#it honestly makes me a little sad that he feels so different in torchwood

[falderaletcetera]

come to think of it another reason I'm biased towards nine might be because we never reach such beautiful casual queer vibes as the doctor + rose + jack situation again, at least not as far as I've watched. like I'm honestly not that much of a shipper but that kiss scene DOES things to me. and part of that is how loosely defined the relationship seems to be, at least maybe from jack's perspective. I can't rightly say it was wholly romantic in canon, but it sure was something - yes, rose flirted with jack way more than the doctor did when they first met, but the doctor even just being chill about jack kissing him feels significant - and I do love a quasi-romantic loosely-defined Something.

[melancholydreadfuldream]

hope is blood on broken glass

Fandom: Doctor Who

Summary: The Doctor found out what happened to a former companion after they left his care.

Warning: mention of torture.

   The thing about being the companion of the Doctor is you can't stay with him forever. You would eventually have to leave the Doctor and the Tardis. You would have to try to put the pieces that is the life you have before the Doctor back on track. 

  The time the companion spend with the Doctor will change them for better or worse. They became changed by the experiences that sometimes they seek for a life that closely resembles those time with the Doctor. Like Martha who worked for UNIT, Jack for Torchwood, Sarah-Jane Smith who formed her own group, even Rose and the Metacrisis who also have a version of Torchwood in their world. They are all become a defender of Earth in their own way. 

  Some are able to somewhat returned to their mundane life and whether they were able to have a good life or not, well, the Doctor tried not to interfere or find out what happened to them. It wasn't necessary to add heartbreaks to see how they ended. But he always believe they will all be brilliant.

  But you never felt that way.

  UNIT has tons of file they collected about the Doctor and the companion he had over the years. They kept an eye on the companion from time to time.

  (yn) (ln) was a companion of the Eleventh Doctor alongside Amy and Rory. But you left him after realizing you couldn't handle your unrequited feeling for him anymore. You felt less in his eyes, not as good as his fairy-tale princess, Amelia Pond, not as brave as Rory the Roman, not as brilliant as his beloved wife, River Song. The Doctor has his own family and that does not includes you, despite his assurance.

  The last time you saw him, you had confessed your feeling for him despite knowing he didn't feel the same. For you, it might be the closure you needed to move on. 

 The Doctor couldn't say anything to you upon your confession and honestly you didn't expect him to. You had packed your suitcases, ready to leave the Tardis when he finally apologized to you. He hugged you and told you that you are brilliant and that you are one of his best friend. He didn't stop you from leaving, that hurts a little but you know it was for the best. The both of you could not handle the awkwardness after your confession. But he did tell you to call him should you need anything.

  Life after the Doctor is as mundane as you thought it would be but that is your only option. And for a while, things just doesn't work as you wanted it too and you got so sad, so depressed. It was a year later, more or less, that life gradually less painful and more bearable. You finally got a stable job and the salary is good. You are okay. 

  On 14th December 2020, (yn) (ln) disappeared. UNIT case officer on the Doctor File assumed you were back with the Doctor until a missing person report is filed two weeks later. Even then, he still think you were out there, travelling with the Doctor. It won't be the first time a companion of the Doctor is reported missing by a family member as in the case of one Rose Tyler or in your case, your work friends.

  Two years later, an FBI raid in New York revealed a strange basement on abandoned building where they found a bunch of people whom they assumed victims of human experiment considering their pitiful state. 

  The breaking news on the worldwide were talking about how these victims were actually the missing people from all over the world and they have been missing in various different years, ranging from two years up to seven years. Most of their cases has been dropped for the lack of trails of their whereabouts.

  Martha Jones has worked for UNIT for a while now and has been privy to the Doctor File UNIT has collected over the years. She has read about your file and distinctly wondered what happened to you. She had asked Kate Steward once why she didn't contact the Doctor regarding your whereabouts.

  Kate, too, has assumed the Doctor has lost you somewhere along the line of the adventure. After all, the adventures with him always consist of danger and there were many instant of the Doctor's companion files be labeled as missing or as to be assumed of the worst case scenario, dead. Also, she didn't make a habit of contacting the Doctor regarding a former companion, believing the Doctor has move on from them to new ones.

  So, imagine their surprise, when a leaked list of the victim names from the FBI case suddenly showed up on the internet with your name among them.

  Believing the case must be alien in nature, UNIT swoop in to take the case from the FBI much to their annoyance. And as Martha is charged to treat these victims, they really didn't know what to make of the case. Is it alien in nature or just plain old human cruelty?

  These victims are all malnourished, you could practically see their bones through the skins. On their arms littered many scars from oh so many injections. Their wrists were marked with the heaviness of their shackles. All of their hairs has turned silver, presumably from the experiments. They weren't responding well with the new treatments and they weren't responsive.

  You sat on your bed in your assigned room, staring blankly at the wall, unresponsive like the rest. That is until Martha mentioned the Doctor and you became hysterical, screaming and crying, scratching your skins till you drew blood. You were quickly sedated.

  Martha and Kate started to consider to call on the Doctor, believing the Doctor might have some answers in regard of your reaction of him.

  "He would want to know!"

  "Would he?" Kate asked. "Look at her."

  "I am looking! She need the Doctor!"

  "Are you sure about that?"

  "You really want to hide this from the oncoming storm?"

  In the end, Kate relented to Martha's demand to call the Doctor. 

  Kate expected that they will get the Twelfth Doctor and his current companion, Clara Oswald, but instead a young woman in rainbow striped and a hoodie appeared before them, followed by three people they assumed her new companion.

  "Martha Jones!" The Doctor smiled brightly as she went to give her a hug.

  "Doctor." Martha is still eyeing the Doctor's current body. "What an upgrade."

  "I know right?" She grinned. "Fam, this is Martha Jones, one of my best friends. And that is Kate Steward, UNIT leader." She introduced them. "They are Yaz, Ryan and Graham, my fam."

  "Fam?" Martha raised an eyebrow teasingly.

  "So what is the big emergency?" The Doctor asked.

  Immediately the mood turned sombre.

  "(yn) (ln)?" The Doctor repeated in shock after Martha and Kate explained everything to her. She glanced at your medical file and winced at what she read there. "I want to see her."

