Magificent Seven:ATF -- My Personal Canon
I had so much fun the other day with writing down my personal canon for the Magnificent Seven, things I believe are true and that form a background to my stories...most of the time...even though I know they're not necessarily supported by canon.
ATF is, of course, somewhat trickier for all of this because there isn't, technically, any canon at all for ATF. Also I've only written one ATF story (though I did enjoy the heck out of writing it).
I adore the universe though--both in specific (I would *so* love this show if it had ever existed) and in concept (a fan created universe with *so* much of it's own reality!). And I have a sense of the characters and situation, and they shape my interpretation of stories and my ponderings about the setting.
Before I get started on this, I'm going to be upfront about the fact that I've read maybe three or four gen stories, no het, and no slash stories that aren't C/V in this fandom. So that is, naturally, where my head is at. Just so you know.
♠ Vin is gay. He was gay in the OW, he's gay in ATF. It's just the way he is. It was part of why he wanted to leave both the Army and the US Marshals. (He was honorably discharged from the Army (so they didn't know), but he was being made increasingly uncomfortable because of it with the Marshals.)
♠ Unlike in the OW, I see ATF Chris as pretty securely bi. Not that I can't believe stories that say otherwise, but in ATF, much more than in OW, I believe that Chris and Buck quite possibly messed around when they were younger (before Sarah) and having a dry spell. (Though I admit to it being a bit difficult to picture Chris *or* Buck having a dry spell. :D)
♠ Buck is straighter than straight. Except that when he was younger and in a dry spell he'd "relax" (as he thought of it) with Chris. He has a fairly stable, erm, stable of girlfriends that he can call on for a date (though he doesn't hesitate to supplement that stable if he meets someone new). He's completely up-front and above-board with all of them about the relationships being very casual. He doesn't want to hurt anyone.
♠ Josiah is the only one who refers to Buck's women as his "harem". Buck wishes the others would pick it up, but it just makes Chris roll his eyes and Nathan snort in disgust.
♠ JD is a speed freak and loves just about anything that goes fast--cars, motor-cycles, speedboats. He'd love to learn to fly a jet too.
♠ Nathan and Raine are married in my ATF universe. She's a staff doctor at the hospital they generally get taken to when injured. She's not on the trauma team, but they still use her to get them information and keep them informed when one is in emergency.
♠ While in OW I can't believe that Ezra's interested in Vin, I *can* believe it in ATF. It's not reciprocated, Vin's only got eyes for Chris (well, and he thinks Matt Damon's got a great ass). Ezra's not pining for him, he's not the pining sort, but he is...attentive.
♠ Josiah spends much of his spare time volunteering at a home for trouble teens and runaways. The others help out there sometimes, when there are special events or activities that require more adults, all except Vin, who had a rough few months there when he was a teen. None of the current administration were there then and he doesn't blame them, he just avoids it. He also doesn't really want to deal with Josiah knowing he'd lived there for a while.
♠ Adam named Chris's horse "Pony" and that's why Chris will keep that horse and care for it until its dying day. (Yes, that's the same as in the OW.)
♠ After Sarah and Adam died, Chris thought of selling the ranch. Thought about it long and hard and had even gone so far as to list it for a few weeks. It was just too painful to walk through the house and feel the echoes of them. Smell hints of her perfume and Adam's grape kool-aid (his favorite because of the purple mustache). Sometimes it seemed like he could see them. He didn't because he wouldn't have had a place to keep Pony.
♠ He did almost totally redecorate though, getting in a professional to change it as much as possible, so he could sit in the living room and not look to her chair, walk through the dining room and not see the table she picked out. So the colors didn't remind him of her every single day. He's kept some mementos, kept them on display even--some of Adam's childish art is now framed and in his study, Sarah's favorite painting is over the fireplace.
