self-compassion: an antidote to shame mb

there are probably documentaries in-universe about all the various crimes committed by the Leverage crew from before they got together and it fucking sucks that I can't watch any of them

the great train job

honestly infinite love and kudos to authors who write in non-traditional prose formats. When I open a fic and I see the whole thing is formatted like, I don't know, developer logs, I sit down and I lock in. I once saw a fic that was a logic puzzle. That's awesome! Or formatted like a website!

Anyway, I love AO3 authors forever

one more year until people stop dying

Wonderful color photographs of London taken on Kodachrome by Chalmers Butterfield, circa 1949.

Sometimes it feels like the most amazing thing about Leverage is the number of fans who just... Pay attention to the episode names? Know the names of the various jobs/episodes off the top of their heads? I have watched this series all the way through probably at least 3 times over the years (though, granted, at least one of those times my brain wasn't in it because of RL stuff) but I can't even do an edit of that one xkcd comic about this phenomenon because I only know the names of TWO of the episodes, and I'd need to know at least three episode names to edit the comic.

What I'm saying is y'all could write a post about idk The Sunny Delight Job or The Hedgehog Job or something and I would fully believe that was an actual episode name. I would not question it.

I think one of the big strengths of fanfiction as a medium is that it can, on average, assume the reader has a way higher degree of familiarity with canon than like…canon can. If you’re in the Star Wars AO3 tag you probably like Star Wars enough to remember more things about it than the average Star Wars-enjoying-ten-year-old. Which makes it way easier for fanwriter a to get to the juicy stuff and really engage with the worldbuilding or minor characters without having to spell out like. Who Wedge Antilles is for everyone who forgot or never noticed him in the first place. You could write a book about Wedge in the old EU because EU readers could also be assumed to be serious fans, but you can’t make a new canon Disney+ show about him. Those cost money to make and are intended for a broader audience.

And all this means that like. A good fic writer can and often will surpass canon when it comes to like. Thematic resonance and stuff, because they can really dig into something. Star Trek 2009 gave Kirk a new, more generic tragic backstory because it couldn’t expect the average moviegoer to be familiar with Kirk’s old, way more interesting tragic backstory. (Frankly, I’m not sure jj abrams knew about TOS Kirk’s backstory) whereas I have read a LOT of well-written, interesting, deeply resonant fanfic examinations of Tarsus IV, and what it means for Kirk’s character that he’s a genocide survivor. Star Trek 2009 answers the question “why did Kirk cheat on the kobayashi maru?” With “‘cause his dad crashed a spaceship when he was a baby.” A close examination of TOS canon implies the answer is “because he lived through a real-life Kobayashi that did have a win option, but which wasn’t taken.” BUT—and this is significant—even the TOS canon movies can’t really assume knowledge of the full TOS tv show, so that implication is never examined or made explicit. Instead it’s fanfic (and maybe spin off novels? Idk I’ve only read 2 trek books, if there’s one out there that covers this that would be really cool) where we get dives into that thread, where Kirk gets a commendation for original thinking because he can look a testing board in the eye and say “I’ve seen what happens when someone is entrenched in this kind of thinking, and I cannot let it happen to me. I understand the lesson, but it’s not hypothetical anymore and it never will be. I did what I had to do.” And that’s interesting! That’s meaningful! That can’t happen in a summer blockbuster. But it can happen in fic, easily, and that’s a strength of fic, I think.

I hope you don't mind me adding to this very good post, but in general i think the financial supremecy of movies and (more recently) tv has lead a lot of people to assume that the best stories can be interchanged between mediums. That every book can be adapted into a movie, every light novel into an anime, every movie into a video game etc etc

and that's the same attitude that underlies all the 'the goal of fanfic is to file of the serial numbers and publish it' or 'fanfic isn't real writing because real writing is novels and fanfic is usually structurally so different from a novel' type of takes come from.

this assumption that the medium is largely coincidental to the story being told

when that's just not true.

the very best adaptations always change things, because mediums are not interchangeable, and they fundamentally shape the stories told in them.

there are things you can do in fanfic that are simply not possible in a traditional novel, because you're starting from that possition of love and knowledge, and because you aren't bound by the need to be canon compliant, so you can ask questions like 'if these characters met in other lives, under different circumstances, what would they be like? how different would they be? how much of what makes them them is tied to the circumstances they found themselves in?' or 'what was it like to not be the heroes, to not be actively involved in the cool exciting bits? what was it like to be a minor character, left behind to deal with the consequences' because your audience is already invested, they'll show up for questions like that in a way a movie or novel or tv audience wouldn't.

there are things you can do in a podcast or radio play that are not possible in visual mediums like film or tv, because you're relying on the audiences imagination. there's a reason the best radio comedy tends to be surreal, and the best podcasts tend to be horror, those are both genres that thrive when the audience's imagination is allowed to fill in blanks.

there are things you can do on TV that are not possible in a novel or a movie. the way WandaVision completely changed its visual style with each episode is something that would not work in any other genre, but it's essential to the story. TV usually exists in very defined seasons, but cannot traditionally be consumed all in one go, which is not true of almost any other medium, and that dictates a specific type of pacing. combine that with the fact that it's a visual medium, and you get something like the overarching stories of the 9th Doctor's season of Doctor Who. No other medium could have delivered the resolution to that storyline as effectively.

Video games can force the audience to consider their own part in events. No movie could do what Spec Ops did, when it gives you a button prompt to commit a war crime, and then turns around and asks you why? why did you do that? was it too easy? do you think it felt like this when the US government committed the exact same war crime within living memory? Was it easy then too? A novel or a movie could show you walker doing this terrible thing, but it could never convey the point with the same effective simplicity, and it could never make you the audience feel culpable. only the author is responsible for the actions of the characters in a novel, but in a game, it's the audience who bears that responsibility, and that allows for moral questions other mediums struggle to effectively convey.

