the magicians - welcome to the twitter tire fire

Syfywire just pulled the article they put up a few hours ago, "Queerness and Death in the Magicians" and deleted the tweet that announced it. That's super not at all questionable and really normal.

Here is a tweet with screenshots of the article: Queerness and Death in the Magicians. It also looks like a PDF is up at the discord: https://twitter.com/coldwaughtersq/status/1121193198523756544

Note: this will definitely help settle the drama, by the way. That'll work.

ETA (7:30 PM CST): so that thread was deleted and so was my RT of it. Here's another one: https://twitter.com/thelaynierizer/status/1121206952028192768

ETA (7:59 PM CST): Full article now available on tumblr: https://three--rings.tumblr.com/post/184422544953/queerness-and-death-in-the-magicians

Comments

[ilyena_sylph]

My twitter is private, so the person with the PDF won't see it if I ask, would you possibly be willing to PM me a link?

[seperis]

Yes! Here in DW DM or in twitter and what handle? Same as your DW?

[ilyena_sylph]

Here is fine, thanks, it's where I do most things. :)

My twitter handle is @ilyena_sylph, yep, and I'd be happy to add you.

[seperis]

Could you add me on twitter to PM you the link? You can unfriend after, I won't be offended.

[ilyena_sylph]

Done!

[seperis]

on Tumblr! https://three--rings.tumblr.com/post/184422544953/queerness-and-death-in-the-magicians

[rheasilvia]

How odd. I know nothing about Syfywire, but should they be beholden to the networks...?

[alexseanchai]

Has that first tweet been deleted?

[seperis]

YEp. Got another one, though!

[alexseanchai]

I mean the tweet with screenshots, I'm not interested enough to ask for a PDF

[seperis]

I put up another tweet link to screenshots from teh article.

[alexseanchai]

thx

...

the author is right

wtf?

[kickair8p]

I'm lost (not on twitter or discord) -- is there a current link to download the pdf?

~

[seperis]

Not one publicly shareable, sorry. The user who made it wants to share it individually. BUT! I reblogged the copy on tumblr!

[kickair8p]

Thanks!

~

[kore]

WOW

Wayback doesn't have it and they scrubbed the Google cache even. It would be nice if that article went up on google drive somewhere....

[seperis]

I linked to the tumblr post with it and the PDF is available if you DM coldwaughtersq

[kore]

I have DMs turned off because of three separate stalkers. :-/ Oh now I see it on Tumblr, thanks!

[morgandawn]

actually wayback had it (I checked when it first was posted). That copy has now been overwritten/removed.

[mecurtin]

WOW. Someone sure doesn't know how the Internet works. And that article doesn't even really get into the mental health aspects, which IMHO may be *worse*.

[seperis]

And that article doesn't even really get into the mental health aspects, which IMHO may be *worse*.

It's an intersectional dumpster fire. That just might count as progressive.

And that doesn't even take into account the treatment of the other openly gay character, Eliot, who had to kill his first (in show) boyfriend who as it turns out was possessed the entire time they were dating and is a gay man who is also mentally ill and engages in highly self-destructive behavior.

So they managed a twofer: kill one bisexual, mentally ill character in a way that's totally not at all suicide just looks a lot like it because reasons and continue the now four year tradition of the gay, mentally ill man's only relationships being fucking traumatic or super casual sex-only or marriage to a woman.

[toujours_nigel]

Gods Eliot. I just cannot imagine what Season 5 is gonna look like for him, given uh, historical evidence.

(And I mean, even mid-season I'd have been confident in TPTB's handling of trauma and mental illness? But lol.)

[kore]

Yeah, while all of this is traumatic and terrible enough, I am now really worried about how they might portray Eliot in S5.

[kore]

It's an intersectional dumpster fire. That just might count as progressive.

LOLsob. That's 2019 all over really.

[ruinsplume]

So apparently the Powers That Be over at SyFy have no idea that censoring their own bloggers is not the way to do damage control. This is getting *epic.*

[seperis]

I'm still baffled on how on earth they thought that was a good idea.

