the magicians is coming!

For those wondering: cookies were made!

For those that weren't wondering or even knew this was a subject (everyone): The Magicians. We're a month away from season four and it's time to navel gaze. Not much though, as I'm still recovering from Eliot's latest pic of looking like an ironically emo heroin addicted hipster. His eyeliner alone....

Right. If you have not seen it, it's on Netflix and you really need to see it.

Short version: first seven episodes, you may get into it despite this or hate it because of these two things (probably other stuff, but these were my "if Eliot wasn't so hot I'd be out of here...Eliot's breathing again nm". No spoilers but food for thought if you go.

1.) You're going to keep getting distracted by obvious plotholes.

They aren't plotholes.

2.) You feel like you missed some crucial scenes that should connect some of this.

You didn't; see 1.



It still is pathetically a shock to me for a show--ANY SHOW--to have not 'plotline involving serious mental illness let us discuss for forty five minutes and forget' but "show in which mental illness is part of life and weaves in and out of the plot but never actually goes away and will be back". It has all the shitty ways you cope and all the ways it fucks you up and how you don't get over it you just live with it and sometimes it's better and sometimes its worse and sometimes it's almost like it's not even there and sometimes you're know you're about one bad morning from jumping off a bridge.

I'm not arguing this is the best handling of mental illness in episodic TV because I'm honestly not sure if any other show' done this. It created multiple characters with mental illness who react differently and on a range of coping/not coping/feeling even if they have the same type of mental illness. Like maybe each person is differnet? So how they experience and cope is different? YOU DON'T SAY?




First season involves one incident of rape. It's not graphic, but its upsetting as fuck. The show goes out of its way to strip out any hint that this is anything other than horrific and follows up with the physical and emotional aftermath without blinking. This will also be a continuing plotline including the character's ongoing PTSD and depression as a result.

It does not forward any man's plotline, it is not an excuse for personal growth or finding yourself, and it's the catalyst for things to really get shitty.


ETA: Comments include more of trigger above.

Comments

Re: trigger warning for rape

[kore]

THAT WAS THE BEST YES. Margo looks amazing -- the costumes for the show are generally great. And not just the opulent royal stuff either. The little actress who plays Alice is kind of, well, buxom, and yet I think all of her outfits are flattering but not "here are my tits, the producers thought you should be thinking about them in all my scenes."

Kady and Penny are my heart's OTP. I love how they were all "we're just banging, we're so cynical, love is for children, we know the rules of the game" and underneath they would just do anything for each other. Really the show has a lot of setups that are so poorly done a lot of the time -- Quentin and Julia, Eliot and Margo, Fen and Eliot -- and makes them work. (I am really not sold on Quentin and Alice. BECAUSE QUENTIN/ELIOT)

Re: trigger warning for rape

[seperis]

Alice, yes! And yeah, she's definitely buxom but it's not something you really get much of a chance to pay attention to because she dresses to be left alone--not be invisible but avoid focus--and backs it up with hostility. Even when you said that, I had to think to remember she's very curvy, because her outfits are high necked or very angular and precise (straight A-line skirts, ruthlessly straight hair, stiff movements, her ultra-straight back, her pitiless marching walk) that she gives a hard impression of long and lean and she's--not.

Kady and Penny are my heart's OTP. I love how they were all "we're just banging, we're so cynical, love is for children, we know the rules of the game" and underneath they would just do anything for each other. Really the show has a lot of setups that are so poorly done a lot of the time -- Quentin and Julia, Eliot and Margo, Fen and Eliot -- and makes them work. (I am really not sold on Quentin and Alice. BECAUSE QUENTIN/ELIOT)

Quentin/Eliot/(Margot) - I mean, yes I do Quentin/Eliot all the time (All. The. Time) but it's actually difficult to me not to see Margot around in at least a semi-committed capacity (with medium-term secondaries and casuals).

I have so many feelings on this and I never thought I would go this hard on an OT3 to want to do defenses, but this is my world now. Eliot and Margo are so intensely committed to each other that the only space anyone would have with either of them is romantic/sexual (aka the 'hot' part of a relationship) and I just can't see anyone able to deal with being a very distant secondary to that in the long term.