  "You will but we have to warn you, she might not react well to you, well, to the Doctor anyway." Kate said.

  The Doctor frowned. 

  7777

  The Doctor, upon reading your file, know she has to prepare herself to see you at your current condition. She tried to school her expression as she walked toward you hesitantly, knowing your fragile state. It broke her hearts to see one of her best friends ended up like this. But she has to talk to you, get some answers from you.

  She bend her knees in front of you and spoke softly to you, "Hey, (yn)."

  You didn't even look at her. You were still mostly sedated.

  "It's me, the Doctor."

  That got a small reaction from you as you flinched harshly at the name.

  The Doctor noticed this as she swallowed down hard. "I have regenerated. I am a woman now. You see?"

  You glanced at her with a hint of curiosity but it was quickly extinguished.

  "I'm sorry that this happened to you. Could you tell me what happened?" The Doctor asked gently.

  You didn't answer.

  The Doctor sighed in disappointment but as she made to move away from you, you whispered hoarsely at her. Your voice is small and filled with tremor. She nearly couldn't catch what you says.

  "Where were you?"

  "I... What?"

  "Where were you? I called you. I called you. I escaped and I called you. But you hung up. They dragged me back. You didn't come for me. Where were you? Why didn't you come for me? I waited. I waited. I waited. But you didn't come." You whispered in a broken tone. "Why didn't you come?" 

  The Doctor and everyone in the room froze at what you said.

  "Doctor?" Yaz called out. "What is she talking about?"

  "I...I have no idea..." The Doctor answered in a shaky tone. "I..." 

  And then she remembered. You did call her in her previous incarnation. He was with Clara on urgent mission when he got your call just as he was about to left the Tardis, bearing some equipment he need to save the day. He was surprised to get a call from you but he was at the times in an emergency and honestly the call was mostly static. He was busy and told you to call him back again later and hung up. He hung up. He never called you back, too busy with another emergencies.

  The Doctor blanched at the realization. Her hearts shattered with the knowledge she play a part in your misery. She could have save you. He could have save you. But she didn't. He didn't. The Doctor has unknowingly abandoned you to your fate, has not even realized you were missing.

  "I am sorry. I am so sorry." She whispered to you.

  You glanced at her blankly as you shut down again.

  7777

  "It wasn't your fault." Martha tried to convince the Doctor. "You couldn't have known."

  The Doctor is feeling numb. She tried to focus on the rest of the victims but none of them in any condition or in enough of a coherent mind to talk. Between the sorrow and the guilt, she is furious at whoever did this to you. She vowed to find them and make them pay dearly for hurting you. You were still her friend, her companion and she has a duty of care. Whoever did this to you, they better be ready to face the oncoming storm, human or alien, they will all pay.

  Martha tried to calm her down, sensing her anger at herself and at whoever did this. "What she need right now is you by her side, help her with her recovery, Doctor."

  The Doctor know Martha is right but to be honest, she is afraid to face you. She doesn't know how you could ever forgive her for abandoning you in your time of need. She knew she could never forgive herself. River was right, the Doctor really couldn't handle the damage sometimes, no wonder River always hide her pain from her husband. The Doctor really is rubbish at this.

  An alarm sounded surprising the Doctor from her lament. Martha is quick to deal with an emergency when seemingly two of the victims having seizures. When they were pronounced dead on the scene, the Doctor know she has to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible before the same thing happened to you. She will not lose you to this, not when she just found you again. And God help those who cause the Doctor to lose another companion for she will show them no mercy.

       A/N: Just a short fic to pass the time. So this fic is also about Thirteenth Doctor having to deal with the 'mess' her previous incarnations unknowingly left behind. Originally I plan to make this longer with reader in a process of recovery but died halfway after reconcile with the Doctor but I just don't have the patience to write it hence I just left it at that.

[enderon]

Torchwood Positivity

I’m just gonna say the things I like about the main characters of Torchwood cause I love all of these disasters so fucking much and just wanna share and spread that love. :)

Gwen: Fucking beautiful woman, bless Eve Myles and bless the costume department that kept putting her in those hella hot jackets, love her kickass and independent attitude and how it lets her call the others out when they are being assholes or not thinking about moral repercussions, I love how good and kind she can be and how focused she can get on helping and comforting people and just being there for them and how she really does wanna have a balance between Tochwood and her regular life because it is important to have both so that there’s some light in your life, I love what she was supposed to be and don’t blame her those moments where the writing made her unlikable, it aint her fault the men can be idiots 

Jack: Old captain dad man loves his team with all of his heart and it just absolutely warms my heart, like the scene in Adam in the boardroom just says so much about how much he loves and cares for all of them and I just love him so much, I never really got into Dr. Who so Torchwood is really where I got to know him and I’m so happy cause I love how he is in Torchwood, personally I feel like he’s just the right mix of playful and promiscuous to angsty and cold, is good man even though he doesn’t always realize it, I also love his general presence as a character, how he steps into a scene and just fills that scene with his very essence, love it, also John Barrowman seems like an absolute delight as a person 

Owen: He’s grumpy and an ass and pokes fun at everything and I fucking love it, he’s had such a hard past and it’s made him into a total grump but it was that initial past that drove him to be a doctor, he took that original trauma and wanted to help people, to make a difference, after Katie he became even more moody and emotionally unstable but he really does try and there are so many good little moments sprinkled into the show where you can see just how much he cares about this little team, he can be really soft when he lets himself and especially towards the end of season two he gets more and more soft and from a character arc perspective I’m glad that last minute chose to have Owen be the one to be the living dead instead of Ianto cause it’s such a fascinating arc that works perfectly well for Owen who, in a sense, has been the living dead this whole time, enjoying drinking and having sex and fighting but not really enjoying it or living it, also mad respect to Burn Gorman cause honestly how can you help but respect a man who tried to steal a whole ass bathtub from a hotel when he was drunk off his ass? Mad respect 

Tosh: Eternally sad that we never got to hear more about her backstory but also super happy that she kind of had the most metal ‘origin’ story as to how she became a part of Torchwood, she is fucking beautiful and marvelous and also literally the most relatable character for me, she tries and I love her so much for it, I wish that she had gotten better hope in love before she died but at the very least the relationship she did have, as short as they were, seemed to make her happy when she was in them, I love how even though she’s the most subdued and shy of the lot she still has her snarky moments and isn’t afraid to tell the others off for bulldozing around her

