You know what gets me about leverage? Every single villain is absolutely and utterly boring. And I mean that in the best way possible. No dark and mysterious sexy villains or misunderstood extremists who actually had the right idea maybe hmmm it’s complicated. NO. Just corrupt white guys (and sometimes non-white non men but 9 times out of 10 it’s an old white guy in a suit) being greedy, and greed and or overconfidence being their downfall. There are a few instances where the show grants some sympathy for the villain of the week who “can be a decent guy but currently kinda going through something and not realizing the damage they are causing but start doing better once they are confronted (pretty dramatically) about it, and also usually after most of the consequences of their actions have already started biting them in the butt big time” (Hurley, Molly’s dad).
But other then that? The show is committed to showing that all these evil things are happening due to greedy people with too much power, and most importantly, that’s not interesting. Those people are boring.
Even Moreau? Hyped up for an entire season, complicated dark past to one of the team members? Boring, greedy, overconfident dude. Gets taken down by his own overconfidence more than the “24 year old genius with a smartphone and a problem with authority”. Not once does the show try to spin him in a more compelling, intriguing light. We get “He prefers beer” and then like, two episodes of proof that Moreau didn’t pay much attention to Eliot after he left (and is in general not that smart of a dude but that’s a different post). Moreau was only “interesting” as far as Eliot’s character development was concerned but beyond that he had the depth of an origami clown.
Latimer and Dubenich? Same hype, same downfall. Same lack of depth.
Udall? Who I think is one of the only “ideological” villains in the show? Not for a second are his ideas entertained, instead they hint strongly that Vance (one of the “good guys”) is on pretty thin fucking ice as well for someone on the “”“opposite end”“” of that spectrum (I do not expect criticism of the US military/police state in US television at all, so I felt like that leeway was as good as it gets, lol).
I’m not saying villains in fiction shouldn’t be interesting or have a point or whatever, because that’s literally their narrative function. But I do appreciate how Leverage came to point out the problems at the tip of the system and went “these kinda guys exist irl, they have blood on their hands, and they are not sympathetic or compelling. They are just greedy and they suck.”
some of you need to go outside and I dont mean that in a mean or condescending way I mean it in a “you would benefit from talking to real people face to face, and developing social skills” type way
genuinely tho. more and more frequently i interact with people online who shock me with how young they act for how old they are, because i associate that level of social and interpersonal inability with fucking. fourteen year olds. there is a noticeable deterioration of social skills and it’s annoying as someone who actually knows how to talk to people, because i find myself having to almost parent people basically my age into learning how to properly communicate. no, just saying insults and then adding /lh does not mean you’re friends with someone. you can’t just call someone a bitch or a whore or any type of slur and get surprised when they aren’t okay with that, because if you actually took a step outside you’d realize those are words that have a whole lot of weight behind them and online get thrown around by social infants with no clue how to properly talk to people.
people are always coming to tell me that i’m very nice or very welcoming, and i don’t know how to explain this to you, but it’s because i have actual social skills. i know how to be polite. i know how to listen to people. i know how to actually form healthy relationships with people who aren’t just words on a screen. and it’s come to my realization that not everyone does, which makes it extra exhausting to keep up conversations with literal adults who don’t even understand the basics of interpersonal communication.
this puts it into words well ty
tags from @/lemonberry-conda and they’re entirely correct
I do viscerally get the “this just does not come naturally to me so I am not even going to try (and make a virtue of not trying) but: there is value in learning and practicing social skills. There is value in trying to be kind, in trying to communicate and connect, in practicing empathy and compassion. And they all absolutely take practice! Watch, learn, listen, ask questions, treat them as knowledge worth learning and keeping and refining, and don’t give up if it doesn’t go perfectly all the time.
Someone once explained small talk to me as an exchange of acknowledgements - "you are a person” “Yes, and you are also a person”. And, like, there is a huge amount of value contained in that exchange, and in the cultural shorthand we use for it.
Can’t stop thinking about my f/os playing with my hands
Just tracing my palm, writing words I can’t pick up. Putting my fingers into random shapes. Occasionally just going back to holding my hand, running their thumb over my knuckles.
in the context of that other post, I am now having thoughts about Hardison who has grown up with lots of hugs and cuddles and loves to give and receive both, tailoring his touches to match the comfort levels of his partners…
and them noticing how much he loves contact and finding new ways to do that for him <3
I’m generally of the opinion that if your film requires so much cgi that your actors are performing against nothing but green screens, maybe you should just be making an animated film instead. Because you’re basically already making one anyway.
ah yes, tumblr is “banning porn”, you know, “““porn”““, like that one time they had their bots tag basically all lesbian and trans blogs as ““““““porn”““““. i truly trust the clowns who run this website to not literally fuck this up in the most heinous way imaginable while desperately begging for apple to restore their shitty app
we should take the “does it spark joy?” question to social media. go through your facebook, remove friends that do not spark joy, go through instagram and unfollow people and pages that do not spark joy. don’t surround yourself with things that don’t make you happy.
sooo junglinge clearly wrote ava as a character who paralleled amira, had a social media team who dedicated time to defend her against all the racist and ignorant ass comments people left in s5 and s6, only for funk to fire them and hire a new team to produce two new seasons that ignore everything the previous team built - not just from a narrative stand point but the approach to druck and what skam is all about i just-
the virgin lore olympus vs the chad hades thread on twitter is genuinely one of the most embarrassing things ive ever seen
some of the most egregious samples
You guys in the notes, nobody excepts her to be able to do the same amount of insane detail as Hades. But these character designs are bad because you can’t even tell who a lot of these characters are supposed to be without knowing beforehand. With the exception of Ares, who is in a Military uniform, it would be pretty had to accurately guess all of these even if you knew they were supposed to be Greek gods because she just leaves out iconic parts, like Zeus’s beard and the furies’ wings.
whats so funny about all of this is the sheer number of people who became invested in the story after 15.18 because of cas’ confession. like, that was the most hype and the most social media response that a supernatural episode has ever gotten (correct me if im wrong there)? it grabbed people and pulled them back in for the final two episodes even if they hadnt watched in years or had never watched it at all, which is insane. it was a legitimate phenomenen on the internet and it stirred up so much interest and excitement which the final two episodes viewership numbers definitely reflect.
it just proves what i’ve been saying for years: if they had gone forward with deancas, stopped the bait and made it text - even complicated, nuanced, non-romcom material text - there wouldve been an explosion of fans. new fans wouldve tuned in, old fans wouldve come back, and supernatural wouldve been firmly transferred to the internets favorite media list. of course, it wouldve alienated some fans, and i dont know enough about the breakdown of fan demographics to say this for sure, but i feel like its possible the influx of fans wouldve evened it out. and besides, its not the homophobic dudebro fans who are going to cons, buying every piece of merch, etc - thats queer money! it just seems like such an absurd missed opportunity in terms of increasing viewership and profit, being front page trending interent news for weeks or months, and also going down in history as a landmark in queer media and television in general
