Forget about introducing your boyfriend or girlfriend to your parents… the real anxiety happens in your 30s when you accidentally introduce your husband to your therapist after y’all run into each other in the middle of a beer festival 😂
Tell me why my husband led with, “Hi! We’ve heard so much about each other! Also, thank God someone finally diagnosed her with ADHD.”
One of the things I like about Parker from Leverage is that, not only did the writers very much see her as being somewhere on the autism spectrum, the show makes it very clear that the autism isn't why she's like that.
That she spent formative years getting the brunt of the foster system, lived on the streets, got taken in by a well-meaning but flawed master thief and taught how to make her own way in the world.
That she learned very few social skills along the way, but is completely capable of and willing to learn them if given the correct situations and motivation. And is more than able to form strong, positive bonds with people how are willing to meet her where she is (and like, Parker/Hardison FOREVER, but also the episode where Elliot's posing as a chef and his and Parker's friendship is given a moment to shine).
That she's got lingering issues from her rough past that talking about with a therapist can help with, and which can help her understand, empathize with, and aid other people or kids who are in bad situations like the ones she went through.
She's not weird and quirky and goofy because she's autistic, she's weird and quirky and goofy because she has been through so much, with so little outside help, and this is how she became at least in part to deal with it all.
And no one tries to 'fix her' over the course of the series, she's just given a chance to learn some new skill sets while the rest of the cast simultaneously is given the chance to get to know her as a person.
I love how, in the first episode, Nate's reaction to the first mention of Parker being on the team is, "Parker's insane," and in the last episode she is the one he believes to be most capable of succeeding him as the head of Leverage.
She never needed fixing; she too, like every person they help, just needed a little leverage against the rough hand life dealt her.
one of the most fun things about leverage is how many of the episodes read like fanfiction AUs of the show itself, particularly when the team get way too into their grift personas lol. like okay this week we’re doing a College AU. now we’re gonna have a "The Office" AU. theres fake dating galore. there’s multiple eliot-as-a-sports-star episodes. we get famous violinist!hardison, we get country music star!eliot, we get to see them be everything from Men In Black to fashion designers to school teachers. and there’s even a couple episodes where the main cast play completely different characters in a historical setting, simply because it’s fun and you get beautiful stories out of it. honestly even half of the series finale is essentially about nate making up an Everybody Dies/Nobody Lives AU (with a suspiscious amount of OT3 shipping in there) and telling it all to sterling. the writers just love to put these characters in every Situation™️ possible and it’s a 10/10 every single time!!
its late but i just wanna ramble about how appreciative i forever will be for leverage and how they handled Parker as a character
she could’ve so easily been the same sexy cat burglar trope, there to look attractive for the Male Gaze. but instead they establish that she is Weird and Different but for not a second do you doubt she is Skilled and Intelligent. she is not good with emotions but she tries and she learns and really grows in such a genuine and soft way. but they never take away her uniqueness and Weirdness, letting her use her strange way of viewing the world to her advantage.
i also believe they probably didn’t go into creating her character realizing that so many of her traits read as autistic but they only lean into it more (especially in leverage redemption), showing how she never “becomes normal” and suddenly understands people perfectly. but instead creates flashcards to help her through social interactions even after years of grifting/interacting with people in general. and she has so many people who love her for her and never try to change the core of who she is or change what she herself doesn’t want to change/learn
i just think of the scene in og leverage where parker is distressed about liking food and asking eliot for help. and he so gently and calming explains things to her. the writing/characters never chastise her for not understanding emotions and instead reach her level to help her learn. they walk the line of having her be naive but never infantilizing her so well. she wants to learn about what she doesnt know but the whole series you know she is always perfectly able to take care of herself (and will stab/tase if needed)
idk im just very emotional over just the beautiful handling of parker’s character by the creators, the writers, and the actress herself. we always need more Weird Girls characters who are treated like real human people
so the side job was actually the episode where Parker bonks tazes a guy on the head, wipes his ID and credit rating (by faking his death), and dumps chases him to in Venezuela Colombia, yeah?
The Death of Innocence (AKA watching trivia players explain the Once-ler Fandom to their parents)
I host pub trivia for a living, and this week I asked a fairly innocuous question about The Lorax.
"Name the greedy industrialist who cut down all of the trees to make a multipurpose garment in The Lorax."
Well, one of our regular teams is this super wholesome family that consists of two adult brothers and their parents.