Ianto: My boy, my favorite of the lot, how could he not be everyone loves Ianto, he’s just so good, lemma say that, even as a huge lesbian, Gareth David-Lloyd is a very attractive man who has most certainly only gotten better with age, putting him in suits was the greatest decision the costume department could have made, I love the emotional range of Ianto and how there are so many sides to him while still being consistent and in-character that it always feels like we’re finding out something new about him without rehashing something we’ve already seen before, I love seeing the shift in him being happier and with more of a sense of belonging in season 2 cause, really, it’s what he deserves

[elevenspond]

it’s absolutely staggering how many people insist amy pond and clara oswald are nothing more than idealized caricatures while in the same breath claim rose tyler and donna noble are the most relatable companions in doctor who. if you ask me, amy and clara are two of the most realistic female characters i’ve ever seen in fiction.

let’s start with amy. in season 5, one of the central difficulties she has to overcome is her fear of commitment to rory and her initial reluctance to get married. a fear of commitment in fiction is usually portrayed in male characters despite it being common in reality across all genders, and it doesn’t come from a lack of love for the other person. amy experiences a fear of devoting herself fully to someone after all of the abandonment she suffered throughout her childhood (parents that were mysteriously never around, the doctor leaving her waiting, etc). but she overcomes this fear after being confronted directly with the loss of rory and finishes the season happily wedded to him. she faces realistic, internal challenges in her life and conquers them over the course of her own character arc. amy does this again in season 6, when she has to face the fact that the doctor is not the fairytale hero she’s seen him as ever since she was a child; that he won’t always be able to save her, and that he is as imperfect and vain as anyone else. and although it’s heartbreaking, amy accepts this about him and moves on from her own idolization of him. this arc of her character represents the moment we all experience when we stop seeing the world through the eyes of our childhood selves and realize its imperfections, as well as the moment when we learn to accept those imperfections for what they are. after this, in season 7, amy is ready to move on from a life of adventuring with the doctor to a life of normalcy with her husband. an ordinary lifestyle may not seem appealing to many of us, but to most people on this earth, it’s all we will ever have, and amy’s development into someone who can leave behind her childhood fairytale in order to live out normal days with the person she loves--- it’s so applicable to real life, and quite frankly, so inspirational.

now, on to clara, whose arcs are a bit in the reverse order of amy’s. when we first meet clara oswald in season 7, she’s an ordinary young woman who is swept away into adventures across time and space with the doctor. she’s witty, clever, bossy, confident, and wholly unique as an individual, and despite all of that, so much of clara remains ordinary. in season 8, she works as a school teacher, one of the most mundane (yet extremely important) jobs in the world, and she falls in love with a fellow teacher. she balances a life of traveling with the doctor with an exceedingly ordinary life. “normal is overrated” she says, but the fact remains that she’s still an ordinary woman even while being so clever and brilliant, and her arc in season 8 is about clara accepting that she can do ordinary things while still being extraordinary, which is honestly so inspirational.  then comes season 9, and therein lies the tragedy of her character. clara has suffered a personal loss of incredible magnitude in danny pink’s death, severing the strongest tie to her ordinary life, and in attempting to move on from her grief, she throws herself fully into her travels with the doctor. she becomes more reckless, more unafraid, more confident in her own dangerous choices and actions. it’s such a realistic way of dealing with, or in this case, suppressing immeasurable grief. not everyone reacts to loss this way, but many do, and for many, the reckless lifestyle they embrace in order to forget the pain is more destructive than the pain itself. and this is exactly what happens with clara. she continuously takes risks throughout season 9, always confident in her own ability to calculate the odds and pull through, until her overconfidence leads her to a risk that proves fatal. clara oswald is killed by the self-destructive way she dealt with her own grief. this is unbelievably realistic and tragic. it’s also something that, like amy’s fear of commitment, is an arc that’s usually only written for male characters. although the doctor manages to bring her back with a time stream loophole, her fate is sealed, and she’s forever destined to die in that moment of time. so she goes off into the universe in her own tardis, traveling through time and space, always running from her own fate, from her grief, from everything that will ever hurt, plunging herself into the ultimate distraction from all things ordinary, just like the doctor does. it’s a bittersweet ending for her arc, and it echoes something that is very real in a lot of people’s lives.

tldr: amy is relatable in the childlike wonder she retains and the way it’s consistently challenged; in the fear she feels toward devoting herself to others that is rooted in issues of abandonment; clara is relatable in the absolute normalcy of her life outside of the doctor; in the overwhelming grief she experiences over a loss and how she avoids that grief. they aren’t mere idealized caricatures. they are flawed, and they face distinct challenges in their own personal outlooks with arcs that give them proper resolutions, whether happy or sad, to these challenges.

now, let’s look at rose tyler and donna noble, the two companions people most often relate to.

rose is a completely regular teenage girl. her school grades were consistently average, she has no particular talents to speak of, she works in a shop, she has no future prospects for a better job or higher education, and nothing special has ever happened in her entire life. rose is the absolute peak of ordinary, which is why so many people relate to her. we could all easily fit ourselves into her shoes. i also like eating chips and am bored 24/7. but then the doctor whisks her away, and her life begins to revolve solely around him. this is where the relatability nose dives for me. we’re all searching for the escape that will let us ignore how boring or awful the world around us is for a little while, whether that’s music, books, a new fandom, anything at all. traveling with the doctor is rose’s permanent escape from her world. the thing is, this is never portrayed as anything but a good thing. the doctor is rose’s whole new life. she occasionally visits home, but it’s only a visit, nothing to indicate that life on earth is something she’ll ever want to dabble in again. she’s been completely liberated from all the troubles she once faced. i can’t relate to this at all, because there will never be anything that will whisk me away from needing a job, needing money, or needing an education. what rose experiences is a full blown pipe dream. yes, it’s fun to watch, and think about, and wish for, but it isn’t exactly relatable. rose is never portrayed as a character who is avoiding the challenges of regular life--- she’s just having a great time. even when she’s trapped in a parallel world, she doesn’t have to return to the mundane life she once knew. she works with torchwood and continues on in that same vein of alien threats, time and space, alternate dimensions, etc., where her brand new true potential thrives. she gets to focus on reuniting with the doctor, and the only challenge she faces is the actual act of crossing worlds, not any kind of personal challenge. one might say she has to deal with the difficulty of living on with a meta crisis clone of the doctor instead of the real doctor, but that’s a different rant. rose simply never had an overarching character development in which she could confront her own personal flaws, which is something that made amy and clara so relatable. she simply had a great time with a handsome doctor she fell in love with, and then circumstance pulled them apart.

