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andsomemaniacgotridofthewheel · 7 months

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Our Flag Means Death vs. The Magicians

I was not sure whether I should even write something, but the closer the season 2 finale and, hopefully, a 3rd season of OFMD comes, the more nervous I get. So it's gotta come out.

Thing is, I trust David Jenkins. Or, more accurately, I want to trust David Jenkins.

But 4 years and *checks watch* 6 months ago I also trusted the showrunners of "The Magicians".

Because they, too, responded thoughtful and kindly on Twitter to their fandom's worries. They assured us they were aware of how important queer representation was, and that they would handle their show's queer pairing of two main (!) characters with the utmost respect and sensitivity. They said they knew how badly queer people were treated on the media and they did not want to do that in their show. They had done their research, they carefully listened to their fans, and they were different.

A lot of fans were NOT convinced by that and maintained that it would still turn out to be queerbaiting. We others, we trusted. They obviously knew what they were doing!

For those of you who were not around here back then or simply not in the fandom, and who have no idea what I am talking about, let me try to summarise the shitshow what happened.

"The Magicians" was a very original, weird, entertaining and, for 3 seasons and 12 episodes, good urban fantasy show about a group of young, well, magicians. It was based on a book series of the same name by Lev Grossmann.

The main character, Quentin, was canonically struggling with clinical depression. At the beginning of the show he had admitted himself to a mental health clinic, and he was on medication, and his illness was treated as a part of his character throughout the show. And they received a lot of praise for their sensitive, realistic representation of people with depression and their continuing struggle.

Around Quentin there was an ensemble of other main characters. His (male) best friend (Eliot) was gay and played by a gay actor.

Season 1 ended with a drunken decision from Quentin, Eliot and Eliot's (female) best friend (Margot) to have a threesome; which basically ended Quentin's het-relationship (with Alice) that had developed during the season. This was the first indication that the depressed main character Quentin might also be bisexual.

In season 3 there came a mind-blowing episode where Quentin & Eliot spend the entire rest of their lives living together in a cabin in the woods and raising a son, in what turned out to be an alternative timeline. Basically, in order to solve a plot-arc relevant puzzle, they move to the cabin where the puzzle was set, not knowing how long it would take. After a few months together Quentin initiates an affair with Eliot. A little bit later a woman, with whom Quentin then has a child, moves in; a couple of years later she dies, Quentin & Eliot raise the kid together, and when Eliot, the older one, finally dies of old age, leaving Quentin alone behind, the puzzle named "The Beauty of all Life" is finally solved, the timeline reset, and young Quentin & Eliot in the past receive the solution of the puzzle together with the memories of their life together in the other timeline.

It was a beautiful, beautiful episode. Heartbreaking and life-affirming and queer and just wonderful. It also established beyond a doubt that the depressed main character Quentin was definitely bisexual (and polyamorous).

Then, for the whole 4th season, Eliot was separated from the rest of the group and in great danger, while Quentin and the others tried to find and save him. And when Eliot had to do some soul searching, he remembered something the audience never saw from that one season 3 episode, they added a brand new scene: after they both had been stunned into silence by having the memories of a whole other life dropped onto them, just where the original episode had ended, Quentin had actually asked Eliot if they should "just try it", because "who gets proof of concept like that"? And Eliot, scared of the gravity of it and full of abandonment issues, had shot him down. Present Eliot decides then, if he ever sees Quentin again, to stop being scared and just go for a relationship with him.

(On the other side of the plot, Quentin gets more and more desperate and frantic, trying to find Eliot and save his life. He is clearly masking a steadily worsening spiral into a severe mental health crisis.)

It's queerbaiting, said the nay-sayers and skeptics. It will never happen. At the end of season 4, Quentin will get back together with his ex-girlfriend Alice, they're End Game, and Eliot will end up dead alone at the sidelines, undergoing character development through loss, as a gay character should. /s

They thought we were naive, but we thought they weren't paying attention. Two (2!) episodes in two (2!) seasons with the sole purpose to set Queliot up as a couple, in canon. This wasn't subtext, it wasn't queer-coding; it was text, it was spoken aloud, it was named, it was shown. Why would they do that if nothing else would come of it? Also, they had promised us. The gay actor who played Eliot repeatedly stated how proud he was to be on a show where this was happening, he was just as excited as us, he was one of us.

