa: Yes, he liked that as well.

Jessica: Max is his name, and he- was the son’s name.

John: And this is a common structure. When you're writing your Leverage spec, because we did the bottle show earlier today; it's a fairly common structure that the episode in theory is over at the end of the second or third act. You’ve accomplished goal one and either Nate’s hubris insists that you go farther, or you have some sort of organic result from the complications from the success. It can never be random, I'm not that good a writer, but I do insist that just stuff cant drop out of the sky; it has to be reasonably- it has to be a consequence of the action.

Jessica: They succeed too well, usually; that's one of the things we try to do.

John: Yeah and Hardison- Aldis playing the hatred of Sterling really nicely. Both of them play that really well.

Jeremiah: What's interesting on Leverage, just as a theme, is that things generally happen moving forward out of the success rather than the failure. Which differentiates it from other shows, which set out a plan which fail more often than not, and then consequences move the story forward.

John: Well it's the reverse of the- I love the fact that she knows his earbud voice, that's lovely. And Tim, by the way-

Jeremiah: Very defensive here. 

John: Tim despite- no matter what you write, it wouldn't work unless he really could play this ‘you have no right to be mad at me’ voice. He does the screwed up-

Jeremiah: And very cool, kind of.

John: Yeah, that is nice.

Jeremiah: Ethereal.

John: How'd you get the multiple images there?

Jeremiah: Just multiplexing them, and, you know, it’s a secret.

John: Is it a director secret? They have to hire you in order to be able to do that? I was unaware.

Jessica: Now this is a fun location. ‘Here actors, lay on this really dirty floor for 8 hours.’

[Laughter]

Melissa: Luckily it smells like cinnamon.

John: Why'd it smell like cinnamon?

Melissa: You know, I'm not sure- I don't know what that building- 

Jessica: It was like a former Cinnabon factory or something.

Melissa: I don't know.

John: No, you're just making that up.

Jessica: No, I swear.

Melissa: She is. She is making that up.

Jessica: Ok, but it did smell like cinnamon buns.

Melissa: It did smell like cinnamon.

John: Alright, sure.

Jessica: And the floor was sticky; it was really sticky.

John: Oh hey, that's something I don't need to know. 

Jeremiah: This is something people really didn't need to know.

John: Well you know, you admire Kari a bit more for being in that dress on that floor, cause he's in a suit.

Jessica: Right? These guys are troopers.

John: That is also- the bit with the door when she said it was locked is absolutely taken from my marriage.

[Laughter]

Melissa: Yes, I was gonna say, you pitched that bit.

John: I pitched that bit. I was like, ‘I already said: locked.’

Jessica: This is interesting. It was interesting to shoot and write the team alone with Sterling. You don't have Nate as a buffer anymore and it was sort of uncomfortable, like, to write it and to shoot it, it felt like there was something wrong.

John: What are your thoughts on staging this? Cause this is not a dynamic we've ever done.

Jeremiah: Iconically I knew where I had to be, which is the team against him. 

John: Yup.

Jeremiah: And so you want to work with Christian, who’s, kind of, bridging the gap and having to make the decision, because he's the one who's gonna have to make it all happen anyway. It's either gonna be Mark’s plan, or it’s gonna be the gang’s plan.

John: Left and right. So that's why they are in the same frame it’s like we choose one or the other.

Jeremiah: And then basically, he will make his choice, as you see. You know, right now we don't know exactly where we're going and Mark is making his pitch.

John: I think when we were writing it, we didn't really know where we were going at this point.

[Laughter]

John: I think writing we were like, ‘And then they get kidnapped and stuff happens.’

Jeremiah: See there, Christian makes his decision right’ he's already made his decision, he stands with the team, he says this is the- and Mark- 

John: Hates it.

[Laughter]

Melissa: Yeah.

John: There's a- it's a great bit that we- you know, it kind of throw away the Eliot beating the hell out of him in the opening of this, and it became such a big thing that the last shot- the two actors dug in on it so much, the second to last shot on the finale, Christian is walking past Mark and they look at each other, and you just feel like it could come to blows in that half a second that they pass each other. No, they're very aware of each other.