Comics can tell stories that take three decades and ten different writers to tell. Movies can use silence more effectively than any other medium because cinemas give you a captive audience and close-ups means you can reliably assume they can see everything that's happening (unlike theatre, which can use silence, but can't assume everyone has a good view). Theatre provides real time audience interactivity and a very special and unique kind of suspension of disbelief. Professional wrestling can tell ongoing stories in real time over years or decades, and walk the line between fiction and reality. Novels can immerse you more fully in one person's view of the world than any other medium (which also allows for information to be hidden from the reader without it feeling cheap the way it can when a movie does the same thing). Live oral storytelling allows the story to be adapted on the fly to fit audience reactions, allows for infinite variations of the same story, because no two tellings will ever be identical.

Fanfic isn't a genre, not really. Fanfic has genres, but it isn't a genre in and of itself. Fanfic is a medium, and like all mediums, it offers storytelling tools that are unique to it, that it does better than any other medium. and as OP pointed out, one of the big ones is that it can assume both familiarity and love from the audience to the characters depicted. We can stray far further afield from where we started in fanfic than the original creator ever could, because our anchors are not the narrative, but the characters.

The completed version of The Emerald of the Caribbean Job (the untold story of what really went down leading up to "The Cross My Heart Job") is finally up on AO3 :)

every friend group has:

i don’t know quite how to explain it, but i feel like the Leverage series and the Knives Out movies exist in the same type of universe. where things are still bad, injustice and cruelty and death still happen like in the Real World… but it’s somehow also a Slightly Brighter World. mostly because people are generally rewarded for doing the right thing, and the story ends on a relatively hopeful note. terrible things happen and yet you leave the show feeling encouraged, less resigned to fate. like you do have a choice in life to make your own world slightly brighter.

and also because life is just a little bit goofier in these stories. there’s a playful self-awareness of genre that i love. e.g. all vents can be crawled through and doing gymnastics through visible lasers is essential because this is a Heist Show. and killers use novels as a blueprint to stage a locked room murder because this is a Murder Mystery. common tropes are lampshaded and toyed with, seminal works in the genre are referenced and paid homage to. technically there’s a lot of differences between the two series, but i feel that i like them both for many of the same reasons, if that makes sense.

Day 1 of Jewnuary!

Prompt: "stars"

@jewsinfandoms

~~~

The wind outside howled like terror as a man strode into the saloon. Too dark to see his face— a bowler brim’s sloughed shadow obscured it anyway— but the metal badge on his chest, that six-pointed star, could only mean one thing. Naomi did not turn, but she did slide her eyes in the direction of the door.

She knew she was in no danger. The staff was paid to keep their mouths shut, and no sheriff would harm a lady anyhow. But the stiffness in her shoulders betrayed her.

The man eased himself onto a stool at the bar next to her and ordered a whiskey to match her own, one-third empty in front of her. Then he turned to her with a nod. “It’s quite late for a lady like yourself to be making an appearance in such a… disreputable establishment. Why, the mezuzah outside’s leaning like a drunkard, if you’ll pardon my saying so. Now if you’d indulge my curiosity, I’m itching to know what brings a woman like you to a place like this.”

She cut a glance to the side. He was a large man with a beard and an earnest face. But that star… “Just here for a drink,” she said cautiously. “And what about you?”

He bobbed his head. “Just a drink at the local watering hole. That’s quite a dress.”

It was. Sleeker than the modern style, with enough ruffles to make up for it, it showed off shoulders and chest alike. There was, she thought, something intimidating about a dress that had the chutzpah to distract men while concealing a number of pistols in its skirts.

“Why, thank you, though I daresay it’s not my typical style. You’d usually find me wearing something much more… modest.”

The sheriff chuckled, and a warm flush shot through her bare skin. “Modest, eh? You sure do seem like the type.”

“Indeed,” she said lightly, the corner of her mouth lifting. “Now, I don’t recall you telling me your name?”

“Isaac,” he answered, sweeping off his bowler hat. His face, though bearded, seemed to lack any trace of sternness or worry. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Naomi,” she said. “And the pleasure is mine. I don’t suppose you’re a long way from home, then, Isaac?”

“Not nearly so long as you might expect. I’ve been assigned to the sheriff’s office out here.”

“I thought,” began Naomi, nonchalantly, “we already had a sheriff.”

“That you did, ‘til a gruesome fellow known as the Beggar put a hole in his skull.”

“Ah.” Naomi delicately bit her lip to suppress a grimace, remembering her finger falling from the trigger, and all that blood leaking into the desert sand. She shifted her skirt ever so slightly to conceal the folded-up pocket where she kept her lucky six-shooter. “I do hope you found him and locked him up.”

Isaac’s eyes hardened. “If there’s one thing I’m not known for,” he said, “it’s failure. We’ll find him, Naomi. Believe me. This star—” Here he paused to tap the badge pinned to his coat. “It isn’t just for show. I’m here to help. To protect. Pikuach nefesh. It’s something I keep, well, close to my heart. Until the town is safe, it’s a good bet I won’t be sleeping at night.”

Naomi met his eyes— deep brown, echoes of desert sand. She thought, I’ll have to watch out for him. Better to keep him close.

“Then I know I, for one, will sleep better with you around,” she declared, and the profound, dark-edged smile Isaac gave her was enough to make her grin in return.

Who? Hey, Shane, you really need to keep your eyes open, OK?