multifandomexpialidocious

[multifandomexpialidocious]

Wicked (2024) Jon M. Chu

[multifandomexpialidocious]

JONATHAN BAILEY as Fiyero in Wicked (2024)

[multifandomexpialidocious]

No Wizard That There is or was.

[multifandomexpialidocious]

They’re releasing the Wicked original book with a movie tie-in cover, thus guaranteeing another generation of middle school girls and gays will unsuspectingly pick up what they think is a novelized version of the musical and get instead lesbian sex, politics, and animal orgies.

[multifandomexpialidocious]

The subtext of hunger, agriculture, food crisis vis-a-vis scapegoating and “othering” in Wicked

I just watched the WICKED movie the other day. This is my second night after having watched that movie. I’ve read the book, watched the musical, and now, watched the movie. I am writing this immediately after I woke up after lucid dreaming, some themes and commentary hiding in plain sight having been made clear in my dream.

So.

Oz is a highly agricultural land. From the depiction of a largely agrarian society in Munchkinland to the triggering events that shape its society, this much is clear.

Right off the bat, in the movie, Dr. Dillamond attributes the scapegoating of the Animals to the Great Drought, where the people, hungry and frustrated, wanted someone to blame. (As a side note, I am curious whether Madame Morrible is alive and already competent a sorceress during those times. I am don’t remember the dates, but come Oz suffers from Great Drought when there’s a weather-manipulating sorceress in the picture? This to me is suspicious in the same way Morrible’s hand in Nessa’s demise is, or will be.)

This already sets the precedent of the public consciousness being pliable to “other” sectors of society and deprive them of their rights, if it meant being able to get-over a real but complex societal problem like poverty and hunger. Sounds like Nazi Germany and today’s current climate, right? It does. The propensity for fascism exists within Oz’s culture.

Now this part may sound like a stretch, but I argue that there is subconscious reason why they sprang out of the creators’ imagination.

I’m not gonna talk about witches and their significance as an historically oppressed group and the metaphor of a witch as society’s constant attempts to snuff out women empowerment. Y’all already know that.

Obviously, the solution to a drought is water. And I cant help but remember how water is significant in the story. In the classical tale, Dorothy melts the Wicked Witch of the West into a puddle by throwing a bucket of water at her. In the books, Elphaba is deathly allergic to water. This is not the case in the musical and movie, but she does take advantage of that ridiculous rumor and a bucket of water gets thrown at her. In the movie, and as I’ve seen many point out, during Elphaba’s iconic scene, storm clouds punctuate her rise to power. But Elphaba isn’t known to manipulate the weather. You know who is? Madame Morrible. Storm clouds and thunder are gather to literally make Elphaba appear villainous, fearsome, and menacing. Spoilers, but, Elphaba wasn’t able to see her political aspirations bear fruit. Going back to the drought imagery, Elphaba, a symbol of otherness herself exists as a figure that seeks to correct the undue scapegoating and political disenfranchisement that people chose to wrongfully resort to. They may wreathe her in stormclouds all they want, but as force of nature herself, her moral stance in all these injustice, her advocacy, is correct and righteous. She and everything she stands for water to the Ozian’s moral drought: clear, purifying, quenching. A path to wash away the sins of society and clean its conscience anew.

The resulting “othering”, scapegoating, and disenfranchisement of the Animals, of Elphaba, were not mere reactions to a harrowing social ill. The Great Drought and its direct effects (poverty and hunger) and the trauma it entrenched in collective Ozian consciousness were taken advantage of by political figures. Leaders people looked up to but were unable to solve the problem. So instead of taking accountability, they chose to shift it on others instead, employing propaganda. The “greenness” of Emerald City is an illusion of the Wizard, the phony spectacles masking the glaring inequality in its metropolitan affluence as opposed to the more agricultural provinces and distracting from holding leaders responsible to effect true and direct solutions. After all, if there were no problems, who would the people look up to? It is all a fake. This “greenness” is a fake to Elphaba’s real. It’s a “greenness” that co-opts and imposes conformity, calling one to willful blindness and perpetuating that same culture of division and disenfranchisement. A “greenness” that is not the same as and inevitably clashes with Elphaba’s own: a greenness forged by the same “othering”, stigma, and disenfranchisement but with a sense of self and a sense of justice to effect social change that would end the cycle.

