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ship_manifestoPoker and Prophets
An Ezra/Josiah Manifesto
Being the incomplete history of impromptu lawmen Ezra Standish and Josiah Sanchez from The Magnificent Seven television series, and the reasons why the author has long imagined them riding off into the sunset together.
The Magnificent Seven
“Yet was it the end, or would Chris Larabee ride again with the hard, complex men he'd come to know? Gunmen like Buck Wilmington and Vin Tanner, the bounty hunter with the price on his own head. The gambler Ezra or the greenhorn JD; Nathan, both healer and destroyer, and Josiah, placing his faith only in God and his gun.”
--The Magnificent Seven by Jock Steele
The Magnificent Seven television series ran for two seasons in 1998 and 1999, and was loosely adapted from the film of the same name. The premise saw seven men with little to lose brought together to protect a Seminole town from a group of Confederate soldiers gone rogue. The seven stayed together as hired lawmen for the area, facing both threats to the townspeople and ghosts from their own pasts.
The writing quality on the show varied, sometimes resulting in poorly-matched A and B plots or a failure to find a balance between grit and humour, progressivism and historical accuracy. The main characters, however, never failed to be interesting and compelling, and the underlying theme of found family was sure to make it a fandom favourite.
The show was cancelled before its time, leaving many questions unanswered, but it had the good fortune to go out on several strong episodes, and the unresolved storylines are still being speculated upon in fanfiction today.
The complete series is currently available on DVD.
The Gambler
“Well, sir ... I abhor gambling, and as such, leave nothing to chance.”
--Ezra Standish
The reason the story of the seven transferred so well from a samurai film (The Seven Samurai), to a film western, to a television western, and why its fandom features so many alternate universes, is that the characters are archetypes at heart. The reason the television series developed such a strong following, however, is that these archetypal characters are never once two-dimensional or predictable.
Ezra is about as much a gambler as a stage conjurer is a wizard; he makes money playing poker, but he certainly doesn't leave his fate up to the deck. He learned the confidence trade under his mother, Maude, with whom he has a fraught but essentially loving relationship. He is known to have used aliases and to have at least one warrant out for his arrest. Ezra speaks with a strong but unidentifiable Southern accent, and has travelled widely across the United States. He boasts an impressive vocabulary and is occasionally seen reading, but the extent of his formal education is dubious, given that he was frequently moved between relatives as a child.
Perhaps the most morally ambiguous of the seven, Ezra begins to face up to his own prejudices, cowardice, and greed as the series unfolds. His is not an easy redemption, but from early on he reveals a desire to be a better person and to lead a more settled life. By the end of the series, he's still no saint, but has at least reached a place where he struggles with temptation instead of inviting it home for dinner.
Ezra was played by Anthony Starke.
The Preacher
“I'm a spiritual man. Sometimes I turn to the wrong kinds of spirits.”
--Josiah Sanchez
Like Ezra, Josiah cannot be adequately summed up by his moniker. While he was once a priest (his denomination and reason for defrocking are never revealed), he spends most of the series as a lost lamb rather than a shepherd. We learn that he's had problems in the past "turning the other cheek," and that he's no stranger to killing people. When he is accused of murdering a local woman, there are those who believe it of him. He has devoted himself to paying penance by protecting the town and rebuilding the local church, but is often hindered by his temper and his fondness for the bottle.
Josiah grew up the son of a missionary but broke ties with his abusive and now-deceased father long ago. He supports a mentally ill sister, Hannah, who is taken care of at a convent, but little else is known about his family. He spent time in San Francisco, and in India. He is interested in spiritual paths other than Christianity, and as a young man spent two years studying under a Cherokee holy man.
However, Josiah is as earthy as he is spiritual. He likes a good drink, a good game of cards, and a good book. He flirts, has a healthy view of sex, and has a tendency to throw himself into being in love at the drop of a hat (including a brief infatuation with Ezra's mother).
Josiah was played by Ron Perlman.
The Dynamic (Why I Write Them)
"Well, well, a sense of humor. I look forward to many lively conversations."
--Ezra Standish
'Dynamic' is a word that comes up often in this fandom. While individuals might have their one true pairings or one true platonic relationships, the seven protagonists interact with each other and with the supporting characters in ways that lend to all sorts of interpretations. The wonderful thing about The Magnificent Seven is that no matter what kind of chemistry you prefer, there is likely a pairing that provides it.
I discovered this fandom in 1998, which was early in my fannish endeavours, so I can't say for certain whether Ezra/Josiah set the tone for my later preferences or just happened to be what I didn't even know I was looking for. Either way, I have a 'type'. I like intelligent, capable, but sometimes self-defeating characters; I like it when the characters contrast sharply but ultimately complement each other; and I like a relationship complex enough that it can be written happily or unhappily in equal measure.
