#too bad it's on SyFy

[bmpmp3]

literally such a tragedy what channel zero did to search and rescue woods youre telling me the author lost the publishing rights for THAT like im still so mad. we could have had a book. we could have had a book

[kwyoz]

im rewatching znation once again and aughghghg the MEMORIES.

i wish other people i knew were as obsessed with this show as i was.

[aesthetixhoe]

random ethan landry head cannons — E.L.

warnings: some nsfw ones, nothing too bad, maybe slightly queer coded ethan? (some thoughts)

word count:

pronouns used: this is about ethan >:(

authors note: this is just to get something for ethan out while I work on my very long ethan fic :) nsfw in red <3

loves spider man

his fav holiday is halloween

he loves dressing up for it.

He had a short-lived cosplay phase. While that didn't work out, he still loves making costume parts, and takes Halloween very seriously.

his favorite color is blue <3 (regardless of what i say in later things)

he is such a movie nerd, omg

he will skip his classes to go see a movie the day it comes out, at the first showing. or if it's on a streaming service he will wake up early so that way he is one of the first people to watch it so he doesn't get anything spoiled.

he loves emojis. he will use all the hearts, the "aesthetic ones", and the ones like 😭😃😈 ironically

he doesn't post anything to instagram, snapchat, tiktok, anything. he just uses it to talk to people, take pictures with filters for fun, or to watch things

he's really oblivious to flirting.

unless you flat out say "I like you" or "you're really cute and I want to date you," he probably won't pick up on it.

he used to wear glasses, but got bullied, so he started wearing contacts :(

he loves syfy

he secretly loves romcoms and reality tv but he would never tell anyone

snack lover. his favorite being cheetos ofc

can cook "depression meals," and that's the end of his cooking expertise

definitely likes star wars

has star wars pajama pants

math is his favorite subject

wanted to have an emo phase but was too scared he would be bullied

likes COD and halo, but doesn't play it with people he knows cause he's scared he's bad :(

he is so insecure about everything. poor boy </3

loves pet names!!

he doesn't have a preface for him, but he loves using baby and sweetheart for his s/o

has for sure thought about chad in a sexual way.

he would never act on anything.

once told chad how he was insecure of his body, so chad started taking him to the gym with him

says he hates when chad is a hype man, but actually loves it

used to want to be an engineer when he grew up, but actually did it in middle school and didn't like it

was an honor roll student

has always wanted to travel somewhere outside the US, but doesn't know where

is an amazing cuddler

give great hugs

his hands are warm all the time

it makes him self-conscious when holding someone's hand, but he tries to ignore it

is a potato enjoyer

has a cat back home that he misses a lot

is awful at bowling

and most sports

it's not that he's not fit enough, he just has bad hand eye coordination

jackets >> hoodies

brushes, flosses, and uses mouthwash 2 times a day, EVERYDAY.

can eat 😼 like no other

takes pictures straight out of the shower, with just a towel around his waist to "see his gym progress"

catches on super quick to things his partner likes

is inexperienced, but still very skilled somehow??

knows where the clit is

is submissive, but he also wants to be dominate

will take whatever his s/o gives

love language is touch, even though he's scared in the beginning

once he gets used to his s/o he loves touching them

he likes hickeys.

whether they're on him or his s/o. he doesn't care. he likes them on him because it shows people he has someone who liked him enough to do that to him. and he likes them on the other person because it shows that they're his.

[blueikeproductions]

Some more anecdotal thoughts on TFONE.

Spoilers still.

The concept of the Worker-Bots being lower class, and several characters having serial numbers over names suggests this is meant to be wide spread. Only D-16 and B-127 seem to be this for some reason, with Elita-1 sorta meeting half way. Instead of Orion Pax, you’d think he’d also have a serial number in C-01 or the more on the nose OP-1984. Jazz is a miner and still named Jazz, rather than J-06. Sideswipe could be SW-04, Arcee RC-86, Ironhide, I-98, and so forth. Maybe I’m looking too much into it, but you’d think considering the “demeaning” nature, Sentinel would go farther and strip them of their very names as well as their Cogs.

Sentinel never actually Transforms into his Vehicle Mode at all, and is exclusively in Robot Mode throughout the movie. His wings and jet boosters in his feet make it clear he’s a jet like his toys, but the only thing he turns into is his heavy artillery Apex Armor like mode in the climax.

Despite having a toy that shows the Quintessons can Transform, it’s unknown if they can in the actual film. This feels like an unintended side effect of retconning them as being descendants of Quintus Prime, as technically that should mean they’re Cybertronian, and therefore be able to Transform. The EarthSpark ones are unable to as far as we can tell, with the only Quintus descendants that can being the Terrans. Unless the Quints go the way of the Echidnas and Owls in the Sonic movies, maybe that’s something reserved for a possible TFTWO. Maybe their ship Transforms into a robot called Quintus Maximus, I ‘unno.

Due to copyright jargon, the series usually can’t use the terms Transformer or Transform in non modern animated media super well, leading to clunky ways of describing themselves. The EarthSpark and TFONE books have resorted to calling the species “Transformers Bots” which sounds like a bad SyFy parody show. While G1 and Beast Machines in particular freely refer to the species as “Transformers”, more modern material like Prime and EarthSpark imply the Transformers call themselves “Cybertronians” while “Transformer” is a term coined by humans. Though in RiD15, the Bee Team, in particular Fixit, off and on refer to themselves as Transformers, confusing the matter. TFOne goes nuts, not even trying to hide who they are and what they do, with the species collectively called “Transformers”, their Cogs “Transformation Cogs” like in G1 (they never once call them “T-Cogs” like in Prime), with Optimus able to actually say “Transform and Roll Out!” Megatron sadly never gets to say “Transform & Rise Up!” like his Animated self (and to a lesser extent his Prime self), but Megatron nevertheless adapts Rise Up! as his team’s battle cry.