Then the season 4 finale came, and it wasn't exactly queerbait.

It was much, much worse.

I was on Tumblr right after the finale aired, and it was eerie. No episode reactions, no gif-sets, no comments or shitposts or anything. Even the nay-sayers and skeptics couldn't bring themselves to utter the well-deserved "told you so"s to break the stunned silence. All that was missing from the scene were actual tumbleweeds blowing across our dashboards.

Even from the actors of the show who were on twitter, usually very active and involved, came only radio silence. The last tweet for a while came the day before the finale aired. It was a tweet from the POC actor of an unrelated character, who had spend the last season supporting queer fans and assuaging our fears that something bad might happen to Queliot. And this tweet from him simply stated that he had just found out he had filmed a fake finale scene, one that was never intended to be aired, and that it had served its purpose: he had no idea how the season would actually end.*

And here is how it did end: with the clinically depressed and queer main character blowing himself up in order to permanently ban that season's big bad. He had saved Eliot before that, but he didn't get a chance to talk to him, instead he did get a final scene straight out of the suicidal ideation fantasy handbook: after he killed himself, he witnessed his friends, unseen by them, grieving for him and acknowledging how his sacrifice had made all of their lives better in various ways. And no, I'm not making this up.

And it wasn't even the end of the showrunners stupidity, because in an utter display of tone-deafness, they were taking to Twitter celebrating themselves for the progressive (!!!) decision to kill off their White Male Main Character™, to focus more on the POC characters in the show. And, of course, the recently introduced cis-het male white dudebro character, who had started as a guest but somehow kept getting more and more screentime lately.

They had pulled a Bury Your Gays, but With A Vengeance. In only 10 minutes of screentime they had completely destroyed everything that had made their show critically acclaimed, retroactively un-deserving all the praise and recognition they had gotten for good representation of mental illness and the courage to introduce a canon queer relationship between their established main characters.

And they didn't even get it. They honestly expected praise for their "woke" decision to kill of their White Male Main Character™ (they kept repeating it like a mantra), and they reacted like children when they were instead confronted with an epic shitstorm from upset and angry queer and mentally ill fans.**

In hindsight we realised that what had fooled us was them just parroting the right words and phrases back at us. They had no idea what queerbaiting was. They had even less of an idea what a Bury Your Gays was. They didn't know what we meant when we said that queer representation was so important, and that we were worried if they would do it right; and they didn't understand that they themselves were lying when they answered that they would handle the queer representation in their show with care and respect, because they didn't understand what care and respect in relation to queer representation even was. They didn't even realise that his depression alone, and even more so combined with his absolute lack of toxic masculinity, separated Quentin from the usual White Male Main Character Trope they somehow so desperately wanted to fight - and for some reason they didn't even seem to have realised that they (accidentally?) written him as bisexual? (I am still not too clear on how that even could happen.)

And that's where my worry for "Our Flag Means Death" and David Jenkins comes in. Yes, he was publicly flabbergasted when he learned about queerbaiting and how deeply it had traumatized queer fans and destroyed our trust. He publicly noticed, he publicly cared.

But does he really understand?

Even if he knows and understands queerbaiting (now), does he also know what a Bury Your Gays is? Does he understand?

The historical Edward "Blackbeard" Teach died November 1718. The historical Stede "Gentlemen Pirate" Bonnet died a month later, December 1718. That's at the very most less than a year from when our favourite gay pirate couple is now. And yes, David Jenkins makes it a point to screw with history, he does what he wants no matter what. But their death dates are pretty huge. A fixed point in time, if you will.

I want to believe that all the faking of deaths talk is indeed foreshadowing, that they will be officially dead to history, but actually have run off together to open Jeff's Inn by the Sea, with a Bar & Grill and Other Delicacies & Delights, Snake Snackery, Gift Shop and Fishing Gear in the back. That we will get our Happy Ending. That they will get their Happy Ending. No Bury Your Gays. Everyone lives, just this once, everyone lives.