Jessica: Yeah, there's good tension there.

John: And this is Nick and Nora. You know what? Seriously man, you can just write Nick and Nora with the two of these for five years. It’s impatience. What I love also is that her brain is moving as fast as his is. Although we do do the vindication of the evil boyfriend here, so that's kind of nice. He's lovely in this.

Jessica: Such a great job.

John: Cause he’s selling the con.

Jeremiah: Trying hard not to tip it.

Jessica: Yeah.

John: Yeah, now cause he's- cause forgive me, he is- we haven't seen Matt Keesler yet. No we haven't yet, so that's actually the first confirmation we have that he might be the bad guy, when we do the complicated double cross.

Melissa: Yeah, Sam comes in and says- 

Jeremiah: The- for naturally gullible, we’ll believe it now. I don't think it’s strongly tipped by him being there.

John: No, no it's tricky. We always- we’re always- because we write con and heist shows, always wondering if we could fool ourselves. And to a great degree, the fans of the show are very hip to con and heist shows. But so many people have watched so much television that metastructure now is useless, because you never know if you're screwing with the structure or not. The bickering with the wire thing, lovely. The two of them utterly ignoring Sam sitting there was really great.

Melissa: Well it's not often that we change bad guys midstream; we usually are aimed at-

John: We did in the season opener, but he was plainly an accomplice. This is one of the few times we do the- again, crime story, the guy you think is innocent is actually in on it.

Melissa: It’s true.

John: No it- no, this was a lot of fun, and this was also a typical thing in the writers room of: ‘Yes we've locked them in a room with no escape. What interesting things do they do to get out of here?’

[Laughter]

Jessica: ‘Oh shoot, this worked too well.’

John: Yeah, I guess what would be in a room? And then we locked Rieder in a closet for two days until she came up with some really good ideas about how to get out.

Melissa: How to get out.

Jessica: I did; I torched my way out.

John: Yeah, it was nice; it was nicely done.

Jessica: That's what happens when you’re the lowest writer on the totem pole. ‘Is it possible to escape this room without dying? I don't know, let's use Rieder again.’ 

John: Hey, you proved your worth multiple times, by the way.

Jessica: I'm getting awfully good at the escape.

John: Yeah, to be fair, no one else is probably small enough to get out the ventilation shaft, but it was a valid attempt. No. And again with the bickering. Also web cameras. I remember when web cameras in hostage stuff first came in in television. And it'll be interesting to see in 10 years what technology has done to crime writing.

Jessica: That's true.

Jeremiah: It'll change it again. Well telephones now in crime writing totally transformed them.

John: Well that's yeah 24 shows with the cell phone. We kind of upped the things with the earbud, but the idea that-

Jeremiah: You never see a show where the hero goes up to a phone booth with somebody in it. Opens the phone booth, not that you can ever find a phone booth, but assuming you could, and throws him out in order to use the phone.

John: It's interesting, somebody on YouTube did a great clip of all ‘There's no signal on my cell phone.’

[Laughter]

Melissa: Yes.

John: You have to have a really good- constant communication between all your cast members is brutal for suspense. And you know it's- but it's expected now, and you really have to jump through hoops- 

Jeremiah: Well the only time that you lose cell phone coverage is when you absolutely need it.

John: Yes, exactly.

Jeremiah: That's a rule. There you go, electrocuted.

John: Yup and Maggie has no problem with shocking a man. I like Matt Keesler’s reflexes there. ‘I fully expected there to be a wall of flame when I walked in, sometimes this happens.’

Jessica: This is sort of the one moment where we let Kari- or Maggie, be sort of the typical girl, you know, where she's holding the gun like that- holding her clutch, you know, yeah.

John: Well guns are uncomfortable things.

Jeremiah: And now we reveal.

John: And that was- by the way, just as one of the directors- we have very few directors. When, you know, you have to do the flashbacks, the flashback reveals, that's gotta be a pain in the ass. Because, you know you've gotta overshoot the scene, you've gotta know where your stopping point is and you can't rely on the editor to do it.