A little boy in the theater I was in got really excited when the Autobots stumbled on the deer-bots, like he was pumped. Where’s the deer-bot toy, Hasbro? You have a customer.

Like other media, it’s not super clear if these examples of Cybertronic fauna can Transform. They’re not shown to, but nothing suggests they can’t either. They probably would turn into humanoid robots if they got toys, but I like to think, similar to Cyberverse, the deer turn into little cars or something.

The organic plant life is never explained, though Orion and the others don’t recognize it either, and remark in surprise something non metallic can live on the surface. Some fan theories suggest the plant life was due to the Quintessons’ maybe attempting to terraform Cybertron, but the how and why remain unclear. It might just be a throwaway reference to Beast Machines and Galaxy Force, both famously incorporating organics into Cybertron at series end.

The Allspark is never referenced in the film, so how the Transformers reproduce is never specified. Presumably the Allspark still exists, but then again some modern media is slowly moving away from it. IDW never used it in either of its G1 main line books, instead having Vector Sigma, the Matrix, the Moon Bases and Cybertron itself generating life. The Allspark was in TFP and RiD15, but wasn’t crucial to the plot. Prime ends with Optimus and Wheeljack casually fetching the relic in a sector in space, with its (now empty) container used to trap Unicron’s Spark. EarthSpark showed the Allspark existed but quickly tossed it aside, favoring the OTHER life giving relic, the Emberstone. Skybound has yet to reference the Allspark, but going by how close it’s sticking to 80’s material, Vector Sigma is pry more likely. The TFONE Matrix is similar to the Allspark in that it’s connected to Cybertron’s naturally flowing Energon, and without it, Cybertron is doomed to dwindling resources. What this means if the story continues and the Transformers leave Cybertron for Earth we have yet to see.

How the Autobots and Decepticons get their names is a bit clunky. The Decepticons get it in a similar way to IDW, the one reference to it, where they take it from the “deception” of Sentinel and Orion. The Autobots seems to be more spontaneous, it seemingly coming from Orion, now Optimus, reflecting on the miners’ new autonomy with their Cogs, dubbing them “Autobots”. How the Autobots get their logo isn’t known either, the logo just pops up as the credits roll. The Decepticons get their logo from Megatronus Prime’s face mask, as D-16 was a fan boy, collecting related merch. Sentinel, out of spite, torches a crude version of the mask on D-16’s chest which completes the origin. Ironically, as Megatronus never becomes The Fallen and is legitimately heroic as far as we can tell, his symbol being used by Megatron as it is, intentionally by the writers or not, mirrors a similar situation with The Punisher’s logo.

Double checking it, Zeta Prime is apparently a replacement for the 13th Arisen Prime. My guess is they replaced him because without The Fallen, The Arisen word play doesn’t work. Plus, having Orion Pax be preordained to be Optimus like he was in Aligned doesn’t fit here. Zeta Prime isn’t depicted as being the sociopath he’s portrayed as in IDW, but we don’t see a lot of him either, so it’s hard to say for sure (though I doubt he’d be carrying the Matrix if he was). What is for sure is they make it clear, until a future movie retcons it, that the Primes were all benevolent beings shepherding the Transformers. None of that “The Primes are all corrupt and horrible!” nonsense. Sentinel is the only one depicted as being corrupt, but he’s also not a (true) Prime either. Optimus is depicted as the true successor to what the Primes stood for, vs Sentinel who was in it for his own greed. This somewhat mirrors stuff like Nova Prime, though it’s more streamlined so casuals can understand it.

[zink-stink]

I hate her too like omg. We know she wont die but like. Can we have one ep without her please and thank u

Syfy tiffany is unbearable and i think don knows he made her super unlikable so hes trying to make ppl feel bad for her with this whole execution thing. I just want her dead PLZ

[eliotqueliot]

Art references for Queliot's last kiss

Which I'm painting for Mosaic Haiku, Ch. 3.

I needed an actually visible shot of El's outfit in 4x05, Escape from the Happy Place. Including the actual hues.

It's the same outfit he was wearing the last time he saw Q in life.

I've got plenty of shots of Q's outfit because it's what he wears in 3x05, A Life in the Day, but here's a significant one for completeness.

Below is the official SyFy photo I'm trying to paint--their last kiss, right before El goes through the door to meet Q in the park. I hate the way they handled the lighting. It's so dark it's really hard to see any details. I've tried brightening this actual still (which I shared in an earlier post), but it was still too dark to see well enough for art purposes.

So I went back to make more screenshots. They're all very badly lit--though slightly less dark than the publicity still SyFy hosts at their site--so I worked hard to brighten those up as much as possible. Because the lighting's bad, it was still hard to get enough detail, and as you can see, the process did funny things to the hues--yet these pictures are as good as I can make them--so I wanted to share them all with you, since we certainly didn't get enough shots of them kissing, especially not with any decent lighting. (Some of the differences in the poses are quite minute--I kept inching forward to get the angles I needed. But like I say, not enough pictures, so here's the lot.) Note, I'm still working on the painting, and I've also still been looking at additional pictures of their faces to try to get it right. I hope the painting will eventually bring more light to this very important subject. And somehow do it justice. Nothing's as good as the real thing, I know. But also. It's just such a good moment.