But what if it is a red herring instead of foreshadowing? What if it is supposed to make their eventual deaths even more heartbreaking and tragic? WHAT IF DAVID JENKINS DOESN'T ACTUALLY KNOW ABOUT BURY YOUR GAYS? What if he says he does, what if he believes he does, but what if he doesn't actually understand?

What if he just says what he believes we want to hear, without really understanding the reason?

For me personally, that's not even the worst of it.

When "The Magicians" season 4 aired, I had just gone through the worst depressive episode of my life. It was actually the reason I hyper-fixated so strongly on the show and why I had repeatedly binge-watched the first three seasons in a span of only 3 weeks. It was the reason I obsessed over Quentin, the character who was in a place that I was in just months before, I place I had lost and felt I would never reach again, a place that gradually and painfully I did reach again by the end of those weeks. When I had caught up with season 4 and the finale aired, I was actually a lot better. But even then, Quentin's death and the way he died hurt me, confused me, triggered me, set me back. Talking to other fans with the same problems helped. Removing myself from the fandom and not looking at anything Magician's-related for near-on two years helped also.

And I was in luck. Only one month later "Good Omens" was released. I had liked the book, I had looked forward to its adaption, but I was completely unprepared for what Neil Gaiman had done with it. It healed me, it fully filled the void "The Magicians" and Queliot had left inside me, and it made everything better.

In "Our Flag Means Death", Stede is clearly on the autism spectrum. I was bullied at school, just like him, not for being queer, but for "being a fucking weirdo". Because I have ADHD, like Ed. Unlike Ed I don't have the hyperactive kind, but the inattentive kind. I can never tell if someone is sarcastic or sincere. I also have difficulty with and anxiety in social situations, and I have almost never felt accepted by my peers or my family. I am permanently masking. I relate deeply to Stede's belief that he has to change in order to be worthy of love. I also related deeply to Ed's mental health spiral and suicidal ideation in the beginning of season 2. I obsessed for days over the moment when Ed decided to finally let go, only to be saved in the very last moment by love. It felt way too real, way too familiar, and it was so important for me and my state of mind that it ended in hope. They managed to take the trauma and make it cathartic. So even if my genderfluid ass didn't relate better to mlm relationships than to any cishet relationship, relating a whole lot to Stede and only a little less to Ed because of their neurodivergent traits will be enough for their deaths to destroy me. Just like Quentin's death almost had. And I don't even know if there will be a "Good Omens 3" to stop my fall only a month later.

*= with the exception of the actor leaving the show, none of the actors on "The Magicians" knew. They had all been given fake scenes to film. They didn't even know their colleague was leaving them until the day the finale aired.

**= when I had finally distanced myself enough from the show emotionally and wondered if I should maybe watch season 5, it was included in my Prime subscription anyway, I was told not to, because a) apparently the showrunners had written it as a giant FUCK YOU to everyone who was upset by the season 4 finale, and b) because they had done all the characters dirty, but especially fan-favourite (and mine) Eliot, apparently he fared even worse in season 5 than in season 4. But I am glad to be able to at least inform you that season 5 pretty much tanked both critically as well as in viewership, I have never seen a show go from successful and popular to irrelevant and hated so quickly and so completely.

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sadlittlenerdking · 1 year

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It will forever gut me that Quentin’s last year was haunted by the mirage of what could have been and the knowledge (belief) that he’d found happiness and would never achieve it again.

#the magicians #I just think about how he went from thinking he’d die young to wanting to be a father #he went from knowing he’d die young to having a reason to grow old #and his last year alive was fighting for that possibility #of getting Eliot back and convincing him that he was what he’d choose and getting that life again #and knowing the memories of their time in the mosaic weren’t very strong #it’s like he had to constantly fight a mirage of happiness while everything he wanted fall apart around him #Quentin Coldwater deserved better

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morningstarbee · 7 months

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back to queliot brainrotting

I thought I was out of my The Magicians phase, but here I am, back on my bullshit.

