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fablesrose · 1 year ago

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Leverage Rewrite Ch 1 - Phone Calls

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Eliot Spencer x Ford!Reader

Words: 3054

Summary: We are introduced to y/n Ford and her relationship with Nate through some phone calls. Takes place directly after the Bank Shot Job and goes through most of season 1.

Warnings: drinking, swearing, canon level stuff

A/n: okay, so I may be up over my head on this one, but here it is.

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The ringing of my phone snapped me out of my lackluster concentration. I enjoyed freelancing, I really did, but this job was just not coming along like I wanted it to. I couldn’t even drag my eyes off my laptop to see who was calling me. It was always work related though.

“This is y/n Ford, how can I help you?” I made sure to turn on my best chipper voice, though I could tell my perplexed expression didn’t change.

“Don’t use your customer service voice on me, y/n.” The voice was very familiar and I sighed in relief, turning away from my computer.

“Oh, hey Nate. I didn’t look at the phone, I thought it was work… How are you doing?”

“That’s alright, I’m doing fine. I saw that you called a little while ago, I’m sorry it took awhile, I was working a job.” He sounded tired, but different than the last few times I had talked to him.

“Yeah, I just hadn’t heard from you for a bit, but a job? I didn’t know you were working again. How has that been going? What are you doing?”

It was good that he was getting out and doing things again. He had been in a deep rut since he left I.Y.S and got divorced. And of course since Sam… passed. It has only seemed to get worse after that. I have tried to check in with Nate at least every couple months, more frequently when possible. Sometimes he doesn’t get back to me for a while, which seemed to be the case here. I’ve been worried about him, but maybe this will lead him to the up and up.

“Uh, I’m not sure if I can explain what I’m doing right now, birdie. It uh, it's a bit complicated and maybe more dangerous than you would like…” He sighed, and I didn’t even have to see his face to know he was giving a slight wince at what he said. I smiled, both at hearing him call me the nickname he had given me years ago, as well as his conscientiousness of my feelings.

“Well, I hope you can tell me about it sometime. Are you happy doing it?”

He thought about it for a minute, “yeah, I am. I get to help people.”

“Are you alone? Do you need help?”

“No, I’ve got people.”

“Then that’s good enough for me. I still worry some, but you’re a grown man, you can take care of yourself… or should I say old man?” I smirked, knowing that it would bother him a bit.

He barked out half a laugh, “I’ll let that one go. I’m glad you worry about me… You know you’re my favorite niece right?”

It was my turn to laugh sarcastically. “I’m your only niece. Don’t be a stranger.”

“Okay.”

I set the phone down after he hung up. Nate practically raised me. My parents died when I was a kid, an accident, and he was the only family I had left… Or the best family I had left. Grandad Jimmy barely counts. Even with my parents around I was always close with Nate, he always had little puzzles to teach me or games to play. I knew it was hard on him, to take care of me, but we had each other, and it got better. We both had to grow up fast, and when Maggie and then Sam came along, it seemed like the world was giving back a little bit. We were a happy family for a while. I graduated, moved out into the real world, and tried to be to Sam what Nate was to me. It all came crashing down. Nate had his own process though. This was worse than when my parents died, understandably, but I knew he was the only one that could work himself out of it. I try to let him.

My eyes flipped back to my computer from where they were staring at the abandoned phone on the table. I can’t afford to reminisce any longer, I have deadlines to keep.

—---

Across the country, Nate absentmindedly tapped his phone against his knee, thinking. He gingerly moved his right shoulder, trying not to test his stitches too much. The team had just finished up the bank shot job. He knew he needed to take it easy while he healed up from his gunshot wound, but he could feel a slight itch to keep going in the back of his head. To take his mind off of it, he looked back at his phone, thinking of y/n.

He did miss her. Nate knew he had been distant recently and that she worried about him. He felt awful when he thought too hard about it. Here his niece was, worrying about him, a grown man, the one who raised her, who should be worrying about her. It made him want to reach for a drink. The truth was, he didn’t worry about her. Not often anyway. She was every bit of her parents, something Nate was glad for. His older brother was always the better one, he thought. He would have never become… Never become what Nate had, under the circumstances.

He didn’t know what y/n would think about what Nate was doing now. He didn’t want to leave her in the dark, they had always worked together through Nate’s changing careers and her own progression through life. He also knew that this work was dangerous. Nate winced as the stitches pulled a bit as he shifted. He didn’t want her to worry about him more, or worse, get caught up in it if she didn’t have to.

Nate went to pour himself a drink before heading back to rest. He set his phone down at his bedside table, looking at it for a moment longer.

He would find a way to tell her somehow.

—----

It was about a month later when I was getting ready for bed that I got an email to my personal account. I usually don’t check emails this late, but it was from Nate.

Hey birdie, I know it’s late over there and you probably don’t want to work, but I have this script that I need to make sure is believable for an actress. Do you mind looking over it?

Attached was a pretty large file. Opening it up showed that it was around ten pages and it held two scenes. He was right, I didn’t want to, but it was Uncle Nate asking a pretty small favor. I read it through and answered.

So… the scenes themselves are decent, good pacing. Leaving the boy orphaned with the nun and mother dying will be sure to pull some tears. But the overall plot? That’s just awful, I’m sorry. Not sure how you fix that.

It wasn’t too long before I got a reply.

Good enough, thanks.

I sighed as I finished getting ready for bed. I didn’t know what in the world he was doing anymore, but at least he was still alive.

I had started to forget about the interaction when a few days later he called.

“Wow, I hear from you twice in one week? What’s the occasion?”

There was a lot of noise in the background indicating he was in a busy place, “Yeah yeah I just… I finished this job and was thinking about you, so I thought I’d call.”

I smiled, “Appreciated… Is that your job, fighting werewolves with NATO troops? Is that why it's so dangerous?”

He groaned, “Please don’t mention the script, I want to wipe that from my memory. It uh,” he paused, thinking and I could hear some background announcements like he was in an airport or train station. “I was able to help some orphans this job, and… I- I’m just glad that you were able to come live with me, that we had each other when. When your dad passed, and mom.”

I took a moment before answering, “Me too Nate…”

There was a moment of silence when I heard a deeper voice a bit further away from the phone, “Nate, come on, we gotta catch our connection. Last call.”

“I’ve gotta go.”

“Okay, talk to you later.”

He said a quick goodbye before hanging up the phone. It seemed like his new job was exciting, and I was interested in seeing where it took him next… If I could ever figure out what it was.

I started to look forward to his calls even more now, and they happened more frequently as well. I always speculated what little details he would drop about his most recent adventure, if he shared any at all. One call he talked about a wedding and the fiascos behind it, from a woman he worked with that seemed to peeve him at times to appetizers. He insisted that when I got married (after he asked if I wanted to) that he wouldn’t attend if it was going to be a large crap shoot like the one he was just involved with. I simply laughed, I didn’t interject more than that to ask him about it as he was in a rush and clearly exasperated.

The next phone call mentioned the same woman, of whom I learned her name was Sophie. I could tell he was still a bit peeved at her, but there was something else there as well, an interest. I smiled to myself as he talked, but didn’t mention it… yet. There were so many other questions I had about what he was doing now. I finally pried a bit more.

“Nate, come on, you’ve got to give me something. What are you doing, what is this job you are working?”

He paused like he knew it was coming, but still not prepared, “I am the lead of a… consulting team. We help people when no one else will, when no one else can.”

“Well that’s very noble of you Nathan. I’m not getting any more than that right now am I?” I laughed a little bit towards the end.

“Yeah, uh, that is it for now. I’ll tell you more about it some other time.”

“You promise?”

“Promise.”

The next call was not as cheerful or exciting as the previous ones. I was already coming down with a cold, and another project had hit a standstill because of the lack of cooperation of people within the client’s company. Much more of this and I would back out of the contract. Luckily my contract states that I will get paid for the work completed, not necessarily at completion, and if I have to cancel a contract due to certain circumstances such as lack of cooperation, I get to keep funds in relation to work completed as well as the deposit. In other words, it would be their loss.

I could feel I was developing a headache, but I answered the phone anyway, “Hello?”

“Heyy, how’s it going? I um… I can’t remember why I called…” There was a slight slur in his voice that I immediately picked up on.

“Nate? Are you drunk right now?” I asked accusingly, my headache getting worse.

“What? No… what time is it… maybe.”

I groaned, “Damn it… You said you were getting better. You said you would quit!”

“Hey, I never said that-”

“Am I gonna have to kick your ass to keep you around?”

There was a pause on the other end, “No, Eliot can do that, he said he would keep me in line if he had to.”

“Well…” I took a moment to collect my thoughts, “I don’t know who this Eliot character is, but hopefully he’s good on his word, cuz I don’t want to fly all the way out there for that. I’d rather you stick around for a while.”

“I know.”

I sighed knowing I wouldn’t get much farther with him right now, “Well, sober up a bit. I can’t handle much more right now Nate, I’m getting sick. We both better go get some rest.”

“You’re sick? I’ll ask around for some recipes to help you feel better.”

Before I could stop him and tell him don’t bother, he hung up. I sighed again, stopping to get my bearings before starting the trek to the bathroom to take some medicine.

I had grown a bit lax on Nate with his drinking. I made sure he didn’t drink himself to death after Sam’s death and the divorce, but once he made it to somewhat functioning, I just grew tired. There wasn’t much else I could do, so I figured he could sort himself out when he needed to. That seemed to be the case over the last couple of months. I could tell in his phone calls as they became more frequent that he was drinking less and getting better. I had exaggerated a bit when I said he promised me he would quit. I wish I had made him promise, but I guess it was just a conversation and some hope on my end.

I didn’t know the rest of his team, but I hoped they could help him, or at least keep him on this side of life. Or that he had someone to rely on out there. I felt useless here in Boston while he was out in LA. Maybe I should have moved out there when his life had gone down hill, despite his protests. I could theoretically work anywhere.

I started to slip into sleep as I thought about it. I didn’t fight it.

The next morning I woke up to an email on my phone.