One of my favorite parts of the show, honestly. The kiss--the redemption, the reunion.

I'm turning this into an honorary Mosaic Haiku post, since that's where the art will wind up eventually:

Mosaic Haiku (with Art) - Chapter 3 - EliotQueliot - The Magicians (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

[teruel-a-witch]

I'm gonna need to know more about the show those gifs are from. For research purposes,,, obviously 🤭

*rubs hands* certainly! i am glad to have an excuse to talk about one of the best shows that is sooo severely underrated. this got long, i'm sorry, and I barely scratched the surface.

the gifs in question are from a TV show called wynonna earp, it ran between 2016-2021 in canada and on syfy channel in the US, consists of 4 seasons, season 1 with 13 the rest with 12 episodes, and there's also a movie that came out in 2024 on tubi.

the show is based on comics, it's gothic western horror/action/thriller/suspense/comedy/drama monster-of-the-week type of show with an overarching arc and its own lore that keeps developing with each season. it's kind of like supernatural if it didn't hate women and was actually good. as someone who grew up with xena and charmed this show was exactly up my alley from the start.

the titular character is wynonna earp, who is a descendant of the legendary gunslinger wyatt earp, and she's destined to put down 77 revenant demons (outlaws that her ancestor killed with his magic gun peacemaker) in order to break the family curse, revenants are former humans that come back from hell as demons. this is just the starting point, it gets much better and more complex. wynonna is a loveable screw-up and a badass at the same time.

for lovers of old men and implied yaoi there's john henry holliday aka actual doc holliday from history and he's an immortal but also spent almost 150 years down a well as a result of an insane psycho-sexual love triangle between wyatt earp, himself and another guy (it's not explicit but it's basically what happened lmao, and they do 'jokingly' call him 'wyatt earp's boyfriend' at least once), he also happens to be wynonna's on again off again love interest but everyone is bi vibes and flirting on this show not including characters that are explicitly gay/queer.

there's a bunch of loveable main and recurring characters (honestly love everyone in this bar) but of course the main draw has always been the relationship between waverly earp (baby sister of wynonna and saying more about who she is would be spoilery) and officer and later sheriff nicole haught, known as wayhaught. they are basically the show's main romantic couple and they get the main couple treatment which was a first for me with a wlw couple. epic story and epic chemistry and it gets explored. they are basically known as horny monsters but also so in love that cupid himself commented on how in love they are. it's super refreshing to see two women who are allowed to be unabashedly horny for each other, the show doesn't shy away from that, and at the same time their relationship develops and grows deeper every season.

the thing is this show came on scene in 2016, at the height of the backlash to queerbaiting and the bury your gays trope in tv shows (2015-2016 season was particularly egregious with something like over 20 lesbian/bisexual women killed off across many different tv shows) and the fans were hurting and mistrustful, and the showrunner emily andras and the crew and everyone behind the show went 'no, we got you, we are not doing that', first they said that wayhaught will definitely happen without fear of spoiling their show (you have to understand the show barely started, it was like around second episode when nicole and waverly have their meet cute, one of the best ever, imo, and people watching the show, me including, were like 'aw they have such great chemistry, too bad it's not good to happen' and yet the showrunner told us that it will, right away).

and the second most important point is that they said outright that they will not kill off their lesbian/bisexual characters, so when nicole gets shot in S1 she is wearing a bullet proof west specifically as a response to other lesbian characters of other shows that weren't. this show embraced and welcomed a traumatised audience, the one that usually gets overlooked (remember how often shows that cater to queer women get cancelled) and was loved back dearly in return.

it will always have a special place in my heart and i wish it had 15 seasons to explore the lore and story they barely scratched the surface of. but even what we do have is wonderful and infinitely rewatchable, this is a rare show that loves its fans back and has no disdain for enthusiastic people who kept it on the air (there were campaigns too).

tl;dr: it's a great show that i highly recommend. one of my all time faves. found family, monster of the week, it's hilarious, it has heart and multiple queer characters. more people should watch it.

ps. if you have specific questions i'd be happy to answer it was just difficult to explain it all in one post and it got so long anyway.

[magiciansfanworksextravaganza]

10 Days until Welcome Home!

Magicians Fanworks Event, Jan. 27-Mar. 9, 2025

Welcome Home!

We’re eagerly anticipating the start of our Welcome Home! challenge in just ten short days! We’re scribbling, drawing, and singing busily, and we hope that you are, too.

From Jan. 27-Mar. 9, 2025, Eastern time, we’re welcoming fanworks of all types celebrating The Magicians (Lev Grossman/SyFy). This low-key challenge focuses on a series of weekly themes, along with an overall event theme. Throughout, both new works and additions to WIPs are welcome. Plus, existing WIPs that don’t match any of our themes are welcomed with open arms in Week 6!

This challenge takes place on AO3 and Tumblr. To participate, you don’t need to sign up (though we do have instructions for posting so that we can share your work). You may create as many or as few things as you want. We have a Welcome Home AO3 Subcollection, and we'll reblog your work here and gather it in our masterlist.

The overall theme for the entire event is Welcome Home! If you would like to create something for the overall theme, these are welcome anytime while the event is open.

In addition, here are the weekly themes. If you miss your week, you’ve got a second chance during Week 6, our Free Space/Catch-Up week! Want to continue an existing WIP but it doesn’t match any of our themes? Send it during Week 6!

