Headcanon: Eliot Can Ballroom Dance As Well As Any Professional. Better, In Some Instances. And No One

*Poll options based on less common relationship tags that co-occur with the Leverage fandom tag on Ao3. Just for fun, please no yelling over preferences Haha!

okay update I’ve been Instagram stalking and I think I can put pieces together. This is such a long deep dive so bear with me.

January: "I have two that I've written the first draft of and will go into revision soon. I have one that I'm writing now and I'm about halfway through. I have another that I'm planning." (source)

I will label these four books, in order, Mystery Book, Big Book, Paper Model Book, and Little Graceling Book. We'll follow them over the course of the year, and you'll see where the names come from.

The one that she was writing at the time, we're going to call Paper Model Book, because she said this about it: "My WIP includes a character who’s building a paper model of a castle and does other paper art too. Butterflies and moths are also an important part of the book." (source)

This draft was started many months earlier, pre-brain surgery, and went on pause for obvious reasons. From earlier notes, it appears the main character may have an M name. (source) I believe the draft was started all the way back in September 2023, and just took a while due to the aforementioned brain surgery, as well as copyediting for There Is a Door in this Darkness. (source)

She continued working on Paper Model Book for several months. She finished and submitted the manuscript around late April/early May. Several of the notebooks for this book have fox stickers on them, and she also had fox socks and fox art on her desk, which could mean there are foxes in it, but could also mean that she was just in a fox mood.

May: "With this draft done, I now have three entire books in revision, plus There Is a Door in This Darkness releasing on June 11." (source)

In May, she was on a bit of a vacation, but mentioned at one point that she was "listening to a lot of math podcasts and books to help me with a character I’m brainstorming." (source) Guessing this was for Little Graceling Book, the book she started writing in September; it's the only one she would have been planning/brainstorming for.

In June, she began revising a 430-page book. She described this revision as "so complicated" and the novel as "pretty complex". (source) The first draft of that book was written, in part, summer 2023. (source) This should be the one we have called Big Book. She continued revising Big Book for several months, while also doing release stuff for There Is A Door in this Darkness.

Peeks from that revision:

(source 1, source 2)

In September, she started plotting a new book, which we will call Little Graceling Book. Two posts about it have been tagged #gracelingrealm, implying that it's the next Graceling book.

Words I have caught in her notes for this book include: “fox” “castle” “heartless world” “the reader has guessed what A is up to and so has O; move on to other mysteries” (who’s A?? could it be adventure the fox??). Stickers include at least two foxes and a very Graceling-feeling castle.

On November 10, she mentioned writing “a bunch of pages, in a book about a world where things can change for the better (as they can in our world).” <3 (source)

A few days ago (December 21), she posted that she will be setting aside the partial first draft of Little Graceling Book to return to Big Book, her next book to come out. This book has gone through two drafts, and she’s about to get editorial letters back that will allow her to start on the third draft. There appears to be a grandfather clock and a horse sticker on the cover of its notebook, but we don't know anything else about it as far as I can tell. (source) "For this revision, I've realized that I need to understand what's happening inside a kaleidoscope." (January 18) 👀

She also shared that two other books (Mystery Book and Paper Model Book, as far as I can tell) are in progress and hanging out on a shelf. They appear to be printouts with sticky notes in them, which indicates that they're further along in the revision process.

So. That's what I have. Hopefully this is of interest to someone besides me that will justify the several hours I spent back-scrolling Kristin Cashore's Instagram lol

hi excuse me kristin cashore is working on FOUR books rn ??

what do we think they are 👀

so, there's this leverage fic, what we owe each other by @trivalentlinks. (it's one of my favorites. eliot/quinn with a solid dash of moreau. highly recommend. but i digress.) and in this fic, there's a running thing about these tunnels under paris. quinn introduces eliot to them and makes him promise not to use them for crime, and then moreau happens, and, well, it's a whole thing.

and then in the first episode of redemption s3, what do we get? the paris catacombs. and I know that the catacombs are not quite the same as the tunnels from the fic, but I still can't help but wonder what it would be like for that eliot to end up in the tunnels again in the context of l:r 20+ years later. there's just. so much potential there. these ponderings are built firmly on the foundations of a 60k au fic and as such will not go anywhere but i'm just hoping someone else may have read this fic too and understand where my mind went.

Losing it at “Carmilla would wake up late, would never eat but would take a cup of chocolate.”