Forgot how tragic Quentin and Eliot's love story was ,, literally crying in the club rn. I remember I refused to watch the ending of Season 4 and never watched Season 5. They whole thing ruined my fucking life actually !!!! Quentin deserved better, Queliot deserved better, why the fuck would they set up that love story and then never follow throughhhhhhh whyyyyy

It's genuine so fuckign upsetting how Season 4 ended.

Like I understand that the actor for Quentin wanted to leave the show, but like, they should have just cancelled the entire show then, he's the main character. Wrap up on a good ending for season 4 and then cancel season 5.

I would have accepted a re-cast for Quentin,, maybe,, BUT KILLING HIM OFF WHYYYY?? LETTING THE SUICIDAL CHARACTER BASICALLY KILL THEMSELVES WHYY???

4x13 No Better to Be Safe Than Sorry ruined my fucking life

#the magicians #queliot #quentin coldwater #eliot waugh #the magicians spoilers

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clarajohnson · 4 months

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the magicians s2e6

quentin coldwater you are so goddamn embarrassing i love you

once again alice is such a fun fucking character. she liked when q did pretend cirque du soleil ????? i could cry !!!!

margo's outfits are improving but i'm looking forward to when we get past the amazon corsets

the only thing better than "no offense q but you're a little crazy right now" is him blithely acknowledging it, "maybe, yeah"

my children loved me i was a good mother!

NIFFIN ALICE I LOVE YOU FOREVER !!!!!!!!!!!!!

i couldn't possibly make fun of q for trying to summon niffin alice like sorry you would do it too for alice quinn

best bitches !!!! they could've parented a demon baby together it would've been okay

okay i think he actually would've liked a unicorn milk latte. or have requested one in earnest at least.

like i need more people calling me daddy!

something hale and summer do is they occasionally adopt the same affect, the same intonation, it's such a subtle thing and it doesn't come up all the time but it so clearly telegraphs that these people are completely tethered to each other

"i know my daughter she's trying to protect us" oh PLEASE

ughhhhhhhhhhh i forgot about loria. oh my god fuck your parents dude. BUT ELIOT DON'T !!!!!

cin-ci-nahhh-tee.

SCREAM at the virgin queen margo

god fillory is so much fun like it's total bullshit all the time but it's also SO fun i enjoy that half of the plot so much

what's fen's title? do we know? queen consort? she has to have a title right

"if ess was a girl and you found pussy you know interesting in a sometimes you like thai food kind of way"

not to do this because i do this constantly all the time but margo hanson is my best friend i'm in love with her

don't worry the thing will not be born AUGH once again i feel like this is such a randomly traumatic plot to force on julia

niffin alice has terrible posture. somebody get her a better niffin bra!

q thinks people's love for him is so conditional every time it comes up it makes me so sad. also i would like for him to get a better hair routine i know grief and everything but dude it's stringy.

i remember when i first watched this episode i wanted daniel to have died from falling off the ladder he doesn't even deserve all that i was just mad at him for being a shit dad

ess is hot but not hot enough to act like this. you're a virgin to me sweetheart? i think margo should be allowed to kill him.

actually margo should be allowed to kill me if she wants to

queliot obviously first most tragic romance in the magicians but fen/baylor is possibly ranked second when you think about it. wait kady/penny. okay fen/baylor is top three.

JESUS CHRIST I FORGOT ABOUT DANA'S WHOLE THING

even i studied and i'm dead!

it's so sweet that she has dreams about forgetting to study. sorry i feel like somebody applauding disney for having a gay character but i genuinely like the female characters in this show so much. they get to do all kinds of shit! and feel shit!

yeah honestly the reynard plot occasionally veers into an almost anti-choice rhetoric, i could have done without like 90% of this plot

i love asking questions that have a 50/50 shot of being resolved in this episode but do we ever find out who dana's son is

once again! best bitches!

you guys have been so royally fucked with! sometimes the florida jumps out of him

"she never figured out how to be a woman" is such an insane thing to say. the magicians should've dug into motherhood more. haha. wrote a thesis on motherhood voice.