All types of fanworks are welcome! Yes, yes, yes to fic, art, edits, vids, cosplay, crafting, podfic, fanmixes, pinboards, moodboards, and more! Any number of submissions you like. You can even send us multiple chapters of the same work as separate entries—either for different themes, or the same theme! (If sharing on Tumblr, please make separate posts for separate entries.)

Please let us know which theme you chose, and make sure your work either:

1. Fits the overall event theme (send anytime Jan. 27-Mar. 9), or:

2. Fits a specific week’s theme (send during that week, or in Week 6)

Remember: New additions to existing WIPs that don’t match a theme are welcome in Week 6.

Special note: As long as one of the themes makes at least a cameo appearance in your piece, it doesn't need to be the main thrust. Further, what qualifies for the theme is defined by you. (If you're not sure we'll get it, we love hints!)

WEEK 1: Jan. 27-Feb. 2, Home—What constitutes “home” to the characters? What do they think of “home,” good or bad?

WEEK 2: Feb. 3-9, "It's been a long time"—It could be a long time since characters saw each other, or a long time engaged on a task like the mosaic. Special note: The 7th anniversary of The Magicians 3x05, “A Life in the Day,” is Feb. 7. We’d love to see Mosaic Fic.

WEEK 3: Feb. 10-16, Seasonal/holiday—Whether or not it’s the current season/holiday right now (any are welcome). This could include “vibes” or “ambience” for the readers to enjoy in connection with a particular holiday (haunted house for Halloween; romance for Valentine’s Day—which falls this week). If the season or holiday is not specifically referenced in the content, please let us know which one it is.

WEEK 4: Feb. 17-23, Magical creature—A being from the show or books, or from mythology/folklore, or one you make up.

WEEK 5: Feb. 24-Mar. 2, Returning after absence (or returning to being themselves).

WEEK 6: Mar. 3-9, Free space/catch-up week! If you are writing for the theme of a prior week, please let us know which one. If you’re adding to an existing WIP that doesn’t match any theme, it belongs here.

Remember—any works for the general “Welcome Home” theme may be sent any time the event is open, from Jan. 27-Mar. 9. However, please let us know if you are following the overall event theme rather than that week’s theme.

The last day for challenge entries on Tumblr and/or AO3 will be March 9 at 11:59 PM Eastern.

We'll post a recap at the end of each week. Following the event, we'll also post a list grouped by theme, uniting any Week 6 catchup posts with their group.

You absolutely do NOT need to join our Discord server to participate, but here's the invite if you'd like to brainstorm with others, if you’re feeling stuck, etc.: https://discord.gg/NcBDD63uFg

Please stay tuned for more details! And happy creating!

Need a break to refresh your creative spirit? Want to revel in that challenge vibe? Check out the wonderful works created during Warm Up, our micro Magicians challenge!

The themed blog side of our home page, Magicians Fanworks Extravaganza, has some cool ways for you to enjoy all the works in our Warm Up collection, anytime! On the right side of our home page, under Navigation, there's a direct link to the Warm Up Masterlist. Further down on the right side of the page, you'll see Projects. Each challenge has its own box, with the icon for each challenge and a "Project Link." The Warm Up link will serve up everything we posted with the #mfewarmup tag. That includes the masterlist and everything we reblogged, as well as the original challenge guidelines.

[catoperated]

Colonoscopy/Endoscopy in a week. I decide to celebrate my last day of real food by having pizza. Am violently reminded my gallbladder is bad. Wife takes me to the ER the morning after, when it’s clear the pain isn’t going away.

Initially am hopeful because the waiting room is nearly empty. Overhear a nurse say all the rooms are full and my heart sinks.

Hours pass. I have blood and money withdrawn. Battle Los Angeles plays on the TV above us. Motion smoothing is on so the it feels like a fever dream with bad CGI. More people filter in, slowly filling the waiting room.

A woman wheels her very sick, elderly mother to sit across from us. She loudly tells her HOH mother to only put the mask up when she coughs, then says she can’t wear a mask herself because she can’t breathe through them. I scoff through my mask, and this apparently shames her into putting one on.

As I wait I nearly crush a fidget toy in my desperation to distract myself from the pain. My name is finally called and I make the mistake of raising my right hand, resulting in a fresh stab of pain.

The woman in scrubs wheels me to the very back of radiology, where as I look slightly stunned at the ultrasound machine waiting. She asks if anyone told me this test was ordered. No one had. She asks if I’m okay with it. I say yes. Seems silly to say anything else.

Turns out it’s very hard to get a clear image of the gallbladder due to its awkward placing near the liver and ribs. Breathing in and holding it hurts. I’m rolled on my side to try and get a better angle. It is slow torture. When it’s over I’m wheeled to a room in the far corner, away from the noise of the nurse’s station.

The visitor chairs are positioned in such a way that my wife’s head is always hitting something in whatever room we’re in, as if the visitor must be in discomfort, too.

I get morphine. The pain in my chest dulls but my legs are cramped from sitting so long in the waiting room.

I use dual bed/Tv control to turn Food Network to SyFy, which is playing a censored Predator 1 & 2 double feature.

My wife is left behind as I’m taken for a CT scan. More breathing in and holding it. The contrast dye fills me with uncomfortable warmth. Updates for my tests ping on my healthcare app. Most notably the cyst found on the ultrasound I got last month had already grown two cm. As I’m wheeled back I see beds have overflowed into the halls.