As soon as I hit play on the music (we use songs as a timer to give everyone a few minutes to discuss each question) I hear the brothers on this team cackling. Like, straight up dying.
I immediately know what's going on.
Their parents, on the other hand?
They're confused as hell.
One of the brothers manages to stop laughing long enough to turn in an answer that reads "Greed-ler / Once-ler."
Now, I'm giggling.
The dad looks at me, then his wife, then his kids. "What gives?" he finally asks.
...And that's how I got a front-row seat to two thirty-year-old men explaining Oncest to their mom and dad.
(Disclaimer: Not knocking the fandom. Not a member of it either, just culturally aware.)
I'm one of the few people that genuinely LOVES working customer service (hotel receptionist here), like yes the occasional person is rude and entitled. But most of the time? People are kind, and funny, and will jump at the chance to share a bit of their lives with someone else.
The businessman that comes in every week who seemed grouchy at first now smiles and waves when I remember his name, and explains he's just finished a long drive, and he doesn't MEAN to come off as rude, he's just tired.
The mother and daughter who visit the hotel each summer and tell me they've been coming here for years, and each time they visit they go to the pier and save up their tickets for the big ticket items. One day they come through the doors with the biggest grins, the older lady in the wheelchair proudly waving a huge stuffed toy tiger she's "had her eye on for years".
The young man with his girlfriend who looks nervous as he approaches reception, and stumbles over his words, his hands shaking as he signs the paperwork to check in. I've spent the last two weeks on the phone with him organising this; we've set up the bedroom with balloons and petals and decorations, and he's going to propose as soon as they get to the room.
The woman who I've not seen before who asks if I'm local, and tells me she grew up here, and had recently found herself drawn back. We talk about the sounds of seagulls, and the metal clanging of masts down at the harbour, and how the sounds that fade into the background are the ones you miss most when you leave. She's writing a book and promises to send me a copy when she's done.
The regular who goes out of her way to buy us all the strangest biscuits she can find at the tourist shops. We try them together, pulling faces at the ones that just don't work.
The thirty something woman who immediately sees a kinship in me and whispers to me that she has been here before, but under a name she no longer uses, and we celebrate the freedom she feels.
The support group that comes in for coffee each week and sit together filling the foyer with laughter.
Every single person living their own wonderful complicated rich lives, and I get to be a part of that. How is that not beautiful?
Y’know one of the first things that caught my attention was how much psychology and body language they have in the show? And not just psychology and body language—but ACCURATE psychology and body language???
I did my thesis on the BAU and how they establish baseline behavior to be able to profile an suspect. And the amount of accurate phraseology that is in Leverage was mindblowing to me, cause fiction usually jacks that stuff to all heck. They talk about micro-expressions as not being able to be faked—but fabricated—and they talk about differentiating from a person’s baseline, and not the bullcrap about ‘oh they looked to the right so they’re accessing their imagination.’ And they’re so good about having the characters cover for their involuntary reactions through explanation and deception instead of pretending that they don’t exist. AND THEY HAVE EVEN SOPHIE MISREAD PEOPLE.
I love the cold-reading in the show. It’s awesome. And they don’t put so much focus on it that you feel like they’re stretching it, which was such a good call too.
You know one of the things I love about “The French Connection Job”? It’s the back-and-forth between Parker and Eliot.
It’s established that food is Eliot’s passion, that he loves it because it made him feel when he thought he would never feel again, and that it’s how he expresses himself and lets people in his head, and let’s them know how he feels. It’s his art.
And then Parker, disheartened because she doesn’t have that, doesn’t have a ‘thing,’ a passion, something that makes her feel, goes to Eliot and asks him to, “Teach me how to like stuff."
And we don’t see it happen immediately, but Parker feels something from Eliot’s cooking, something he shared with her. And she even gives a suggestion which Eliot takes underwing immediately.
So the thing that helped Eliot learn how to feel and express himself when he didn’t know how, he shared with someone who needed it for a different reason, and showed how much he cared about her in the process. He “let her in his head,” and let her feel what he felt. And that impacted her enough that she turned around and started feeling things from the art that she previously only loved for the challenge of the security systems around it.
THAT IS THE DEFINITION OF THE POWER OF ART. Not to mention a beautiful demonstration of a ridiculously heartfelt character dynamic. And guess what—THAT’S art too.