I FORGOT ALICE WAS IN THE TATTOO OH MY GODDDDDDD

cripes reynard is so fucking scary

benedict you are an angel

"we're gonna put our jimmy choos so far up your ass you're gonna taste next season" as a declaration of war is unbelievably good

#unauthorized magicians rewatch #the magicians #text

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nellie-elizabeth · 5 months

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Writing Patterns

Rules: Share the opening of your last ten published works or as many as you are able to see if there are any patterns!

I was tagged by @ajna-eye-cogitations, thank you!!

[A note that when I picked the last 10 published, I skipped over all my short one-shot collection fics that I've been posting for years now, since those are cases where each chapter is its own individual story. So I just stuck to stuff outside of that!]

where the real road lies

Grief doesn’t feel like anything. Or— well, it feels like a lot of things, but nothing you can pin down. Maybe it’s one of those human experiences that can only be talked about in metaphor. Like, it feels as if my heart’s being ripped out of my chest, or it feels as if someone’s scooped me out, left me hollow, plunged my very soul into darkness. It feels as if, as if, as if.

(can't) get back again

It’s not a decision either of them is actually making. That’s what Michael tells himself when it happens for the first time, that he didn’t decide and Alex didn’t decide and in fact fighting the inevitability of it would only be adding more pain into a world already saturated with suffering.

small town halloween night

Maria gets home before Rosa, on Halloween night. They’d both picked up shifts for their parents, Maria at the bar and Rosa at the diner. It’s not the worst shift Maria’s ever worked, but she can’t help but feel a little melancholy on her drive home. A whole night of watching people her age, people she went to school with, cluster together with their friends, doing cheap shots... A year ago, that had been her. A year ago, dressed up with her skin out, doing shots in her friends’ kitchen, laughing at the movies and getting rice in her hair.

tell me that we belong together

September 2011 Michael always gets a little nostalgic about Roswell right before leaving it behind for a while. School’s starting in just a couple days, and that means saying a temporary goodbye to mornings like this one, lounging in their favorite booth at the Crashdown, the sounds of Arturo making their breakfasts carrying through from the kitchen, jukebox playing some song Michael only recognizes because he’s heard it playing in this very diner countless times over the years. They have their local haunts in Albuquerque by now, but he’ll always be a hometown boy at heart, and for better or worse, this is his hometown.

a work of fine art

Quentin Coldwater has fuzzy arms. It’s one of the first things Eliot notices about him as his volunteer life model settles down on the couch, crossing said arms across his chest in a nervous, nearly defensive move. It’s like he’s trying to fold his body into an origami box so all the outside parts will be on the inside, safe from Eliot’s eyes. But looking at the man in front of him is rather the point, so Eliot looks his fill, careful to catalogue every detail, despite how he can practically feel the waves of energy coming off of Quentin’s body, the frozen full-body cringe as he attempts to deflect the attention. Eliot indulges in it, keeping his face carefully neutral instead of giving in to the smile building up inside of him at the rather lovely display. Squirmy, awkward, cute naked boy, and Eliot gets to stare at him for a full uninterrupted evening. It must be his birthday.

tales from a bookshop

The bookshop has always been something of a sacred space for Crowley. Scratch that— not sacred, certainly not sacred, who the hell said sacred, honestly. And no more is it Hell’s cosmic opposite, profane, it’s only that— well, blast it, it’s only that A.Z. Fell & Co. booksellers has always been an important place for Crowley. Significant. Precious, maybe, though even the taste of such a word makes him want to scream profanities at someone who doesn’t deserve it, just to get the tickle out the back of his throat.