Hey, I’m sorry I called you while drunk. Eliot gave me some soup recipes, hopefully they will help with the cold. Feel better birdie.

Below were the recipes promised. I looked them over, and they all looked really good, and relatively simple to make. This was good as I could feel the congestion in my head was worse than the night before and knew simple would be essential to any new meal the next couple of days. I’d like to meet this Eliot someday.

—---

Over a month later Nate sat in his chair, staring at the drink in his hand reflecting back to the last phone call he had with y/n. He was drunk, and she was clearly upset at him. He hated to admit it, but, while he didn’t want to worry her, he should have felt more guilty about it. For that reason he hasn’t talked to her since he sent that email with Eliot’s recipes.

What an unfortunate coincidence it was when he had to go into rehab with the mark for the next job. His mind kept going back to the group session they had with Sophie talking about the healing power of apologies, or something like that. She asked him if there was anyone he wanted to apologize to for burdening with his drinking problem, highly suggesting to him that he apologize to her and the team. What really got him was when she mouthed the words “like your niece?”

Maybe that’s why he blew up a little. He didn’t need her to be brought up. The fact that Sophie knew so much about him unnerved him sometimes. He thought he kept her underwraps, out of whatever mess Nate found himself in. He obviously needs to brush up on those skills.

—---

I got a somewhat urgent call from Nate, the first one since he called me drunk that night. I was gearing up for a serious talk about his drinking, boundaries, and whatnot. This did not seem to be the case.

“You’ve done mock trials before right?”

That stopped me in my tracks, “in highschool? Yeah, but that was a long time ago, what is going on?”

He explained that he was in a similar situation with him and his team. The plaintiff was a widow whose husband died from taking an energy supplement. She was suing the supplement company, but was not doing well.

“How would you win for this widow?”

I took a moment to think it over, “I mean… You have your three persuasive techniques, logical, emotional, and reputation, to paraphrase. You can either tear down the company and their arguments on these fronts and slash or build up your own. I don’t know all the data behind the supplement or if you have health records for the husband before and after the supplement, but that could help. If you want to go the dirty route you can tear down the credibility of the company and their witnesses and experts…” I hummed and hawed for a bit, still thinking. “Also considering, if this is a jury trial, play into the emotional side, get their sympathy, show that it is someone’s fault that this husband, father? Is he a father? You know, etc etc. Just keep with the triangle, logic, emotion, and credibility. Not sure what else to give you without more research or context.”

I heard a distant voice that said, “That just might work,” suggesting to me that I was on speaker phone.

Nate talked to this other guy, “see, just put on your bowtie and talk to them like you’ve been doing your whole life.” He turned back to the phone and spoke to me, “That’s perfect, thank you, bye.”

He hung up and I just stared at the phone in my hand. What kind of consulting business is this?

I got a call I wasn’t expecting one day from someone I haven’t heard from in a long time.

“Hey y/n, how have you been?”

“Maggie? I’ve been fine, just working freelancing… What’s up?” While she and Nate have been divorced for a couple of years now, she still played a role in my life as an aunt. We definitely drifted apart, but I thought we were both dear to each other.

“That’s good, I’m glad you’ve been doing okay. I do have a favor to ask you though.”

“Okay… What is it?”

“I’d imagine it’s been a while since either of us have gone to a fancy party… What do you say?”

I hated to say it, but she was right. “Tell me when and where.”

#eliot spencer x reader #eliot spencer #leverage #rewrite #slow burn #multichapter #nate ford #sophie devereaux #alec hardison #parker #ford!reader #maggie collins

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leverage-ot3 · 6 months ago

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op: #dubenich says these 4 people will immediately turn on each other and then the first thing they do is go find sophie#and then he's like ok so i've learned my lesson time if i can't divide them i'll make it impossible for them to act#SIKE BITCH they learned how to make friends while you were in prison! and you're the reason they learned!

getting really emotional about how dubenich picks the leverage crew because they only ever work alone, and in both the nigerian job AND the last dam job the way they outsmart him is to go find people they trust and ask for help.

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popgirlshowdown · 4 months ago

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the tumblr pop girl showdown and it's the same but there's 96 more artists so it's not

ROUND 1 LINEUP

billie eilish vs naomi elizabeth: NAOMI ELIZABETH taylor swift vs nicola roberts: NICOLA ROBERTS lady gaga vs hannah diamond: LADY GAGA rihanna vs namasenda: RIHANNA sabrina carpenter vs isabella lovestory: SABRINA CARPENTER ariana grande vs nicole dollanganger: NICOLE DOLLANGANGER dua lipa vs kilo kish: DUA LIPA sza vs pussy riot: SZA shakira vs rebecca black: SHAKIRA adele vs brooke candy: ADELE lana del rey vs natalia kills/cruel youth: LANA DEL REY katy perry vs cheetah girls/3lw : THE CHEETAH GIRLS beyoncé/ destiny's child / the carters vs kelela: BEYONCÉ miley cyrus/ hannah montana vs lindsey lohan: MILEY CYRUS doja cat vs hemlocke springs: HEMLOCKE SPRINGS olivia rodrigo vs bree runway: BREE RUNWAY chappell roan vs lauren jaureggi: CHAPPELL ROAN charli xcx vs arca: CHARLI XCX camila cabello vs slayyyter: SLAYYYTER ellie goulding vs sky ferreria: SKY FERREIRIA halsey vs allie x: HALSEY britney spears vs sophie: SOPHIE madonna vs loona: MADONNA tate mcrae vs chloe x halle: CHLOE X HALLE selena gomez vs monaleo: MONALEO kesha vs japanese breakfast/michelle zauner: KESHA rosalía vs muna: ROSALÍA megan thee stallion vs shygirl: MEGAN THEE STALLION ava max vs hilary duff: HILARY DUFF anitta vs paris hilton: TIE cardi b vs janelle monae: JANELLE MONAE becky g vs fka twigs: FKA TWIGS mitski vs hayley kiyoko: MITSKI natasha bedingfield vs caroline polachek: NATASHA BEDINGFIELD christina aguilera vs rina sawavama: RINA SAWAYAMA nelly furtado vs flo: NELLY FURTADO jennifer lopez vs björk: BJÖRK raye vs rico nasty: RICO NASTY mariah carey vs solange: MARIAH CAREY avril lavigne vs tommy genesis: AVRIL LAVIGNE zara larsson vs princess nokia: PRINCESS NOKIA tini vs girls generation: GIRLS GENERATION whitney houston vs poppy: WHITNEY HOUSTON maria becerra vs ethel cain: ETHEL CAIN tyla vs fiona apple: FIONA APPLE florence welch/florence & the machine vs baby tate: FLORENCE WELCH dolly parton vs azealia banks: DOLLY PARTON gracie abrams vs robyn: ROBYN young miko vs st. vincent: ST. VINCENT kim petras vs haim: KIM PETRAS haley williams/paramore vs nessa barrett: HALEY WILLIAMS kacey musgraves vs ashniko: ASHNIKO amy whinehouse vs tatu: AMY WHINEHOUSE lorde vs donna summer: DONNA SUMMER clairo vs ayesha erotica: AYESHA EROTICA latto vs janet jackson: JANET JACKSON julieta venegas vs renee rapp: JULIETA VENEGAS beabadoobee vs addison rae: BEABADOOBEE cyndi lauper vs grimes: CYNDI LAUPER céline dion vs victoria monét: CÉLINE DION pinkpantheress vs villano antillano: PINKPANTHERESS carly rae jepson vs red velvet: CARLY RAE JEPSON kehlani vs diana ross: DIANA ROSS emilia vs aaliyah: AALIYAH gwen stefani/ no doubt vs doechii: DOECHII blackpink vs maggie rogers: BLACKPINK tinashe vs lily allen kylie minougue vs thalía madison beer vs saweetie little mix vs selena ludmilla vs marina diamandis/ marina & the diamonds tove lo vs elyanna laufey vs rita ora melanie martinez vs bad gyal aurora vs phoebe bridgers/ boygenius spice girls vs tokischa fergie vs normani willow vs cher lizzo vs flo milli kate bush vs pussycat dolls

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spaceagebachelormann · 10 months ago

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𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐫𝐮𝐥𝐞𝐬

!!REQUEST REQUIREMENTS!!

-> state the character, romantic or platonic, the format of the request, and a plot

-> do you have any specifics for the reader? blonde, poc, male, neurodivergent, etc? (please keep in mind i will write poc readers but i’m white so they may be a little difficult for me)

-> requests are preferred to be sent through inbox, but i can make dms work if needed

-> PLEASE ACTUALLY SPECIFY WHAT YOU WANT WITH YOUR REQUEST!! ITS VERY HARD FOR ME TO WRITE “____ x reader fluff” GIVE ME A PLOT LINE

!!WHAT I WILL WRITE!!

-> platonic

-> romantic

-> familial

-> any gender x any gender

-> headcanons

-> long fics

-> multi character

-> blurbs

-> poly relationships

-> x reader

-> i will only write cheating if it’s a character comforting r after being cheated on, not a character cheating on r

!!WHAT I WONT WRITE!!

