#manic pixie dream boy
hot take: the problem isnt the manic pixie dream girl. its the boring ass moody emotional leech guy she always gets paired with. we need more manic pixie dream characters. just give them partners who are as great as them or let them be happy alone! no more smart, beautiful, optimistic, kind girls getting paired with actual mosquitoes of men!
Also: make some manic pixie dream boys. If I wanna see romance maybe I wanna see a giddy boy full of positive energy who tells you fun facts about the constellations. Stop teaching boys they have to be moody and sad and they have to find salvation in a dream girl, this is how you breed Bad Men.
titanic
*whispers* holy shit
Woah. I need that to sink in.
Friends, myfavoritethings and I planned to release more of Entirely Too Much Blood (Episode 5.1),our TV-script sequel to You Better Be Alive, immediately after American Thanksgiving. This will be delayed until after the start of 2022. We’re sorry!
Butmyfavoritethings is a genius, and she had a sudden revelation, so she messaged me about it at 10:00PM on a Thursday because:
myfavoritethings: QUENTIN COLDWATER IS A MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRL.
EarnestDesire: What?
myfavoritethings: MPD BOY! MPD GAY?
myfavoritethings: Think about it.
EarnestDesire: I’m thinking. But explain anyway.
myfavoritethings: He’s a complex version of the trope, for sure. He’s not Sam from “Garden State,” but he’s definitely Jack from “Titanic.”
myfavoritethings: Almost every character in The Magicians is broken, hopeless, disillusioned. After season one, every character except Quentin has become the worst version of themself. Q’s clinically depressed, but he isn’t defeatist. That’s his greatest strength, right? And who orchestrates most of the least selfish, most plot-moving plans?
EarnestDesire: Q.
myfavoritethings: Who convinces everyone around him to keep trying to better themselves? To believe in magic?
EarnestDesire: Jesus.
myfavoritethings: Who saves Alice, even when she doesn’t want him to do it? He’s OBSESSED with saving her. And later with saving Eliot. Even Margo gives up on saving El, but Quentin is very willing to kill and die for him.
EarnestDesire: You cannot fuck me up like this after 9pm.
myfavoritethings: He gives Eliot a wonderful, happy life (which El does not think he’ll ever have) and then Eliot rejects him, after everything, and Q doesn’t even argue! He just lets Eliot walk away from their 50 years together!
EarnestDesire: Because a Manic Pixie can’t make real demands on the hero. He exists just to facilitate their journeys.
myfavoritethings: You get me.
EarnestDesire: That’s fucked up.
myfavoritethings: Quentin changed very little throughout the series. He’s really the same guy at the end of S4 as he was at the start of S2.
myfavoritethings: But El is braver. Alice is trying to make amends. Julia is questioning her “magic at any cost” mentality. Then, once he’s saved Alice and Julia and Eliot and helped them into better versions of themselves?
EarnestDesire: He dies.
myfavoritethings: He dies.
myfavoritethings: “If I ever get out of here, Q, know that when I’m braver it’s because I learned it from you.”
EarnestDesire: He’s fulfilled his narrative function.
myfavoritethings: Ding ding ding! Bingo!
EarnestDesire: Wow. Okay.
(Edited for grammar and such, as requested.)
We need some time to figure out how this revelation changes our fanfic for season five, plus we have family obligations at the end of the year.
You can read our script-style rewrite of the season 4 finale right here:
You Better Be Alive (Episode 4.13)
And the first scene of season five right here:
Entirely Too Much Blood (Episode 5.1)
Thanks for your patience!
XOXO, Earnest