now, for donna. i do love donna. i love the friendship she has with the doctor, but the foundation of her character is very similar to rose’s. donna is an incredibly average woman who has worked a series of temporary jobs, never feeling important, but always wanting more. it’s another character template we can all easily fit ourselves into. donna does have an arc where she confronts her own lack of self worth over the course of season 4, an arc that is met with her being told that she is the most important woman in all of creation. every companion has a title associated with them: amy is the girl who waited, clara is the impossible girl, martha is the woman who walked the earth, and donna noble is the most important woman in the universe. donna’s struggle with self worth is met with the fact that she is the most important woman in creation because she's the woman who saves all of reality from davros and the daleks, however this is where this arc still loses all trace of relatability for me. donna doesn’t become the most important woman in all of creation in light of her own ordinary qualities--- she only becomes this by becoming part time lord and, in her own words, by gaining “the mind” of the doctor. donna as herself already had great potential, but her arc of dealing with her own self worth is resolved by giving her the attributes of someone else, and only by happenstance. it’s played off as destiny or fate, but all she had to do was touch the hand and the meta crisis happened on its own. and yes, the narrative insists that it’s donna’s human traits that make her even more intelligent than the doctor when she’s part time lord, but the fact still remains that she required part of him to reach that potential at all. like rose being liberated entirely from her own boring life, this just isn’t realistic, and therefore isn’t relatable.

donna and rose are both people who need the doctor in their lives, and without him, they feel either worthless or as if their life has no meaning. contrarily, amy and clara develop themselves as characters who are able to exist separately from the doctor, who have their own personal conflicts apart from him and who forge lives outside of him. amy and clara are both involved in the overall stories that are led by the doctor, but they also both have internal struggles that are independent of him and are resolved as part of their own development, sometimes with his help but never because of him.

maybe someone out there reading this disagrees with me. but this is my observation after seeing so many people claim that amy pond and clara oswald are worse, less likable, and less relatable than rose tyler and donna noble.

(and if anyone is wondering why i didn’t talk about martha or bill, it’s because i don’t see anyone calling them either relatable or unrelatable. in fact i don’t see people really talk about them at all, which is an entire problem in and of itself, and is why i didn’t include that problem in this rant)

[sigmastolen]

“she’s posting about torchwood audio dramas again already?  didn’t she just do one?”

god among us vol. 3

“a mother’s son”: harrowing and emotional, a triumph but also a gut punch.  it’s always interesting to see Our Heroes (though some of them are distinctly un-heroic here) from an outsider’s pov.  it’s a wonderful script and a moving look at humanity by alexandria riley.  the final scene, with yvonne and bethan in the car, is especially painful, and i love it but i also hate it.

“scrapejane”: g r e a t horror here -- the kind that i don’t seek out because i get too scared, and i did find this episode honestly scary, especially the attacks in the car and in the apartment.  i will say that i found meredith frustrating in the extreme, to the point of swearing at my computer when she wouldn’t stop checking her stupid phone, and i’m not sure if i was mad at the character for being unable to help herself, or mad at the writing for handing her the idiot ball to force a dramatic final confrontation.  however: i love the way ng comes into herself in this episode, and she and colchester make a pretty great team.  the idea of the faith field is also really intriguing -- heightening belief in the good and the bad, highlighting how often our thoughts and feelings are our own downfall.  (a little sad for jeff and niamh, ngl.)

“day zero”: orr is devastating in this episode, and as much as i love colin, i hate how blind he is to what orr is and what they’re doing.  it’s possible that this episode is too topical -- it doesn’t make light of water crises, government corruption, or police shootings, exactly, but it also feels like it’s -- too soon, or in any case not resolved/fixed enough in the real world for torchwood to be making stories about them, especially because the action in this one takes place across a single day.

“thoughts and prayers”: ohhhhhh, i was worried for a while.  i was unhappy with the characterization of orr and of andy but this kind of explains both and makes it okay; i was worried for the characters but things turned out fine; and i’m very into the explanation of god’s powers -- the closed system, the zero sum, everything must be paid for.  i love orr’s love for the earth; i love that tyler, ng, and yvonne have all changed and grown so much; i love that we get a torchwood story where everybody lives.  i’m very unhappy that we left colin hanging, but there are a lot of possibilities in torchwood-on-the-run, and the yvonne-and-andy ending was *chef’s kiss* perfect.  i hope god’s tea shop is successful.

overall: there were points where i wasn’t sure about this box set, and indeed this entire three-volume season, but god among us is a very strong story, told across twelve very strong episodes.  it was heaps better than aliens among us at any rate; i feel like the the story continues range has really found its feet and hit its stride (which, given the implication in the interviews that they don’t know what’s next, actually makes me kind of sad, because this team has been so good).  it’s a different torchwood, but it’s a good torchwood, and i’m glad to have it in the world.

[estelofimladris]

Queerness and Death in The Magicians by SE Fleenor (The Removed Syfy Article)

[ NOTE: This article is being reposted in its entirety because it was removed by the Syfy website where it was originally posted. I (estelofimladris) did not write it, but still had it open after its removal. Please read and enjoy - send the writer, S.E. Fleenor, some love if you can. ]

by S.E. Fleenor

SPOILERS FOR THE MAGICIANS SEASON 4 FINALE!

By now you already know that The Magicians’ Quentin Coldwater died in the Season 4 finale. Yes, D-E-D, dead. There’s no resurrection in the works and no trick of astral projection or Niffin state of higher being can bring sweet, depressed, narcissistic Quentin back.