-> smut (i’m 15)

-> yandere

-> most aus, ask about the specific au before requesting an au

-> incest

-> age gaps

-> canonical gay/lesbian character x a man (if lesbian) or a woman (if gay)

-> song fics

-> things about ocs

-> ships

-> sunshine x grumpy tropes, i’m horrible at this trope

character list

keeper of the lost cities

sophie foster, dex dizznee, fitz vacker, keefe sencen, biana vacker, marella redek, maruca chebota, tam song, linh song, wylie endal, jensi babblos, stina heks, elwin hesledge

harry potter

harry potter, ron weasley, hermione granger, neville longbottom, luna lovegood, ginny weasley, fred weasley, george weasley, sirius black, james potter, remus lupin, mary macdonald, marlene mckinnon, lily evans, dorcas meadows, regulus black, barty crouch jr, narcissa black, andromeda black, bellatrix lestrange

the outsiders

ponyboy curtis, johnny cade, sodapop curtis, darry curtis, steve randall, twobit matthews, dallas winston, cherry valance

the school for good and evil

agatha, sophie, tedros, hort, hester, anadil, dot, nicola, rhian mistral, rafal mistral, clarissa dovey, leonora lesso

little women

jo march, amy march, beth march, meg march, laurie

dracula

dracula, lucy westenra, arthur holmwood, john seward, mina harker, abraham van helsing, renfield, quincey morris, jonathan harker, the brides

frankenstein

victor frankenstein, elizabeth lavenza, henry clerval, adam frankenstein, justine mortiz, ernest frankenstein, the bride

dr jekyll and mr hyde

henry jekyll, edward hyde, richard enfield, gabriel utterson, hastie lanyon, lucy harris

phantom of the opera

christine daaé, erik destler, raoul de chagney, meg giry, carlotta giudicelli

the mighty ducks

charlie conway, adam banks, lester averman, guy germaine, connie moreau, fulton reed, dean portman, julie gaffney, ken wu, luis mendoza, dwayne robertson

david bowie

david bowie, ziggy stardust, jareth, thomas jerome newton, celliers

daisy jones and the six

daisy jones, billy dunne, graham dunne, karen sirko, warren rhodes, pete loving/roundtree, eddie loving/roundtree, camila dunne, simone jackson

doctor who bbc

ninth doctor, tenth doctor, eleventh doctor, twelfth doctor, rose tyler, jack harkness, mickey smith, donna noble, martha jones, clara oswald, river song, amy pond, rory williams, simm! master, missy/gomez master

miss peregrines home for peculiar children

jacob portman, emma bloom, millard nulling, enoch o’connor, olive elephanta, alma peregrine

good omens

crowley, aziraphale, ineffable husbands (poly), beelzebub <3, gabriel, ineffable bureaucracy (poly), nina, maggie, nina and maggie (poly), anathema

what we do in the shadows

nandor the relentless, nadja of antipaxos, laszlo cravensworth, colin robinson, guillermo de la cruz, the guide, baron afanas

yellowjackets

shauna shipman, lottie matthews, misty quigley, taissa turner, van palmer, natalie scatoricco, jackie taylor, travis martinez

star trek (tos/aos)

jim kirk, spock, leonard mccoy, nyota uhura, hikaru sulu, pavel chekov, montgomery scott, janice rand, christine chapel

xmen

charles xavier, erik lehnsherr, logan howlett, scott summers, jean grey, ororo munroe, rogue, remy lebeau, kevin sydney, lucas bishop, mystique, emma frost, kurt wagner, hank mccoy, jubilee

miscellaneous characters

sarah williams, bernard the elf, rodrick heffley, varian, lisa frankenstein, the creature (lisa frankenstein)

UPCOMING FANDOMS : american horror story, torchwood, gossip girl, hannibal, sherlock, ghosts, house md, star trek tng, the x files, the big bang theory, dead poets society

#marlee organization <3

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meta-squash · 1 month ago

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Squash's Reading List Year In Review 2024

(I've also posted this on WordPress here, where it might be more readable: https://jesuisgourde.wordpress.com/.../30/readinglist2024/)

Last year I read 92 books. I didn't plan on trying to surpass that number but I did, quite easily. This year I read 116 books. I didn't start off with any specific reading goal, but early on I decided to make it my goal to read more books by not-cis-men (women, trans/nonbinary people, etc) than by cis men. I hit that goal with 72 books. I did want to reread a number of books; I reread 7 books, but not all were the ones I listed in my last yearly reading review. I read 89 fiction books and 27 nonfiction. Of the nonfiction, the genres were mainly biography/autobiography, essay, science, and history. I read 45 books from small press publishers. I read 39 books by and/or about queer people. I don't have a super nice photo spread this year because I read a lot of books at work; I was going to screenshot my goodreads grid but unfortunately they have (frustratingly) changed the format from grid to list in the past week.

Here's a photo of the books I read that I do own, which isn't a whole lot, since I read most of the books at work this year:

I'll do superlatives at the end, here is the list of what I read this year, in chronological order. (Apologies for the random line breaks in the middle of the list, tumblr doesn't like it when you have 50+ lines without breaks)

-The Sorrows Of Young Werther by Johann von Goethe -The Changeling by Joy Williams -Child of God by Cormac McCarthy -Pierrot Mon Ami by Raymond Queneau -The Ghost Network by Kate Disabato -The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan -Richard III by William Shakespeare (reread) -The Recognitions by William Gaddis -A Kestrel For A Knave by Barry Hines -Grief Is The Thing With Feathers by Max Porter -Bluets by Maggie Nelson -The Wild Party by Joseph Moncure March -The Hospital by Ahmed Bouanani -I Love Dick by Chris Kraus -Minor Detail by Adiana Shibli -Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson -Rent Boy by Gary Indiana -One Or Several Deserts by Carter St Hogan -Samedi the Deafness by Jesse Ball -Norma Jean Baker of Troy by Anne Carson -Die My Love by Ariana Harwicz -Missing Person by Patrick Modiano -Petite Fleur by Iosi Havilio -Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi -The Address Book by Sophie Calle -In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado -Plastic Jesus by Poppy Z Brite -New Animal by Ella Baxter -The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds by Paul Zindel (play) -Green Girl by Kate Zambrino -Death In Spring by Merce Rodoreda -Harold's End by JT LeRoy (reread) -Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto -Stranger To The Moon by Evelio Rosero -H of H Playbook by Anne Carson -When The Sick Rule The World by Dodie Bellamy -Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson -Agua Viva by Clarice Lispector -Not One Day by Anne Garreta -Mauve Desert by Nicole Brossard -Binary Star by Sarah Gerard -Slug and other stories by Megan Milks -Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block (reread) -The Deer by Dashiel Carrera -Mean by Myriam Gurba -Humiliation by Wayne Koestenbaum -The Toaster Project: Or A Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance from Scratch by Thomas Thwaites -Kind Mirrors, Ugly Ghosts by Claire Donato -Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield

-Notes on Thoughts and Vision & The Wise Sappho by H.D. -Harrow by Joy Williams -A Feast Of Snakes by Harry Crews -Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York by Lucy Sante -Milkshake by Travis Dahlke -Little Fish by Casey Plett -Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor -Sex Goblin by Lauren Cook -Biography of X by Catherine Lacey -Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller -Hir by Taylor Mac (play) -Daddy Boy by Emerson Whitney -Notes On Camp by Susan Sontag -Transformer: A Story of Glitter, Glam Rock, and Loving Lou Reed by Simon Doonan -Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo -Acid Snow by Larry Mitchell (reread) -33 1/3 Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures by Chris Ott -The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides -red doc> by Anne Carson -Darryl by Jackie Ess -A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan -The Postman Always Rings Twice by James Cain -Body by Harry Crews -St Sebastian's Abyss by Mark Haber -The Quick & The Dead by Joy Williams (reread) -Don't Think Twice: Adventure and Healing at 100 Miles Per Hour by Barbara Schoichet -Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer -Timbuktu by Paul Auster -Nevada by Imogen Binnie -The End We Start From by Megan Hunte -Organ Meats by K-Ming Chang -Like Flies From Afar by K. Ferraro -Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe -Bestiary by K-Ming Chang -Playboy by Constance Debre -Red Dragon by Thomas Harris -Parting Gifts for Losing Contestants by Jessica Mooney -The Outline of My Lover by Douglas A Martin -Monstrilio by Gerardo Samano Cordova -Essex County by Jeff Lemire (reread) -Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have To Offer by Rax King -The Death of Francis Bacon by Max Porter -Lover Man by Alston Anderson -Cecilia by K-Ming Chang -The Employees by Olga Ravn -It Lasts Forever And Then It's Over by Anne De Marcken -Mercy Killing by Alandra Hileman (play) -Tentacle by Rita Indiana

-Nox by Anne Carson -What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami -McGlue by Ottessa Moshfegh (reread) -Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin -John by Annie Baker (play) -Widow Basquiat by Jennifer Clement -All Down Darkness Wide by Sean Hewitt -The Blue Books by Nicole Brossard -The Book Of Difficult Fruit: Arguments for the Tart, Tender and Unruly by Kate Lebo -Blood Of The Dawn by Claudia Salazar Jimenez -The Balloonists by Eula Biss -Ravage: An Astonishment Of Fire by MacGillivray/Kirsten Norrie -Gods Of Want: Stories by K-Ming Chang -Fem by Magda Carneci -Miss Major Speaks: Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary by Miss Major Griffin-Gracy and Toshio Merino -Mr Parker by Michael McKeever (play) -Fucking A by Suzan-Lori Parks (play) -Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha -Otherspace, a Martian Ty/opography by Brad Freeman and Johanna Drucker

I DNF'ed a few books, but all were put down with the intention of finishing them at some point. Mostly they were books I needed to read when I was less busy/in a different headspace. I DNF'ed: Soldiers Don't Go Mad: A true story of friendship, poetry and mental illness during the first world war by Charles Glass, a reread of Her by HD, and The Apple In The Dark by Clarice Lispector. The Lispector and HD are both modernist novels that need 100% attention, and the Glass book is a nonfiction book (very good so far) that I put down in favor of something that at the time was more interesting.

I gave out a lot of 5 stars this year. The books I rated as 5 stars were: The Changeling by Joy Williams, The Recognitions by William Gaddis, Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield, 33 1/3 Unknown Pleasures by Chris Ott, Transformer by Simon Doonan, Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, Body by Harry Crews, Organ Meats by K-Ming Chang, Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe, and Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin.

~Superlatives~

Like last year, I'm going to do runners-up because I read so many books.