...I came across the John Rogers line "Eliot's job is to be the failsafe that never fails". And I couldn't help thinking... What happens if the failsafe does fail?
Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen
(Disclaimer: This is a relatively rough draft and subject to change when I post to AO3.)
Now on ao3
Between Rosner’s phone and the information Hardison had pulled from his servers, Agent McSweeten received one hell of an anonymous tip that afternoon.
“There’s enough there to give the FBI a head start on a few bad guys,” Hardison had reported smugly. “And you were right, Eliot—Grossman flipped before they got the cuffs on him. Rosner’s done.”
They’d gathered across the street from Rosner’s office, watching the arrests with folded arms and shoulders pressed together, just like they used to. Eliot had stood on the end, his arm not quite touching Parker’s, reviewing the job in his head while Hardison summarized his contributions.
“I may have also changed a few passwords,” Hardison went on. “I’ll be making some withdrawals later today, make a couple donations to the families of the solanumine victims.”
A half smile pulled the corner of Eliot’s mouth. It seemed Hardison was tying up loose ends, too.
“Good work on this one,” Nate said, looking down their line with a contented expression that made Eliot’s chest ache. He shouldn’t need Nate’s approval—anybody’s approval—but those proud little looks had always meant more to him than they should have.
And letting him down… that had hurt more than it should have.
Still hurt.
Maybe it was time to start treating the wound instead of the symptoms.
Sophie gave him the opening, speaking casually with her hands buried in her jacket pockets, her shoulders hunched against the cold.
“It’s chilly,” she said. “Should we go back?”
An invitation, she said. No pressure.
They’d all heard what he’d said to Parker over the comms, but he appreciated the pretense anyway.
He went with them.
And now they were here again—home again—and Eliot hesitated just inside the door as the others filed into the brewpub office. Across the room, Sophie and Nate sat before the long table, mirroring their positions from the day before. Parker stood at his side again, and this time, Eliot was grateful for the support. The only difference was Hardison, who had stopped when Eliot did, half-turning to face the door, watching him with an expression of unease.
Expecting bad news.
Eliot crossed his arms, then dropped his hands to his sides, not wanting to put another barrier between them. “I don’t expect things to just go back to the way they were,” he said, his voice a little too blunt, too hard. He shoved his hands in his pockets and tried for a milder tone. “I know it’ll take time. I’m willing to put in the work.”
Hardison frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Things changed,” Eliot said. “That night. There’s no point pretending they didn’t. And I just—I want you to know that I’m not… I’m not glossing over it. I want to fix things.”
“What exactly do you want to fix?” Hardison asked.
Eliot kept his head a little lowered, his hands hidden, his voice soft. “You haven’t been sleeping.”
“Nothing new about that,” Hardison said.
“You’ve been having…” Eliot glanced over Hardison’s shoulder, at Nate and Sophie sitting together at the table, and Hardison followed his line of sight.
“No, go on,” he said, folding his arms. “I have nightmares. So what?”
Guilt pulsed through Eliot’s fingers, searing into his palms. “So, this doesn’t work if you can’t trust me,” he said, shoving the emotion down and keeping his words calm and even. “And you can’t trust me. Not yet. But I’m—I’m gonna earn it back.”
“You don’t owe us anything.” There was an edge to Hardison’s voice now, a sharpness that cut through his words and left raw, exposed nerves underneath. “You don’t owe me anything. You don’t have to work your way back in, Eliot. You’re in. You were never out. You’re never gonna be.”
“That’s not how it works,” Eliot said. “What I did—what happened—it can’t happen again. If I’m gonna come back, I need to make sure I’m—”
“Oh for the love of...” Hardison threw up his hands and turned away, then spun back and stabbed a finger at Eliot’s face. “Do you know how much solanumine Hart gave you?”
Two doses... one when they first started questioning him, one after he resisted. Eliot nodded.
“Do you know how much he gave you?” Hardison repeated. “How much was in each dose?”
A scowl slipped over Eliot’s expression. “Why does that matter?”
Hardison glared at him. “It matters. The same dose killed one of Grossman’s patients. The fact that you were conscious after that is—man, I don’t even want to know how many poisonings you went through to build up that kind of immunity. But that’s not even the important part.”
He stepped closer, and Eliot resisted the urge to back toward the door.
“Yesterday, you said you would have killed me,” Hardison said. “That the only thing that stopped you was Parker. That’s not true.”