Except Quentin, who they both bonded to ultra-fast, so he'd never be 'outside' anything and like, they buy a glorious condo and sometimes Margot lives part time with her secondary but not so often the kids don't feel stable and loved because work from home Daddy Eliot thought alll this shit out before the commitment ceremony including regular relationship check-ins and mandatory date nights and frequent weekend getaways as they both know Quentin needs regular attention and explicit reassurance from both of them both together and separately, Margot needs to know they're all still first in each others lives, Eliot needs a strong, stable, loving family around him....yeah, what were we talking about?

Re: trigger warning for rape

[dar_vidder]

Quentin/Eliot/(Margot) - I mean, yes I do Quentin/Eliot all the time (All. The. Time) but it's actually difficult to me not to see Margot around in at least a semi-committed capacity (with medium-term secondaries and casuals).

I have so many feelings on this and I never thought I would go this hard on an OT3 to want to do defenses, but this is my world now. Eliot and Margo are so intensely committed to each other that the only space anyone would have with either of them is romantic/sexual (aka the 'hot' part of a relationship) and I just can't see anyone able to deal with being a very distant secondary to that in the long term.

Except Quentin, who they both bonded to ultra-fast, so he'd never be 'outside' anything and like, they buy a glorious condo and sometimes Margot lives part time with her secondary but not so often the kids don't feel stable and loved because work from home Daddy Eliot thought alll this shit out before the commitment ceremony including regular relationship check-ins and mandatory date nights and frequent weekend getaways as they both know Quentin needs regular attention and explicit reassurance from both of them both together and separately, Margot needs to know they're all still first in each others lives, Eliot needs a strong, stable, loving family around him....yeah, what were we talking about?

Yes to all of this! Have you seen the OT3 After the Storm vid by Trelkez? - https://archiveofourown.org/works/16503695 - because it perfectly encapsulated my love for Margot/Eliot/Quentin. So good.

Re: trigger warning for rape

[seperis]

That broke my heart and put it back together again. Beautiful.

Re: trigger warning for rape

[kore]

she dresses to be left alone--not be invisible but avoid focus--and backs it up with hostility. Even when you said that, I had to think to remember she's very curvy, because her outfits are high necked or very angular and precise (straight A-line skirts, ruthlessly straight hair, stiff movements, her ultra-straight back, her pitiless marching walk) that she gives a hard impression of long and lean and she's--not.

I LOVE your description of Alice, yes. She is so tiny and fighty! I loved how she sort of came to life, but I also loved her in early S1 as the kind of icy (heh) shy girl who was so much better than everyone else but she didn't want to stand out but she also knew she was Best. She was very armoured. And I love book Alice when she has that devastating monologue about being a niffin and "I was laughing and pitiless" but you can feel all the pain in her words, and "I lost everything, twice. The first time I gave it up. But the second time you stole it." WHAM. (I was so annoyed we didn't get that in the show. But show Alice and book Alice are pretty different anyway.)

Eliot and Margo are so intensely committed to each other that the only space anyone would have with either of them is romantic/sexual (aka the 'hot' part of a relationship) and I just can't see anyone able to deal with being a very distant secondary to that in the long term.
Except Quentin, who they both bonded to ultra-fast, so he'd never be 'outside' anything

I CAN TOTALLY SEE THIS. Besides Eliot just kind of goes all mushy when he looks at Quentin (he's so fucking adorable). Margo would snap him out of his depressions and be a kind of abrasive person in his life, like Penny. And I love that Margo/Eliot is like the really stable OTP of the show, and that's two bisexual people in a really rock solid queerplatonic type life partnership (but they also like hot sex!). You KNOW they are always going to be there for each other, and it's totally not the Will & Grace cliche. Also HFS Hale Appleman is GORGEOUS

Re: trigger warning for rape

[seperis]

EVERYTHING you said. Especially Alice: her entire wardrobe and body language literally overwrite her to me visually. Even though I know differnetly, I think of her as tall, thin, very straight up-and-down, very stiff and--yeah, no. It's weird when I see the cast photos or whatever and am like "wait a minute...."

And I love that Margo/Eliot is like the really stable OTP of the show, and that's two bisexual people in a really rock solid queerplatonic type life partnership (but they also like hot sex!). You KNOW they are always going to be there for each other, and it's totally not the Will & Grace cliche.

God, this. No goddamn female-bff-totally-secretly-hoping-for-gay-male-bff-to-be-straight bullshit, but actual bffs who love each other intensely and platonically. The fact they've had sex (and i do think they probably have had sex without a third party at least once or twice) underlines how very much sex has nothing to do with love or their relationship.