Favorite book: The Recognitions by William Gaddis. I have to pick this one as my favorite for the year, because reading it was a journey, and because it was a book that was exactly everything I love in a book: fascinating, very human characters, weird formatting, great dialogue, metaphors galore, and most importantly, hundreds of cultural, artistic, historical, biblical and literary references. I started this book on January 4 and I finished it February 22. It was so unbelievably dense, probably the densest novel I've ever read, and I absolutely loved it. So much is going on in this novel that it's hard for me to summarize. In the very shortest version of a summary, it is a novel about counterfeits (specifically paintings, but counterfeits in all and any forms) and Catholicism in 1930s/40s New York. The main character is a young man named Wyatt Gwyon, a talented artist who instead of painting for himself, becomes a skilled counterfeiter-- not because he wants to make money, but because he's obsessed with the perfection of making exact interpretations of other people's art. He also struggles with religion and belief due to his strange religious upbringing. Many, many other characters are also focal points throughout the novel. The book is unique in that it doesn't use quotation marks when characters speak and rarely uses "he said"/"she said" or any similar phrase. But Gaddis is incredibly talented at writing dialogue so that each character's voice comes through, and it's obvious (except when he doesn't want it to be) who is speaking. Gaddis is also wonderfully scathing, and much of the novel is incredibly witty and intelligent observations about the Modernist art world and artistic spaces in general. The characters are all fascinating, there is a lot of mirroring and metaphors. I say this book is about counterfeits in every form, because it constantly highlights different ways in which each character is faking something, or lying, or pretending to be/know/do/think something they are not. This book was incredible, I annotated every single page and had so much fun reading it, even though or perhaps because it was so unbelievably dense.

Just for a bit of reference, here are a few of the more annotated pages in my copy of The Recognitions:

Runner up: Body by Harry Crews (more on this one further down)

Least favorite book: Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi. I was so disappointed by this book. The blurb on the back made it sound like it was going to be really beautiful and interesting and unique. It wasn't. It was all tell and no show. It follows Ada, a person who is born with one foot in the spirit world. A traumatic experience at university causes her to develop split personalities as the spirits from the other side step forward to protect her from trauma. Unfortunately, the spirits who now control her body have darker, more dangerous desires. Sadly, there was almost no plot, just description after description of Ada's unhealthy relationships and erratic behavior. But because the narrative is so distanced from said relationships and from Ada, the high stakes of this behavior is not felt, not really. Interesting characters can easily save 'all tell and no show type' books, but none of the characters get delved into with any depth, even Ada. The show rather than tell narrative also seriously undermines the poetic prose that crops up almost at random. This book felt flat. No plot, little stakes felt, no interesting characters, tell rather than showing everything, and it's not compelling at all.

Runner up: Playboy by Constance Debre. The back of this book describes it as a memoir detailing the writer's "decision, at age forty-three, to abandon her marriage, her legal career, and her bourgeois Parisian life to become a lesbian and a writer." Which sounds amazing! But it isn't! It's unbelievably pretentious and quite boring. It's mostly just complaining hidden by a facade of faux-philosophical meandering and directionless autobiographical vignettes. The author is a lawyer and she spends most of the time complaining about poor people and about women. It's so hilariously misogynistic. It's just various vignettes of her relationships with various women (who she dislikes and disparages for being femme or having bad bodies or for having lowbrow/uncultured interests etc etc) and then her going and visiting her ex-husband and teenage son, and then complaining that she has nothing. There's little to no emotion in the book, she is not charming, and her pseudo-philosophical musings are boring.

Most surprising/unexpected book: Body by Harry Crews. This book crept up on me in terms of a favorite. Crews' writing is not for everyone, but it's absolutely for me. The book follows bodybuilder Shereel Dupont and her trainer, Russell, who are at the world bodybuilding competition. Shereel has left home to compete over the past year and is now one of the most likely to win. Unfortunately, her family, who are "corpulent rednecks" with odd habits, show up to cheer her on, causing disruption and chaos throughout the hotel at which the competition is held and turmoil for Shereel herself. This book blew me away completely. Every time I thought it had reached a plateau of weirdness and chaos and insanity, it ratcheted that all up even higher, culminating in the most perfectly fucked up ending.

Runner up: Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin. A mother trapped in the liminal space between life and death is made by an unfamiliar changeling child to retell the events of the recent past, desperately trying to pinpoint the moment she can reverse the environmental poisoning of herself and her daughter. I picked this book up because it sounded interesting, and then it ended up being an amazingly written short horror novel. It had a lot of interesting thoughts on motherhood and the horror of being a parent - not in a negative way, but the horror of wanting to protect and keep your child safe and the inability to do so.

Most fun book: Like Flies From Afar by K Ferrari. I fully judged a book by its cover with this one, and it did not disappoint. Small-time criminal/oligarch Mr Machi thinks he's hot shit, until he pops a tire on the way to an appointment and discovers an unidentifiable corpse in his trunk. As he scrambles to deal with the body, his paranoia grows as he tries to calculate who out of all his enemies and employees might be responsible, and who is trying to frame him, and who the body might be, and his life slowly transforms into a nightmare. Everyone in this book is loathsome, but in a way that is so fun to hate. The whole novel is a romp of panic and paranoia, people who think they're so cool and hard exposing how uncool they are, and a mystery that's so fun because watching the protagonist panic is a kind of schadenfreude.

Runner up: Transformer by Simon Doonan. This is a book for people who love Lou Reed, by a man who loves Lou Reed. It's just a wonderfully written biography that focuses mainly on the album Transformer, but also gives Lou Reed's history and is interspersed with stories about Doonan's own thoughts and experiences with Reed. The whole book is really passionate and vivid, and fun to read even if you don't have the album immediately to hand.

Best queer book: Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield. Leah, a marine biologist, has returned from a deep-sea voyage that went wrong. Her wife Miri begins to realize that something is wrong, and Leah came back changed. The narrative switches between Miri's point of view as she tries to reach Leah and struggles help her despite not knowing what's happening to her wife, and Leah's point of view as she remembers and recounts what happened to her during her submarine voyage. I started this book at work and brought it home. In the middle of reading it, I stopped to finish some task (I think it might have been to make dinner), and ended up having to cut the task short because I needed so badly to keep reading. The most compelling part of the book is the very different ways the two characters' love for each other shines through, even in the darkest moments of the novel.

Runner up: Darryl by Jackie Ess. The titular narrator of this novel discovers that he genuinely enjoys a cuckolding lifestyle, watching men have sex with his wife. But then he realizes that part of the reason he likes it so much, is that maybe he wants to be the wife. His explorations with sex and gender and relationships (and basketball) begin to unravel his marriage and his friendships and his own mind. Then he learns more about one of the men his wife has been sleeping with, and things get dangerous. I loved this book because despite it being written by a trans woman, the story doesn't at all go where you'd expect regarding gender or sexuality. It's satirical, it's witty, it's got some cool things to say about kink and about gender, and it's totally original.

Saddest book: Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. This is a classic I'd been meaning to read for a long time. The narrator is an American WWI soldier named Joe who was hit by an artillery shell and has woken in the hospital having had his arms and legs amputated, as well as most of his facial features mutilated beyond use/recognition. Trapped in his body, he drifts through memories and musings on life and war and philosophy as he tries to keep track of the days and to figure out some way to communicate with the hospital staff. It's no wonder this book is a classic. The writing is incredible, the imagery vivid and the plot totally gripping, even as it switches between the peaceful past and the horrible present. The end is completely gut-wrenching.

Runner up: Minor Detail by Adania Shibli. This novel explores what in history is a minor detail, and what impact that little moment might have on someone in the future. The first part of the novel opens in Palestine in 1949, in a military camp, where a group of Israeli soldiers (led by a captain suffering from a bite-induced hallucinogenic fever) kidnap, rape, and murder an unnamed Palestinian woman and bury her body in the desert. Fifty-odd years later, a Palestinian writer learns about this "small" moment in history, which occurred 25 years to the day before her birth, and becomes obsessed with learning more. She obtains an illegal pass to the Zone in which the woman died, determined to go there and find more information. I don't want to summarize much more because I don't want to give away any of the hard-hitting plot points. But Minor Detail was published in 2020, and it explores the cycles of violence and the ways in which oppression has not changed for the Palestinian people. It's a book that I wish I had read twice because (as the title suggests) there were a lot of small details that repeated themselves or were less noticeable at first but slowly grew or became important later in the story, and I'm sure I would have noticed more.

Weirdest book: The Changeling by Joy Williams. I love Joy Williams! I love everything she writes! Her themes are always so interesting and her writing style is so unique. The main character, a young woman named Pearl, escapes her terrible marriage by joining a rich older man and in doing so ends up living with him on an island that is populated by children he has taken under his wing. Pearl wants little to do with them and spends most of her days getting drunk by the pool -- the children are eerily smart and her son has joined their games and lessons, and they all want her attention. But her son is less and less her son as time goes on, and the children are not always the children, and the adults in the house are all bizarre and half-mad. I wish I could give a better summary, but Joy Williams books are always difficult to summarize, because so much of the stories are less about the plot and more about the characters just feeling things at the reader, and the plot is often built on or around odd occurrences and philosophical musings. This book blew me away with its imagery and its metaphors. I want to reread it, because it was just so amazing. My absolutely favorite thing about Joy Williams (and this is true for all of her books) is the way she writes these incredibly profound and philosophical phrases like they're nothing at all, like they're so easy, just breezes on by them even though she's just punched you in the chest. It's amazing.

Runner up: Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin.

Most gripping book: Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe. This book is an absolute masterclass in pacing. It tells just a few fragments out of the whole history of the Irish Troubles, but the fragments that are focused on are woven together with brilliant timing, humanizing and vivid portrayals, fantastic analysis and contextualization, and altogether excellent writing. Every time I put this book down I wanted to keep reading, to know what was going to happen next. The book has 3 focal points: Gerry Adams, (alleged) leader of the IRA; Dolors Price, a member of the IRA; and the family of Jean McConville, a woman kidnapped by the IRA. At first, all three storylines are disparate, but Keefe slowly weaves them together, pulling all the threads of context and action and years in prison or government or delinquent schools together slowly but steadily. The book reads like a thriller, and I adored it completely. (Yes, I do know about the miniseries. I haven't finished watching it yet!)

Runner up: Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield.

