The Magicians

Fandom
Name:	The Magicians
Abbreviation(s):
Creator:	Sera Gamble, John McNamara
Date(s):	December 2015 -
Medium:	Live-Action Television show
Country of Origin:
External Links:	Show page on SyFy
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

The Magicians is a Syfy television series, based on a series of novels by the same name by Lev Grossman, which ended its fourth season in April 2019.

Canon

Quentin Coldwater is a New Yorker who learns that magic is real when he is offered a place at Brakebills University, a school for magicians. There he meets fellow students Eliot Waugh, Margo Hanson, William "Penny" Adiyodi and Alice Quinn. Back in Brooklyn, his friend Julia Wicker has been denied admittance to the University and takes a darker route in order to continue her magical education.

Season 4

Fandom

Although the show started airing in 2015, its fandom remained relatively small until episode 3x05 "A Life in the Day" (first aired Feb 7, 2018), where fan favourite Eliot spent a lifetime and raised a family with protagonist Quentin Coldwater in an alternate timeline. On AO3, fewer than 500 stories were posted in that period.

Canon events in this pivotal episode and in the following season (especially 4x05 "Escape from the Happy Place") prompted renewed interest from fans as the episode confirmed Eliot's intent to pursue a relationship with Quentin, and slash fans especially, who produced about 1280 stories between Feb 7, 2018 and April 9, 2019.

After this spurt of fan activity, which featured fics predicting how the season might end after every episode, the season finale on April 17th, 2019 created a strong fan reaction of an entirely different sort. The show had been implying that a major character would die by season end since the season's seventh episode, and there was much fan speculation on who it would be. The fact that it was main character Quentin Coldwater was not entirely unexpected, but implications in the show and direct statements in interviews from Sera Gamble and Henry Alonso Myers that Quentin was permanently dead with no chance at being saved, as well as repairing the romantic relationship between Alice and Quentin without giving Eliot and Quentin a single scene together angered a good portion of the fanbase. Since the finale, there has been an explosion of fanfiction, especially fix-it fic. See Fan Response to Season 4 for more information.

Shipping

As of April 9, 2019:

Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh is the dominant pairing in this fandom with 1130 works tagged on AO3(AO3 pairing tag.)

Other ships are much rarer, and include:

• Kady Orloff-Diaz/Julia Wicker: 110 works, appearing often - but not always - as a side pairing to the main Queliot relationship AO3 pairing tag.)
• Quentin Coldwater/Alice Quinn: 81 works (AO3 pairing tag.)
• Quentin Coldwater/Margo Hanson/Eliot Waugh: 78 works (pairing tag.)
• Arielle/Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh: 40 works (AO3 pairing tag.)

Works are also frequently tagged with the show's main friendships: Margo & Eliot (111 works) and Quentin & Julia (68 works).

Fanworks

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

Fanfic

• Be kind by longnationalnightmare, an Eliot character study (Quentin/Eliot, Explicit.)
• The Marriage Plot by greywash, an epic series set spanning season 3 & 4, Quentin/Eliot, Quentin/Margo/Eliot, Quentin/Arielle(/Eliot), Explicit.
• You're a Story (I can follow) by Page161of180, a post-Season 4 Quentin/Eliot Orpheus and Eurydice AU, Mature.)
• Fair Share by yaskween, a missing scene for 1x11, Quentin/Margo/Eliot, Explicit.
• Pricked thee out for young men's pleasure by Petra (Petronelle), an Eliot/Margo story exploring the beginning of their friendship, Explicit.
• til death do us part by callieincali, an accidental marriage AU (Kady/Julia, not rated.)

Podfic

• memory serves (podfic) by templemarker, a podfic of templemarker's own story, Quentin/Eliot, Mature.)
• (PODFIC) Rolling in the Deep by echomoon, a podfic of echomoon's own story, Quentin/Eliot, watersports kink, Mature.)

Fanart

• "my life, it doesn't work, nothing has ever fixed that." by waxanie, a Quentin/Eliot mini comic (Tumblr.)
• high king margo! by tuva, a digital portrait of Margo (Tumblr.)
• we had a family by Coryph, a digital painting of Quentin, Eliot and Teddy (Tumblr.)

Meta

• Where are all the women? The Femslash Gap and What We Can Do About It by Tumblr user MagiciansFemslash.
• Bisexuality:The Musical by greywash (Feb 24th, 2019), a reflexion and call to action about the canon and fandom's attitudes to Quentin as a bisexual man.
• 💫 How The Magicians Has Continuously Dropped the Ball on LGBTQ Representation (and it wasn't just Queliot): A Thread 💫 in response to Season 4 (Apr 11 2019)
• The Magicians S4 Finale Aired Five Days Ago And I'm Still Mad As Hell by cleolinda, (Apr 22, 2019), discussing the reaction to the season 4 finale,media portrayals of suicide, as well as the suicidal ideation.

Music

• Peaches and Plums an album by Lauren Fairweather
• I Wanna Be A Magician by Parry Gripp

Archives & Links

• The Magicians (TV) works on Ao3
• The Magicians - Lev Grossman works on Ao3
• Magicians on ff.net
• Magicians, Lev Grossman on ff.net
• The Magicians Wiki, a canon resource
• r/brakebills a subreddit for "The Magicians": the trilogy by Lev Grossman and the show on SyFy.

Tumblr

• Tumblr tags: The Magicians, Brakebills
• The Magicians Rec Center, a home for fic recs, writing resources, The Magicians Beta Network, and other stuff.
• The Magicians Prompt Exchange
• Magicians Multiverse Project, archive for recs of both meta and UA fic.