Back in ‘my’ room, it’s never quiet. The EKG keeps beeping an alert about my breathing. The nurse says it’s because it’s bad at reading that, so they mostly ignore it as long as people aren’t gasping or panting. Whenever mine beeps, I hear the beeping from the room next door, like the call and answer of lonely birds chirping.

My wife and I wait and watch Schwarzenegger do battle with the Predator and my wife remarks that no one ever talks about Predator 3—so bad it’s like collectively erased it from memory. I don’t even think of Alien vs Predator until right now, as I’m writing this.

From time to time announcements come over the intercom. Code sepsis. Code stroke. I guess they did away with colors.

Doctor comes in and says my gallbladder needs to come out, but the situation isn’t so dire it needs to be immediate. She emphasizes no more fatty foods. About the same diet I have to adopt while preparing for the colonoscopy, but more restrictions. I leave with prescriptions for opioids and nausea.

We get vegetable and tofu hibachi after leaving. My cat sits beside me on the bed when I’m finished, purring in content now that I’m finally back home.

I took a selfie while high on morphine and my wife joked that they finally discovered what it took to get me to take a picture of myself.

I’m not posting it here.

I’m also not editing this.

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

Okay, this may come off sounding overly Buffypilled, but I think the fatal flaw that keeps preventing the pieces from coming together in SyFy's The Magicians (a show that is often good in its elements but Does Not Cohere) is that it can't figure out the nature of its core metaphor around magic.

But Milo, you say, maybe not everything has to be like, a metaphor? Maybe it can just be a fantasy show where people cast spells and bop around between dimensions because it's fun and entertaining? And to that I say, yeah, theoretically it can be that, but stuff that wants to be emotionally resonant is usually not that.

So there's typically an operative metaphor to these things, an idea that gives structure to the supernatural elements and helps us understand what's going on thematically. So like in Buffy and Supernatural, the structuring metaphor is The Pleasant-Seeming World Vs The Monsters Below Us. You understand the story by locating various characters in terms of their role in the conflict -- predators, protectors, prey -- and there's an ongoing tension around whether or not it's okay for protectors to dabble too much in Monstrosity, if the powers and tactics of the Monstrous can ever be repurposed for good.

That's not the structure of all stories, even in that genre! Teen Wolf and Harry Potter both have "secret occult world parallel to the familiar one" premises, as does The Magicians, but none of those stories impose the predator/prey metaphor onto their worlds. Teen Wolf structures its metaphors around the opposite assumption: that the supernatural element (The Wolf) is inherently neutral, and that accessing it makes characters simultaneously more dangerous and more capable of good. Hunters are bad guys in that universe, but good guys in Buffy and SPN, because the audience understands that "magic" is carrying a different set of meanings in the different stories, right?

The novels that The Magicians is based on has an extremely clear and pointed perspective on the meaning that magic carries metaphorically, and it's a positive meaning. Magic stands in for the power to make sense and meaning out of your own life, which is why the books follow Quentin's process from being a frustrated child using escapist child-stories to distract himself to playing an active role within those stories to assuming authority as a Magician King to ultimately killing the god of his childhood fantasy stories and creating his own Magician's Land to explore. Gaining more magic is always good in the books; it makes Quentin more sure of himself and the world, and it makes him more able to change it. It's an obvious metaphor for evolving over his 20s from a child who consumes stories to an adult who tells his own story.

But that's not the case in the show. A significant percentage of the show is an argument with itself about what magic even is -- does it solve problems or create them? If it's the reason lives across the multiverse are constantly at risk, is that bad? It sounds bad! But it's also power, and the show is highly sympathetic to the desire to Have More Power -- often completely divorced from the purpose or use of power. Gods seem mostly terrible, except Persephone, who's right to give Julia divine power, which we want Julia to be able to keep? But why do we want Julia to be a god? They're terrible! It's not clear. The nature of the power isn't clear, but the show has a general bias toward more power being a good thing -- except that the Library clearly has too much power, and so probably does Brakebills, both of which withhold magic for purposes that are protective or elitist or both? The show advocates for fewer restrictions on magic, but it also shows total carnage resulting from minor fuckups with magic, so -- does it really want the Library to just throw open to the floodgates? Doesn't it pretty strongly imply that a bloodbath would ensue if people had unfettered access to magic?

I realize it kind of sounds like I'm saying complicated stories with conflicting perspectives are bad, but I'm not. I just think it's difficult to know how to feel about anything that happens in the show because of this extremely loose approach to its use of themes. Alice is presented as wrong and bad when she tries to stifle magic, because the other characters like magic, but is she wrong? Why is she wrong? Why do the other characters like magic so much? It's presented as something that provides -- meaning or joy or some quasi-spiritual sense of identity ("the secret heart of who you always were"), but the show doesn't actually make that case, it doesn't demonstrate that the characters are better or happier because they're Magicians -- not in the same clear way that Scott McCall or book!Quentin are demonstrably more confident and comfortable and wiser at the end of their stories than they were at the beginning. As many times as I've watched The Magicians, I have to say I get less convinced every time that any of them benefit much from being Magicians -- and yet the story itself seems sure that they do, that magic has inherent value of some kind.