Book that taught me the most: Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe

Runner up: The Toaster Project: Or A Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance from Scratch by Thomas Thwaites. This could also go under weirdest book, easily. As a graduate art school project, Thwaites decided to attempt to build the simplest (and cheapest) appliance he could think of - a toaster - fully from scratch. Quite literally, starting with mining the elements to make the right kinds of metal and figuring out how to make the right kind of plastic. Half of the book is Thwaites' attempts to build various elements of a toaster - and how they go wrong, or right, and why it's so hard. The other half discusses all the processes that go in to making all these elements in a more manufactured setting, their impact on the environment and the economy, and the difference between cheap mass-produced products that break down vs more expensive products that last longer. The writing was fun and included photos and diagrams and interviews with various industry professionals Thwaites contacted to learn more.

Most interesting/thought provoking book: The Recognitions by William Gaddis

Runner up: Organ Meats by K-Ming Chang. I've now read everything this author has published and this is by far her best book. Her narrative style is so unique and so poetic, and the themes she always comes back to are so interesting, and they culminate in this amazing novel. This magical realist novel centers around two best friends, Anita and Rainie, who are both first generation Taiwanese-American. The story opens when they are adolescents, and Anita has recently learned that they come from generations of dog-headed women and women-headed dogs. They vow to become dogs together, tying a string around each other's throats as collars and playing at dogs in the empty lot near their apartment complex. But Anita's dreamlike imagination and obsessively loyal personality starts to clash with Rainie's more reserved nature, and when it becomes too much, Rainie's family moves away. Rainie grows up, while unbeknownst to her, Anita has sunk into a dreamworld and her body has begun to rot. She narrates her family's past and her mother's bloodline because she cannot narrate her own present. When she returns to the town she grew up in, Rainie discovers Anita's condition, and knows that she is the only one who can save her. This novel is beautiful, incredibly poetic, and experiments with formatting and narration in really unique ways. Its exploration of friendship and queerness and obsession and tradition and folklore is absolutely fascinating. I often write in my books and underline sentences or paragraphs that I really love. I didn't write in this one, because I would have ended up underlining the entire novel.

Longest/shortest book: My longest book was The Recognitions by William Gaddis at 952 pages, and my shortest was Notes On Camp by Susan Sontag at 57 pages.

General thoughts on all the other books that didn't get superlatives:

-Child of God by Cormac McCarthy. This is the first McCarthy book I've ever read (I know, I know) and I really enjoyed it. You just watch a horrible guy walk around in the rural countryside of a small town, doing increasingly fucked up things and committing various awful crimes. Which is exactly up my alley in terms of literature. The main character, Ballard, is someone who is so weird and pathetic that he becomes turned inside out into evilness. You feel sorry for him but you also hate him and he's also fascinating because he's so fucking weird. It's a great book.

-The Ghost Network by Catie Disabato. This book was so much fun to read while living in Chicago. It's a rock n roll mystery novel that riffs on Situationism and the L tracks and maps. A rock star disappears, and the main character who is a fan of her's is determined to find out what happened to her. What she uncovers is a series of clues based on defunct lines and stations of the Chicago transit system, and the Situationist concept of detournment, which lead her towards finding out what actually happened to the rock star. This book was so much fun, and so much of it was based on real life defunct train lines and the actual Situationists, both of which I found really interesting. The ending was also just so good! Somehow I managed to have read everything I needed to in order to get every single reference in the book, which was really surprising to me, because they all came from different places.

-New Animal by Ella Baxter. This book baffled me. It is about a woman who works as a makeup-artist at her family's morgue. When her mother dies unexpectedly, she skips the funeral and goes to stay at her estranged father's house. While there, trying to figure out how to vent her grief, she decides to try out the local kink scene. Her first experience is with a dom who is a manipulative, horrible asshole. She has a bad time, but wants to try again, so she goes to a place that hosts scenes. She acts like she knows what she's doing when she doesn't, no one gives her any instruction, so she fucks up massively, and everyone has a bad time. It's the worst portrayal of the kink scene I think I've ever encountered. The author said she did a lot of research but it just seems like a lot of terrible assumptions and misinterpretations. I thought it was going to be a book that positively portrayed kink and people who like the kink scene, but it's very much not. It didn't even feel like the author was doing this so the character would learn that she can't run from her grief. It seemed more like the author had one bad experience due to poor communication or shitty individuals, and then decided that's what the whole scene was like.

-Harold's End by JT LeRoy. I read this book in high school (or perhaps just after graduating) and totally fell in love with it, and then never saw another copy until recently. It was so good to reread it, to re-experience the gorgeous watercolor portraits that come with it. The novel follows a young street kid/hustler who lives with other street kids; all his friends have pets but he doesn't. A john takes a liking to him and buys him a snail as a pet, who he names Harold. The book follows him as he lives on the streets and as his relationship with the john develops. The book is classic JT LeRoy, and the end is LeRoy's usual style of characters experiencing a life lesson and growth but not necessarily in a happy way. It definitely holds up!

-Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson. This was such a fun and weird book and I really enjoyed it. Markson's idea for the novel was "what if someone actually lived the way that Wittgenstein's Tractatus suggests?". What we get is a woman who believes she is the last person on earth (it is never confirmed whether this is true or not). She muses on life, culture, art, philosophy, and her past, and discusses her trips across the world despite its emptiness. But her story changes constantly; she's always referencing things she said before and editing herself. It's a weird, fun, fascinating novel with a lovably weird main character.

-A Feast Of Snakes by Harry Crews. Yet another fucked up book that I loved. It follows Joe Lon Mackey, a former high school football star that now lives a dead-end life in his hometown in Georgia. Each year the town hosts the Rattlesnake Roundup, where people come from many states away to try and catch as many rattlesnakes as they can in order to win a competition. Joe Lon is in charge of the event now that his father is too old and ill. He's uncomfortably self-aware of his own personal failings and his inadequacy and his abusive relationship with his wife; he'd rather not think about any of it and is incapable of figuring out how to change things. But his old girlfriend is returning for the event, and his father's attempts to control the goings-on from afar mean he's unable to stop thinking about where his life has ended up and where it's going. All this drives him slowly crazy with desperation until the insane ending. Crews is incredibly talented at writing characters that are likeable despite being so flawed and fairly awful people. This book is no exception.

-Milkshake by Travis Dahlke. What a weird novel! In a near-future dystopian heatwave, an 11 year old girl escapes the environmental catastrophe by traveling back in time to her past life as a fertilizer salesman whose marriage is slowly collapsing. I really enjoyed it, because it was just so odd. Now that I'm thinking about it, I feel as though it would have been really interesting to read just before or just after reading Tentacle; both books focus specifically on time travel and on environmental disaster.

-Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor. At the opening of the box, a Witch has been murdered in a small village in Mexico called La Matosa. The rest of the chapters are narrated by different characters, who all have some small or large hand in the death of the Witch, who was a woman who the whole town visited in secret for medicine, fortune-tellings, and advice. The narrating characters include a schoolgirl, a drug dealer, a prostitute, a hapless husband who wants to make something of himself, and a teenager in love with his young girlfriend. With each narration we learn more about the Witch, and her mother who was a Witch before her. Slowly, we get inklings of the nature of the murder, and the revelation at the end is brutal. Melchor's writing is incredibly vivid, and the characters are all caught in the cycle of poverty, driven by superstition and fear and hardship. None of the characters are likeable, but they're all so human.

-Biography Of X by Catherine Lacey. In a dystopic alternate-universe US, where the Southern Territory split from the North after WWII and established a fascist theocracy, a woman named CM grieves her recently deceased wife X, who was a famous artist. Despite X's wishes, CM decides to delve into her wife's past, researching her history before they met and before she was known as X. She uses her credentials and privileges as a journalist to cross into the Southern Territory and learn about X's family and the communities from which she came, her activism and her hidden lives, and begins to realize that maybe learning all this about the woman she loved won't benefit her in the long run and that maybe their relationship wasn't as rosy as she thought. This novel combined fiction and real life in really fascinating ways, and includes both real and fake sources in its footnotes.

-The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides. A famous and successful painter murders her husband and then refuses to speak. A psychologist who is also a fan of her work is determined to get her to speak again. Obsessed with uncovering the truth, he ends up taking risks that threaten himself and his patient. A fun mystery that went down easy. It didn't attempt to be too realistic from the start, so suspension of disbelief wasn't hard. I do think the book could have done without the entire last part. Leaving it on the realization of what had happened and allowing the reader to sit with that realization (especially with how creatively the twist is presented) would have had more impact I think than the slower and less engaging denouement of the last 3 chapters, which were far weaker than the rest of the book.

-Acid Snow by Larry Mitchell. I reread this book for the first time since about 2009 and really enjoyed it. It's a very sad novel about a man living in NYC during the height of the AIDS epidemic. Most of his friends and lovers have died and he's scared and sad about his own life and cynical about love, but he's attracted to the man who owns the shop below his apartment. It's a dark book, sad and scared and jaded. I think the main character's anxiety and grief that slowly escalates into paranoia is an amazingly surreal way to portray all the emotions that consumed the queer community at that time. I also loved the sort of lack of closure at the end - because many people didn't get that.

-Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer. I don't generally go for science fiction novels, but I read this one because so many people said they had liked it. I really enjoyed it. The unnamed narrator, a biologist, is part of an all-female expedition into a harsh, unknown territory that has appeared adjacent to the US. The suspense and strangeness of the novel had excellent pacing. The descriptions were also so vivid and clear, which made the story's weirdness so compelling. I loved watching the main character struggle to remain objective the whole time while knowing that she's failing. Her growing fascination and terror is so fun to read as each feeling tries to overtake the other. I also think it was great as a standalone and I feel no interest in reading the other books in the same universe.