The decision to kill off a major character — the major character, if the Lev Grossman novels still mean anything (they don’t) — is almost always controversial. But we live in the day and age of Game of Thronesand The Walking Dead and Thanos snapping half of the Avengers (and the universe) into nothingness. Any character could die at any moment (and sometimes all of the characters could die at any moment) and that’s the brave, new, kill-happy world our media is made in.

So, why does it matter that Quentin is dead?

Well, my friends, let’s revisit a little trope we like to call Bury Your Gays. Throughout media representations of queer folks, reaching back to 19th-century Victorian novels, the formula has been about the same: An LGBTQ+ character is introduced, they reveal their sexuality or an attraction to a specific person, and then they die, die, die, often horrifically. This trope is also called Dead Lesbian Syndrome due to the overwhelming number of queer women who have been slaughtered onscreen — not exactly the representation queer women have been begging for.

Back when archaic censorship laws ruled the page and the screen, writing about queer characters was taboo and the only way queer writers, or folks who wanted to create queer characters, could include LGBTQ+ characters was by portraying them unfavorably. Queer characters could exist, but only as a warning of what a “perverted” life would bring you. So, in order to get some kind of representation, LGBTQ+ characters had to suffer.

Sounds a little rough, huh? Like who would really bury their gays? Oh, just Buffy the Vampire Slayer, True Blood, The 100, The Walking Dead, The Expanse, Jessica Jones, Xena, Smallville, Battlestar Galactica, Hex, Torchwood, Hemlock Grove, Teen Wolf, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Dracula, The Vampire Diaries, Arrow, Salem, American Horror Story, Ascension, Lost Girl, Scream, The Shannara Chronicles, The Exorcist, Van Helsing, Doctor Who, Gotham, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Purge, and last but not least (and not for the first time): The Magicians.

Let it be noted that I have only included science fiction, fantasy, and horror TV shows on this list and only those that I know about. The list is much, much longer when you include non-genre TV shows and film. (Autostraddle has a very complete list of queer women on TV who have been killed off, for those of you who feel like being sad.)

Oh, did you recognize a bunch of queer-friendly shows in that list? Does that somehow feel like a violation of the promise made when a series goes out of its damn way to present itself as queer and feminist?

EXACTLY. And, that, my sweet babies, is why people are pissed about the death of Quentin Coldwater, generally speaking. We’re sick of seeing queer characters die over and over again. But, what specifically about the death of Quentin is so frustrating? I’m so glad you asked.

Full disclosure: I'm not going to get into the creators' rationale for killing off Quentin. I've read all the interviews with the creators and with Jason Ralph, who plays Quentin, and they all read like a whole lot of familiar BS. (At least Hale Appelman, who plays Eliot, gets it.)

In the first season of The Magicians, Quentin, Eliot, and Margot have a threesome. It’s the first time Quentin has sex with a man, as far as we know, and it’s the first time we see him start to confront his queerness. In Season 3’s “A Life in the Day,” Quentin and Eliot end up in a different Fillory, from before they were born, where they must solve an unsolvable puzzle. As they spend a lifetime working on the mosaic, they fall in love, raise a child, and make their queer family work. Upon returning to the main timeline, barely a word is spoken about their encounter, and queer folks everywhere braced ourselves for that experience to be treated as an anomaly from another timeline. (Another weird queer trope where characters get to be LGBTQ+, but only elsewhere or else when or, or, or…)

Season 4 brought unexpected twists and turns, such as Eliot being trapped inside his own mind by the Monster. With that, many a fan prepared to let Queliot rest. And, then “Escape from the Happy Place,” took us into Eliot’s mind and — after exploring a lot of deep trauma that has a particularly queer flavor to it — back to the day Eliot and Quentin came back from their lifetime in Fillory. As they sit on the steps of the throne room, Memory Quentin and Memory Eliot talk about what happened between them. Memory Quentin asks Memory Eliot why they shouldn’t try to be together, saying “Who gets proof of concept like that?”

Eliot kisses Memory Quentin hard on the mouth and then walks through the door that will allow him to take control of his body for a moment. In the real world, face to face with Quentin, Eliot gets a signal out that he’s still alive. He looks at Quentin and repeats the question Quentin had asked him, following it with, “Peaches and plums, motherf*cker.” When he realizes who he’s looking at, Quentin hesitates, a look of surprise and longing washing over his face.

This deeply emotional and compelling storyline appeared at the same time that Quentin finally officially rebuffed Alice’s advances, telling her he no longer wanted to be together, that he could never see her the same way again.

Then, after all that work, after all the maturation the characters undergo, the series undoes everything, shoehorning in a last-minute declaration of love between Quentin and Alice and killing off Quentin when he uses magic in the Mirror Realm, without ever seeing Eliot again. Quentin then goes to the Underworld branch of the library and meets with Penny 40 while reminiscing over his life and pondering over whether or not he died by suicide. (The treatment of suicide in the episode is problematic and deeply offensive.)

There are probably as many critiques of this ending as there are people who watched it, but I’m going to focus on the main issues that stood out to me.

The series has gone out of its way to confirm Quentin as queer and tease the possibility of a queer love story.

Queer viewers are used to surviving off subtext and tend to be fairly generous in what we’ll accept. Seriously, many a queer considers Thor: Ragnarok to be part of the queer canon when it’s not even implied onscreen that anyone is queer, and have you seen people shipping Carol and Maria in Captain Marvel? Maybe it’s because we’re used to being served scraps that the Bury Your Gays trope feels so pointed. Oh, you’re not happy with the almosts and the could-haves and the alternate timelines of queerness? Well, then we’ll make your characters queer and just murder ‘em right up.

After Season 3, The Magicians could have never acknowledged the relationship between Quentin and Eliot that takes place in another timeline or they could have shrugged and been like, “Must have been the opium in the air!” They’d already done as much with the threesome in Season 1 and all but ignoring Quentin's queerness in the episodes that follow. The series didn’t have to confirm that Quentin wanted to follow his attraction to Eliot and give being together a try. But, The Magiciansdid. The series took the time onscreen to show Eliot and Quentin kissing again, to show Eliot declaring his love for Quentin in their own code, and to show Quentin dedicate his time to helping Eliot get free.