“Hardison—”
“You didn’t kill any of them,” Hardison went on, raising his voice. “After you escaped, you went through those halls and hunted down and did not kill the men who drugged and beat you. Do you have any idea how good you have to be to do something like that while under the influence of mind-altering drugs? Better than good. You can’t fake that kind of good, man.”
Eliot opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Nobody else had moved, but he suddenly felt boxed in, like they had gotten behind him somehow, like they had cut off his retreat. He wanted to run. He’d had this conversation in his head hundreds of times—with Parker, with Sophie, with Nate. When he thought Hardison was dead, he’d had it with his ghost. It never went this way. In his head, they always echoed his own fears, his own accusations. Never You don’t have to work your way back in. Never You can’t fake that kind of good.
He shook his head, and his words came out in a grating, pathetic whisper.
“I hurt you.”
Hardison let out a breath, closing the space between them and tugging Eliot’s hands free of his pockets. He resisted for a moment, but when Hardison didn’t force the action, he relented.
And then immediately wished he hadn’t.
With one quick, incomprehensible action, Hardison brought Eliot’s hands up to his throat and held them there.
“Look,” Hardison said, the muscles in his neck flexing under Eliot’s palms. “You put your hands where you’d hold a neck to break it. You did it automatically.”
“Hardison,” Eliot rasped.
“You know exactly how to do it,” Hardison said.
Eliot went cold. “Stop.”
“Don’t think I didn’t see what you were doing,” Hardison said. “Keeping your hands hidden, trying to look non-threatening. You think I’m afraid of you.”
Eliot couldn’t answer. Hardison stared at him, so close they were almost touching, so close that Eliot couldn’t look anywhere else. “I’m not,” he said firmly. “The dreams I have… it’s not you attacking that scares me. It’s you leaving.”
The room was silent, the air heavy, like the whole building was holding its breath. Eliot made another half-hearted attempt to pull away. “I could have killed you.”
“You didn’t,” Hardison said. “You could have, and you didn’t. Right? Look at me, Eliot. You didn’t. I’m here.”
I’m here.
Eliot sucked in a breath. Parker leaned against him, echoing the sentiment without words. Behind Hardison, Sophie was holding Nate’s hand, looking on with tears in her eyes. Nate’s brows were furrowed like he was already working through Eliot’s next move.
We’re all here.
“Let go,” Eliot said.
Hardison’s face fell. He dropped both of their hands, and Eliot waited for the usual images to fill his vision—Hardison’s bones breaking, his breath stuttering to a stop, his eyes glazed and staring. They didn’t come. All he could see was the Hardison before him, still watching him with sadness and hope in his eyes.
Hope. It had been so long since Eliot felt that.
With a sharp, almost painful exhale, Eliot reached out and pulled Hardison into a rough hug. He meant it to be quick, but Hardison’s arms came up around his back, and he held on like Eliot was the only thing keeping him upright.
“I never wanted you to leave,” Hardison said into his shoulder. “We could have dealt with this together. You shouldn’t have left.”
“I know,” Eliot said.
“We’re family,” Hardison said, muffled, angry. “You don’t walk out on family.”
“I know.”
Hardison’s fists closed over the back of Eliot’s jacket, bunching the fabric and holding so tightly they shook. “I’m pissed at you, man.”
Eliot let out a shaking breath. “I know.”
“And if you ever do anything like this ever again—”
“I won’t,” Eliot said. “I won’t. Never again.”
Hardison drew back, his eyes red but dry, his jaw clenched. He took a few heavy breaths through his nose, holding Eliot at arm’s length before finally lowering his hands.
“You’re gonna make this up to me,” he said, raising a finger again. “I’m talking full-day Star Trek movie marathon, man. All six of ‘em. And no fast-forwarding through the Enterprise shots in the first movie.”
Beside him, Parker leaned forward and put one hand on each of their shoulders. “Can we eat first?” she said, looking back and forth between the two of them. “Because I’m really hungry, and the food downstairs doesn’t taste the same when you don’t make it.”
Her words sent pang through Eliot’s chest. He hadn’t cooked a single meal in the time they’d been apart, and now here he stood above his kitchen, with Parker smiling at him and Hardison’s hand still on his arm and Sophie and Nate looking at him like they wanted him to stay. It felt like a dream, and there was a part of him that feared he would wake up and find himself alone and broken again. But maybe that only made it more important.