♠ One of his treasures from Sarah is an antique bone handled Colt Peacemaker and its gunbelt in black leather with silver conchos. The leather is worn now, but he keeps the gun in perfect condition and the conchos shine. It hung on a the knob on the bed-stead until the first night Vin stayed at the ranch as more than a guest. Since then it's been hanging on a new peg on the mantel.
♠ There's a hot tub on the deck. (It's in every single story, it's pretty much canon anyway.)
♠ Vin's favorite beer is Bohemia. Chris's favorite beer is Budweiser, because it's not pretentious and he'd rather be drinking Jack Daniels anyway.
♠ Nathan is color-blind here too (blue-yellow only), and Raine has strictly limited his work wardrobe to black and charcoal grey suits and white, grey, and black shirts with colorful ties. Jeans and t-shirts for the weekends (since everything goes with jeans). She does not ever want a repeat of the day he wore a blue suit with a bright yellow shirt and a red tie to a meeting with the AD. (To him it looked like grey suit, grey shirt, red tie. To everyone else it looked *eye popping*.)
♠ Buck won't play video games with JD anymore, because JD always kicks his ass.
♠ Mary Travis *is* interested in Chris in this universe and thinks he would make a fine father to her son, but she's been convinced by his argument that it would be weird for him to get involved with his boss's daughter in law. It was Vin who thought that argument up, to give Chris a way to get her to back off.
♠ After yet another of Maude's visits, where she breezes in, makes a mess of things and then blithely drifts out in a cloud of jasmine perfume leaving him to pick up after her, Ezra wishes he were an orphan like Vin. It would be so much neater that way.
♠ Ezra *loves* undercover work. Not just because he's good at it, but because he loves trying on different personas.
♠ Vin is a big Dallas Cowboys fan, to Chris's amusement and bemusement.
♠ Nettie taught Vin in his GED class and was the one who caught that he's dyslexic.
♠ JD loves the camaraderie of living with Buck, even in the little room under the stairs. Loves the feeling of belonging he has with them. He's far more likely to put Casey off to spend an afternoon hanging out with the team than to put them off for her.
♠ JD and Casey were made for each other in this universe as well, but they're both taking the relationship kind of casually, seeing other people sometimes. They're young and don't know how fragile these things can be. Its actually possible that they won't wind out together, though if they don't neither of them will find anyone else they would have been as happy with.
♠ Vin keeps his apartment in Purgatorio, despite the fact that on his salary now he could afford far better, because it's his home, damn it. He's from that neighborhood, from that kind of life of violence and fear and avoiding the drugs and the gangs. He didn't stop being himself just because he started making more money. He'd feel out of place in a nice suburb in a house with a garage and a fence.
♠ Except that he doesn't feel out of place at the ranch or with Chris, and that confuses the hell out of him. And makes him cautious about proceeding with the relationship.
♠ Vin never did drugs, never even *tried* them, even when he was living on the street. He was savvy enough to know a dead end road when he saw one and he stayed off it, despite considerable pressure and temptation.
♠ I'll believe (and probably appreciate, being that sort of person) any sort of horrors from Vin's early life.
♠ Travis knows that Vin is gay and he suspects that Vin and Chris are involved. He's ignoring that latter problem, because if he ever *officially* knew about it, he'd have to move Vin to another team and he knows how badly that go over.
♠ Vin was trained as a sniper/sharpshooter in the Army, routed in that direction almost as soon as he had his first day on the rifle range. He saw action as a sniper in Somalia and tried to change his MOS as a result, but the Army wouldn't let him.
♠ When Chris was in the Navy he was a S.E.A.L.. Most people write him this way anyway, and it's a super hot notion. :D
♠ Buck *always*, every single time, uses a condom when he's with a woman. Even if she says she's on the pill, even if she says she's got a diaphragm. It's not that he's afraid of STDs (though that too, yeah), but he sees protection as a shared responsibility and will always keep up his end of that.
♠ Chris doesn't watch much TV, except sports and that mostly when the guys are over. When he has a quiet evening at home alone, he either catches up on some work he brought home or he reads. He's interested in the history of the American West and has quite a few books on the subject.
