#and he loves his momby

[dwobbitfromtheshire]

Part One

Eddie walked through the door of Robin's bedroom cautiously.

"I don't know why I assumed that you'd be taking me to your house when you said that you're taking me home," Eddie said. "Silly me."

"I did tell you that house was my parents' house," Steve said, following him in.

"So, why aren't we there?" He asked.

"Because the bios are in town," Robin said.

"Bios?" Eddie asked.

"My biological parents," Steve replied.

"Yeah, I was wondering about them. I was starting to think they don't exist," Eddie said.

"They basically don't," Robin said and pointed to a pile of pillows by the window. "Especially in Steve's life."

"That sucks," Eddie said as he plopped onto the pillows with Robin and Steve.

"Their loss. Our gain," Robin grinned.

Melissa Buckley popped her head through the door. Eddie had met her at the door. She was very mellow and sweet. She didn't even give him the stink eye when he walked in. Instead, she hugged him and welcomed him right into her home.

"Oh, does anyone need any snacks?" Melissa asked.

"Oh, no, we're good, Mombie, thank you," Robin said.

"Oh, Steve, your room is still all set up, but I'm afraid Snuffles has been occupying it lately," she replied.

"Thanks, Mombie," Steve said.

"Are you alright with us being in here?" Eddie asked.

"Of course, I am," she laughed.

"Oh, she now knows all about me being a lesbian," Robin said.

"You're -"

"I don't know why she was so worried. She knows we're all about the love," Melissa said. "And the fact that in the early days of our marriages, we branched out with other people."

"You never said it was men and women, mother!" Robin exclaimed, rolling her eyes and smiling.

"Oh, your uncle should know, Eddie," Melissa said. "He was one of my lovers."

"What?!" Eddie shrieked.

"Oh, and he was excellent, too," Melisss sighed. "Really good with his hands - "

"Gah!" Eddie yelped and plugged his ears with his fingers. "Lalalalalala! I'm not listening!"

"You're scarring, Eddie, mombie," Robin said.

"Oh, I'll let you three to it, then," Melissa said and closed the door behind her.

"Okay, what the hell?" Eddie asked. "You know, I was okay with assuming that my uncle was basically a monk."

"How prude of you, Eddie," Robin cooed.

"You're a lesbian?" Eddie asked.

"Hm, I thought you knew," Robin said.

"Nope!" Eddie exclaimed.

"So, you don't know about either one of us?" Steve asked.

"You're a lesbian, too?" Eddie grinned.

"No, bisexual," Steve scoffed.

"Pardon?" He asked.

"I like men and women," Steve said, and then he turned to Robin. "I was pretty sure that he knew."

"Maybe the woman at the bar was wrong about flagging," Robin replied.

"I don't know. She seemed to know what she was talking about," Steve replied. "And I thought for sure that Eddie was flirting with me."

"What the hell are you guys talking about?" Eddie asked. "By the way, I'm cool with it all. . ."

"There's no way. . .no one calls someone "big boy" like that, and they're not flirting," Robin said.

"Maybe it's one of those situations," Steve whispered. "We should probably stop talking about it."

"Oh, hey, since it's your first time here, you get to pick the music," Robin said, pointing to her cassettes.

"Ooh, don't mind if I do," Eddie said and pulled the box closer to him. "Ooh. You got Bob Dylan. My mom was a fan."

"She had great tastes," Robin said and smiled when Eddie popped it in.

"Okay, what next?" Eddie asked.

Steve grinned and moved to his feet. He slowly began to untie Eddie's shoes before moving just as slowly to take them off. He kept the same pace when he took his socks off, keeping eye contact with Eddie.

"Seriously?" Robin sighed.

"What are you guys going to do to me?" Eddie asked, swallowing.

Robin rolled her eyes and pulled out a box.

"Pick a color, dingus," Robin said.

"Oh! You're painting my toenails," Eddie said.

"Well, you said that you wanted to know what we did when it's just the two of us," Robin said.

"Okay, can I do red and black?" Eddie asked.

"Of course," Steve said and began work on Eddie's feet.

"So, you two consider yourself like brother and sister?" Eddie asked as he took a magazine from Robin.

"Oh, no, that would ruin the plan," Robin said.

"We're basically platonic fiancées," Steve said.