He didn’t want to miss any more time with them.
“Yeah,” he said, forcing his words through a tight throat. “Yeah, I can make something.”
Sophie beamed and slid from her chair. “You’re sure? We could order out if you prefer.”
Eliot managed a small smile. “No. I, uh… I’d like to make something.”
“All right.” Sophie touched his arm, her eyes shining a little more than usual. “I’ll go warn the kitchen staff.”
Parker bounced beside her. “Oh! I wanna tell Amy!”
“Hang on,” Hardison said. “You can’t just—I have a cover story, we gotta make sure—”
They tumbled into the hall, but Nate didn’t follow. Eliot watched the others for a moment, breathing through the overfilled feeling in his lungs, listening to Nate’s stillness inside the room. He stepped back inside and closed the door behind him.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Nate said. “I’m not gonna lecture you. I don’t know that I’d have done much differently in your shoes.”
Eliot shook his head. “I put you in a bad position. Left you unprotected.”
“You didn’t, though, did you?”
The overfilled feeling worked its way from Eliot’s lungs to his throat. “For all you knew, I did. You couldn’t rely on me.”
“Eliot.” Nate took a breath and let out a long sigh. “That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. We heard what Rosner said about Hart.”
Eliot nodded. “I didn’t kill him.”
“And you didn’t tell him anything,” Nate said. “You’ve spent months punishing yourself over things that didn’t happen.”
“I wasn’t—” Eliot broke off, because after all this, he couldn’t bring himself to lie to Nate. He cleared his throat. “I thought it was the only way to keep you safe.”
“It did,” Nate said. “But it made things harder than they needed to be. If I’d have known about the Russians, I wouldn’t have sent Sophie in to talk to Wilcox alone. I didn’t mean to flush you out like that.”
Eliot blinked at him. “Like that? But you did mean to flush me out?”
“Eventually,” Nate said.
“You knew I’d go after Rosner.”
Familiar blue eyes suddenly looked worn, like Nate had aged during the course of the conversation. “I know what it does to a man to be alone with his grief,” he said. “To blame himself. To think he deserves the worst that happens to him, and to think—” He took a breath, holding Eliot’s gaze like a vice.“To think he shouldn’t be forgiven.”
“What happened to Sam wasn’t your fault,” Eliot said. “You did everything you could.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Nate said. When Eliot was silent, he added, “Did it matter to you?”
The answer was already laid out between them. Eliot left it there.
Nate stayed where he was, giving Eliot space even as he kept him pinned against the door. “The things we do,” he said. “The way we do them. None of us can fail.”
Eliot looked away.
“No,” Nate said. “Not ‘we’re not allowed to fail’. We can’t fail. If one of us stumbles, the others are there to pick them up. That’s what makes us so good. That’s what makes us so dangerous.”
“Dangerous,” Eliot echoed. “To each other, you mean.”
In his peripherals, he watched Nate nod. “No one can hurt us like the people we love,” he said quietly. “And no one can heal us like them, either.”
Eliot let out a breath and lifted his gaze again, accepting the offer the only way he could. “You want some chili?”
A smile cracked the serious look on Nate’s face. “You know, Parker was right. It hasn’t tasted right since you’ve been gone.”
“The kitchen has my recipe,” Eliot said.
Nate stepped past him and opened the door, but gestured for Eliot to go through first. “I don’t know. There’s something about it that tastes different.”
“What, you think I have some secret ingredient I didn’t tell the cooks about?”
Nate lifted his eyebrows, amusement bright in his eyes. Eliot shook his head. He could see where Nate was going with this, and there was no way he was going to get Eliot to say that the secret ingredient was love.
Two years ago, I got diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 30. I am still very much learning how to advocate for myself in certain situations.
Anyway, tonight I had a guest at pub trivia who approached me after I gave the rules and asked me if I could walk her through the scorecard a second time because she has autism and it was visually overwhelming for her.
During our brief conversation, she told me that she was excited for our theme because it was her special interest, and introduced me to a stuffed animal that she carries for social anxiety.
This woman was absolutely, totally unashamed about accommodating her own needs, and I loved it.
Hell, I’m on the microphone anywhere from 3 to 5 days a week and she had more confidence than me!
She has no idea how much admired her in that moment.
stormborns
germansingergirl
turnnoffyourmind
discoholicmusic
andulkaphoto
gummygunk
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
blakekathryn
