what_the_blog

Over 500 years spent trying to cut down a whole trunk of human culture.

“Tour Guides”

Because a lot of times, revenge gets framed as this inherently immoral act, like it doesn't matter how evil the person you want revenge on is, it doesn't matter that stopping them is a net positive for the world, revenge is just bad and wanting it makes you bad.

But I think that a lot of the problems with most revenge narratives come from the fact that the person/people seeking revenge put too much importance on getting revenge, but there's not enough catharsis in the actual act of taking revenge. They end up left with a whole lot of left-over righteous anger, and no acceptable targets left to vent it on. That way lies the bloodline ending feuds of greek tragedy and the like.

But Leverage says "No, actually you're right, that guy is absolutely terrible, he does need to be stopped and his victims should be awarded the catharsis of revenge." But then, instead of taking the easy way out of having Hardison siphon all the money out of their accounts, or sending Elliot over to their house with a baseball bat, they complicate the revenge plot. Instead of walking the easier path of the quick and unsatisfying revenge, they insist on poetic justice and dramatic irony and the complete and utter, very public destruction of the worst people in the world.

And the Leverage crew delivers that (sometimes with a side platter of a big pile of money). People keep coming to them because they keep delivering on what was asked for.

Even the actual revenge isn't just for the catharsis of revenge, but to stop them from hurting more people. I can think of at least two episodes where they switch gears in the middle of a con because they realize that the best way to stop a mark from hurting more people isn't to humiliate them, it's to help them.

how quickly she forgets about revi barid rex vistamp

Hello there. It’s good to see a friendly face. Almost took you for a spambot, I did. URL’s malcolm. malcolm-holmes. Don’t suppose you’d care to DM? I’m new to the fandom, and…oh, screw this. Lying just ain’t in my nature. I’ll tell it to you straight. I’ve been following your blog for a good bit now.

It started off innocently enough. I was scrolling, as I often do, and happened to observe you reblogging a problematic post. You didn’t show any reaction to it, so I figured you didn’t know what you’d put in your queue.

I had to make sure of your disposition. There’s a lot of jumpy folks out there that’d block a man as soon as talk to him. Now that we’re conversing, though, I can tell you what I know about the OP.

There’s old fandom discourse that says somewhere out there is a callout post from before the NSFW ban. That post you just reblogged, the discourse goes, is included in that callout.