Ezra and Josiah as individuals both interest me greatly, and for that alone I might have been tempted to write them together, but the way they interact both in canon and subtextually seals it. There is, of course, the delicious contrast between a man of the cloth and a professional sinner (with the added twist of the liar and cheat sometimes behaving more morally than the preacher), and between Josiah's humble presentation and Ezra's flash fashion and five-dollar patter. While the show doesn't focus much on the men's down time, it's clear Ezra and Josiah often enjoy each other's company between adventures, and one can only imagine what sort of conversations they might hold with their differing philosophies, shared worldliness, and matching baggage of dysfunctional families and control issues.
My deep and abiding love for this pairing, however, was sparked by a single thing: Ezra finds Josiah funny. It's so rare to see people laughing at each other's jokes on television, and Ezra's appreciation for Josiah's (often bad) jokes charms me to no end. The very first time they meet, Ezra proclaims to like Josiah after a bit of the latter's dry humour, and thereafter, he can reliably be seen cracking up whenever Josiah cracks wise.
Despite their occasional clashes, the two seem just plain happy to be around each other, and that's what's kept me coming back to them when other fandoms give me unhappy endings.
The Subtext (Why I Ship Them)
“I am the serpent, Ezra. And this is the apple. Take a bite.”
--Josiah Sanchez
This is a subtly different topic than that addressed above. The Magnificent Seven fandom is wonderfully diverse in that it's one of the few with very strong het, slash, and gen representations. While the relationship between Ezra and Josiah has been noted by those in all three camps, it is often presented as a father/son relationship.
There are likely several reasons for this. Some authors simply prefer to interpret the chemistry between the seven as familial rather than sexual, and stories mimicking family dynamics or casting the seven as a literal family are common. The age difference between the two characters may also contribute; the actors are thirteen years apart, and Josiah is attracted to Ezra's mother (but then, so is another member of the seven closer to Ezra's age). As well, Josiah isn't as conventional in his attractiveness as the rest of the seven, and simply isn't written about in a sexual sense as often as some of the other characters.
So why ship these two? I present my own reasons:
1) I personally don't feel the paternal vibe. While I'm a big fan of the emotional and physical aesthetics of a well-done May/December pairing, I think that fanon often presents Josiah as a much more mature figure than canon does. While he's sometimes approached for advice, he's a flawed man, prone to capriciousness, and seems to rely on the others' steadying influence more than they rely on his. To me, it seems he is more inclined to divine madness than he is religious authority.
2) Ezra certainly has moments of being coded as queer. He's given stick for his graceful ways and fashion sense, he's been known to crossdress, and he plays the charmer with men quite a bit more often than he does with women. Josiah, for his part, has always struck me as a Whitman-esque bisexual—at the very least, a man who is well-aware of cultural relativity, knows his ancient Greek literature, and would try anything once.
3) The subtext, of course. Josiah professes himself in love twice in the series, and both times it is with someone very much like Ezra (one time, as mentioned, being Ezra's own mother). He has a type, and it calls for brash, fashionable performers. There is a recurring theme of nudity and clothing in both characters' arcs, related perhaps to the idea of identity, but also accompanied by inarguably intimate connotations. Early on, Josiah informs Ezra—who is a 24-hour performance piece, and soon to disguise himself as a woman (or, arguably, a female impersonator)—that things always look better in their natural state. A matching bookend at the end of the series, the line quoted above occurs in a scene in which Josiah angrily urges Ezra to give into the temptation he himself feels (so that Ezra too can know himself to be naked and ashamed).
This is perhaps one of the most versatile pairings I've found myself partial to. There can be old testament guilt and recriminations, or there can be modern joie de vivre. There can be sin or there can be the divine. There can be lively philosophical debate or a rough roll in the hay, poetry or pornography, historical angst or happily ever afters.
I've written many pairings since this one, but no matter what, I always find myself coming back to a closed canon where the possibilities are still endless, and where a flockless preacher and a half-honest conman are sharing a drink.
Resources
The Josiah Sanchez/Ezra Standish Tag on AO3: *cough* 95% my own work at the moment, but it's a great place to keep an eye on as the archive expands, and the other 5% (aka About Last Night by QDS) is absolutely worth checking out.
Blackraptor Adult Fan Fiction Archive: Requires an age statement, but responses should be prompt, and the Ezra/Josiah page currently hosts 48 stories.
The Ezra/Josiah Tag on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
mag7_fic: Again, embarrassingly, mostly my own work at the moment, but it's an active comm worth following.
The Wicked and the Righteous YahooGroup: Mostly inactive these days, but just waiting for a revival, and full of older stories and discussions.
If anyone has communities or stories to rec, please comment!