That's a weird combination, and it leaves me with the uncomfortable sense that the addiction metaphor is the one the show is fleshing out most fully. Fogg offers Quentin magic in exchange for his pills. Julia can't access magic legally and immediately behaves exactly like a junkie. If you do too much you'll be consumed, leaving an angry ghost. Kady's literal substance abuse, like Fogg's, is entwined at every step with the struggle to cope with the traumas of magic. Eliot is possessed by a creature of enormous magical power who is enthralled by the sensation of being high and has no perception of limits or consequence. They go back and back again to this entangling of magic and intoxication and addiction and self-destruction, but they never seem either aware of or willing to admit that they've created a world where magic itself is an addictive intoxicant, unable to provide real solutions to anyone's problems, but just pleasurable enough compared to the pain of sobriety to keep people chasing the sensation right over the cliff.

It's not intentional enough to be a metaphor that carries through consistently and explains everything, but it returns so frequently as a subtext that it ends up seeping into all the gaps where they've refused to show up with any other clear thematic agenda.

[micamicster]

Micaaaaaa I am in need of a good TV show. IWTV left me craving for some good writing, please help 💙 I know some of your all-time favourites are Black Sails and The Wire, I gave them a try, but I'm afraid they're a bit too bleak for me :(( Any good recs?

Bestie this is a great question and im honestly a terrible person to direct it to because the truth is I really don't watch a ton of tv! But I'm gonna do my best!

Beneath the cut find a list of shows I think are particularly well written, divided into vague and confusing categories based on how similar to iwtv they might seem?

<3 <3 <3

(Totally get Black Sails and the Wire feeling too heavy. The wire in particular is imo the single most upsetting thing thats ever been put on television so I completely get not being up for it. But if anyone else is looking for shows I think are really well written those would be good places to start! Black Sails would be my first rec for iwtv fans tbh)

Dramas with syfy/fantasy elements:

Russian Doll: for literally anyone other than you (who's already watched it!) this would be my number one rec. One of the best (and specifically best written) shows of all time, has those spec fic surrealist elements, combines comedy and drama, just love it.

Andor: I know, I was surprised too. But despite being a star wars tv show it actually has writers that do a? good? job? And Diego Luna is spectacular. (If black sails was too grim this might also feel that way given our knowledge of the main character's fate, but it might be worth checking out anyway)

I forgot what i was going to put here

Not sf:

Reservation Dogs: Taika Watiti can be hit or miss for me, but this show is the best of his particular combination of humor and pathos. Also he's just really good at writing kids? (I would be remiss if I didn't point out that he has been (rightfully!) criticized for the antiblackness of couple of minor characters who appropriate black culture pretty egregiously, iirc they don't feature after season 1? But it is a flaw to be aware of). Why didn't I put this with the sitcoms? My mind is mysterious even to me

Bad Sisters: great 1 season irish show about a group of sisters trying to murder their sister's abusive husband. Again a really strong writing combo of humor and genuine emotion!

The Get Down: still not over this cancellation it hurt me in ways I can't even begin to explain... anyway a great show about the birth of rap in 70s nyc with beautifully thought out costumes, music, writing, visual style <3

The Americans: two russian spys undercover as an american suburban couple in the 80s is actually a vehicle for a probing exploration of marriage and intimacy. Also pretty grim (the cold war. yeah.) so idk if it would be for you.

The Knick: nobody ever watches this when I rec it because it's too gorey but I don't care! I love it! Period drama about a public hospital in early 1900s new york.

Sitcoms!: (sorry I know you've watched half of these just wanted to include them in case anyone else looked at this list!)

Derry Girls: this show is just hit after hit. Best written show about teens in the world!

We Are Lady Parts: See this entire blog. Genuinely one of the best shows ever made

American Vandal: Ok technically this is more of a mockumentary than a sitcom but i wasn't sure where else to put it. Season one in particular is some of the best tv show writing I've ever watched it is perfect in every way!

MASH: 70s sitcom about a US military field hospital during the Korean War. At its best it's hysterically funny, absurdist, and bitingly furiously anti-war. (At its worst it's racist, sexist, and boring. It was the 70s) This show was a cultural phenomenon, but it has literally over 200 episodes so I would recommend just googling for a best-of list and watching a handful to see if it works for you.

Atlanta: Donald Glover's surrealist sitcom about trying to manage his cousin's rap career in Atlanta. That's such a bad explanation of what this show is about i'm sorry but I'm not sure how to do better.

Shows I've watched between 1 episode and 1 season of, thought to myself "wow! this show is amazing!" but can't in good conscience recommend because I never really watched enough of them to qualify as an expert:

The Sopranos: everyone says it's the best tv show of all time and i watched season one, said wow they're right! and still haven't managed to get back to it! The pilot itself is so fucking funny like... mobster goes to therapy for his anxiety had to have been the pitch of all time

Station eleven: LOVED the book, heard really good things about the tv show, thought the pilot was amazing, got busy and couldn't finish it.

Babylon Berlin: this has the darkly romantic, opulent qualities of iwtv so it might be for you! Unfortunately I've seen less than half of it so I can't promise it doesn't go off the rails.

Breaking Bad: people are right! it's good! It's also (at least in season one, the only season I've watched so far) like someone made a slapstick comedy about a man cooking meth. In a good way!

You might want to just watch a couple gothic romances to scratch that iwtv itch! Check out an adaptation of Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights!