"Well, almost fiancées," Robin said. "We're going to slowly manipulate Steve’s dad into giving us money for a wedding. We're going to take the money and give it to a worthy cause. We might just end up getting married for the hell of it, platonically, of course, but it's going to be the cheapest wedding ever. His dad would hate it."

"Mombie was against the plan at first," Steve said.

"And then she met his parents," Robin said. "Both of my parents are on board."

"As well as Claudia and Sue," Steve said.

"They meet up to discuss it, but they mostly just drink sangrias," Robin said. "And talk about. . .well, I don't know what they talk about."

"Jesus, are your parents really that bad?" Eddie asked as he flipped through the magazine.

"Yes," Steve and Robin said.

"Well, if you need any help, I'm your man," Eddie said, flashing his dimples.

"You know what would make your doe eyes pop?" Robin asked. "Eyeliner."

Eddie looked at her thoughtfully for a moment before shrugging.

"Alright."

"Yes!" Robin exclaimed and began to apply it.

"This magazine is really informative. Hey, Steve, do you mind me asking how you knew you were bisexual?" Eddie asked.

Robin had to stop applying the eyeliner because she suddenly started shaking with giggles.

"I don't mind it all - Robin, stop laughing!" Steve yelled and then sighed. "Well, apparently, it's just not very straight to practice kissing and practice having sex with a guy friend."

"Okay, well, I get the sex thing, but practice kissing with friends. . .doesn't everyone do that?" Eddie asked.

"No, and also like it? Also, no," Steve said.

"Oh, well. . ." Eddie said and looked away, thoughtfully, blushing, then he grinned. "Hell, I think I might be like you after all, big boy."

"One of us, one of us, one of us!" Robin and Steve chanted.

"You guys are freaks, I love it," Eddie laughed.

"Oh, Edward, you have no idea," Robin said.

"Should we?" Steve asked.

"Oh, I think we should," Robin said. "Eddie, do you want to be initiated into our coven?"

"Coven?" Eddie asked.

"We're wiccans," Steve grinned.

"Yeah, sure, why the fuck not?" Eddie laughed.

"Ooh! I get to try out my spell!" Robin exclaimed, clapping her hands. "And your potions and runes, Steven!"

The next thing, Eddie knew he was kneeling in the middle of Robin's room, surrounded by candles and very shirtless. Robin and Steve were both wearing black robes. Steve was kneeling in front of Eddie, painting runes on Eddie's chest and arms.

"We're kind of just making this shit up as we go along," Steve told Eddie.

"Obviously, that's clearly a dick you just painted," Eddie said, and Steve giggled.

The door opened, and Robert Buckley entered the room. Robin, Steve, and Eddie stared at him. He stared back. He set a fire extinguisher on Robin's desk.

"I thought I smelled smoke," Robert said. "Have fun."

"Thanks, Daddy," Robin and Steve said.

Just before he closed the door, Snuffles the orange tabby slipped onto the room.

"What's a Wiccan initiation without a cat?" Eddie asked with a grin.

Steve pulled out his potion. He pulled Eddie's hair back into a bun and started dabbing the potion behind his ears and on his throat. It smelled like heaven. He paused and glanced at Eddie's lips. Steve grinned before putting the potion on his own lips. Eddie stared at him in confusion. Steve cupped his face and kissed him, spreading the potion onto Eddie's lips. It also tasted like heaven. Steve tasted like heaven. Eddie let out a noise of disappointment as Steve pulled back.

"Woah! Head rush. Was that you or the potion?" Eddie asked. "What is that stuff?"

"You have to be a higher level to unlock that information," Steve said.

"Damn."

"That was completely unnecessary," Robin said and then grinned. "I can't wait until we're platonically married so I can call Eddie a whore for sleeping with my husband. It's going to be so dramatic."

Steve stood next to Robin as she opened her notebook, and they took each other's hands. Together, they started chanting in Latin. And when it was done, Steve happily wiped off the runes off Eddie's chest before presenting him with a temporary robe with promises of taking him out to pick out his own. In the meantime, Eddie was wearing Steve’s pink bathrobe. The three of them sat on Robin's window sill, hanging their feet outside. Robin and Steve sat on either side of Eddie.