And now, to play us out, because it's just so catchy...
An Ezra/Josiah Manifesto
Being the incomplete history of impromptu lawmen Ezra Standish and Josiah Sanchez from The Magnificent Seven television series, and the reasons why the author has long imagined them riding off into the sunset together.
The Magnificent Seven
“Yet was it the end, or would Chris Larabee ride again with the hard, complex men he'd come to know? Gunmen like Buck Wilmington and Vin Tanner, the bounty hunter with the price on his own head. The gambler Ezra or the greenhorn JD; Nathan, both healer and destroyer, and Josiah, placing his faith only in God and his gun.”
--The Magnificent Seven by Jock Steele
The Magnificent Seven television series ran for two seasons in 1998 and 1999, and was loosely adapted from the film of the same name. The premise saw seven men with little to lose brought together to protect a Seminole town from a group of Confederate soldiers gone rogue. The seven stayed together as hired lawmen for the area, facing both threats to the townspeople and ghosts from their own pasts.
The writing quality on the show varied, sometimes resulting in poorly-matched A and B plots or a failure to find a balance between grit and humour, progressivism and historical accuracy. The main characters, however, never failed to be interesting and compelling, and the underlying theme of found family was sure to make it a fandom favourite.
The show was cancelled before its time, leaving many questions unanswered, but it had the good fortune to go out on several strong episodes, and the unresolved storylines are still being speculated upon in fanfiction today.
The complete series is currently available on DVD.
The Gambler
“Well, sir ... I abhor gambling, and as such, leave nothing to chance.”
--Ezra Standish
The reason the story of the seven transferred so well from a samurai film (The Seven Samurai), to a film western, to a television western, and why its fandom features so many alternate universes, is that the characters are archetypes at heart. The reason the television series developed such a strong following, however, is that these archetypal characters are never once two-dimensional or predictable.
Ezra is about as much a gambler as a stage conjurer is a wizard; he makes money playing poker, but he certainly doesn't leave his fate up to the deck. He learned the confidence trade under his mother, Maude, with whom he has a fraught but essentially loving relationship. He is known to have used aliases and to have at least one warrant out for his arrest. Ezra speaks with a strong but unidentifiable Southern accent, and has travelled widely across the United States. He boasts an impressive vocabulary and is occasionally seen reading, but the extent of his formal education is dubious, given that he was frequently moved between relatives as a child.
Perhaps the most morally ambiguous of the seven, Ezra begins to face up to his own prejudices, cowardice, and greed as the series unfolds. His is not an easy redemption, but from early on he reveals a desire to be a better person and to lead a more settled life. By the end of the series, he's still no saint, but has at least reached a place where he struggles with temptation instead of inviting it home for dinner.
Ezra was played by Anthony Starke.
The Preacher
“I'm a spiritual man. Sometimes I turn to the wrong kinds of spirits.”
--Josiah Sanchez
Like Ezra, Josiah cannot be adequately summed up by his moniker. While he was once a priest (his denomination and reason for defrocking are never revealed), he spends most of the series as a lost lamb rather than a shepherd. We learn that he's had problems in the past "turning the other cheek," and that he's no stranger to killing people. When he is accused of murdering a local woman, there are those who believe it of him. He has devoted himself to paying penance by protecting the town and rebuilding the local church, but is often hindered by his temper and his fondness for the bottle.
Josiah grew up the son of a missionary but broke ties with his abusive and now-deceased father long ago. He supports a mentally ill sister, Hannah, who is taken care of at a convent, but little else is known about his family. He spent time in San Francisco, and in India. He is interested in spiritual paths other than Christianity, and as a young man spent two years studying under a Cherokee holy man.
However, Josiah is as earthy as he is spiritual. He likes a good drink, a good game of cards, and a good book. He flirts, has a healthy view of sex, and has a tendency to throw himself into being in love at the drop of a hat (including a brief infatuation with Ezra's mother).
Josiah was played by Ron Perlman.
The Dynamic (Why I Write Them)
"Well, well, a sense of humor. I look forward to many lively conversations."
--Ezra Standish
'Dynamic' is a word that comes up often in this fandom. While individuals might have their one true pairings or one true platonic relationships, the seven protagonists interact with each other and with the supporting characters in ways that lend to all sorts of interpretations. The wonderful thing about The Magnificent Seven is that no matter what kind of chemistry you prefer, there is likely a pairing that provides it.
I discovered this fandom in 1998, which was early in my fannish endeavours, so I can't say for certain whether Ezra/Josiah set the tone for my later preferences or just happened to be what I didn't even know I was looking for. Either way, I have a 'type'. I like intelligent, capable, but sometimes self-defeating characters; I like it when the characters contrast sharply but ultimately complement each other; and I like a relationship complex enough that it can be written happily or unhappily in equal measure.