Jeremiah: You just have to be specific in your head. I mean, for me, I just play the show in my head and then copy it.

John: Yeah, oh is that it?

[Laughter]

Jeremiah: It's really easy.

Jessica: Well if it's that easy.

John: I had no idea it's that simple.

Jeremiah: I read the script, play it in my head, I go ‘Woah, that's a pretty good show,’ and then I just duplicate it.

John: Also in a weird way Sam is playing- I like the annoyance that this is actually a very good plan to murder us. 

Jessica: Yes, exactly.

John: Nate can't help but admire a good chess defense. I mean, even if it's beating him, he admires it. If you think about it, weirdly Sam, the bad guy here, is our usual victim. He's a guy who’s been ripped off by the financial machinations of the rich bastard he works for- 

Jeremiah: And he wants revenge.

John: Yes, he wants revenge. Ordinarily he'd be sitting in the bar crying, talking to Nate in the opening five minutes of this episode, if only he weren’t a murderous bastard.

Jessica: If the Leverage team had found him earlier they could have saved him from his evil self.

Melissa: That's true.

John: So how'd we come up with the elevator bit, guys?

[Laughter]

Jessica: I don't even remember how we came up with the elevators.

John: No, this was fun. I will say I really respect- we had a totally different physical ending, and Dean Devlin came to us and said, ‘I've seen the car bit’ and it was a car bit, it was the car exchange. He goes, ‘I've seen the car bit, now let's see something different,’ and walks out. And were like, ‘Ok, we won't use the same kidnapped ending that every other television show on earth uses.’

Jessica: And there's a reason they all use it. Cause you can't come up with anything else. 

[Laughter]

John: It's the only viable- and I can't remember.. then became the elevators and I can't remember- and we were actually on a whiteboard figuring out the timing and how high the building had to be and how long the display was-

Melissa: And if Eliot was up on the top floor or if he was on the bottom floor, we walked through-

John: Who cut away from each- we had like 4 different versions of this. 

Melissa: Yeah. 

John: No, and it was funny because I remember the day we finished that-

Jeremiah: One of my favorite shots here.

John: That's brilliant, that's really nice. Well that whole top floor shot like a bastard.

Melissa: Oh my god, it was gorgeous.

John: That was just the construction site, right? Was that-?

Jeremiah: Yeah, it was- hung the plastic to get the kind of silhouette look. 

Melissa: It's the same building that the bottom floor is where they were is where it smells like cinnamon. 

John: Oh interesting.

Melissa: And Portland has just lots of-

John: Yeah Portland really has not disappointed us; lots of great locations.

Melissa: Lots of variety of looks.

John: But yeah, we actually finished blocking the elevator switch and I was like, ‘I think we invented a crime trope.’ You know how long it's been since somebody invented a crime trope? It's pretty nice. No the elevator switch - that saved our ass.

Jessica: And John gets all the credit for coming up with the timing of how, you know, Hardison slowed down one and then sped it up. I remember when you came up with that you'd been in your office with your head down as you- like when you just need us to go away for a while, and then you come back into the writers room you're like, ‘I fixed it. I'm going home.’

[Laughter]

John: I did. I went home, I was like-

Jessica: You did, you were like, ‘I'm done for the day.’

John: ‘It's 20 floors, here’s the delay, here's the seconds per floor. I'm out.’

Jessica: Yeah. Only a guy who studied physics in college and is now a television writer is gonna come up with that. That was-

John: This is- by the way, nice performance here, cause this could be easy to get very hackneyed in here and Tim and Kari keep it very grounded. And I love Matt just folding up. 

[Laughter]

Jessica: Yeah.

John: Just because, you know what? I'll be the first to say that's me. I'm in the corner handcuffed in an elevator with a bomb, I’m weeping and talking to Jesus.

[Laughter]

Jeremiah: Nice moment.

Melissa: Good to know.

John: Good to know. Well, it takes a bomb.

Jessica: It takes a bomb to get John to pray.