Shelter

The first thing Quentin did most mornings was locate the most excitable, energy-filled dog he could find in the kennels, and take the little terror out for a brisk, damp jog. Damp, because the Seattle air always seemed to be damp no matter the temperature. Brisk, because Quentin was not a jogger and a solid twenty minutes was usually as much as the lucky canine in question was likely to get out of him. He did this because he was usually the first person to arrive at work and he didn’t feel like making awkward chit chat with the night shift people, and also because it seemed a kindness: by the time his bosses Margo and Fen had shown up after their leisurely morning coffee routine, the most excitable of their furry residents had already had some of their energy burned away by Quentin’s efforts.

under the desert sky

Beyond basic necessities, the items Alex brings with him on their trek to the Grand Canyon are a fully stocked iPod, car charger, and a stitch-bound notebook slipped into the front pocket of his backpack. Michael brings his restored Nikon FM 35mm and six rolls of film.

the lengths that i would go to

Summer 2010 It’s early, so early that the sun isn’t up, the air around him still and quiet. Alex is awake, and for a second he doesn’t quite know why. His body is conditioned to wake early each morning, but this is something different. There’s a strange awareness, where paranoia meets familiarity. Alex knows, as consciousness filters into his brain, that there’s someone else in the room with him. He also knows, without having to open his eyes, that there is no threat, because it’s Michael. The bed shifts, and Alex blinks into the dim light, looking down to see Michael crawling up the bed towards him.

it might change my memory

June 2022 It’s Bonnie, of all people, who calms everybody down. Not Isobel with her power to mentally soothe, or Dallas with his preacher training and inviting sensibility. Not Liz with her practical, scientific mindset, or Michael, the one person in this room who theoretically has all the pieces of the puzzle and actually has a chance of knowing what the fuck is going on. It’s Bonnie who cuts through the excited, confused, unintelligible babble and says, quite loudly for such a small woman: “Okay! Seems like we have a situation! Everyone should sit down. I’ll make tea.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wow, okay, this was really interesting to see! It looks like a very common approach for me is "short, catchy sentence" followed by longer paragraph expounding on it. Like -- "Grief doesn’t feel like anything." or "The bookshop has always been something of a sacred space for Crowley." or "Quentin Coldwater has fuzzy arms." This is true across all the fandoms I write in!

It's crazy that only one of these ten examples has any dialogue in it at all, because I tend to think my dialogue skills are really sharp! I should start more stories off with it lol.

Tagging whoever writes and wants to participate! @portraitofemmy, @prettyboysdontlookatexplosions, @awildwickedslip, @spiders-hth-is-an-outlier, @r-dtoblack

#my posts #writing #my fic #roswell new mexico #the magicians #good omens

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spiders-hth-is-an-outlier · 2 years

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Not to expect continuity from SyFy’s The Magicians, but here’s one of many things that confuses me about Jane’s original time-loops. They make a big deal about how THERE IS NO FATE and Quentin is only at the center of the loops because every time, he “volunteered” to step up and save Fillory. He wasn’t chosen or special or destined or anything, he was just the guy whose personality and history had kind of predisposed him to care the most about Fillory and go the furthest to save it from the Beast.

Except -- that can’t be true at all, can it? Like, the very first scene in the show is Jane asking Fogg if he’s brought Quentin into their orbit yet. She gave Quentin, specifically, that manuscript, and the dreams about the garden path or whatever. She was talking to Quentin, giving him clues to lead him forward in a way she was not doing with anyone else, so while it’s arguably true that he “volunteered” to go after the Beast, Jane clearly did choose him to be the person who was equipped to do so.

But okay, that’s timeline 40, right? Maybe she’s just saving time at this point; he’s Volunteered a dozen times, two or three dozen, Jane has learned to just speedrun this thing that she knows Quentin will always find his way into anyhow. Except that’s not true either -- not according to 5x02 (apologies in advance for Season 5-ing you; none of us deserve this). Jane tells Eliot that after the first attempt, the one where Quentin came to Fillory “running from his grief” over Eliot’s death, she felt badly for Quentin, and in the next run -- which is the first do-over, the first time she reboots all of them -- she intervenes to make sure Eliot lives, “to see if [Quentin] would still answer Fillory’s call.”

The first do-over, Jane was already viewing Quentin as the one “Fillory” -- really the one Jane herself -- was “calling.” She singled him out and managed the events of the second timeline, just like the fortieth timeline, to call Quentin. That’s, uh. Literally a calling. That’s Jane choosing Quentin and nobody else.

