gurgles menacingly

"I created you; you're mine."

"Just because you created me... Does that really make me yours?" Whumpee asked, more confused than combative. Whumper gave them a condescending smile. They were given a lot of those.

"Yes, Whumpee. It does. You're not a sentient being. You're a fancy toaster at this point. And definitely mine."

Whumpee looked down at their metallic hands. They clenched their fists, then relaxed them. They... didn't feel like a fancy toaster. They felt sentient. But then again, how would they be able to tell? Their whole understanding of being human, being a living, breathing— no, they weren't breathing... whatever, their whole understanding was derived from Whumper. If Whumper said they weren't sentient, then they weren't. "Okay," they said quietly.

OC | 20250328

Seems like you left some moldy food in your fridge…

(even with the example early on of Eliot using this trick - anger as a performance, quickly switched off - to get Sophie to admit that she wasn’t apologising. I will never be over season one Eliot successfully tricking the team’s grifter that way. And for such a gentle reason.)

so we get Nate strolling casually up to the table to ask Sterling what he’s doing here - which, big mob boss vibes there, it’s gorgeous - and I’m just thinking about how Eliot ‘snapping’ and going after Sterling allows Nate to be civilised, because Nate doesn’t have to threaten Sterling or remind him not to mess with them; his man, working for him and under his control, has already done that. And Nate being civilised and calling the shots allows Eliot to safely lean into his don’t-mess-with-me angry hitter persona, probably to make a point, probably to have a little fun as well. (Really I don’t even stop to justify that scene. It just causes me so much joy as it is.)

the first time I saw the french connection job, the ‘call off your dog’ bit bugged me. Nate hearing that and (after a moment) doing so meant he was implicitly agreeing with the idea that Eliot was his dog, and that Eliot wasn’t capable of standing down by himself. Which goes entirely out the window if it’s a grift. Reading it as almost transactional, an agreement between the two to enable each other to lean into their respective roles in little plays for their marks’ benefits - and their own - makes it so much better. Nate gets to come across as reasonable and in control of powerful assets; Eliot gets to scare people into believing that he really would hurt them badly if they gave him a reason, and his reputation survives another day, and people don’t look too closely.

“You know, people underestimate you, Eliot.” “That’s kind of the point.”