Ezra and Josiah as individuals both interest me greatly, and for that alone I might have been tempted to write them together, but the way they interact both in canon and subtextually seals it. There is, of course, the delicious contrast between a man of the cloth and a professional sinner (with the added twist of the liar and cheat sometimes behaving more morally than the preacher), and between Josiah's humble presentation and Ezra's flash fashion and five-dollar patter. While the show doesn't focus much on the men's down time, it's clear Ezra and Josiah often enjoy each other's company between adventures, and one can only imagine what sort of conversations they might hold with their differing philosophies, shared worldliness, and matching baggage of dysfunctional families and control issues.
My deep and abiding love for this pairing, however, was sparked by a single thing: Ezra finds Josiah funny. It's so rare to see people laughing at each other's jokes on television, and Ezra's appreciation for Josiah's (often bad) jokes charms me to no end. The very first time they meet, Ezra proclaims to like Josiah after a bit of the latter's dry humour, and thereafter, he can reliably be seen cracking up whenever Josiah cracks wise.
Despite their occasional clashes, the two seem just plain happy to be around each other, and that's what's kept me coming back to them when other fandoms give me unhappy endings.
The Subtext (Why I Ship Them)
“I am the serpent, Ezra. And this is the apple. Take a bite.”
--Josiah Sanchez
This is a subtly different topic than that addressed above. The Magnificent Seven fandom is wonderfully diverse in that it's one of the few with very strong het, slash, and gen representations. While the relationship between Ezra and Josiah has been noted by those in all three camps, it is often presented as a father/son relationship.
There are likely several reasons for this. Some authors simply prefer to interpret the chemistry between the seven as familial rather than sexual, and stories mimicking family dynamics or casting the seven as a literal family are common. The age difference between the two characters may also contribute; the actors are thirteen years apart, and Josiah is attracted to Ezra's mother (but then, so is another member of the seven closer to Ezra's age). As well, Josiah isn't as conventional in his attractiveness as the rest of the seven, and simply isn't written about in a sexual sense as often as some of the other characters.
So why ship these two? I present my own reasons:
1) I personally don't feel the paternal vibe. While I'm a big fan of the emotional and physical aesthetics of a well-done May/December pairing, I think that fanon often presents Josiah as a much more mature figure than canon does. While he's sometimes approached for advice, he's a flawed man, prone to capriciousness, and seems to rely on the others' steadying influence more than they rely on his. To me, it seems he is more inclined to divine madness than he is religious authority.
2) Ezra certainly has moments of being coded as queer. He's given stick for his graceful ways and fashion sense, he's been known to crossdress, and he plays the charmer with men quite a bit more often than he does with women. Josiah, for his part, has always struck me as a Whitman-esque bisexual—at the very least, a man who is well-aware of cultural relativity, knows his ancient Greek literature, and would try anything once.
3) The subtext, of course. Josiah professes himself in love twice in the series, and both times it is with someone very much like Ezra (one time, as mentioned, being Ezra's own mother). He has a type, and it calls for brash, fashionable performers. There is a recurring theme of nudity and clothing in both characters' arcs, related perhaps to the idea of identity, but also accompanied by inarguably intimate connotations. Early on, Josiah informs Ezra—who is a 24-hour performance piece, and soon to disguise himself as a woman (or, arguably, a female impersonator)—that things always look better in their natural state. A matching bookend at the end of the series, the line quoted above occurs in a scene in which Josiah angrily urges Ezra to give into the temptation he himself feels (so that Ezra too can know himself to be naked and ashamed).
This is perhaps one of the most versatile pairings I've found myself partial to. There can be old testament guilt and recriminations, or there can be modern joie de vivre. There can be sin or there can be the divine. There can be lively philosophical debate or a rough roll in the hay, poetry or pornography, historical angst or happily ever afters.
I've written many pairings since this one, but no matter what, I always find myself coming back to a closed canon where the possibilities are still endless, and where a flockless preacher and a half-honest conman are sharing a drink.
Resources
The Josiah Sanchez/Ezra Standish Tag on AO3: *cough* 95% my own work at the moment, but it's a great place to keep an eye on as the archive expands, and the other 5% (aka About Last Night by QDS) is absolutely worth checking out.
Blackraptor Adult Fan Fiction Archive: Requires an age statement, but responses should be prompt, and the Ezra/Josiah page currently hosts 48 stories.
The Ezra/Josiah Tag on
mag7_fic: Again, embarrassingly, mostly my own work at the moment, but it's an active comm worth following.The Wicked and the Righteous YahooGroup: Mostly inactive these days, but just waiting for a revival, and full of older stories and discussions.
If anyone has communities or stories to rec, please comment!
And now, to play us out, because it's just so catchy...
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