John: Just in case. ‘I know it's meaningless, so, you know, on the off chance I'm wrong’. Oh no, this is a lovely ending; this worked out really well. And you know what? That's why I say credit to Dean. It is a more interesting ending, you know? He's very good at challenging us.

Jessica: Every now and then Dean comes in and puts a gun to our head and it works out.

John: Nice blow by the way. You did a real blow there, didn't you?

Jeremiah: Yeah.

John: Yeah.

Jeremiah: And real fire.

John: And the victory gloat. 

Jessica: I love it.

John: This, by the way, is one of my favorite effects shots.

Jeremiah: I'm glad I fought for this.

John: Yeah, this was great- this was hard to do. Cause we actually wound up building the tops of the elevators and then shooting the jump, the leap across. There you go. I love- she's just- she knows what they're doing she just- we all know and up. And Matt, oh- 

Jeremiah: ‘What the-?’

John: And I love Karis reaction there like, ‘You sons of bitches.’ 

Jessica: Yeah, exactly.

John: But I love- I think it's actually in the script that-

Jeremiah: I like this shot a lot.

John: It's a beautiful shot. We built most of it, wound up building most of it practically, just a little CG assist. And we almost found her a place to let us ride elevators. They were like, ‘We'll let you do it, but if you die we won’t- the insurance wont cover it.’ Ok, in that case, fine.

[Laughter]

John: I love the look on Matt's face, because it's actually in the script and that character stands there with a look of a guy who just saw his girlfriend kiss her ex-husband goodbye right in front of him.

Jessica: That is the look; yup, he got it.

Melissa: Foiled.

John: Foiled. Gloaty-gloaty foiling and then the whole getting away, the whole, you know, how do they get away? Because originally, we made much more of a deal of the fact that it was an embassy, that it was an embassy car. Cause I had lived in New York for a while-

Jeremiah: There's Matt barfing into a trash can.

John: Yes. ‘The first bomb’s always the hardest.’ I love Parker’s attempts at humanity, they just never go well.

Jessica: Yeah, it’s true. Originally in the script there was more about the embassy being a safe haven, and we hit a little- a lot more-

Melissa: He was so untouchable.

Jessica: And so- I think we were all concerned that the thing at the end when we switched the plates wouldn’t play, but I think it still totally holds up. It's that you hit it enough, and you're familiar enough that it-

John: Yeah, we hit it 3 times and that's generally the rule. Good entrance there for Jeri, by the way, there.

Jeremiah: Yeah.

John: Nicely done.

Jeremiah: This all felt really good. This is complex to stage all this.

John: There's six people there, with one in the deep background, you know, we're not easy, yeah.

Jeremiah: Dean did this.

John: Dean shot this whole ending sequence.

Jeremiah: I was doing that.

John: I think you were blowing stuff up at this point.

Jessica: Yeah, Glenn and Jeremiah were blowing stuff up, and me and Dean were outside freezing our asses off in Portland in the rain. It was so cold there that day.

John: And yet 107, like, two weeks earlier when we were shooting the other one.

Jessica: Yes!

Melissa: When they were shooting the one where it was all onstage, the bottle show-

John: That was 107 degrees. When you're actually outside, it's freezing.

Jeremiah: All the faces here really sell-

John: Lana Veenker. I will give our Portland casting- she’s amazing. 

Jeremiah: She’s done a great job.

John: She has yet to disappoint us. And really has not only that, surprised us. Like I said, we planned on bringing up three or four actors a week; we brought up one, if that.

Jessica: Yeah.

Melissa: This one we had a few special guests, so.

John: Yeah, we brought up a few more. 

Melissa: Had a few more plane tickets.

John: But what was I going to say? Oh, the original ending, also, when you get to the point where- wow, there's a lot of flashes in this one. It's tricky, you gotta make sure they are all the right length, too.

Jessica: Yeah.

John: If they start to get too long, you lose your sense of where time is. 

Jessica: Yeah.