Maybe she dabbled in some other, non-Quentin related options in the other 38 loops, but she sure as shit singled him out at the beginning and at the end. She gave him information she didn’t give anyone else. She managed events around him so he’d be in a better position to be helpful (and to mediate the guilt she felt about manipulating his emotions). How is this a story about A Guy Who Volunteers? How is this a subversion of the narrative? It’s literally a Call to Adventure. Quentin is the guy Jane Chatwin chose as her champion against her brother. That’s the choice that everything else flows out of, right?

It’s not clear to me if there’s any special reason that Jane was so convinced this was the right guy. Because he loved Fillory more than anyone, I guess? I mean, that’s just about the only thing the show ever offers that distinguishes Quentin, other than just a -- nonspecific Purity of Heart, which I guess is the other option, that he’s just so relentlessly valiant and giving that he has some mystic advantage, compensating for the fact that according to everyone, he’s a middling-to-pretty-good Magician. Both of these options are, to use some techie literary language, Basic As Fuck.

I guess I’m not “confused,” per se. They just say whatever comes to mind on this show and none of it matches anything else. I guess what I am is “irritated.”

#the magicians

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beregalmiscreants · 1 year

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@cardtricksandminormendings | x

Quentin opens his mouth to shout back, then stops, slumping in his chair with a sigh. "No, I guess not," he says quietly. He knows they're still processing the memories but he needed to ask before he lost his nerve. He'd have asked in the throne room earlier if they hadn't been interrupted.

"But will you think about it?"

His heart is racing.

Panic shoots through his veins almost painfully, and it’s taking everything he has to try to collect himself, at least externally. He knows that nothing, absolutely nothing, will be able to slow his mind or heart down. Knowing that he looks a little less like a deer caught in the headlights would make him feel at least marginally better, though.

Slowly, he schools his features into a more relaxed look. His fingers betray him, he knows that, anxiously fidgeting, finding the forms of little telekinetic spells that no longer work in a world without magic. He lets them find his flask, and for once it’s entirely to distract them, not himself.

“Q...” The thing is, he wants this. He wants it so much it feels like it’s tearing him apart. But does he deserve it? Will he lose Quentin when he inevitably fucks it all up? Doesn’t Quentin deserve better? Besides, they’ve just been incepted with a whole lifetime of emotions, they’re not thinking clearly. Eliot’s head is swimming in... love, really. Because that’s what those fifty years boil down to, isn’t it? Love.

“Are you really sure about this? I mean, neither one of us is thinking clearly right now. We just had fifty years of emotions incepted into our heads, I can barely tell up from down right now.” An exaggeration, sure, but it’s true that they’re probably not in the best place to be making emotional decisions.

#cardtricksandminormendings #** // v :: fillory and further #( eliot: what if i do something and ruin things? better get started on that right away )

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eliotqueliot · 1 year

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Secret Lives by EliotQueliot

Tags: The Magicians (TV), Queliot. Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh. Implied/Referenced Child Abuse. Past child abuse. Referenced bullying. Depression. Brakebills (The Magicians). Alternate Universe-Canon Divergence.

For May 22, Superheroes and Supervillains, May Trope Mayhem, Duck Prints Press, @duckprintspressss

Note: The work pasted below is under 1k. But there's going to be one more chapter. Also on AO3:

One: Quentin

Eliot Waugh clearly had a secret life.

Quentin Coldwater tried not to pry.

He knew people usually kept secrets for a reason, and Eliot, having grown up bullied for being gay in a backwater farming town, no doubt had more reasons than most. Honestly, Eliot did open up with him in some surprising ways that made Quentin feel included, and sometimes even wonder if the heavy crush that engulfed him, from the moment he saw the man draped on the Brakebills sign, might be returned.

But Quentin had secrets of his own. Ones he seriously needed to keep hidden.

He couldn’t let Brakebills continue to bully talented young magicians like his friend Julia, dangling their offers of magical pedagogy only to rescind them so unfairly that it scarred their minds and hearts, sending them down self-destructive paths.

He knew what that was like. In addition to the hopelessness he’d felt before learning magic was real, he’d seen what the loss of magic did to those who relied on it—like the entire magical land of Fillory, about which Eliot cared so much he’d laid down his life like an ancient sacrificial king. Though in High King Eliot’s case, this meant marriage to a woman, it was no less a sacrifice, no less painful.