"Do you think there are a lot more people like us out there in Hawkins?" Eddie asked.

"Definitely," Steve and Robin said, looking at him.

Eddie laid his head on Steve’s shoulder and intertwined their fingers. There came a sudden breeze, whipping through their hair. They smiled. They definitely felt magic in the air.

Part Three

[warningsine]

Wait a second. Glinda is lesbian in the book? How many characters are gay?

Glinda’s sexuality in the "Wicked Years" series is not explicitly defined, but there's room to interpret her as either a closeted lesbian or bisexual.

What you need to understand about Maguire's books is that the default orientation is not heterosexuality, but bisexuality.

So even when a character's sexuality is not stated, never assume they're straight until proven otherwise.

Liir, Elphaba's son, is explicitly bisexual. He has sex with Trism, a soldier, and often pines for him.

While he is unconscious, a nun, Candle, rapes Liir to save him from dying and impregnates herself.

(Liir sleeping beside Candle)

Elphaba's parents were in some sort of 3-way relationship with Turtle Heart:

(he is talking to Elphaba in the last one)

There's talk about Elphaba being intersex when she's born:

(Fiyero talking about Elphaba's genitals and wondering whether his tattoos rubbed off on her there or if it's "a scar")

Later in life, she's quite androgynous and defies traditional gender roles.

Elphaba is not supposed to be conventionally attractive, yet, both Fiyero and Glinda find her "beautiful."

Rain's (Liir's daughter) sexuality isn't stated, but her relationship with Tip is the heart of the last book and there are romantic undertones in their connection.

Who is Tip? A young boy Rain meets, except by the end of the book, we learn that Tip is actually Princess Ozma, the rightful ruler of Oz, who had been transformed into a boy by Mombi (the witch who raised Tip) to hide her identity. Upon this revelation, Tip is magically transformed back into Ozma.

Then there are Crope and Tibbett, flamboyant gay students at Shiz University and friends of both Elphaba and Glinda in "Wicked." They're a couple.

Tibbett sleeps with a male Animal and then dies of a disease that sounds like HIV complications.

There are other minor/side characters that aren't straight (implied).

But back to Glinda.

She's a background character. One of the things the musical has over the books is that it made Glinda a coprotagonist, but it also made her shallower (bookverse Glinda seems like an airhead, but she's actually much smarter), so check and mate?

Maguire about Glinda and Elphaba:

It's open to interpretation whether Glinda is in love with Elphaba. Personally, I think she is, given how she:

waits for her and hopes against hope that Elphaba is alive and will come to free her from her imprisonment (to the point that Rain, Elphie's granddaughter, and other characters think that she lost it due to her age),

helps Liir and later Rain, whom she raises as her own child for some time.

She definitely has romantic tension with Elphaba and there's a kiss--two kisses--when they part ways.

It's also open to interpretation whether they slept together or not. The Midwife says to the younger characters that they might have been more than friends.

Glinda gets married, but it's a strategic decision. Her marriage is devoid of passion. There are rumors that she did it to hide her true interests.

When she is young (at school), she lets Boq kiss her, but then she regrets it.

Glinda and Fiyero are not a thing in the books. Only Elphie has an affair with him.

There's a brief moment where Glinda fantasizes about sex with a rich guy (Morrible causes that hallucination/fantasy) except it is unclear whether that thought arouses or repulses her. While that happens, she finds herself in Elphaba's arms and is clearly into that.

So, yes, there's a good chance she's not straight.

[yellowbrickramble]

The suits on the cards are stars, hearts, swords (which look like spades), and emeralds representing wisdom, love, courage, and hope. In some decks, trees (which look like clubs) are switched out for the wisdom suit. Playing cards are a recent fad in Oz, first introduced by The Wizard, who brought a deck from his homeland. He may have taught Ozma some card tricks on one of the three visits he made to Mombi's house.