John: The end of this, you guys wrote it, you went up with Jeremiah and shot it, and I was working on the finale. And I was like, well- and Dean and I were trying to find a bad guy for the finale, for the second half of the finale and we’re like, it should be Sterling, but Sterling investigates art theft and we’re doing our crime, like our international crime episode. ‘God, it'd be- god, I wish Sterling was the Interpol agent.’ And it was one o’clock in the morning, and Dean tells this story in the commentary. One o’clock in the morning where I go, ‘Well why don't we just make Sterling Interpol?’ And Dean’s like, ‘Yes, that's it!’ I said, ‘Are we being really smart or really tired?’

[Laughter]

Melissa: Cause it was like the next day. We were shooting the reactions in the bar.

John: So none of this should play in any way shape or form as that revelation. So that's why we wound up actually shooting the news follow up, like, months later.

Melissa: Right.

Jessica: Right, yup.

John: And then putting different words in his mouth. I love the way Mark plays to the crowd here, though, he was fantastic. 

Jessica: Oh yeah.

John: And that's a great shirt too

Jessica: It’s perfectly Sterling. I think that's actually Mark’s shirt, isn't it?

John: It is. This is all Mark’s wardrobe.

Jessica: Yeah, Mark likes to bring his own shirts.

John: When he's not acting, he's fighting international crime. 

[Laughter]

John: This is great and then the smug look just for the freeze frame. There you go. And that is actually our production manager Benjamin Raymondjack as the CNN anchor.

Melissa: Did a great job.

Jessica: We use all the parts of the aimal here.

John: We use all the parts of the animal. If you were wandering outside our studio that day you may have been the CNN anchor.

[Laughter]

John: What’s great- and just the hatred. 

Jeremiah: Their reaction.

John: And also the way that Christian lets- finally Eliot lets her into the club with a shared hatred of Sterling. Yeah, but that entire- that entire ending was glommed on 4-5 weeks after.

Jessica: Yeah, literally, I think it was-

Jeremiah: Well we shot that week- but I knew that he was in Interpol.

John: No, we hadn't decided yet.

Jeremiah: No, you did.

John: Oh we had decided, but we hadn't shot it, that's right.

Jeremiah: That's right. So this, I shot the scene to be able to do that. 

John: Oh, there you go.

Jessica: Yeah, yeah.

Melissa: Originally I think we wrote it just to be that he got credit.

Jeremiah: This is a lovely scene; this is a very simple kind of button. It's just very simple and I wanted to keep the camera, sort of, out of upstaging the actors as I normally do.

John: Yeah. And you- I think you were one of the first to pull- to shoot from that side of the booth, too. Are they at a table or booth?

Jeremiah: Yeah, it's a booth.

John: I think you were the first to pull the wall out, you did in a previous-

Jeremiah: If there's a wall, I will pull it out.

John: Yeah, you pull it out. You know what? You did it in your first one, and then we did it again in The Bottle Job cause we were shooting in the bar, and then we did it again in this. No, it just allows you- it doesn't feel so claustrophobic shooting up against a wall.

Jeremiah: Well I don't like shooting up against walls. 

John: Yeah, there you go.

Jeremiah: There I go.

Jessica: This is- I think this is probably one of my favorites; in the episode I was off camera crying. Like, I had just loved the two of them together and, you know-

Jeremiah: Yeah, they're good.

John: Well I love the fact that Nate is the worst judge of his character. You know, both Sophie and Maggie are better judges of who he should be and, you know, what he can do.

Jeremiah: Well by the way, I think one of the reasons we like Nate is cause he really has the love of two great women.

John: That’s a good point.

Jeremiah: And that sort of the villain who- puppies love him.

Jessica: It's true.

Jeremiah: You love him. It doesn't matter if he's John Demenia, puppies love him.

John: And Demenia was framed. It's interesting. When you say villain- cause we were talking about this the other day. Tim’s really found- Tim and I talked about this a lot before the season started. As you pull layers off Nate Ford, most guys are like, ‘You get to know him and so you get to know his softer side.’ That's the standard television trope. Nate gets more awful the more you get to know him. He's more judgemental, he's angrier, he's dunker, he's got a violent past. And that's the episode. That was nicely done, guys. Would you like to say anything to the nice folks before we wrap it up?