Furthermore, how messed up is it that the series spends a significant amount of time dredging up the trauma of Eliot’s queer youth only to make him realize his biggest regret is how he treated Quentin, just for Quentin to be forced back into the closet? An episode that was deeply evocative and affirming of queerness smacks of voyeurism when taken in the context of the finale.

At the last minute, after confirming his queerness, the series forces a relationship between Quentin and Alice.

It’s hard not to see the last ditch shoving of Quentin and Alice together as an attempt to shove Quentin himself back in the closet. Season 4 shows Quentin rejecting and wanting to be apart from Alice, only for him to decide that he loves her and wants to give their relationship another try because? Honestly, I’m not sure what rationale he uses because it MAKES NO SENSE. And, what the hell does he think of imprisoned-in-his-own-body Eliot while making this decision? To judge from the series, not a whole hell of a lot.

It’s totally cool if queer or bisexual characters date people of different genders — that’s not the issue. The issue is that without a moment of hesitation, Quentin whiplashes from his lover who he knows is trapped by the Monster and cannot see, hear, or reach him to his ex-girlfriend who he has distanced himself from due to her selfish behavior.

In the context of his death, I like to call this particularly messed up turn of events “Bury Your Gays and Stomp On Their Graves” because all the work that had been done to show Quentin’s coming to terms with his own sexuality is undone shortly before he dies.

There are other ways to write a character off a series.

A lot of people fall back on bad faith arguments like: what is a show supposed to do when an actor no longer wishes to appear in the series?

The answer, of course, is: ANYTHING ELSE. They could have done literally anything else to write Quentin out of the show and release Jason Ralph from his commitment. The Magicians takes place in a world WHERE MAGIC EXISTS, where characters leave the main story to go on their own adventures, and where average human beings can become gods. There’s no excuse for falling into lazy storytelling and reifying a trope that has been well-documented and mourned for a long time.

In the novels, Quentin gets kicked out of Fillory and decides to use his discipline, minor mendings, to build a new world for himself and Alice. He essentially walks through a door and never comes back. THAT WOULD HAVE WORKED and it wouldn’t do the work of retraumatizing queer audiences.

It comes down to this: To ignore the wider implications of making a character specifically queer, having him return to his prior unhealthy relationship with a woman, and then killing him off is a disservice to queer people everywhere. It is, at once, a declaration of the meaninglessness of the queer experience and an unforgivable reminder of the expendability of queer lives.

Series like The Magicians (and before it, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) trade on their reputations as queer and feminist shows. We watch them for their powerful women and their kickass queer characters and their storylines that affirm the power of survival. And what do they give us in return? They bury their gays.

Does that mean that all LGBTQ+ characters should be immortal? The rational response would be: of course not. Up until today I may have agreed with that argument, but right now I’m feeling a little less generous. It’s 20-f*cking-19 and there is no excuse for Bury Your Gays to pop up in a progressive TV show. Maybe until series and creators who make their money off queer characters and queer fandom take responsibility for how they use the lives and bodies of queer people, maybe until then, all LGBTQ+ characters should be immortal.

I’m pretty damn sick of watching every character who loves like me, who looks like me, who explores the bounds of their sexuality like me, die. I’m sick of watching characters bust down the doors of the closets that held them back only to have their queerness erased or elided through their deaths. I’m sick of watching relationships between men and women blossom onscreen only to see queer relationships torn apart by death.

Queer people deserve happy endings. We deserve them in real life and we deserve to see them onscreen and we deserve them now.

Until that’s the norm, you better damn well consider any queer character you create immortal. Because if you don’t, we queers will f*cking haunt your basic ass.

[thesearchforbluejello]

First of all, that episode was absolutely STUNNINGLY beautiful in every way imaginable. But here's a question. Thirteen says the aliens are putting words in their heads and "it really hurts". Fair enough. But here's my curiosity. Does Thirteen feel it first because she's a Time Lord and therefore psychic? She gets that weird vision of the ship and the cylinder of dust-- but at this point she's yet to piss them off and they're not actively trying to put thoughts in Team Tardis's heads. Was it just a teaser for what was to come in the episode? Or is Chibnall really playing toward a longer plotline involving that definitely-not-throwaway line about the Timeless Child? That scene dealt with telepathy too, and Chibnall made sure we knew it when Thirteen tells the Burlap Monster™, "get out of my head." Time Lord telepathy isn't something that often comes up in the show, but two references edging just around the fringes of the topic are already more than I expected to see, especially in such a small grouping of episodes. Chibnall writing for DW is different than Chibnall writing for Torchwood, but the setup between the two when Torchwood was airing really tingles my writey-senses. In every Doctor we see the dark side within the first couple episodes. It's a small thing, just a slice beneath the fun and the manic excitement (unless we're talking about the Time Lord Asshole Victorious), but it's there and it always shows up early, so obviously that I don't think I need to launch into depth about it (though I could so feel free to ask me to, honestly). Jack is the opposite of that. He's the dark side with the mania shown in bits and pieces and slices of levity. That's what Torchwood is: the foil to Doctor Who (I could write a book on that tbh). With Thirteen, we're seeing the darkness and the sadness of reality etched in beautiful strokes through each story... But where is it in her? Chibnall knows this show and this character too well to leave that out, I think. So where is it? TL;DR I think these little telepathy references and the Timeless Child reference is building up to something. He said no overarching plot in this season (and no Christmas episode god bless), but we've only got a few episodes left anyways and to my knowledge he's made no such claim about next season. Maybe I'm a little fixated on never having gotten the Valeyard plot, but that's something I'd love to see worked in for Thirteen. There are a hundred and one loopholes Chibnall would have to jump through to make it work, but it would be AMAZING and I think Jodie Whittaker would pull it off like no other. Thirteen is such a genuinely kind, optimistic ray of sunshine and while we can see the depth of age she carries like all the others, she's lacking the darkness that's been clinging to the character for years now. I think we're going to see it, and I think it's going to knock our socks off.

[shepgeek]

Film Review of 2016

Disappointments

Since everyone seems so keen to dispatch 2016 asap, let’s start on the downers!

