My Dog Speaks More Eloquently

commission art for upcoming book 'Call Me Traitor' by Everina Maxwell @avoliot

Incredibly delighted at this prerelease art! Could not have captured lesbian-winter-soldier vibe better! Realised I should probably add a plot summary but there is not room here so if you haven't seen it, here is the plot summary.

Bonus extract for under the cut (from approx two minutes later):

An idea I had for Blood of Eden propaganda/recruitment posters featuring some of our favorite guys - combo of digital-print cyberpunk graphic design style with oldschool Saturday Morning Post covers like you'd see Leyendecker paintings on

I was gonna post these ahead of tabling at a small con and selling prints of them but ended up not tabling because turns out grad school is hard

But building on this, the two directors of the PHM movie saw this read, prioritised it over Weir's intended read as both more accurate and more compelling, and built the movie around that read as a basis. Particularly striking to me is a moment from an interveiw about the movie's score. One of the directors says that, intially, they tried ominous and scary music to accompany Grace waking up on the ship, but it didn't feel right. So they instead alighted on a piece of music that said, in the director's words: "Poor thing. He's going to be alright. He just doesn't know it yet."

This quote is hugely important to me, because it underpins the dialogue between the book and the movie, and can almost be interpreted as a direct dialogue between Weir and the directors. Weir writes a book that says: here is the world. It rejects me, and I don't feel valued. I deserve better than this, and instead of examining why, I choose to externalise the blame. And the director, another man, but one with a more healthy mindset, looks at this worldveiw that Weir has presented to him and says "poor thing. you're going to be alright."

Now my brain always goes "they wake up in their younger selves one day" sort of thing because I just love the thought of the chaos these guys could get up to with all the knowledge they have

BUT

Nate would be so confused. He's the only non time traveler because he didn't get caught in whatever shenanigans caused it in the first place because, well, he's dead. Suddenly this team is weirdly close and cohesive. They were already speed running this found family but its now somehow worse???? And ohhhhh the angst potential.

THE ANGST

Because here is the love of Sophie's life (but he's not really her Nate at this point is he?) - the man she loved and lost and mourned. She had just begun to really find her way with the grief and there he is again. But this Nate has yet to become that Nate, and if the team changes things - hits certain targets sooner, or differently, would he ever really be her Nate again?

Would he be the Nate that pulled together the original crew? Who's legacy created Leverage International and has impacted more lives than he could ever possibly know?

Because it was Nate that taught them they could be more than they ever believed. That taught them the skills they learned to hurt could be used to help. That they could forge their own path in the world, and it could be so so different from what they thought it could.

(It was Nate that brought together Elliot, Parker and Hardison together. Helped them heal, got them to lean on each other. Support each other. Learn how to ask each other for help - even of they never say the actual words).

Sophie, Parker, Hardison and Elliot would have all this history that Nate is now missing. They would be around this man who was foundational in who they became, and he would know none of it.

Notes from a scholar who found a talking castle, then tried in vain to map a way out of it…