Jessica: There we go.

Jeremiah: Just- I would watch the next one.

[Laughter]

John: There you go. Thank one hopefully you and millions of others. Kids?

Jessica: No, we had fun; it was great.

Melissa: Good night.

Jessica: Good night.

John: Nicely done.

[fishmech]

i mean i am like anti-”Disney Lifestyle”by upbringing

we didn’t have disney channel at all til i was about to graduate high school, because it was a fuckin extra cost channel like HBO on the local cable system and we couldn’t afford that. and also barely watched the Disney cartoons on ABC cuz like, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network and then the several other kids cartoons blocks on the other broadcast channels were more interesting (and nick+cn were basic cable after all)

we didn’t go to Disney parks cuz that shit was 1000 miles away or 2700 miles away or on another fuckin continent depending on the park. and even if we’d ahd th emoney to get there them hotels are pretty pricey. and also we had fuckin WB/DC themed Six Flags Great Adventure like 25 miles away + the school district usually got you a like $5 field trip to ride all the coasters and shit so long as you did really basic homework questions that were supposed to teach you about physics or smth.

we had basically all the Disney cartoons on VHS but most of those we got from relatives, and some of them we had as home copies dubbed off their own tapes rather than an official copy lol. and basically none of the live action stuff cuz it was boring.

we had a sizable amount of merch for like the basic disney characters but those tended to be on special occasions or like a friend of the family would slip my parents some money to get that stuff, and we basically stopped getting any at all once the disney store in the local mall went out of business pretty early  and my mom didn’t want to drive to other malls just for that stuff lol.

the one and only time i went to disneyworld was as part of a weeklong high school senior trip that cost on the order of $80 for me as part of a big group tour thing with the airfare and sharing a hotel room with 3 other students (that part wasn’t super great but it was fine).... and i spent most of that trip reading ebooks especially cory doctorow’s book about a far future disneyworld and like, using up my 3 free entries to the extra cost attractions on going to the giant arcade that was full of free play arcade games (which ruled, but they tore that shit down since I was there), watching fuckin monty python on the hotel tv cuz there was some channel there that was running a ton all week, and then going to like all the coolest old EPCOT shit that hadn’t yet been torn down but is torn down now. most of the rest of the place had ridiculous lines for pretty short and tame rides that I could get back home at the low-cost century old amusement parks which there was plenty of around and tho i hit most of the major name attractions it got pretty tiring to put up.

plus the last day of the trip we had all our baggage packe dup and sent off to the airport to be loaded on the flight in the morning and then we spent the next 8 days at universal studios which was like, way cooler and better rides and even just places to hang out at? and the lines were all way more reasonable, it was actually like feasible to do shit like ride the nice coasters multiple times. it put basically everything at Disneyworld that isn’t dead/removed now in pretty sharp contrast in terms of entertainment value!

oh and also I shoplifted like thousands of dollars in merch and electronics from disneyworld and surrounding attractions, eminently stealable stuff then. i still use some of the expensive compactflash cards i looted in my old gear. good thing florida can’t fuckin touch me cuz the statute of limitations ran out haha fuckers. really came out ahead on that trip!

[panikkar]

okay california is not nearly as dangerous as 9-1-1 makes it seem!!! they just need to keep upping the stakes bc it’s been 7 seasons lmao

as a born and raised californian:

- the last time i heard about a tsunami happening was like the one in japan ages ago. it’s not really an actual problem for california it’s just that all the beach-y areas have “tsunami evacuation route” signs in case of an emergency so people know where to go in case of an emergency but they’re like tornado shelters yk they’re just in case and according to google theres only been one “tsunami” (in 2011, it was more like bad flooding than at all close to 9-1-1s tsunami it just caused property damage, no one died) since the 1960s

- we don’t get hurricanes bc our oceans are really cold! shoutout to the icy alaska currents! the worst we get is bad rainstorms and real strong winds and like. even then the problem isn’t the wind it’s pg&e our electric and gas mfs BECAUSE THEYRE INCOMPETENT AS FUCK. (pg&e hate is strong in california) ahem n e ways the only time a hurricane made landfall in california was in the 1930s. we might get bad storms time to time but like. it’s also balanced out with drought yk so we’re used to it