2016 has definitely had its occasional moments but we seem to be fast converging on a generic blockbuster soup. The year was littered with blockbusters which had both impressive visuals and charismatic performances but also had nothing new to say, beyond sticking a franchise marker in the ground (Doctor Strange, Fantastic Beasts, Ghostbusters, Kung Fu Panda 3, Warcraft, Jason Bourne, The Magnificent Seven & even the largely over-praised Civil War). Whilst all of these films passed the time well & were basically enjoyable, there is the ever-increasing whiff of missed opportunity around the primary Hollywood fare. Less successful were Independence Day: Resurgence (distracting but pointless) and X-Men Apocalypse - an uneven, florid and unexpected misfire, although nowhere near as far behind Civil War as was generally made out.

Meanwhile, over in the DC Universe, Warner Brothers kept fumbling what should be their easiest win. From a low start, Batman vs Superman fades badly on repeat viewings (even the ballyhooed Special edition). There are definitely no problems in their casting department and I remain a fan of Cavill; his mournful look in the courtroom is played magnificently. Ben Affleck’s Batman was expertly portrayed but bore almost no resemblance to the essence of the character that I for one love, delivering in his place a psychopathic fascistic jackass who was a far cry from the world’s greatest detective. How we’re supposed to root for him then or in the future is a mystery - I would honestly take Clooney’s portrayal over this. Poor Affleck - he delivers what he is given magnificently; blame the architects and not the builder. Gal Godot’s cameo keeps me hopeful that Patty Jenkins may just save the whole damned thing with Wonder Woman next year, but Warners are certainly running out of strikes. The idiotic shambles of Suicide Squad was only barely saved from one-star dreck by the huge charisma of Will Smith & Margot Robbie, and whatever spark the concept started with seemed produced and edited into manufactured oblivion. To make it worse, DC’s TV shows remain such charming and silly fun: I wonder how much appetite standard audiences still have for the upcoming JLA films.

Arrival came trumpeted with massive critical heraldry but I was greatly disappointed.  I found it derivative (Torchwood: Children of Men with the pilot & finale of DS9) and, as with The Martian and Interstellar, flirted with scientific ideas (which film reviewers mistake for “intelligence”) only to discard them for woolly sentimentalism. Only Zemeckis’ Contact reigns supreme in this expanding genre of science storytelling and, even though the performances in Arrival were compelling, the film (albeit decent) left me greatly frustrated.

Another smash hit that I did not care for was the Secret Life of Pets, a tedious and rambling Toy Story knock-off (though my daughter loved it so what do I know?) but nothing compares to the real disappointment of the year- Swiss Army Man.  My take was this: a smug, cold, flimsy and empty experience, it became the first film I’ve walked out of.  Ever.  In fact I did so about 5 minutes before the end, since I knew exactly where it was going and was so disengaged that it was only going to annoy me. I should add that I do like very much that the film exists and I could imagine friends and reviewers whom I respect loving it (as many did) but it bounced off me completely and ultimately left me irritated and even a little angry.

  Moments

In the midst of an uninspiring year for cinema, there were still a few moments which blazed through the repetitive fug & reminded me how joyous cinematic storytelling can be. Spielberg’s BFG had many such notes, from the visual poetry of the Giant silently twirling through the shadows of London to the childish joy of the whizzpopping Queen. Other moments of delight included the moment of “Hang on - are they doing this? - oh Yes They Are!” when the Beastie Boys’ bassline kicks in during the final act of Star Trek Beyond and, whilst The Revenant may have been a tad indulgent, the bear attack had me yelling at the screen.  Any scene featuring Flash the Sloth in Zootropolis was laced with comedic genius whilst our arrival in the city, combining Shakira’s perfect pop with gorgeous animated depth and colour, was magical. Ryan Gosling’s masterclass of toilet gunplay clowning in The Nice Guys was only topped comedically by the rampant and prolonged genius of the game of “Would that it were so simple” tennis in Hail Caesar! But narrowly pipping that for my cinematic moment of the year though, was Lord Vader himself.

I feel conflicted over Rogue One as ultimately it is yet another film which exists because it can, not because it needed to. To note the lack of comment about the unsettling fake Peter Cushing (squarely in the uncanny valley) after the shrieking which greeted the prequel trilogy’s “Dodgy CGI!” headlines perpetuates the accepted myth that those films are disasters to discard  but I see little difference.  Rogue One is another three star entry to the saga; I’d put it on a level with Attack of the Clones in terms of quality, ahead of Phantom Menace. Disney have a whole Galaxy to explore but choose to sustain the increasingly weird trend of aping preceding classics with an echo instead of trying out a new voice. Quite what Joss Whedon made of the final act is anyone’s guess: “the feisty rebels fight their way past a space armada (losing comedy relief Alan Tudyk along the way) to climb a radio antenna so they can send out the message to topple the evil empire” rang a few bells with me anyway. Rogue One also felt choppily re-edited (what was with the psychic space octopus?) whilst the new characters didn’t really land at all.  Indeed directly after leaving the cinema I (and all of my party) struggled to name any of the characters (Erm…. Jinn, the moustache guy, the blind guy, his mate, the pilot, Forest Whitaker, the funny droid, the small thing that looked like a testicle…).  Despite this problematic emotional deficit we were treated to some glorious set pieces and nicely pitched beats, but when Darth Vader’s lightsaber illuminates his terrifying visage we are treated to a moment of cinema as resplendent in its awesomeness as it was shamelessly gratuitous.  After my considerable mithering about not being able to share Star Wars with my children last year it was almost a relief to see such a grim conclusion (No Way is it suitable for under 10s) but it makes me return to my wondering of who Disney are making these films for.  Episode VII is rumoured to be “darker” still; where is the cheerful space-fairy-tale where we all started?  Eventually they’ll stray too far from Lucas’ indelible first film (still the finest of the lot, for me) and step back cinematically but they run the risk of increasingly diluting the specialness of the whole thing. The fun “Star Wars Rebels” TV show fills a bit of this gap but even that has clouds of doom in the background (although seeing Chopper & The Ghost in Rogue 1 was a nice touch). Maybe after the sad loss of Carrie Fisher last week now isn’t the time to whinge about gloom in the Star Wars Universe, but I feel that my love for the franchise is certainly starting to be tested.