-Nevada by Imogen Binnie. I'm a bad queer person, I hated this book. In it, the narrator, a trans woman, is frustrated with her life and has just broken up with her girlfriend, so she steals her ex's car and drives away, ending up in a small town where she spends the night with a department store employee. I just really don't like books that are meandering tell and no show without characters or a plot that are interesting. This entire book felt like someone recounting their weekend over breakfast, complete with casual informal language and overuse of the word "like". Which would be fine if any of the characters were compelling, or if the plot was really interesting and went somewhere, but it didn't. A good portion of it is just musings on New York City, but without the creativity or vividness that other portrayals of NYC have to offer. After I read it, I learned this book was kind of the catalyst for a specific style of trans writing. Which also explains why I hated Detransition, Baby when I read it a couple years ago, as it's a sort of literary descendant of this. I'm happy to read books that are tell rather than show....so long as something interesting happens or at least one of the characters is unique and compelling. This book sadly has neither.

-Essex County by Jeff Lemire. I read this for an English class in university, so this was a reread and I really enjoyed reading it a second time! All the stories in this collection are so beautiful and compelling, all the characters are so real. And the art style is fantastic. The stories revolve around characters living in the titular Essex County in Canada, across a number of generations. It weaves together their relationships and their lives, much of which revolves around hockey. There were some storylines I remembered quite well and others I didn't remember at all, so it was really nice to revisit this one.

-Ravage: An Astonishment of Fire by MacGillivray. Man, this book had so much potential. This novel is a fake biography of a fake poet who disappeared from a Scottish island in the 1960s after falling into delusions that he has become a demon. The fascinating thing about this book (at first), is that it's completely convinced that it is an actual nonfiction book. It gives no hints that it's fake, and the first 50 pages are convincingly written with an academic, nonfiction voice as the novel is utterly convinced of its own delusion of factualness. The novel claims to be an analysis of found papers: first, the poetry and written tracts of Tristjan Norge, a Norwegian poet, then the analysis of his works by MacGillivray, and finally, the diary of his companion Luce Montcrieff. Unfortunately, it is fairly repetitive in a way that bogs the reader down quite a bit. Even so, I think I would have enjoyed much, much more if the ending did not abruptly switch genres to a supernatural/fantasy novel in a way that was startling and had no previous indications of earlier in the book. Up to the last 20 pages I thought it was interesting, even when it was dense, but the end felt like the author didn't know how to end the novel and just used the deus ex machina of supernatural occurrences.

My goal for 2025 is to read majority nonfiction. I don't know if I'm going to actually meet that goal, but I'll try. I don't have any goals for how many books I want to read, especially because I tend to read nonfiction quite a bit slower than fiction, so I don't have a good idea of what my reading amount goal should actually be. This year I also forgot entirely about my attempt to read all of Jean Genet's (translated) works, so I will hopefully actually meet that goal in 2025, since I only have one or two books left to read. But my first three books of the year are going to be Soldiers Don't Go Mad by Charles Glass, which I started this year but didn't finish, The Declared Enemy: Texts and Interviews by Jean Genet, and Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks by Patrick Radden Keefe.

#reading list #reading list year in review #book list #book list year in review #book recommendations #reading #books

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leverage-ot3 · 8 months ago

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my only criticism:

sophie and maggie totally hooked up during sophie's voyage of self-discovery or something. they definitely had one great night and called it friends

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leveragecentral · 10 months ago

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Leverage + Texposts

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pelorsdyke · 1 month ago

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@nancys-braids tagged me in the 2024 fic roundup, so I thought I’d present you with this fun little ordered list. here’s everything I wrote (and finished!) this year :-)

JANUARY

blue scooby-doo fruit snacks and unrequited love, probably (1.3k words, kacy - ncis: hawaii)

FEBRUARY

and love isn’t a fact, it’s a hunch at first. (1.5k words, nancymarjan - 911: lone star)

february, the thirteenth (1.4k words, kacy - ncis: hawaii)

who will come into my kitchen and be hungry for me (2.1k words, nancymarjan - 911: lone star)

MARCH

inexplicably nothing this month! thanks writer’s block

APRIL

lizardus interruptus (2k words, kacy - ncis: hawaii)

even a small love (4.7k words, spemily - pll)

I don’t have to be afraid, I don’t want to be afraid (1.5k words, kacy - ncis: hawaii)

how can I tell you the truth when I don’t know which version you want to hear? (1.6k words, kacy - ncis: hawaii)

I don’t need you to understand me, I need you not to turn away when you don’t (1.3k words, kacy - ncis: hawaii)

MAY

and your keys, your ring of keys (1k, nancymarjan - 911: lone star)

only / the sun has come this close, only the sun (1.4k words, kacy - ncis: hawaii)

underneath your hands I become poetry (2.1k words, nancymarjan - 911: lone star)

for those I love, I will sacrifice (989 words, kacy - ncis: hawaii)

sit down, breathe, and just listen (1.1k words, kacy - ncis: hawaii)

JUNE

your essence is the ink in the word forever (1.4k words, nancymarjan - 911: lone star)

I want you to want for me (1.4k words, buffytara - btvs)

in response, your glorious laughter (1.1k words, kacy - ncis: hawaii)

so swing your hips and do a little dip (1.3k words, nancymarjan - 911: lone star)

I will do my best to get it right (1.2k words, nancymarjan - 911: lone star)

I’m gonna love you for a long time (1.1k words, nancymarjan - 911: lone star)

JULY

hear the desert wind roll by (2.5k words, kacy - ncis: hawaii)

I’ve been under scrutiny (you handle it beautifully) (2k words, nancymarjan - 911: lone star)

polynices has earned his rest (5.2k words, jackienat - yellowjackets)

AUGUST

look how long this love can hold its breath (1.8k words, kacy - ncis: hawaii)

one single thread of gold tied me to you (2k words, kacy - ncis: hawaii)

give the sorrow words (6k words, maggiesophie - leverage)

I wanna get stuck in your head (1.1k words, henren - 911)

SEPTEMBER

now I’ve read all of the books beside your bed (3.4k words, donnajoey - the west wing)

everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it (3.5k words, nancymarjan - 911: lone star)

I did think, let’s go about this slowly (1k words, henren - 911)

I don’t want to be fated, I want to choose (1.9k words, buffy & tara & willow - btvs)

speed queen marj versus the big tortoise (979 words, nancymarjan - 911: lone star)

OCTOBER & NOVEMBER

nothing here either! rip the fall I guess

DECEMBER

when we’re cheek to cheek, I feel it in my teeth (1.3k words, nancymarjan - 911: lone star)

the end is near (1.9k words, mariakilah - yellowjackets)

total word count: 67,924

total hit count: 24,368

tagging anybody who’d like to share, but pointing out @captain-gillian @reyesstrand @bonheur-cafe @iinryer and @pacinglikeghosts

#mine #fic tag #this was really fun I love to sort #kacy #nancy x marjan #henren #jackienat #mari x akilah #buffy x tara #spemily #maggie x sophie #donna x joey

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leverage-ot3 · 2 years ago

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wait leverage white collar au where sam never died and nate and maggie are still married and sophie is the conwoman that seduces them both (through crime)

#leverage #sophie devereaux #nate ford #maggie collins #nate x sophie x maggie #nate x sophie #nate x maggie #sophie x maggie #oh look another leverage ot3 #maggie is like okay she’s hot and smart I’m down #sam has three parents #somewhere in the world the ot3 still meet and change together because of course #maybe sophie teams up with them sometimes on the side #white collar #leverage x white collar #white collar au #aus #leverage aus #fic ideas #neal would be proud of her fr #I think they would be friends #mine #I was going to sleep and thought of this and shot up in bed so fast #I was like. must write. must put on internet for mutuals to see #idc if no one sees this it means something to me #can you tell i’m rewatching white collar?#it’s late in my time zone but not in others I don’t know who will see this #but I didn’t want to queue I wanted to Post Now #instant gratification #anyways imma sleep now bye

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scotchiegirl · 4 months ago

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Fam, I need you to see my vision for the wedding.

It's a combination wedding and retirement party for Nate and Sophie. Eliot is best man, Tara is maid of honor.

Sophie asked Parker to be maid of honor first and Parker tried, genuinely, but after Sophie unintentionally being a bit of a bridezilla and about a dozen too many people asking Parker for opinions she did not have about the wedding and her trying not to let Sophie down, there was a bit of a breakdown. After a long talk, Sophie promised Parker she wouldn't be mad if Parker didn't want to be maid of honor and Parker promised she wouldn't be offended if Sophie picked someone else to be maid of honor. So Sophie asked Tara and that ended up being a success.

Hardison is the other groomsman and combination adult ring bearer, Parker stayed on as a bridesmaid and combination adult flower girl. It's very chic, according to Sophie.

Sophie and the bridesmaids are handling everything related to the bride, Nate and the groomsmen are handling... Everything else. Hardison volunteered to DJ and almost got the job but Eliot took Nate aside and begged the man to hire someone else because Hardison's music taste is questionable and definitely not for a wedding. Nate made some comment about needing Hardison free on the day and put him in charge of keeping an eye on the crooked photographer they're conning, because if Nate is anything it's a multitasker and this is ALSO a good opportunity to take down a corrupt wedding photographer.

Eliot's in charge of keeping an eye on the catering and flowers. Nate tends to venue, guest lists, and invitations, with Sophie's occasional input. (It feels weird to invite Maggie to his wedding, but she's important to him and Sophie and it feels weird not to have her there either. She gets an invite. Sterling recently had issues with the team over the black book, nearly leading to a couple of injuries. Sterling does Not get an invitation. Maggie invites him as her plus one and he comes anyway. Sterling never realized before how much power Maggie had if one sardonic eyebrow raised from her was able to quell Eliot Spencer. Eliot was actually just too busy to think about fighting and Maggie was silently asking if he was okay.)

On the day of the wedding, Murphy's Worst Law comes into full effect, and anything that will go wrong does go wrong. Cue "Tangled Ever After" levels of shenanigans on the part of the groomsmen and bridesmaids trying to make sure the happy couple is not disturbed and everything goes off smoothly for the wedding, the con, and the party. Eliot at one point has to rip off his suit jacket and dive into the kitchen to save the meal. Tara is juggling personal politics out in the reception area making sure no one with deadly vendettas who invited themselves gets near each other (Quinn is there as security but has his hands full babysitting Cha0s, who invited himself and got bored very quickly). Parker has to steal the rings from the hotel's entirely-too-complicated-for-a-hotel vault after the assistant manager accidentally triggered the burglar alarm. Hardison has to Jerry-rig a DJ station after the DJ and all equipment gets stuck twenty miles out of town with a flat tire and won't be in for several hours. It's pure chaos from beginning to end but by some miracle they manage to pull it off and Sophie and Nate are married with only minor visible mistakes. It's only after everything and as Sophie and Nate are leaving that Nate makes some comment about all the hard work their bridal party put in and Sophie's like "... Wait WHAT?!" as a whole lot of things that didn't make sense all day suddenly start clicking.