- and finally earthquakes. yes we have a lot like A Lot a lot but theyre really weak lmao like we don’t even feel them most of the time. but being on fault lines we have super special earthquake infrastructure that helps minimize earthquake damage as much as possible by moving with earthquakes instead of getting their shit rocked by them (which is actually a whole unit in middle school science for californians lol). the last time i remember an earthquake actually messing with anything past a lil shaky shaky was a couple years ago there was one strong enough to knock shit off shelves and shit in the area my brother lives in but there wasn’t any damage past yknow the shit that was knocked off shelves and whatnot. honestly compared to the snowmageddon the sierra nevadas had last year it wasn’t really disastrous yknow

- and finally high population density. tbh i don’t have hard info on this bc yknow it’s not like a natural disaster but it’s not that different from any other big cities. i am personally not an la girlie (la metro area vs the rest of socal rivalry coming in for the win) so i can easily tell you why la sucks <3 but it’s like every metro area there are safer areas than others and if you have street smarts, some pepper spray, a tall white boy, and/or enough local knowledge you’ll be fine. like san francisco for example if you aren’t alone, you stay out of the tenderloin if you don’t have the local street smarts, and you don’t do anything stupid (like walk around abandoned alleyways, don’t pay attention to your surroundings, don’t obviously carry around stealable shit (like fancy cars or purses etc) willy nilly, etc) you can have a great time

anyways yeah california isn’t that scary don’t let 9-1-1 give it a bad rap!! personally i prefer not to have snow, hurricanes, and jacuzzi temperature oceans but i might be biased <3 also socal has killer mexican food and great weather so it’s a win win

(also don’t base your opinion of california on la we aren’t all la i promise san diego is the superior major socal city fr)

I absolutely adore 9-1-1. It's My comfort show. I've watched it like two times all the way through not counting watching snippets with my parents.

But this show is not good when you have anxiety. Especially if you have anxiety over natural disasters and such.

I had to ground myself on my first attempt at a watch through because I watched the plan episode in season one when my boyfriend was on a plane. That did not go well. For me. My boyfriend was fine. I was just a nervous wreck.

I thought I had gotten over the anxiety the show causes but as I'm riding in a car (....I might be a tad late to getting my driver's licence shhh) all I can see is all the things that could go wrong which is heightened by the show. By a lot.

The cruise ship arc is not helping one but haha. I am already terrified of the ocean. Have been since I was six and saw images of the destruction Hurricane Katrina created. I will not be stepping foot on a cruise ship or the ocean unless I'm dead and I can't physically stop them.

Also California feels like a death trap?? Like with hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes PLUS high density population that probably leads to more crime and more violent crime?? The show has a solidified my fear is the state and y'all will never catch me there haha.

I digress, am I the only one that struggles with balancing their anxiety while watching the show? Like I love this show and I will not stop watching it, but I'm just more aware of what all can go wrong how easily people can lose the ones they love.

[blueblooddetective]

❗If you weren't a vampire what other monster would you be?

Idk man I feel like I was a stealable baby so a changeling or some shit

[boethiah]

i'd ask you an oblivion character for the 'give me a character' thing but idk if you've even played oblivion, anyway - fargoth (sorry)

do I like them: i fear and despise him5 good qualities: his easily stealable shit 3 bad qualities: WHOOF, where to startfavourite episode/etc: n/aotp:  fargoth/that guy who has you steal his cashbrotp: fargoth/arilleot3: fargoth/nerevarine/arillenotp: fargoth/vivecbest quote: i dont listen to a word he says headcanon: he’s a secret sixth house cultist

[eldritchsun]