The year in numbers

Number of films seen: 93

Way down on other years- I blame box sets).

Number of ***** films released in 2016 : 0

This happened in 2011 too, but I’d normally expect at least 3.

Number of 2016 releases seen: 32

 About par for the course.

Number of cinema trips:29

Again about my average: I’ve been to the cinema 188 times in the past 6 years.

Number of new films seen:51

I’m improving here, which pleases me.

 Most anticipated for 2017

Baby Driver

Edgar Wright’s films are ace (except that one which I don’t mention since people shout at me).

 La La Land

This looks gorgeous and I thought Whiplash was sensational.

 Logan

I like everything about how this looks.

 A Monster Calls

Original storytelling! Yes!

 Paddington 2

Obvs.

 Star Wars Episode VIII

A New Hope?

 T2: Trainspotting

Hugely exciting- these film makers have only grown more talented in the past 20 years.

20 years.

Gods I’m old.

 Thor: Ragnarok

My favourite Marvel franchise goes comedy-space loopy. Has the potential to be my favourite of them all.

 Wonder Woman

I love this character and I want my daughter to as well. Get this right DC. Please.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Missed during 2016 but would like to have seen:

Allied, the Big Short, Finding Dory, Midnight Special, Money Monster & Passengers. I also did not see either Room or Spotlight, because I was never in the mood for the grimness of either.  Look, I’m busy and I’ve turned 40. Can you tell?!

  Top 10 films of 2016

Bubbling Under: The charming and colourful Moana and also Kubo and the Two Strings were superior family fare whilst The Jungle Book was an immersive treat.

 10        The Revenant

Technically stupendous but also oddly emotionally detatched and often needlessly arty- truly great cinema puts storytelling before craft and allegory with the latter drawn from the former (if it can) and I felt that, despite the stupendous cinematography and artistry on display, that beauty was sacrificed for emotional or narrative strength- certainly for plausibility. I’ve had these issues with Iñárritu before, but there is no denying the fact that this remains a remarkable piece of cinema.

9          Deadpool

Actually a bit more sharp than I’d first realised and a clever piece of programming, but still not what it could be if it halved the budget and really cut loose.

#driveby

8          10 Cloverfield Lane

The main problem is the name (It has nothing to do with the 2008 film and I was always waiting for them to tie together), but the claustrophobia and paranoia are immersive, shocking and unpleasantly tense.

7          The Hateful 8

A trifle indulgent at times, but a terrific theatrical experience.

6          The BFG

Not as comedic as you’d think, with a pervasive melancholy vibe of loneliness, guilt and regret emitting from the screenplay, lead actor and the director. It takes a while to get going and doesn’t aim for huge emotional sweeps, but the patient craft of Spielberg is clear to see. The BFG is lovely filmmaking with a real gentleness at its core and it will only grow in reputation over time. Also features explosively farting Corgis.

5          Star Trek Beyond

The best Blockbuster of the year I was surprised and delighted to see how much it grew on repeat viewings. This warm and witty love letter was assembled at huge pace but it made for a thrilling piece of cinematic escapism. A considerable improvement on its predecessor, the highlights were the pairings of the characters, especially Spock & McCoy. They did fudge the character of Kirk a little in order to both complement the story’s main theme & provide a suitable reflection in the villain and as a result Kirk is, paradoxically, the least convincing part of the piece but, after a terrific and assured finale and beautiful grace note for the 50thAnniversary, the films ends perfectly with the whole crew, as it should.

4          Hail Caesar!

Another film that gets better the more you think about it, Hail Caesar! loves movies almost as much as its protagonist and this feels like one of the Coens’ more personal films. Their goofy wit is littered throughout it and it nods to cinematic tradition constantly, including some wildly unnecessary set pieces which spectacular and as fun as there are knowingly indulgent.

3          The Nice Guys

Quintessential Shane Black it may be, but his voice is so distinct and entertaining that a film with this level of charisma is hard to take against, no matter how familiar the ingredients might be.

2          The Man who Knew Infinity

A truly delightful surprise, I was expected this to be a guilty pleasure (given my love of Maths and knowledge of the subject matter) but instead I was treated to a terrific piece of film making: quiet, earnest, substantial, well acted and gracefully told.  Seek it out! It may appear like a generic biopic but the subtle exploration of Ramaujan’s talent and his faith and the search for absolute truth in both Mathematics and Religion that connects him to Hardy (along with circumstance) is well rendered. It is certainly considerably superior to the Imitation Game.

1          Zootropolis

So Disney has eclipsed Pixar- that Lassiter dude certainly knows what he’s doing.

I’m pretty amazed to see this as my film of the year, as it is a kids’ film, a cartoon. And yet, when I look back on everything I’ve seen over the past 12 months, it is the one film which made me smile the most and it continues to grow on repeat viewings (which my children beg for).  It is kind of expected that incredible colour, imagination, design and wit are de rigueur in these films but not only does Zootropolis get all of these ingredients exactly right, it sneaks in small hints of profundity. After a year in which unsavoury debates have been poisoned by irrationality, this film, without every threatening to be preachy, gently illustrated to my children exactly the message I needed them to see. The core of the film concerns how we can get judged by what we are, not who we are or what we do and even both protagonists, who are wildly different, fall into this trap during the course of the story.  Judging a book by its cover is in our DNA but reflecting on how we process this instinct is something that struck a chord with me, long after my first viewing. Concepts of “Them and Us” are challenged directly but without ever lecturing or straying from the narrative or the wit.  The film is subtly layered both narratively (themes of exclusion and lack of purpose are examined through deft comedy) and visually (a quick rewatch of the final 10 minutes allowed me to spot nods to Speed and The Empire Strikes Back) and the music and humour are hugely pervasive.  It is no masterpiece but is certainly the film I needed in 2016.

This may be a cheesy way to finish the year but the lyrics to the (frighteningly) catchy main song from Zootropolis contains a message for Film Producers (despite being sung by an alarmingly sexy gazelle):

“I want to try everything, I want to try even though I could fail;  I’ll keep on making those new mistakes.”

I’ll take more Swiss Army Men every now and then if it leads to more Whiplashes.  Let’s hope to see cinema trying everything in 2017.

Happy New Year!