After Nate and Sophie leave the rest of the bridal party have a good old histerical laugh about "how in the FUCK did we manage to pull that off" and Tara's like "I don't even care if the rest of the evening goes up in flames, we did it!" And they go back to the party as a team/friends.

Anyway, that's the vision.

Tossing around a Leverage au where Leverage Inc. is just a little bit more... legitimate.

Hardison's good at what he does, after all. He's the best, and he regularly makes covers just a little bit too good. It takes a few months before the others realize that not only have they got unbreakable aliases, they have clean original personas. There's suddenly no illegal history attached to Eliot Spencer's name, he's a security consultant. Sophie Deveraux is an acknowledged art aficionado and collector. Parker Leverage is the granddaughter and heir of Harlan Leverage III, stepping into her own. Nathan Ford is current CEO of the consulting company after proving himself by aiding in the arrest and trial of Victor Dubenich. And Alec Hardison? Well, he's tech support. No illegal hacking required.

Nate has the luck of the devil and an angel on both shoulders, things just come up roses for him, no matter what he lays his hands on. Nine months into running Leverage Consulting, he's approached by the FBI. There's something they can't quite get at, and sources pinned Nathan Ford and his team at the home of the Mascones before their fall. Taggert and McSweeten are good at their jobs for a change and notified their handlers of the strange group of people that helped them while claiming to be FBI. Nathan Ford is offered a deal. Work with the FBI with immunity and a blind eye turned to the alternate sources of revenue coming in. Leverage Inc. will remain completely under his control, but as consultants doing occasional work for the FBI. Nathan agrees on one condition: the FBI also turns a blind eye to anything weird that happens with Blackwell at IYS. Terms are set and agreed upon.

Leverage Inc. is now legitimate thieves. Taggert and McSweeten are their liaisons in the company and join them on occasional heists. As things go on, more thieves get a taste of helping without having to be afraid of being caught. Tara joins as a consultant to the consulting company. Quinn resists but eventually calls in Eliot's favor to say he was working with Leverage to get him out of a tough legal spot. Cha0s hisses like a feral cat and refuses to go anywhere near respectability. Archie gets to tell his family about his "secret past" working with the government and Parker gets to meet her adoptive siblings. They don't understand each other but Parker teaches her nieces and nephews to pick locks and helps them sneak out of the house without being noticed.

When Nate steps down he officially passes on CEO status to Parker, as is her right as heir. There's an intern section where kids with promise get to train under mentors to make more teams for continuing the good work of helping people, one case at a time.

(It's just a thought, and it came to me while thinking about how Nate and Sophie's wedding would look as a corporate event for Leverage Inc. and just... yeah. No thoughts just vibes right now but if anyone wants to take it and run with it/write with it, just let me know. Also I do understand that this would fundamentally change Leverage as we know it, I just wanted to get this out there as a sandbox au idea. Just What If, I don't actually think this is how Leverage should have been done.)

#leverage #leverage au #sophie devereaux #nate ford #eliot spencer #parker leverage #alec hardison #tara cole #mr. quinn #chaOs #jim sterling #maggie collins #Sophie Devereaux x Nathan Ford

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howdoyoudothedew · 8 months ago

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Rated: G

Pairing: Maggie/Sophie/Nate/Sterling

Word Count: ~1k

A/N: Rewatching Leverage with my mom and asked my friend which of the ideas I have spinning I should write, she said 'leverage parents' so ta-daaaa, my beloveds. This is based off the dialogue prompt "No, I'm paying" which I got from a @otp-imagines-cult post

The second the waitress puts the check down on the table and leaves, the date turns into a warzone. Honestly, Maggie’s not even surprised at this point. She is, however, rather amused. Starting Leverage, getting together with Sophie, has been good for Nate. He’s more like the man she fell in love with and married, even if he’s still broken. (He was always broken, to an extent.) It’s good for Jim, too. The change to their occasional competition keeps him more on his toes and has even loosened him, if only slightly. Which is why this is even happening.

“How can I trust that money isn’t ill-gotten gains, hm?” Jim says, raising an eyebrow. Jim, Nate, and even Sophie all have their wallets out. Maggie has her own wallet out as well, but she’s not joining in. She already knows how this one will end. While they’re distracted, she pulls out her card and places it inside the booklet for the waitress to grab when she comes back. Sophie catches her and smiles, but doesn’t put away her wallet. Maggie settles back to watch.

“Why I never!” Sophie gasps, affronted at her money even being suggested as ‘ill-gotten’. “I’ll have you know I got this money off a very rich man fair and square. I barely even had to do anything before he was handing it off to me.”

“How do we know your money wasn’t ill-gotten, hm?” Nate says, raising his own eyebrow and sitting back with his arms crossed over his chest. Jim scoffs.

“Maybe because I’m not a criminal, unlike some people,” Jim says.

“Hey!” Sophie protests again. “I am not the only criminal at this table anymore.”

“Right, because you seduced Nate to the darkside,” Jim says, voice dry.

“I’ll seduce you next,” Sophie says, despite having basically already done just that, narrowing her eyes at him.

“You know what, I’m just going to pay,” Nate says, cutting them off.

“What? No, I’m paying, you paid last time,” Sophie says and Maggie files the information away, because she had paid last time, just like she usually does. Which means Nate had gotten Hardison to sneak some of his money into her account, so he could retroactively pay for it. Which is so many more steps then needed. Also kind of annoying. She’s not exactly broke and they don’t exactly do this terribly often. She can– and will happily– pay for her datemates herself. The waitress passes by, grabbing the book absently when Maggie subtly holds it out for her. None of the others notice, thankfully, too wrapped up in their argument.

“Absolutely not,” Jim says.

“Well someone has to pay,” Sophie says.

“I’ll do it,” Nate says.

“I’m not using money when I don’t know from whence it came,” Jim says.

“From whence it came? Who even says stuff like that anymore?” Nate scoffs.

“I do,” Jim bristles.

“If he’s gonna talk like that, I’m definitely not letting him pay,” Sophie says.

“What does my speech have anything to do with paying?” Jim says, rounding on Sophie.

“It’s too posh for my taste.” Sophie sticks her nose in the air.

“Says our Lady Charlotte Prentiss,” Nate mutters into his coffee.

“Oh now you want to get in on it? And here I was defending you.”

Nate gives a half-laugh through his nose. “No you weren’t, you’re trying just as hard to get us to let you pay.”

“You’re right, I wasn’t. Now let me pay,” Sophie says.

“No, I’ll pay,” Nate says.

“I’m paying,” Jim says.

“Absolutely not,” Sophie and Nate say at the same time, which is apparently Jim’s breaking point.

“Fine! Maggie pays then.” Jim throws his arms up as well as he can get away with in a fancy restaurant and Maggie can barely keep in the amused noise.

“Fine,” Nate says.

“Fine,” Sophie agrees.

Apparently an expert at comedic timing, the waitress returns then with Maggie’s card. “Here you go. I hope you have a good night.”

“Thanks, you have a good night too,” Maggie tells her, ignoring the boys’ shocked looks for now as well as Sophie’s amused smile as she returns her card to her wallet. When she looks back at them, she pretends to be oblivious. She lets her eyes grow slightly wide and blinks a few times. “What?”

“You already paid,” Nate says.

“Someone had to and you three seemed busy, thanks to Sophie,” Maggie says.

“Wha-” Nate stares at her, eyes narrowed. Maggie can see the gears turn as he goes over her words, Sophie’s actions. Finally, he turns to Sophie. “You knew,” Nate accuses.

“Of course I knew, I’m not blind,” Sophie says and Maggie chuckles.

“Then why’d you even bother to argue about it?” Jim asks, clearly exasperated.

“Well I’m not just going to let you and Nate have all the fun, am I?” Sophie asks, a rhetorical question. “Now who’s leaving the tip?”

“Oh no, I am not doing this again,” Jim says. You absolutely will, Maggie thinks to herself. Likely not now, but definitely next time.

“All three of us will leave the tip, since Maggie was so kind to pay,” Nate says.

“That, I am surprisingly okay with,” Jim says.

“Why must you ruin all my fun?” Sophie pouts at Nate, digging out a few dollars from her wallet.

“I’m sure you’ll find some again soon, Soph,” Nate assures.

“And will give me a headache in the process,” Jim says, also pulling out a few dollars. Sophie smiles at him.

“You love it.” Jim declines to respond to her. But Maggie knows Sophie is right. Protest as he may, Jim loves all of them.

“Ready to head out?” Nate asks, standing from his chair. Maggie follows his lead.

“I think so,” she says. “It was lovely to see you all again.”

“It was lovely to see you, too, Maggie. I wish we could do this more often,” Sophie says, taking Maggie’s hands to squeeze. Sophie’s hands. They’re always cold, making her think of the old thing her grandmother used to tell her: cold hands, warm heart. With Sophie, Maggie finally has evidence towards it.

“There’s a Picasso showcase at the museum next week,” Maggie says.

“You’re just trying to give me an aneurysm at this point, aren’t you?” Jim grouses. Sophie pats his cheek.

“It’s our way of keeping you young.”

“It’s your way of giving me more gray hairs,” Sterling says.

“Does this mean you won’t go to the museum with us?”

“Someone has to keep you from stealing a very expensive painting,” Sterling says.

“So next week?”

“Next week,” the other three agree and they part ways in the parking lot, Sophie and Nate leaving together while Jim and Maggie leave separately.

