Catradora333 - Daisybelle

The way that Grover keeps saying he's 24 when we know full well that satyr's age half as fast as humans.

Can we take a moment for Grover, because at the mental age of 12, he's given charge of another person's life, and his only job is to protect him. He swears to keep him safe and keep him alive. He's failed in the past and that lurks in every dangerous situation they encounter. He keeps bringing up that he's 24 maybe for comedic relief or maybe to remind himself he's had 24 years of world experience, even if he just feels like an overwhelmed 12-year-old, placed in charge of two danger-prone kids who keep trying to sacrifice themselves for each other, on a quest doomed to fail?

The satyrs have been protectors for decades, but It just occurred to me that they're basically just kids trying to protect kids from monsters they probably wouldn't be able to beat.

Well that hurts

the lady at the grab-n-go actually missed having Vance there to play pinball. she missed how she would have to call the police every other day because Vance had fought someone. she missed hearing the swearing shed hear when he wouldn't beat his high score. once Vance went missing she put a 'out of order' sign on the pinball machine so no one would play it or beat the high score cus the machine was reserved for Vance and Vance only. she never got the machine changed as she would feel like it was disrespectful to Vance and wanted to keep some sort of memorabilia for everyone.

I suddenly woke up stupid early on my day off with multiple weird random aches and pains and a revelation about the Leverage chess metaphors.

They’re all wrong.

Look, I obviously adore the white knight/black king motif, and it works really well for that very specific discussion of Nate’s shift in morality and position at the opening of the series. But the show as well as I and other fans have then tried to take that equation and apply it to other jobs and to the crew as a whole. This is fun and awesome, but I believe you’re going to get it wrong every time if you start from the white knight/black king line. 

Because in all other situations, Nate is not the king.

Couple important things about kings in chess: 1. They don’t move much. They can only move one space at a time, and for most of the game they stay in their own little box, well guarded by other pieces. This is because 2. When the king is checkmated (threatened with capture and no possible escape), it’s game over. There is no more hope. This is the sole requirement for losing the game. No matter who else is in play, if the king is down, you lose.

This is NOT how Nate operates. Yeah, he makes the plans, but he doesn’t just hide in the office while everybody else carries them out. He’s almost always right up in there playing the most obnoxious guy you’ve ever met or smashing windows or something. And if Nate gets captured, it’s not game over, in fact, it often isn’t even a PROBLEM. Let’s look at a few times that happens, just for fun: - In The King George Job, Nate’s getting beat up and Eliot slightly panics and is about to run to help, when Sophie says “NOPE, don’t do that, I can fix this without blowing our cover” and saunters in at her leisure. The jig isn’t up and she’s not even particularly concerned about him getting punched. I love it. - In the Maltese Falcon Job, Nate sacrifices himself to save the team. This is a classic thing to do in chess and chess metaphors, but, I cannot stress this enough, you cannot sacrifice your king. That’s just called LOSING. -In The Long Goodbye Job of course the whole con is structured around Nate getting caught. I guess this one kind of makes sense because the whole point is to look like they HAVE completely lost, but then at the end it appears that Nate’s going to secret prison and everyone else is escaping WITH the black book, so they STILL would be losing Nate but winning the job. 

So if Nate isn’t the king, who is?

Hardison.

Let’s look at our points about kings again:

1. Doesn’t move as far or as quickly: Yes, Hardison ALSO gets out there and participates in the cons, everybody does. But Hardison does stay in the background more often, because that’s where his power is. He does the behind the scenes tech stuff and the remote stuff, he can wreck your shop without showing up through the power of the internet. He also does the forgeries of identities and objects, which are also done in his own space. At the same time, he has less physical power and less range – you don’t want him in a fistfight, or a gunfight, and his grifts are notorious for being a little… uh… interesting. So he has limited physical range and power but at the same time… .

2. The game is over if you lose him. That far-reaching behind the scenes power is absolutely vital for 90% of the jobs. He does the massive amounts of research and hacking legwork needed just to START a job, even before you get to actually completing the job. You are pretty much dead in the water without Hardison. But that’s just from a practical standpoint. Losing Hardison is also a crisis from an emotional standpoint. He’s our moral compass and our sweet baby brother and when Hardison gets in trouble there is no “well he’ll be fine for a few minutes” and no “well he kinda had it coming.” No, when Hardison is in trouble everything else grinds to a halt and everyone comes running. (See: The Experimental Job, The Grave Danger Job, The Long Goodbye Job.)

So like, yes Nate is in charge. But the king isn’t in charge on a chessboard, the king is just a piece with a very unique role, which Hardison fills much better than Nate does. So, now that we have our real king, who are our other pieces?

Queen: Parker. This has nothing to do with her dating Hardison. The thing about the queen is she can do a little bit of everything – she can move in any direction, making her the most dangerous piece on the board. Parker’s whole character arc is about learning all the different roles and how to access the whole playing field. She’s the only one who plans and executes an entire episode-length job by herself (okay, with a little help from her girlfriend). Plus, the other cool thing about a queen is she has a built-in transformation story – a pawn that crosses the board can become a queen, which Parker mimics by initially being dismissed as “the crazy one” and ultimately becoming the mastermind.