[grimweather]

I’m strangely able to access the article on my phone but not on my computer. But either way- this is just so frustrating! There has been so much valid critique and it just feels like the powers that be are just plugging their ears and digging their heels in.

[toujours_nigel]

Oh gosh, they actually thought deletions would help?

[seperis]

I have to admit this entire dumpster fire on the TPTB's side of the equation fascinates me. It's like they're Charlie Brown with the football; they react in the exact same way to controversy every time even though historically, it has never, ever worked and also generally makes things about a thousand times worse.

So I have to assume that yes, they did think it would help; sure, it's never ever worked before, but that doesn't mean it won't this time.

This is where being a fanfic writer and in fandom for years comes in handy. In general, very few people in fandom for more than three years don't know how to evaluate and de-escalate when it comes to heated critique. So when someone in fandom acts like TPTB in response to critique, it's generally because they're being an asshole, stupid, or just want to watch the world burn.

There is nothing not ridiculous in the fact that TPTB's A-Game of "How to Fix This" is functionally identical to a fan deliberately trying to start a flame war because they're mad about being critiqued.

[toujours_nigel]

I want to say maybe it works with the General Audience? But then you've gotta wonder how many non SF/F and/or fandom-adjacent folk watch a show like this.

Plus, I mean. we tend to be vocal, tenacious and grudge-holding, but we're much nicer to TPTB than each other, which makes these reactions even more inexplicable to me. Just let us bitch and grouch and analyse things!

Deletions. I just don't know. It's like they think we don't screenshot and save receipts. Which. Gamble at least should know better, one'd think.

[templemarker]

It was a healithy roaring trash fire until this happened and then -- wham -- upgraded to a dumpster fire. What the hell did they think would happen?

And then wee in the hours this morning, @SyFyWire tweets a three-week old article by the same author, only this one is captioned The series is sex-positive, queer, and feminist — and Season 4 only takes these themes further.

Because, you know. Fandom definitely won't see this little switcheroo going on. Look at the shiny over here! Don't look for the one that we took away!

Just -- fucking wow. Wow.

[kore]

wee in the hours this morning, @SyFyWire tweets a three-week old article by the same author

WOW FOR FUCK'S SAKE. Do they really not know how the internet works?

[silverflight8]

?? What is happening

[grimweather]

They’ve now removed the 4x13 recap, which was critical of the episode as well:

https://mobile.twitter.com/amandapeel/status/1121556633014771712

[pir8fancier]

How true to the book series is the series? I watched the first season and really hated the way they portrayed Alice so stopped watching. So am very confused--because, hello, book reader here. The entire series revolves around Quentin. It ENDS with Quentin. I think they are doing some sort of Dallas bullshit. He is very wounded and nearly dead at the end of book 2, but he's sort of rehabilitated. So I think they will bring him back. Otherwise the entire series doesn't make sense.

[azurelunatic]

When that sort of thing happens, is there usually evidence that the actor has left the show?

[pir8fancier]

If the series only gives the briefest of lip service to the book series, they will need to replace the current actor for Quentin with a new actor. He IS the third book.

Updated links...

[beaudicca83]

Hi Jenn,
I've been going post by post since the beginning of sv-inquiry and updating the links that I can. This last entry had quite a few and marked it as spam... will it eventually not read as spam or is this something you have to screen post by post? I just need something to do and this is it for now. I've been updating both versions of Theme_CLex_Recs (on LJ and DW) as well but I thought I'd do a little housekeeping on svinquiry since I go there when I get stumped anyway :) If you are going to have to do extra work because of this, I can stop. But if you have some magical button you can push to let me in I'd appreciate it :)

Thanks,
Jules

https://sv-inquiry.livejournal.com/2636.html

ps. Also, why will it not let me hide the web addresses in a "find it 'here'" kind of way?

[monanotlisa]

Wow. I...just, wow.