My goodness, I could apparently go on and on. But that will do. :D
ATF is, of course, somewhat trickier for all of this because there isn't, technically, any canon at all for ATF. Also I've only written one ATF story (though I did enjoy the heck out of writing it).
I adore the universe though--both in specific (I would *so* love this show if it had ever existed) and in concept (a fan created universe with *so* much of it's own reality!). And I have a sense of the characters and situation, and they shape my interpretation of stories and my ponderings about the setting.
Before I get started on this, I'm going to be upfront about the fact that I've read maybe three or four gen stories, no het, and no slash stories that aren't C/V in this fandom. So that is, naturally, where my head is at. Just so you know.
♠ Vin is gay. He was gay in the OW, he's gay in ATF. It's just the way he is. It was part of why he wanted to leave both the Army and the US Marshals. (He was honorably discharged from the Army (so they didn't know), but he was being made increasingly uncomfortable because of it with the Marshals.)
♠ Unlike in the OW, I see ATF Chris as pretty securely bi. Not that I can't believe stories that say otherwise, but in ATF, much more than in OW, I believe that Chris and Buck quite possibly messed around when they were younger (before Sarah) and having a dry spell. (Though I admit to it being a bit difficult to picture Chris *or* Buck having a dry spell. :D)
♠ Buck is straighter than straight. Except that when he was younger and in a dry spell he'd "relax" (as he thought of it) with Chris. He has a fairly stable, erm, stable of girlfriends that he can call on for a date (though he doesn't hesitate to supplement that stable if he meets someone new). He's completely up-front and above-board with all of them about the relationships being very casual. He doesn't want to hurt anyone.
♠ Josiah is the only one who refers to Buck's women as his "harem". Buck wishes the others would pick it up, but it just makes Chris roll his eyes and Nathan snort in disgust.
♠ JD is a speed freak and loves just about anything that goes fast--cars, motor-cycles, speedboats. He'd love to learn to fly a jet too.
♠ Nathan and Raine are married in my ATF universe. She's a staff doctor at the hospital they generally get taken to when injured. She's not on the trauma team, but they still use her to get them information and keep them informed when one is in emergency.
♠ While in OW I can't believe that Ezra's interested in Vin, I *can* believe it in ATF. It's not reciprocated, Vin's only got eyes for Chris (well, and he thinks Matt Damon's got a great ass). Ezra's not pining for him, he's not the pining sort, but he is...attentive.
♠ Josiah spends much of his spare time volunteering at a home for trouble teens and runaways. The others help out there sometimes, when there are special events or activities that require more adults, all except Vin, who had a rough few months there when he was a teen. None of the current administration were there then and he doesn't blame them, he just avoids it. He also doesn't really want to deal with Josiah knowing he'd lived there for a while.
♠ Adam named Chris's horse "Pony" and that's why Chris will keep that horse and care for it until its dying day. (Yes, that's the same as in the OW.)
♠ After Sarah and Adam died, Chris thought of selling the ranch. Thought about it long and hard and had even gone so far as to list it for a few weeks. It was just too painful to walk through the house and feel the echoes of them. Smell hints of her perfume and Adam's grape kool-aid (his favorite because of the purple mustache). Sometimes it seemed like he could see them. He didn't because he wouldn't have had a place to keep Pony.
♠ He did almost totally redecorate though, getting in a professional to change it as much as possible, so he could sit in the living room and not look to her chair, walk through the dining room and not see the table she picked out. So the colors didn't remind him of her every single day. He's kept some mementos, kept them on display even--some of Adam's childish art is now framed and in his study, Sarah's favorite painting is over the fireplace.
♠ One of his treasures from Sarah is an antique bone handled Colt Peacemaker and its gunbelt in black leather with silver conchos. The leather is worn now, but he keeps the gun in perfect condition and the conchos shine. It hung on a the knob on the bed-stead until the first night Vin stayed at the ranch as more than a guest. Since then it's been hanging on a new peg on the mantel.