Just a quick 4am post bc I'm having insomnia again: one of my favourite things in the world is gay grocery shopping. I love grocery shopping with my partner. It's one of the most domestic thing to do and I just loooooove that shit. We have not a lot of money but enough money to have a small discussion before deciding that yes we're totally getting strawberry flavoured Oreos, whatever, hashtag worth it. I love being actively homosexual in the produce aisle. We are trying to eat healthier and I hate everything green but I'm so in love I don't want to die earlier than I need to (a very new feeling). I make faces while healthy shit goes into our shopping bag. We hold hands the whole time. It's magic because I'm not thinking about it at all, just going about the day, when suddenly, in between complaining about the vegetarian meat replacement selection and checking the homeware for stealable mug designs, i become weirdly aware. We r gays, and grocery shopping. Decades ago we would've been imprisoned and now we're grocery shopping like any other couple. Nobody can do shit. Any of the dozens of strangers could be homophobes and transphobes and hate everything we r and they cant do shit. This is a free Asda. I would never notice if they were anyway. I feel bad about that. I live my life paying absolutely zero attention to anyone but myself, the self-centred prick that I am, and it's my partner who notices the glares and frowns and assorted evil eyes. Meanwhile I'm busy frowning at vegetables. I love being out, I love being in love and I do like grocery shopping.

[bardock1991]

Not to mention how much of an idiot he is, as well as a huge hypocrite.

Ironwood: *Talks about Ozpin keeping secrets*

ALSO Ironwood: *Keeps Penny's identity as an android & whatever plans he had in store for her at Beacon a secret, EVEN TO HIS "ALLIES"*

Actually, let's talk about Penny for a second. You fund a project where the people behind it create an Android... With a SOUL... Not ONLY that, you manage to make a machine that can CAPTURE someone's soul & put it in someone else. (I don't know how the fuck THAT works, TBH. He says Atlas has been studying Aura from a science standpoint, but ya can't exactly use science with a SOUL, so i don't know how they pulled it off.)

& It WORKS. The Penny Project is a success. You essentially created the closest thing to an artificial human you can make... & You don't tell Ozpin, Glynda or Qrow about it... Despite how much of a MASSIVE deal that is when you think about it... For pretty much no reason... No, seriously. WHY did he do this? What did he had to gain from this?!

& Like i said earlier, he's just so STUPID! What kind of reasonable & intelligent human being would go "I'm gonna bring an army of EASILY stealable & hackable robots to a foreign nation... Oh, what's that? My army got hijacked?... Uh... It's OZPIN’S fault! He's the one who didn't listen to me from the start!" & Later on with the Amity Plan, nobody brings up the fact that Amity CAN'T go higher than Remnant’s atmosphere, which it NEEDS to be in order for the Grimm (minus Salem cause she's Hax) to not reach it... Why? Cause Dust CAN'T work outside of Remnant’s atmosphere. Sure, he could've used the staff, but that'd mean putting Atlas in danger & because James is an idiot, of course he's not gonna do that.

On that note. Getting into Atlas is not that hard. Like- AT ALL! If you made it to Mantle, you essentially made it to Atlas. It's just a matter of WHEN you get up there. Watts, Tyrian, Cinder & Neo were EASILY able to get into Mantle & by extension Atlas without ANY issue... But because Ironwood is again, an IDIOT, he's never gonna think "Maybe i should improve the defenses of Mantle, so less outsiders can get there with ease". That's never gonna happen, nor will he fix that giant fucking hole in the walls that are fucking over Mantle.

Which by the fucking way, is the only reason Atlas can even EXIST! No Mantle = No easy way to farm up Dust & other materials. No Dust & Materials = No stuff for Atlas to "strengthen" their forces. (Which they do a shit job at, BTW, The Atlesian Army is ASTRONOMICALLY bad), which ALSO means no Atlas... So apart from being a paranoid, hypocritical bastard who just makes things worse from everybody, he’s as unreliably stupid as DBS Goku on the Zamas Arc from Dragon Ball Super... So yeah, no wonder Ruby decided NOT to tell him the full truth. He would've made Atlas fall faster than the 2 meteors Madara summoned.

So, I’ve noticed a common topic among my fellow RWDEsters is RWBY lying to Ironwood. I wish to make a post about that, but before I do that, I’d first like to wrap my head around why she did that in the first place. Anyone willing to help a brother out?