Where is THAT in the vampire lore. We’ve been robbed. “I do not drink…wine. Hot cocoa only.”

my favorite hc is that penelope was told by the ladies in waiting to go and stay in her room and not to come out for anyone

and she hears screams and whatnot and is like oh fuck now theyve done it, the suitors are gonna destroy the place

only to hear the screams lessen in volume and being like ? are they killing each other?

but then she hears a scream clear as day "THIS WILL BE YOUR FATE" and she's like🧍‍♀️no fuckin shot my husband is down there on a murder spree

and she immediately starts pacing back and forth like "LADIES HELP ME PREPARE I NEED TO LOOK DIVINE" and it's a full makeover sequence

and they're posing her and being like "hold on, tilt your chin up a little bit, turn to the side like 12 degrees- BOOM my lady you are serving such cunt"

and then they hear odysseus' loud ass steps going up the stairs and all the ladies scatter while penelope tries to look nonchalant like "AHEM....😳 is it you? have my prayers been answered?"

ha! found it. https://glen-reeder.tumblr.com/post/149387327864/leverage-con-names

there has to be a wiki or a fan page of all the different mentioned leverage scams/plays/etc across all five seasons. Right? And like the history associated and the context and what the play looks like/aspects of it when given, right? right?

worlds slowest fanfic author tries really really hard

full clip is on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mGe0aoWeoo

Ot3 this and ot3 that, but somehow this isn't posted every single day under the leverage ot3 tag???

What is even the point of all this

the mile high job is, hands down, one of the fucking BEST episodes in the entire series

i saw a post talking about that poor flight attendant and how fucking FUNNY the episode would be from her pov, but like. there is so much happening in this episode that is pure gold

parker playing flight attendant and being TERRIBLE at it, and the other attendant just.....being annoyed with her but not bothering to correct her or say anything. she is NOT paid enough for this bullshit

eliot just...being an air marshal. being grumpy and disgruntled the ENTIRE flight. telling that guy to watch the movie instead of watching eliot rifle thru other people's belongings with ZERO explanation of what he's doing. fighting a dude in an PLANE BATHROOM and then stealing his knife

nate and sophie having a marital dispute the ENTIRE EPISODE and not really being much help overall

and hardison... hardison MY BELOVED he's playing office and he's having the time of his LIFE. getting in by pretending to be a maintenance guy who doesn't speak english. gaslighting the guy who got off the elevator next to him into thinking he's just being racist when he (correctly) concludes that hardison and the maintenance guy are the same person. hijacking a meeting and running it well. redirecting everyone by pretending its his birthday. wearing the silly hat while wrapping up the con. pretending to get fired so he has an exit. DOING HIS JOB SO WELL THAT HE MAKES CHERYL BELIEVE HE'S ACTUALLY WORKED THERE THE ENTIRE TIME.

and then, of course, there's the whole "landing a plane on an ocean highway" that never fails to give me cold chills bc like. imagine ur drivin down that highway, normal thursday, when u hear a plane overhead. not unusual, but it sounds a little close.... and then you fucking SEE the plane pass over you REALLY FUCKING CLOSE before coming to a stop just ahead of u

truly one of my favorite episodes of all time

there is probably no one else out there who's fans of both leverage (the tv show) and graceling (the book series by kristin cashore) but. my thoughts are Thinking and I have to share anyway.

specifically I am thinking about katsa (graceling) and eliot spencer (leverage). just. the shared narrative of being highly skilled fighters used as tools by powerful men. thinking of yourself as a monster. the fear of being controlled by someone who can twist your mind. leck and randa and moreau. having to live with the terrible things you’ve done. am I worthy of being loved? am i more than the worst things I’ve ever done? being made to feel like a dog!!

"A monster that refused, sometimes, to behave like a monster. When a monster stopped behaving like a monster, did it stop being a monster? Did it become something else?" (Graceling, pg 137)

"Well, and if she must be a dog, at least she would no longer be in this man's cage. She would be her own, she would possess her own viciousness, and she would do what she liked with it." (Graceling, pg 167)

also thinking about who would win in a fight. I'm leaning katsa because of her grace (gracelings have a special power/superpower/extreme skill, and hers is fighting, basically) and because we never see anyone beat her in a fight... but we also never see anyone beat eliot, really, and modern fighting techniques are surely better than medieval fighting techniques. he'd be stronger, but she'd be faster, and neither of them would go down easily. idk. I'd love to see it.

(I can't figure out any good way to put them together tho because they live in very different worlds and an au would mess with what makes them who they are. maybe some kind of dimensional travel?)