#leverage #nate ford #sophie devereaux #maggie collins #jim sterling #leverage parents #nate x sophie x maggie x jim #link writes #fluff #silly

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kitkatt0430 · 8 months ago

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do you have a favorite season or episode of Leverage? i love seeing you post about this show :)

Leverage is one of those shows that it's so hard to pic favorites because it's all so incredibly, satisfyingly good.

The first season is probably the worst which is still putting it head and shoulders over the best season of so many other shows that I love. It was hurt by being aired out of order, which thankfully the other seasons didn't suffer from, but it has so many little details in there that become running gags throughout the series. Plan M, Hardison dies. Let's steal an <X>. Parker stabbing a guy with a fork. Hardison's stories about his Nana. Eliot's very specific catchphrase. Sophie's struggle with being an actress vs being a grifter. Alice White. Hurley. Sterling. Old Nate.

I think the Pilot and the two-part finale are my favorites from that season though it is a very close call with basically every other episode.

The Pilot of course gives us the crew and becomes incredibly important to understand the motivations of the final villain of S4. So, so much is established in this episode. The heist at the start, the mini-con at the hospital, and the main con to get their revenge. The walk-away where they all fail to walk away.

And then the two part finale. Nate's ex wife shows up and everyone basically falls in love with Maggie because she's awesome. Sterling truly establishing the Sterling always wins rule with his second win. Nate being able to punch - in the face - the guy who turned down the insurance claim for the medical procedure that might have saved Nate's dying son. Sophie trying to have her cake and eat it too, only to ultimately chose the team over herself. Old Nate becoming the Leverage mascot (to real Nate's chagrin).

Season 2 is probably my second least favorite because I think Sophie leaving the team is somewhat... mishandled? Overall they handled the actress needing time off while pregnant well, but she leaves the team to find herself but is upset that Nate gives her that space and encourages the team to do so as well? Like, yeah, he needs to be better at asking for help and it's his big failing this season but he's very much trying to respect what Sophie asked for and given shit about it. But this is quite possibly the only overarching storyline the show fumbled which is sooooo impressive. (Glances at the Flash and it's many fumbled storylines.)

The first episode of this season is hands down favorite. The team gets back together. Parker as a lock picking nun. The Team taking over Nate's apartment (and then refusing to leave for three seasons). The fact that this episode sets up the series finale. Because it does. The whole reason Nate decides to give in and rejoin the team for more than just this one job at the end? Is because this is where he realizes what really happened behind the scenes of the 2007-08 financial crisis, which leads directly to the target of The Long Goodbye Job.

(holy shit is this show amazing at callbacks and maintaining continuity)

I also really love the Two Live Crew Job for introducing Chaos and The Lost Heir Job for bringing in Tara for the rest of the season (only complaint is we barely get any more of her after this season). Though if I were to pick a second favorite episode of the season it'd be The Bottle Job because I love them saving the bar together and it has the first hints of Jimmy Ford being revealed (explaining further why Nate is the way he is).

I think Season 3 and 4 tie for me as second favorite seasons. S3 has the plot with the Italian and finally stops using Nate's personal failings as the driving impetus of the season finale. Eliot being so very ashamed of the man he used to be is incredibly touching (someone hug this man) and makes it all the more impressive what kind of man he's become now.

I love The Inside Job for putting Parker front and center. Introducing the man who raised her, but also failed her in a way that makes Nate quite likely want to punch Archie in the face. The show never outright calls Parker autistic, but she is. She so clearly is. And it's very plain to see that was factored into the set design for where Parker lives. It was part of Archie's reasoning for keeping her separate from his family - though he can say 'she wouldn't fit in' all he wants, the truth is clear in how he says it. But despite how he failed her, the episode is about showing that Parker does have a family now. The Leverage Crew. And they love her because she is the way she is. Because if she were any different, she wouldn't be their Parker. And they are willing to fight for her and trust her and follow her lead.

I love any episode where Hardison gets to be artsy, so The Scheherazade Job is beloved. How dare he be so talented? So, so, so multi-talented.

The Studio Job gives us Eliot's softer side and Christian Kane's wonderful country singing voice.

The Three Card Monte Job introducing Jimmy Ford in the flesh and giving us the wonderfully fucked up relationship he has with Nate. They love each other but they're too much alike to get ever get along. Each one has a very different code of ethics that clash irreconcilably.

The Rashoman Job is just incredibly well played, with the actors in the flashbacks being slowly updated as it's revealed this person or that person was actually one of the Leverage Crew pre-show. Sophie's accent in the flashbacks getting increasingly incomprehensible until she's basically speaking what the wingdings fonts look like when you try to type normally with them.

The King George Job giving more artsy Hardison who hacks history and probably needs a nap. Sophie's complicated backstory and her realization that cons where she thought no one really got hurt may have actually gotten people hurt after all - a character story beat that Leverage Redemption picked up for her and continued beautifully.

The San Lorenzo Job is absolutely stunning. Sophie shines here (and yet again does not know how to keep out of sight at her own funeral) absolutely stunningly as she builds herself up as a sort of Princess Diana/Evita type before her "assassination" that helps seal the deal of their election theft scheme.

Season 4 tying itself so neatly back to the job that started it all when it turns out the rich dude trying to manipulate them is working with Dubenich. It's impressive how well they pull off the reveal. But he's not the only big call back to Season One we get here. Parker's Alice White persona and the friend she made - Peggy - come back. Hurley comes back.

The Van Gogh Job is the best, best, best of the season. It doesn't pull any punches in saying "hey, this romance we're doing between a white girl and a black man? that used to be illegal. It is in living memory that these relationships could get black men lynched by racists with little to no repercussions. And talented black men would have their achievements handed to white men because 'that's the way it was.'" It puts the main actors into the roles of characters in the past just to make sure it hits hard because we know these faces. We're emotionally attached to them. Holy shit this episode.

The Hot Potato Job where the problem kid of the school field trip Nate and Parker hijack just needed people to treat him like a person, not a problem, to behave well. The way he bonds with Hardison and helps them smuggle the potato out at the end? I love this kid, I want to learn he's working for Leverage International one day.

The Carnival Job where the mark's kid is kidnapped and they burn their con because a child's life is more important. Eliot fighting concussed and with his eyes shut because he will be damned if he fails to save this little girl.

The Grave Danger Job managing to be the best 'buried alive' plot I have ever seen on a tv show (and it is a staple plot of tv shows from the 90s/early 2000s). They steal a police car and an ambulance for the sirens. It gets series with Parker calling Hardison 'Alec' and being at the most emotional we've seen her all show.

The Office Job being done in the style of The Office (and then the mockumentary follow up in the behind the scenes featurettes) is just priceless.

The Girls Night Out/The Boys Night Out Jobs being so perfect in how they intertwine over the course of the same night.

The Radio Job showing us just how much Jimmy Ford loves his son.

The Last Dam Job giving us "my son would be ashamed of me for killing someone. My father? My father would buy me an ice cream." Dubenich ultimately destroying himself while Nate walks away.

Season 5 is my favorite season, though. It's the culmination of where the show was heading from the start. Parker has grown so much from the first season that she's able to run her own con - something Sophie and Hardison have both attempted and failed - and with the rest of the team out of town to boot. Parker and Hardison clearly got the brew pub as a gift for Eliot, while realizing he'd never accept if they don't reverse psychology him into it. Sophie buying the theater and finally discovering her talent for directing as well as overcoming the blocks that kept her from bringing her prodigious acting talent to the stage floor. Nate achieving the goal that's driven him since the start of Season Two.

I love the French Connection Job for giving us more Chef Eliot. His relationship with food is lovely and this is my favorite exploration of it. Parker finally learning to appreciate beauty in art because of how she grows to understand how Eliot connects with cooking and learns to appreciate the artistry that goes into food.

The Gimme a K Job hits home personally for me - one of my sister's best friends (who was also the older sister of one of my best friends) was a cheerleader who hit her head in a cheer stunt gone wrong where the spotter messed up. It took a very, very long time for her to truly recover from that concussion (and thus why I know tv shows are bullshit for having people just walk that off) and knowing her injuries might have been less severe if cheerleading safety were taken more seriously...

The DB Cooper Job being another excellent episode built around Flashbacks staring the main cast in different roles. Agent McSweeten has to know something is up with the Leverage Crew, but he clearly respects and admires all of them. Especially Parker.

The Broken Wing Job giving us Parker on her own putting together a temporary crew from the wait staff and pulling off a con all on her own, while injured. (The whole reason why she wasn't with the team, in fact.) And it's so damn impressive of her.

The Rundown Job being as close to confirmed Eliot/Parker/Hardison as we're going to get outside of word of god (which we have!!!!) and it's beautiful to watch them work together without Nate and Sophie. It's also foreshadowing for them working together when Nate and Sophie retire.

Similarly, The Frame Up Job gives us how far Nate and Sophie have come as a couple and is as close to Nate/Sophie/Sterling as we'll probably ever get. (No word of god on this one, just me being overwhelmed by Nate and Sterling's impressive divorced-couple vibes. They're more divorced than Nate and Maggie, who are actually divorced.)

The White Rabbit Job where they almost push too far with their gaslighting routine but Parker is able to save the day by connecting to their mark in a way she didn't know how to when the show began. Her character development is such a highlight of she series so the repeated payoffs in this season are just... golden.

Every single thing about The Long Goodbye Job. Once again, all the callbacks to previous seasons. Eliot/Parker/Hardison being heavily hinted at again. Sterling letting Nate go because Nate was right, no matter what the law says. Parker inheriting the lead of the team from Nate. Sophie performing on stage the same play from the pilot, but being excellent at it this time. The episode's whole plot - again, cannot stress this enough - being a callback/having been foreshadowed by the season 2 premiere.

As you can tell, I love this show. It's beautiful and incredible and I was so, so relieved when Leverage Redemption premiered and I could instantly see that they'd done the impossible all over again. They'd recaptured the magic of the original show.

#kitkatt0430 answers #kitkatt0430 rambles #thank you so much for asking #i love leverage soooo much #leverage #fandom meta #leverage meta

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