So Quentin’s first act of magical sabotage had been to free Eliot from that imprisonment. Secretly, Quentin cut Eliot’s ties to Fillory, sending him home to Earth so abruptly that Eliot would believe the very gods of Fillory had relinquished their claims on him forever.

Eliot was hurt at first, believing he’d been rejected, which made Quentin’s heart ache. After his shitty, abusive family who’d never loved him, that was the last thing Eliot needed. So Quentin quickly manufactured evidence that a grateful Fillory sent Eliot home as his reward for helping them so well and caring so much.

Which was true in any case.

Gradually Quentin saw the light return to Eliot’s worried hazel eyes, the color fill his too-gaunt, chiseled cheeks. The fact that his severed state marriage meant he was free to return Quentin’s affections if he chose was certainly a nice bonus.

Quentin’s second act of magical sabotage had been to partner up with Julia to help hedge witches get a better education, sneaking all that he learned to Julia. Together, they took Julia’s students to prowl the night city, giving them the chance to hone their spells by helping to undercut tyranny and stop bullies wherever they found them.

Due to his penchant for defying authority—be it gods or Brakebills—Quentin knew some might call him a supervillain.

But heroes were those who used their powers for good, to stand up for those who could not help themselves.

He hoped that one day, if he ever found out, Eliot would be proud of him.

Two: Eliot

Quentin Coldwater clearly had a secret life.

Eliot Waugh didn’t want to ruin that for him.

From the first, he’d seen how much magic meant to Quentin—more than most magicians. For Eliot, it had been both a curse and a blessing, changing his life in terrible and wonderful ways. For Quentin, magic was just that: pure magic. He believed with the heart of a child desperate for something good.

And Eliot wanted that for him—just as much as he feared Quentin would crash and burn when he found out magic was not all it seemed.

For Quentin—whose heart was so big, whose brain betrayed him sometimes—Eliot wanted a life filled with hope and beauty. Not just because Eliot loved him. Because Quentin was good and true and deserved happiness, plain and simple.

Not that he was going to get any, chained to Brakebills and their self-serving mission of pouring every magician into the same old cupcake tins. Ignoring the way some people, such as Quentin, or even Eliot himself, were never going to fit, and never should.

Telling people they were defined by one talent and forcing them to betray their true selves was the fastest way to sabotage happiness. And Eliot was not about to watch it happen to Quentin. Or any of the other young magicians assigned to the Physical Kids Cottage and thus placed under Eliot’s—and Margo’s—particular protection.

No, he would do what he could to see that this cohort had their chance to be regal miscreants. As the Party King and Queen of Brakebills, BFFs Eliot and Margo wielded every opportunity to encourage them to magically misbehave in the very best “getting to know myself” fashion.

Eliot truly hoped Quentin would break free from his shell. That he hadn’t been permanently harmed by the continuing threat of having his memory wiped if he flunked out of school; by the dean’s taking away his meds with the statement that Q’s depression had only been the frustration of a life without magic (cruelly implying that any further depression would amount to ingratitude); or with their rude and grossly inaccurate categorization of Quentin’s amazing talent for healing broken things as a “minor” skill.

The latter had sent Q into a depressive spiral—which was when Eliot first learned they’d taken Q’s meds, a problem that he and Margo solved at once. Eliot dropped everything and devoted himself to Quentin for as long as Q needed to pull himself out of it. Because Q was strong and brave. And Eliot couldn’t live without him.

A visit to the haunted home of Quentin’s favorite writer suggested a second mission. Like Eliot in his original family, ghost children got a strikingly raw deal. Should they suffer for eternity for the wrongs adults had done to them?

Especially when all they needed to resolve their shit and move on—was a living magician enacting their revenge?

Eliot was made for this. Operating by night when ghosts were strongest, he called himself a supervillain.

But he suspected that if anyone knew—Quentin, for one, might try to convince him otherwise.

#may trope mayhem #duck prints press #eliot waugh #quentin coldwater #quentin x eliot #queliot #the magicians #queliot fanfic

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