♠ There's a hot tub on the deck. (It's in every single story, it's pretty much canon anyway.)
♠ Vin's favorite beer is Bohemia. Chris's favorite beer is Budweiser, because it's not pretentious and he'd rather be drinking Jack Daniels anyway.
♠ Nathan is color-blind here too (blue-yellow only), and Raine has strictly limited his work wardrobe to black and charcoal grey suits and white, grey, and black shirts with colorful ties. Jeans and t-shirts for the weekends (since everything goes with jeans). She does not ever want a repeat of the day he wore a blue suit with a bright yellow shirt and a red tie to a meeting with the AD. (To him it looked like grey suit, grey shirt, red tie. To everyone else it looked *eye popping*.)
♠ Buck won't play video games with JD anymore, because JD always kicks his ass.
♠ Mary Travis *is* interested in Chris in this universe and thinks he would make a fine father to her son, but she's been convinced by his argument that it would be weird for him to get involved with his boss's daughter in law. It was Vin who thought that argument up, to give Chris a way to get her to back off.
♠ After yet another of Maude's visits, where she breezes in, makes a mess of things and then blithely drifts out in a cloud of jasmine perfume leaving him to pick up after her, Ezra wishes he were an orphan like Vin. It would be so much neater that way.
♠ Ezra *loves* undercover work. Not just because he's good at it, but because he loves trying on different personas.
♠ Vin is a big Dallas Cowboys fan, to Chris's amusement and bemusement.
♠ Nettie taught Vin in his GED class and was the one who caught that he's dyslexic.
♠ JD loves the camaraderie of living with Buck, even in the little room under the stairs. Loves the feeling of belonging he has with them. He's far more likely to put Casey off to spend an afternoon hanging out with the team than to put them off for her.
♠ JD and Casey were made for each other in this universe as well, but they're both taking the relationship kind of casually, seeing other people sometimes. They're young and don't know how fragile these things can be. Its actually possible that they won't wind out together, though if they don't neither of them will find anyone else they would have been as happy with.
♠ Vin keeps his apartment in Purgatorio, despite the fact that on his salary now he could afford far better, because it's his home, damn it. He's from that neighborhood, from that kind of life of violence and fear and avoiding the drugs and the gangs. He didn't stop being himself just because he started making more money. He'd feel out of place in a nice suburb in a house with a garage and a fence.
♠ Except that he doesn't feel out of place at the ranch or with Chris, and that confuses the hell out of him. And makes him cautious about proceeding with the relationship.
♠ Vin never did drugs, never even *tried* them, even when he was living on the street. He was savvy enough to know a dead end road when he saw one and he stayed off it, despite considerable pressure and temptation.
♠ I'll believe (and probably appreciate, being that sort of person) any sort of horrors from Vin's early life.
♠ Travis knows that Vin is gay and he suspects that Vin and Chris are involved. He's ignoring that latter problem, because if he ever *officially* knew about it, he'd have to move Vin to another team and he knows how badly that go over.
♠ Vin was trained as a sniper/sharpshooter in the Army, routed in that direction almost as soon as he had his first day on the rifle range. He saw action as a sniper in Somalia and tried to change his MOS as a result, but the Army wouldn't let him.
♠ When Chris was in the Navy he was a S.E.A.L.. Most people write him this way anyway, and it's a super hot notion. :D
♠ Buck *always*, every single time, uses a condom when he's with a woman. Even if she says she's on the pill, even if she says she's got a diaphragm. It's not that he's afraid of STDs (though that too, yeah), but he sees protection as a shared responsibility and will always keep up his end of that.
♠ Chris doesn't watch much TV, except sports and that mostly when the guys are over. When he has a quiet evening at home alone, he either catches up on some work he brought home or he reads. He's interested in the history of the American West and has quite a few books on the subject.
My goodness, I could apparently go on and on. But that will do. :D