WOW this is too hard. Just watch supernatural i guess

[thealmightyemprex]

Sci Fi Month Frank Herbert's Dune(2000)

So I talked about David Lynchs attempt at a Dune adaptaion ,but there have been other adaptaions of the story,with Denis Villenuves Dune PArt 2 currently in theaters by the time of this post,but the adaptaion I am looking at today was a 3 episode miniseries made for the Sci Fi Channel (Still never calling it Syfy ,I can be petty ) .Ive kind of avoided this version because welll......Its a early 2000's TV adaptation of an epic novel for the Sci Fi channel ,which is unfair,as I love a good miniseries but I'll admit I can be a snob sometimes,but over the years I have heard praise and to this day many people (My dad who is an old school Dune fan ) call tyhis the best adaptation of Dune

In this 2000's miniseries Duke Leto Atredies (William Hurt ) is given control of Arakis by the Emperor Shaddam IV (Giancarlo Giannini) who uses it as a ploy to destroy Leto by giving support to Letos enemy the Baron Vladimir Harkonen (Ian McNeice ) to destroy the house of Atredies,but Letos son Paul (Alec Newman ) and Letos concubine Jessica (Saskia Reeves) escape ,join the native people of Arakis ,the Fremen to seek revenge on the Emperor and House Harkonen ,while also taking advantage of a prophecy

.....SO I enjoyed this a lot.Its not flawless but if you are in the right mood it is enjoyable .I will say it is not as grand as the Lynch or Villinuve films,its shot on soundstages and lacks the all star casts of those films....But what I like is its more Shakespeare then space opera ,very theatrical sort of sci fi .I actually like the sets(GEidi Prime in particualr is perhaps my fave take on the planet ).The costume design is where this shines ,I heard the costumes were inspired by Moebius (The French comic artist) and you can tell,the characters feel like they walked right out of a sci fi comic,and with the designs and colors this mybe my favorite LOOKING version of Dune .I think the three episodes tell the story very well,though the best written is part one,and part 2 feels a bit padded but it sticks the landing for part 3 .I also think this miniseries nails the darker parts of the story better then the 84 Dune ,mainly that Paul is NO hero

The actors are mostly good,though very few are my favorite takes on these character.Some stand outs are Karel Dobry as the enigmatic Liet-Kynes(My fave take on the character),Julie Cox in an expanded role as Princess Irulan,Barbora Kodetova is good as Chani ,Saskia Reeves is a very good Lady Jessica ,Jan Unger is a suitably slimey Piter de Vries ,and Matt Keesler is suitably villainous as Feyd .The big star gets of the miniseries are Giancarlo Giannini as the Emperor who is better then Jose Ferrer but still lacking a bit of gravitas ,and William Hurt as Duke Leto ,who I think does a fairly good job as the noble duke even if its funny he is top billed as a guy wh dies in the first part .The scene stealer of the series is our villain ,the Baron played deliciously deviously by Ian McNiece ,who might be my favorite take on the Baron ,he feels like a classic Shakesperian villain and McNice is clearly having a ball without going as over the top as Kenneth McMillian in the 84 film

If the miniseries has a weak point the weakest has to be Paul.Alec Newman is not bad ,in fact hes pretty good at anti hero Paul near the end....But his begining PAul feels like it is written younger,and he comes across too petulent and whiney

However I do reccomend this and it is very solid ,higly reccomended

@ariel-seagull-wings @the-blue-fairie @piterelizabethdevries @themousefromfantasyland @theancientvaleofsoulmaking @princesssarisa @countesspetofi @filmcityworld1

[latentspaceofficial]

research tangent! scp x wh13

so this is something a little bit different than what i normally talk about. i'm putting on a different cap today. ok little nerd moment thats been living rent free in my head for days. ive got an antistatic bag on my desk thats been sitting here for a while and i noticed something familiar

that sure as hell looks like the scp foundation logo

which got me really thinking. so its very obvious to me that the scp logo takes inspiration from this iso or ansi symbol. but whats even more odd was looking at the timeline of the scp wikis birth. im a zillenial (god i hate that word) so my childhood was watching markiplier play scp:cb, scrolling the old wiki, fucking with cleverbot. fun stuff like that. i was still a drooling idiot. when sci-fi renamed to syfy. but i remember the switchover and not being allowed to watch eureka because there were some "goddamns" in there. but i was allowed to watch warehouse 13, in spite of steve's existence. i was way too into the steampunk and lore of warehouse 13 when it was relevant. so much so i had a fucking farnsworth ringtone on my lg shit phone and i thought it was the coolest thing. i'm also still gay as hell for h.g. wells and her fit.

but anyway anyway. the premise of warehouse 13 was finding dangerous "artifacts" that imbued special status affects on people and to neutralize them with "neutralizer grid polyethylene static bags" as they say. their motto being "snag it. bag it. and tag it." or something to that effect.

what im getting at is that warehouse 13 has a similar premise to the scp foundation, but more mainstream comedy and less psychological horror. there's a tangential link between wh13 with scp via anti static bags and the symbol. so i looked into this a bit. through cursory searches, i didn't find anyone really talking about this other than a similar premise. so i looked at timelines. in july 2008 the scp foundation wiki (idk which one) was started, while wh13 piloted on july 2009. with a year delta, it seems clear "who stole from who". but wait. writing, pitching, and filming takes quite a while. is a year really enough time? i can't find any trademarks registered by universal nor any evidence of a canadian filming license. so this is where i stopped typing on my phone and started researching. the waters are a bit muddy, so bear with me. wh13 was co-written by a handful of people and rewritten as well. but the original plot was announced by sci-fi here in october of 2007

according to wikipedia (the free encyclopedia), inspirations for warehouse 13 include the x-files, raiders of the lost ark, something called moonlighting, and this show from the late 80s and early 90s called "friday the 13th: the series". i'd never heard of it, but it shares the vaguest premise with both wh13 and scp to keep bad artifacts away from harming people.