Knight: Sophie. I know, I wanted Eliot to be the horsie too, but this makes more sense. The knight’s deal is that it’s sneaky – it’s the only piece that can turn corners – and it can jump over obstacles. Sophie’s whole philosophy of grifting is that she shouldn’t need to know about safes or security systems, she should be able to bypass (jump over) all that by insinuating herself with the mark (being sneaky by playing a character to get behind enemy lines)

Rook: Eliot. This is the straightforward one – it goes in a straight line. It also literally represents the castle walls. It’s also so, so fucking helpful to have around, I fucking hate losing my rooks. It’s your solid right hand man, basically. Is this a little reductive of Eliot? Absolutely, but I’m jamming five complex characters into five predetermined boxes, it’s not all gonna be nuanced. And I think Mr. Punchy would like being seen as the fortress that everybody depends on, and to let all the nuance go under the radar. That’s where he likes it. 

Bishop: Finally, here’s where Nate is hiding. While the rook can only go straight (lol), the bishop can only go diagonally. Nothing can be straightforward for the bishop, he always has to come at things from an angle. Like, you know, constantly looking at all the different angles of a situation and finding the right angle to come at a mark from. Also, the bishops sit right in the middle right next to the king and queen. I don’t know that this is historically accurate, but when my dad taught me to play he told me that was because the bishops were important councilors to the rulers, they were the ones who had important wisdom that would tell them the best plan of attack. So the king here isn’t necessarily the one making the plans – that’s the bishop. And finally, apparently the bishop is called lots of different things in other languages, but we’re operating in English, which means it makes Nate a priest, and that makes me happy.

The Pevensie children are too old for their age.

Their mom notices, at the dinner table. She sees no nagging children, no stupid fights. She sees Lucy eating and speaking with perfect manners, Edmund analysing the economy and war with concerning skill, Susan being gracious but poised, like a diplomat.

Their father sees it in Peters eyes the first time they get into a fight. When he moves to punish Edmund for speaking out of turn, Peter calls him out on it. When his gaze meet his eldest son's, he's leveled by the war he sees behind it, the tensed muscle in his arm, the knuckles white around his knife. He's seen that before, in other soldiers. He doesn't know how to react.

Other children notice, too. Talking to all the Pevensie kids at the same time is like being the only one left out of a secret, and the way they touch and tease each other speaks of a history far deeper than their polite demeneor lets on. And when they walk they fall in line, as if there is a natural hierarchy between them.

The first time anyone picks a fight with Edmund, Peter comes home with a three week suspension and blood around his mouth. He looks more alive than you've seen him in weeks.

When Susan gets back in the pool after Narnia, she wins all the contests. Coaches can't explain how to beat her, because they don't understand how she's doing it, either. She seems to almost disappear when underwater.

Lucy, always gay and golden-haired, starts dancing, and never misses a step. She moves with an elegance that no 10 year old should have, and all the girls want to be friends with her

Edmund soon becomes the best student in his faculty. He always seems to know the right thing to say, and teachers laud his ability to think through complex problems. His mouth does get him in trouble sometimes, but the boy seems uncatchable, always talking his way through the cracks. And if not?

No one actively fears Peter, but everyone is a little scared of him sometimes. He's tall for his age, sure, but there is something else, some other air that seems to give him an authority far beyond what's normal for a teenage boy. He's nice enough, but teachers can't stand it, and bullies learn very quickly that pissing him off means missing teeth and black eyes.

The Pevensies are not quite inhuman, but not fully mortal, either

One thing I love so much about the MI movies is that at the beginning they were just another bond movie. Replaceable female love interest, and everyone else was also replaceable

But with six movies Ethan managed to find himself a little found family. With the writers changing every movie it was definitely never planned. But then everyone liked Luther so much - so he stayed, and then everyone liked Benji so he stayed. Then everyone loved Brandt so he stayed. Then McQuarrie appeared and delivered and hell, did he delivered. And he wrote Ilsa and the found family was perfect

And now Ethan, who started like a second bond, a lonely lone wolf, now says things like: you life’s matter more then the mission. If anything happened to you I will kill everyone who ever hurt you“

I am a Little emotional

#Something something about Annabeth expecting help from her mother because she was always the perfect kid but getting sent to her own death and Percy expecting nothing because he doesn't believe in his dad and despite everything being saved from death by him

HELPPP

If you like Lockwood & co, want to see a second season of Lockwood & co, don’t wait weeks to watch it when it’s the biggest genre for getting the axe sooner than you would expect. 

Drop it in your background, run while you’re out of the house and start it up again when you get back and put a notepad over it. Watch it tonight, and don’t dole it out like treats. Netflix needs completion not just hours which is depressing because I sure as hell don’t like binging shows anymore than the rest of the country. 

We might look okay the way we’re going but I’ve seen shows cancelled in less than a week of it airing. 

new trifecta of movies:

who is doing it like them