If you like my comics, please support me at patreon.com/daisyfm

[nevis-the-skeleton]

Scarecrow of Oz (My design, Oz AU)

I'm starting to be a really big fan of The Wizard of Oz, especially the Scarecrow. I like intelligent characters ^^ and he's the smartest of the group, plus he's a scarecrow, so X3! I'm starting to think about my AU of the Wizard of Oz and I've already started making designs for the quartet (Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion ^^)

(Press Show More to learn more about my version of The Scarecrow of Oz)

CHARACTER:

First Name : Scarecrow

Name : None

Gender : It/She He/Him

Place of birth : Winkies Land (West)

Race : Living object

Age : 15 years

Height : 1 m 75

Weight : 5 kg (he’s really light)

Eyes : Blues

Hairs : Straws

Skin : Beige

*

RELATIONSHIPS:

Creator: Elphaba Thropp (Wicked West of the West)

Best friend: Dorothy Gale

Friends: Cowardly Lion, Ozma, Jack Pumpkin Head, Sawhorse, Patchy (Patchwork Girl)

Love interest: Tin Man

Frenemy: Jinjur

Parental Figure/Mentor: Glinda the Good, Pr. H.M Wooglebug

Enemies: Elphaba Thropp, Nessarose Thropp, Nome King, Mombi

*

PERSONALITY:

Qualities: Hight intelligence, Integrity, Curiosity, Empathy, Ingenious

Default: Clumsy, Shy, Lack of self-confidence

MBTI: INFJ

*

Short story of Scarecrow:

Scarecrow is a living scarecrow created by the Witch of the West, who had simply tested a spell, which will bring Scarecrow to life. Elphaba honestly thinks he is her biggest failure. Scarecrow asks too many questions, doesn't respond to all of her commands, and is very clumsy, which doesn't make him very effective.

The inhabitants of the West have no particular hatred against Scarecrow, considering that he is ultimately in the same misery as them, at the mercy of the Wicked Witch. Especially knowing how mean she is to him.

When Dorothy arrives in Oz, accidentally killing Nessarose (Elphaba's sister), the Witch of the West absolutely wants to recover the silver slippers, so she can bring her sister back to life. She orders Scarecrow to get the shoes, and he's not against it. As long as it’s just stealing them. Elphaba leaves him on the road, near where Dorothy will soon arrive, the objective being that he gains her trust to steal the shoes.

But, he and Dorothy discover to their horror that she cannot take the shoes off. The Witch's plan then changes: Dorothy must die! The Witch can't kill her with a spell, because that would destroy the shoes, so it's up to Scarecrow to do what's necessary.

*

Facts about Scarecrow:

Nothing can kill him or hurt him, except fire

Elphaba tended to punish him by burning him (he still has some burn marks)

He suffers from pyrophobia (fear of fire)

“Stupid” was one of the nicknames Elphaba and Nessarose gave him

Scarecrow is made entirely of magic (technically, if he learned, he could master magic)

He can sleep, if he feels safe enough to do so

Elphaba and Nessarose named him “It”, and the Winkies “She”

In his eyes, he is a boy, and he has been misgendered too often for him to be lenient on this point

He was the most angry with the Wizard of Oz when the group discovered he was a humbug

Glinda took him under her wing after the death of the Witch of the West

His life will always come after that of others

He mourned the death of Elphaba

He suffers from a huge lack of self-confidence (mainly due to psychological abuse from Elphaba)

He learned to read, count and write by himself (thanks to books and video cassettes)

His first outfit was very different, much more torn and worn. It's Glinda who gives him new clothes.

[princess-of-the-corner]

There was a Wizard of Oz adaptation show on NBC called Emerald City (I guess they couldn't use the title "Oz" since that would lead to confusion) that was basically a darker and edgier take. It only lasted for one ten-episode season. Dorothy (played by Adria Arjona) is a twenty-year-old nurse, Toto is a police K-9 who ends up in Oz with Dorothy when she hides from the tornado in a police cruiser. The Wizard (played by Vincent D'Onofrio) was a scientist named Frank Morgan who caused the incident that got his team transported to Oz and his colleague killed, and he reinvented himself by becoming Oz's ruler and outlawing magic because he wants to be the smartest man in the room.

The Scarecrow is an amnesiac man whom Dorothy finds strung up and rescues, and, given the name Lucas by Dorothy, he becomes her companion and love interest until it is revealed that he was Glinda's lover. Ozma/Tip was kept in the form of a boy by Mombi (played by Fiona Shaw) with "medicine" after Eamonn (a human knight and the show's version of the Cowardly Lion) spirited her away after killing the king and queen of Oz on the Wizard's orders, and they are reverted to female form after a day without the magic medicine and really struggle with this development. Their friend Jack (as in Jack Pumpkinhead, but a human) helps Tip escape from Mombi with aid from Dorothy, but in anguish over their gender change Tip injures him and he is rescued and rebuilt into the Tin Woodsman by a scientist named Jane.