well what about the scp wiki? when did it form? well it's complicated. (i'm sorry for my poor cropping, it will happen again)

the scp wiki itself states that the original scp came from 4chan and that a lot of original organization happened on 4chan. indeed 4chan is the source of famous scps such as 173

posted on june 2007 is the original lore post about 173 and can be seen as the beginning of scps. which pre-dates the announcement of wh13. i don't know about you, but how fast you could go from trolling 4chan to a pilot script? at this point "some government authority retrieving dangerous magic embued items" was not a previously done idea and was indeed original. the x-files kinda did this before with balancing larger plot arcs with mini plot supernatural occurrences, not all aliens. but nothing about being an authoritative group that comes in and cleans up super natural mishaps. nah, mulder and skully just stayed in the basement or took an occasional road trip to see a whistleblower. i honestly love scp far more than wh13, but i'm going to be the devil's advocate and not give the new era spin on an old idea to the scp wiki just yet. 173 is an scp, but the idea of scps is not fully laid out yet. the thread was also deleted days later and thus only lived in the minds of active forum users of the time as fan derivatives were made. so there was a period of time where the fandom had started to form, but no official wiki existed. the semi official scp wiki formed in january 2008. later than the announcement of wh13 but before the pilot of the show ever aired in july 2009. so it's always possible the writers were 4channers and yoinked the idea. again, it's so fascinating how close in time and narrative the scp wiki and wh13 are. i personally doubt the writers were on 4chan at the time, but neither the wiki nor the show writers exist in a vacuum. i think it all warrants scrutiny and there's no smoking gun saying who inspired who, or if it's absolute coincidence. that is unless some ogs from the scp wiki or the writers of wh13 are able to speak on it. i'm curious what other people think.

[arthropooda]

The premise of Netflix series Eric feels like a huge ripoff of the Syfy series Happy! !!!!!

It's been out for two weeks and nobody made this connection!

Now I'm not usually like this about art, I usually do not care whatsoever if things are similar, but this is too many similarities for it not to bother me. I can hardly watch this show because every second I'm like "that was in Happy and was better in Happy!" which is an opinion but it is just amazing how one thing can be kind of a flop and then a few years later something so derivative/reduced from the substance of the original comes about and it's just et up by hipsters. Also again my opinion but so amazing that cumberbunch is never ever in anything good, happy if I'm wrong bc I don't go looking for him so maybe I could be wrong but it's soo funny for him to be playing the main character in a shitty photocopy of Happy. Half of my feelings abt this is because I think Happy was really good (although I get that it's not everyone's thing) and half is that no one noticed the combination of same premise details that make up anything otherwise unique about Eric

Set in a dark grimy NYC

Similarly titled children's live action entertainment with costumes (Sonny Shine/Good Day Sunshine)

Main character's ongoing substance abuse and getting fired for it

Children seemingly abducted by unhoused, facilitated by organized crime

Main character & child's mother's bad relationship

Child's furry blue imaginary creature helps main character find them

Okay maybe it's not that much of a huge list but most of those could be expanded to two or three list items and there are probably more I haven't noticed because this is a spontaneous rant.

The main differences seem to be there being no holiday theme and the main character not having been a cop, with the secondary main character being one instead

not part of a comparative analysis, but a little funny that cumberbatch's expression is literally exactly the same in every one of these image results from the show

well actually I can make that part of the comparison too, look how much more expressive these are!

[navybrat817]

Hi babe!! I hope you’re doing well today 😊

Not too bad so far, nonnie! Took the day off, dropped the kids, watched a random horror movie on SyFy (Hell Fest, which wasn't bad). Now the hubby and I are heading to lunch and going to an arcade. Maybe we'll win a prize for the kiddos.

And if I can tonight, finish the next part of sugar daddy!Andy.

Hope you're having a great day!

Love and thanks. ❤️

[antoschauniverse]

I'm aware of an exclusive X-Files convention in the middle of the year, but I don't think there will be a panel at any Comic Con in 2025. I'm a fan, but I recognize that we don't have the reach of Star Wars or Star Trek, not even close - and unfortunately the last two seasons didn't attract any new fans. Now, if there are panels at comic cons, it'll only be in the milestones - 35, 40 years. And there's no such thing as an actor-musician presenting their bands or wanting to have a say in the organization. There are a lot of actors who are musicians - if it were possible for everyone to bring their band, it would turn into a music festival - bad (because if they were good musicians, they wouldn't be on Syfy series). The fans give Duchovny too much credit, he hasn't been on the ball for a while…

I think the failure of the last seasons of the X-Files is mostly Chris Carter's "credit." Of course, David also contributed to this failure, because many of my friends stopped watching the show when they found out that David had found a fan 33 years younger than him. They're still fans (only M&S), but it's just a shadow of what it used to be.

I suspect that Chris Carter made Mulder a tough guy who shoots non-stop and kills everyone in a row - at David's request. Unfortunately, this did not attract any new young fans to the show. They don't need an old man trying to be a young tough agent, they have enough really young idols. As a result, the old fans abandoned the series, and the younger viewers were not interested in the series.

I hope that Gillian and David will be at the convention, but I hope even more that David has enough sense left and he won't bring his sugar baby to the convention. A long time ago, David said that he did not want to star with Gillian in other projects because he did not want to spoil the legacy of Mulder and Scully. Maybe David should remember his words and leave his kept woman at home, because she has nothing to do with the legacy of the X-Files, she wasn't even born then.

I doubt David will give up his "music career," because it's basically the only way he gets adoration and worship from his exclusive fans.