Off the prompt "cuddles."

spent this week ping-ponging back and forth between writing fanfic and doing homework. Usually after a lot of homework my brain is too tired to write, so I gave into the temptation to start writing early in the day and blow off homework a few times. Then did four chapters of homework in one day on Friday to catch up.

I have over 4000 words of fic written and it's getting long enough that it's starting to be a pain that I'm using the notes app on ipad, because scrolling. Also it's getting long enough that I want to post it and have feedback (well, more feedback than enemyofperfect, who is an excellent alpha reader and has been squeeing line by line) but it's definitely not a whole story yet. Like I'm not even to the main part of the story based on the rough outline I have in various chat logs. Like, even if I decided to chapter it and post it as a WIP, which is a terrible idea, I want to be able to revise it as I get further along, I think I currently have a prologue and about half a chapter. I am bursting at the seams to be able to share this fanfic and I can't write fast enough to satisfy the urge. creativity is hard.

There is a test that opens tomorrow and closes May 5th, and niqaeli will be here for much of that time so I'm arguing with myself about my weekend as a weekend vs studying a lot tomorrow to take it before she comes and not have it hanging over my head. Realistically I won't want to be studying while she's here, and I won't have a lot of time after she leaves either, I have another social engagement, a screening of Amelie with jetpack_monkey on May 4th.

Also I want to be vidding. I feel like the Magicians vid I have half of on the timeline has a very limited shelflife and I need to get it out soon, but I haven't actively worked on it in weeks. Because school, and writing, and the show itself being a big downer.

so I was binging Magicians just as s4 was starting, and I had the incredible experience of surfing a wave of fannish zeitgeist with the peaches and plums thing. And I'd been working on this vid that encapsulated that experience, and then this last week in Magicians fandom happened seemingly negating the slash pairing everyone was so excited about by putting a het pairing back together. and like, I went welp I'm checking out of Magicians fandom this week I don't even want to hear the wails.

except I didn't? Like I basically went to all the fannish social media I normally do, just prepared to be really detached. and the weirdest thing happened, I didn't see anyone being mad or betrayed or heartbroken about the episode, not in a pure sense. I saw a bunch of people reacting like their feeds were full of that, but all I got was the world-weary "I knew this wasn't going to last, and you should've known too."

(I'm not sure that's true? This show has already done several things with fandom's fave slash pairing that wouldn't have happened on TV ten or twenty years ago? Like, no, I didn't know it wasn't going to last, and I'm not being naive to be hopeful about an astonishing trend continuing.)

anyway I'm,,,, kind of meh about working on the vid now. I am Quentin Coldwater ranting at the plant of Fillory love about how it just isn't enough. Like, I don't want to capture the experience of being swept up in the moment and then let down; but I also feel like the time for the vid just about being swept up in the moment has passed.

anyway, I don't know, maybe something will happen in 4x13 to turn things around; my personal experience of this show has been so foreshortened and immediate that if it takes until next season to fix things I might not be here anymore. But i still have my fingers halfway crossed for another barrage of peaches and plums next week. I don't want to know better.

so I'm clipping Magicians for this vid I'm making because I want to be more fannish and I'm excited to have a creative idea, even if it is lulzy whatever. I'm currently in the doldrums of season 1 between when the Beast appears (which was the first episode, actually) and when they actually end up in the Library and Fillory and plotty stuff. Seriously there is nothing for my vid in most of early/mid s1. I marked one episode "the one where everyone gets laid, foxes" because it had nothing I wanted to use and I didn't want to come back and think I hadn't clipped it because it wasn't marked. (Then I was like, wait, Quentin and Alice get together in 1x07, pretty sure they break up by the end of the season, they actually had a short relationship for all they keep being heartbroken at each other later on, jeez)

I'm also listening to the audiobook of the first novel, and like people told me Quentin was waaaaay into Eliot in the books but I honestly was surprised a bit. So in what I've listened to so far, Quentin bonded with Eliot during the two weeks before the semester started when they were the only people on campus because Eliot doesn't like to go home to his family and Quentin asked not to after his exam because he was afraid the bubble was going to burst. Then eveyrone comes back on campus and Eliot starts hanging out with his sophomore friends again and leaves Quentin behind and Quentin was all sad.

Then Quentin accidentally (well for the first little bit it's an accident) spies on Eliot blowing a dude and is shocked! aghast! hurt! --that Eliot didn't tell him he was gay, and that Eliot didn't want to fuck Quentin. I am so um what at Quentin. Like, in the first place, maybe I had the advantage of already knowing Eliot was gay because I'd seen the show, but I could have sworn Eliot did tell him?? I thought about it and it was just, Eliot was extremely flamboyant at him, and told him his family thought he was at a school for computer geeeks and homosexuals, which to my ear was obviously a soft coming out to test the waters with Quentin, and Quentin failed to give the proper response, not through bigotry but through obliviousness.

But also, why didn't Eliot do stuff with him? Oh Quentin. *facepalm* Sadly what I've heard is that Quentin is super hung up on Eliot not that they ever actually get together in the books, so I expect this to be a long road of suffering. No wonder fandom likes this. It's pining while oblivious.

It seems like the pining goes in the other direction in the show. There's no particular evidence I've seen that Quentin is into Eliot, though he's not blind to gayness, he's just off being super into Alice and magic. Meanwhile in the first episode apparently Eliot was talking Quentin up to Margo because when she meets him she's like "he doesn't seem THAT special," and just now in 1x08 there was an exchange between Eliot and his (tragically externally magically manipulated) boyfriend about how Quentin is cute, but Eliot called dibs. I mean I know there's the threesome coming up somewhere, I remember being like "I can't decide if this show gave slashers a gift or not" about it, but the first time I watched it I didn't actually get... any particular attraction from Quentin's end? He seemed very blank slate, stuff happened but without his agency. Maybe that was an artifact of how the threesome was presented, where instead of seeing it happen we just see him waking up afterwards all confuzzled, like he was blackout drunk in the fake, cute TV way. I'll definitely be watching that episode closely when I clip it (probably later today?). But I do wonder how much of fandom's read that Quentin is super into Eliot is crossover from the boooks.

also worth noting: I'm kind of surprised no one warned me that if there is a cute fluffy animal, this show will DEFINITELY kill it bloodily.