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toujours_nigel) wrote2019-04-25 12:17 pm
toujours_nigel) wrote2019-04-25 12:17 pm
Entry tags:
re: The Magicians Trashfire
Cross-posted from Twitter and Tumblr, so apologies if you've read it, and under a cut because of length and trigger-warnings for mental illness (depression, suicidal thought) and the general awful of being queer in this world.
I am a lesbian, I am depressed, I have had years and years when media and fandom have kept me sane, because gods know academia is not much kinder to people like us than the world at large. I'm an introvert and big groups freak me out. So I... read. And I watch things. And I pretend very hard that I can have functional days one after the other, even if all I've done on those days is read several novels or binge-watched several seasons of mediocre TV. On really good days I work on my doctoral thesis.
There aren't many very good days. I'm not actively suicidal, tho I self-harmed in school. I just have days of thinking it would be nice if I'd never been born, because I'm such a fuck-up and burden on people around me. Sometimes I have entire weeks like that. Obviously I haven't killed myself. These days... years, I don't even think I want to. My parents would be wrecked, & my sister & my friends. My SO has suffered through too many intimate deaths already. I'm not going to burden her with another. If I knew they'd be okay, tho?
I hope I still wouldn't. I believe, on even barely-functional days, that my life has intrinsic value, but that's a hard thing to believe with the state of the world what it is. What does it matter, really, if I die? I have no dependants, no job, no real contributions.
So I try not to think about it too often. I read and watch things so I'm not alone with the voices in my head. Escapist stuff, usually. Historicals, and romances, and SF/F if I can get someone to vouch for them. That's where fandom comes in handy. Also http://doesthedogdie.com : A++ resource, can't recommend enough. Point is, I don't consume media unspoiled, or at least without reading a couple-few posts on it by people I trust. I know which Avengers are dying and how, cause I can't deal with finding out while watching.
"Real Life Doesn't Have Spoilers": (a) it's called a whisper network, (b) I am extremely rude irl and just leave, (c) genre and categories are pretty good spoilers, (d) I'm consuming media to *get away* from the real world, and as always (e) fuck you very much.
(Also what divine fuckery is involved in the assumption that media with dragons or, uh, talking sloths and divine cocks are in any way realistic. You don't get to have musical episodes & consensual bestiality & portal worlds and condescend about reality.)
We know reality. We know we aren't safe. We know it from our brains that fail us & our bodies that collapse. We know it from the way our people die. We know it from the names we get called, the way we get erased. Often, hmmm, often literally. We get driven to death. People moralise after those deaths, too. Not in the way The Magicians TPTB are, obvs. They're not calling Q a coward. No. Nope, he was a hero & his death saved... the world, the universe, the multiverse? Something. Plus he was a White Man so ohmigosh so brave & shocking!
Queer people die. Mentally fucked people die. Neurodivergent people die. Some of them are men. Some of them are white. I'm... happy for people who watched Q as Generic White Man #infinity. I am. I wouldn't wish the week we've had on anyone. I say we, obvs, because fandom is--cool term I learnt two days ago--inter-subjective. We share common values and experiences and language. Often, ha, about our experiences of media-consumption. Here's one. Bury Your Gays. Here's another. Queer-baiting. Well, maybe not. They did show us one whole episode of queer domesticity. Can You Believe! And El is very queer, and Q is very queer, and Marina is queer, and I think Margo is queer. So. Alright then. Not to be a privileged bitch who believes she should see queerness onscreen.
But, hey, fine. TPTB in full cognisance killed a queer depressed boy onscreen and said they were being brave because he was a White Man. I don't follow US TV assiduously, so maybe there's enough representation that killing one off is like killing a neurotypical cishet man? idk. I suspect not. But, like, whatever. Q is a proprietary character & TPTB offed him. (Grossman didn't, fwiw) We've been here before. We're furious, so the more articulate of us are going to write fic and meta, and we'll read a hundred fix-it and AU fic and cope.
These days, tho, fandom doesn't just write on their blogs. There were a spate of furious and grieving articles about The Magicians Finale, on various platforms, because we write to cope, and to try and understand media and to console each other. It's what we do.
And then TPTB, well, someone associated with the website associated with the network on which the show airs, uh, deleted one of those articles very thoroughly. Like, scraped it off the net, on archived copies left. https://twitter.com/j_the_reader/status/1121221550739480576 … I mean fandom has the screenshots. Because we don't trust that way, but really? Really, TPTB? Really? You deleted an article talking about your show, really? Really? After talking up how much the fandom supports each other? https://twitter.com/serathegamble/status/1110717865592672256 … You think we forget stuff, really? Really?
While I can't imagine anyone following me & interested in media fandom isn't followingseperis and cleolinda and greywash, if you haven't seen their writing and curation of post-finale reactions, please do that. I'm gonna go watch #WillAndGrace because it has living and happy queers. And just. IDK about you, but I'm going back to my place of distrusting TPTB about queer and ill representation from which Black Sails enticed me. I had such hope & love for The Magicians, with its deft handling of mental illness and queerness and sexual assault. I expected Q to die. I was ready to fucking howl about it, but I thought it would be a good death. Even the death we saw onscreen I would have coped with, in a bit. It's TPTB's... gloating? reactions that are freaking me out. And I feel so awful for Appleman and Gupta et al.
But obvs I feel angry & scared for us who identified with Q, who loved Q, who just watched something we fear is true: that our loved ones would weep beautifully but would be okay, that the world can be made better by our deaths. The beautiful lie, most beguiling. Don't do it, darlings. Don't fucking believe that when it's in your head, and when it's onscreen. Remember they didn't tell Ralph's co-actors Q's death was permanent, remember they shot dummy scenes. Nobody's death leaves their loved one singing songs.