[multifandomexpialidocious]

Thinking about what a "breath" really is, since that is the primary metaphor used for how spirits use magic in Umora. It's a very effective at indicating that it's something vital to them, personal and unique and implied to be necessary for life. I'm thinking about what your breath was before it became that, and what happens to it after it stops being that.

You are completely surrounded by air. When the wind blows you feel it brush against your skin and can see it make the grass sway. Birds cut through it with their wings to carry themselves aloft, and it feeds fires and brings rain.

Your breath is a tiny piece of all of that which you have taken into yourself; it nourishes you, and in some small way you can direct it - to blow out a candle, to soothe a burn, to say someone's name. Or I guess I should say it is a series of such tiny pieces; any meaningful connection you have to what you exhale doesn't last long. It disperses into just air again, but your next lungful becomes your breath anew. It's more of a process than a discrete thing.

[multifandomexpialidocious]

the wizards having dozens of airships on standby vs the sorcerers sending out the single coolest-looking guy you've ever seen really comes down to intelligence vs charisma based casting

[multifandomexpialidocious]

I do think the funniest part of the Coven of Heart subclass in the WBN Witch class is that they can replace spell components with things like the laughter or tears of a loved one because I know the wizards fucking hate that shit.

I had to do the equivalent of a magical thesis defense, and memorize a million spells, and keep track of a trillion different spell components; and yet those fucking Witches with their TWEE BULLSHIT get to make their friend laugh instead of growing mushrooms under the exact right conditions in a process that can take months at a time and is incredibly easy to fuck up?

At that point me and the entire metaphorical concept of magic itself have to scrap.

[multifandomexpialidocious]

Fan-designs for the main trio in The Wizard, The Witch, and The Wild One by @worldsbeyondpod

[multifandomexpialidocious]

the fairy and her mother.

[multifandomexpialidocious]

Thrilled to have our first glimpse at a sorcerer in Umora

[multifandomexpialidocious]

WBN Spoilers! Ep036

🚨 SORCERER ALERT 🚨

This was such a great ep! I, too, would have cast Shatter like Suvi. That, Mage Armor, and Shield are some of my favorite early-level spells. What a boost from Ame and Eursulon. But that ending!!! Whadup first NPC sorcerer of the campaign!

Hoping to know more about this new character. Hope he/she/they has great character design. (And why are they, a sorcerer from one of the high houses of Gaothmai, here, in the frontlines?) Hoping to know more about Gaothmai’s sorcerous oligarchy. Hoping to know more about how sorcerers view magic and spirits from the way wizards and witches do. Hoping we get a new sorcerer subclass. But most of all, hoping for a mage battle with this new sorcerer!!! MAGE BATTLE! MAGE BATTLE! If he/she/they can cast Banishment (which I think he/she/they did), they should be at least Level 7, which outclasses all our party members. Yikes. CAN’T WAIT FOR THE NEXT EP!

[multifandomexpialidocious]

Percy and Vex'ahlia in The Legend of Vox Machina 3x03 "Vexations"

[multifandomexpialidocious]

"That is an amazing D&D choice." (x)

[multifandomexpialidocious]

Endless TLOVM

[multifandomexpialidocious]

i feel like equivalent of wizard in our world is lawyer.

[multifandomexpialidocious]

// wbn spoilers!

no im still laughing at the wbn finale bc imagine you're indri right? you host the conclave for the first time in forever, you welcome your sisters and their retinues, your house is full of spirits and nasty animals and your "sisters" who you cant stand, most of all the newest member, who literally just joined and is already criticising everyone. the meeting ends and literally nothing goes your way, all your plans go to shit and all your alliances were bad, the witches you wanted dead are alive and the rest have unionised, you are DONE!! you give everyone an hour to leave and you go to the library for some peace and quiet. and all of a sudden the youngest one? the little shit that ruined all your plans? she goes to your room, steals your wand, steals your gifts, steals your keys(??) STEALS YOUR SERVANT(????) frees a prisoner of yours and BOOKS IT, oh and not only that no, her little shit wizard also ROBBED YOUR LIBRARY😭

oh i would start killing bitches