I am a lesbian, I am depressed, I have had years and years when media and fandom have kept me sane, because gods know academia is not much kinder to people like us than the world at large. I'm an introvert and big groups freak me out. So I... read. And I watch things. And I pretend very hard that I can have functional days one after the other, even if all I've done on those days is read several novels or binge-watched several seasons of mediocre TV. On really good days I work on my doctoral thesis.
There aren't many very good days. I'm not actively suicidal, tho I self-harmed in school. I just have days of thinking it would be nice if I'd never been born, because I'm such a fuck-up and burden on people around me. Sometimes I have entire weeks like that. Obviously I haven't killed myself. These days... years, I don't even think I want to. My parents would be wrecked, & my sister & my friends. My SO has suffered through too many intimate deaths already. I'm not going to burden her with another. If I knew they'd be okay, tho?
I hope I still wouldn't. I believe, on even barely-functional days, that my life has intrinsic value, but that's a hard thing to believe with the state of the world what it is. What does it matter, really, if I die? I have no dependants, no job, no real contributions.
So I try not to think about it too often. I read and watch things so I'm not alone with the voices in my head. Escapist stuff, usually. Historicals, and romances, and SF/F if I can get someone to vouch for them. That's where fandom comes in handy. Also http://doesthedogdie.com : A++ resource, can't recommend enough. Point is, I don't consume media unspoiled, or at least without reading a couple-few posts on it by people I trust. I know which Avengers are dying and how, cause I can't deal with finding out while watching.
"Real Life Doesn't Have Spoilers": (a) it's called a whisper network, (b) I am extremely rude irl and just leave, (c) genre and categories are pretty good spoilers, (d) I'm consuming media to *get away* from the real world, and as always (e) fuck you very much.
(Also what divine fuckery is involved in the assumption that media with dragons or, uh, talking sloths and divine cocks are in any way realistic. You don't get to have musical episodes & consensual bestiality & portal worlds and condescend about reality.)
We know reality. We know we aren't safe. We know it from our brains that fail us & our bodies that collapse. We know it from the way our people die. We know it from the names we get called, the way we get erased. Often, hmmm, often literally. We get driven to death. People moralise after those deaths, too. Not in the way The Magicians TPTB are, obvs. They're not calling Q a coward. No. Nope, he was a hero & his death saved... the world, the universe, the multiverse? Something. Plus he was a White Man so ohmigosh so brave & shocking!
Queer people die. Mentally fucked people die. Neurodivergent people die. Some of them are men. Some of them are white. I'm... happy for people who watched Q as Generic White Man #infinity. I am. I wouldn't wish the week we've had on anyone. I say we, obvs, because fandom is--cool term I learnt two days ago--inter-subjective. We share common values and experiences and language. Often, ha, about our experiences of media-consumption. Here's one. Bury Your Gays. Here's another. Queer-baiting. Well, maybe not. They did show us one whole episode of queer domesticity. Can You Believe! And El is very queer, and Q is very queer, and Marina is queer, and I think Margo is queer. So. Alright then. Not to be a privileged bitch who believes she should see queerness onscreen.
But, hey, fine. TPTB in full cognisance killed a queer depressed boy onscreen and said they were being brave because he was a White Man. I don't follow US TV assiduously, so maybe there's enough representation that killing one off is like killing a neurotypical cishet man? idk. I suspect not. But, like, whatever. Q is a proprietary character & TPTB offed him. (Grossman didn't, fwiw) We've been here before. We're furious, so the more articulate of us are going to write fic and meta, and we'll read a hundred fix-it and AU fic and cope.
These days, tho, fandom doesn't just write on their blogs. There were a spate of furious and grieving articles about The Magicians Finale, on various platforms, because we write to cope, and to try and understand media and to console each other. It's what we do.
And then TPTB, well, someone associated with the website associated with the network on which the show airs, uh, deleted one of those articles very thoroughly. Like, scraped it off the net, on archived copies left. https://twitter.com/j_the_reader/status/1121221550739480576 … I mean fandom has the screenshots. Because we don't trust that way, but really? Really, TPTB? Really? You deleted an article talking about your show, really? Really? After talking up how much the fandom supports each other? https://twitter.com/serathegamble/status/1110717865592672256 … You think we forget stuff, really? Really?
While I can't imagine anyone following me & interested in media fandom isn't following
seperis and cleolinda and greywash, if you haven't seen their writing and curation of post-finale reactions, please do that. I'm gonna go watch #WillAndGrace because it has living and happy queers. And just. IDK about you, but I'm going back to my place of distrusting TPTB about queer and ill representation from which Black Sails enticed me. I had such hope & love for The Magicians, with its deft handling of mental illness and queerness and sexual assault. I expected Q to die. I was ready to fucking howl about it, but I thought it would be a good death. Even the death we saw onscreen I would have coped with, in a bit. It's TPTB's... gloating? reactions that are freaking me out. And I feel so awful for Appleman and Gupta et al.But obvs I feel angry & scared for us who identified with Q, who loved Q, who just watched something we fear is true: that our loved ones would weep beautifully but would be okay, that the world can be made better by our deaths. The beautiful lie, most beguiling. Don't do it, darlings. Don't fucking believe that when it's in your head, and when it's onscreen. Remember they didn't tell Ralph's co-actors Q's death was permanent, remember they shot dummy scenes. Nobody's death leaves their loved one singing songs.