The witches are an all-female group who can only be killed by other witches or by the mysterious, generationally-recurring threat known as the Beast Forever (who turns out to be the show's version of the Nome King Roquat, but only in the credits). East (played by Florence Kasumba) is hit when the car Dorothy and Toto are in appear Oz, but she survives and attacks Dorothy and Lucas, so Dorothy tricks her into shooting herself in the head, killing her and resulting in her ruby-studded magic gloves to appear on Dorothy's hands. West is a generally chill witch who runs a brothel and cares about her fellow witches, feels guilty for sending witches to their deaths fighting the Beast Forever in its last attack, and is a drug addict (by the way, the road to Oz is yellow because it is coated in opium for some reason). Glinda is a Game of Thrones Big Bad Wannabe and is basically the good witch's version of the Evil Superman trend, and she also runs a convent and schemes against the Wizard. Their mother, South, was seemingly killed by the Beast Forever, meaning that supposedly no more witches can be born, but it turns out that Glinda lied about that and has been keeping her so that South can breed more witches under Glinda's leadership. West is my favorite character and Glinda is my least favorite.

Since Dorothy believes that her biological mother is Aunt Em's sister Karen and the Wizard claims that he and Karen were close, Dorothy briefly assumes that the Wizard is her father, but that is not the case, and her actual mother is Jane, and her father was the colleague who died in the accident that sent the scientists to Oz.

The season ended with Dorothy sent back to Kansas by Jane, who shot the Wizard to save her and stays behind, Ozma ascending to lead Oz and the witches with aid from West while confronting Glinda, and the Beast Forever rising to strike Oz. Lucas and Toto head to Kansas to find Dorothy and bring her back to Oz to help. But the show was canceled, so this was not followed up on.

Okay you know it's funny because from what I know of the books this takes a lot from there. Like even the Ozma-Tip thing was in the books. It just also. Has edgelord nonsense lmao.

Also the reason for the opium is the poppy field scene. Opium is made from poppies.

[bestworstcase]

i know i’m cranky about fanon allusion readings literally all the time but i NEED people to actually read the marvelous land of oz. please. for the love of fuck.

the wizard leaves oz forever, leaving the scarecrow to rule in his stead. general jinjur usurps the wizard and spends most of the book occupying the conquered emerald city in search of the royal crown. ozma is cursed to live as a boy; he is accompanied by jack pumpkinhead, his creation/“son” who spends much of the book fretting about his own death—his head, a pumpkin, is doomed to rot—and both are guided by the scarecrow. the woggle bug is both cursed and blessed by knowledge learned from a professor who irrevocably transformed him. glinda is searching for ozma and she chases the bad sorceress mombi to the ends of oz to bring her to account and force her to tell the truth and relinquish her power not just over ozma but by extension all of oz. the tin man has become a vain emperor. there is no dorothy; she’s in kansas.

the allusion is extraordinarily straightforward. it screams off the page. mombi is the god of light; ozma is ozma/tippetarius, ozpin is the wizard, oscar is the pumpkinhead (HIS COLOR IS ORANGE. PLEASE–), qrow is the scarecrow, ironwood is the tin man, leo is the soldier with green whiskers who lets the rebels into the emerald city out of cowardice, raven is the woggle-bug burdened by knowledge (and the only one who can use the silver wishing pill to transport everyone back home, which is to say she knows the truth about summer and i firmly believe still has that bond), summer is general jinjur searching for the crown, and salem is glinda.

(glynda goodwitch is a red herring. she’s purple—the good witch of the north, named glynda perhaps as a nod to the popular conflation of these two separate characters into one and chiefly to misdirect away from the real glinda—most ancient and formidable sorceress in all the world, whose color is red.)

it’s ✨simple✨

[likesplatterpaint]

Sweet boy brought me his gingy twice because he knows it soothes HIM so clearly it should make momby feel better yes?

The second time was…more insistent.

TAKE GINGY AND BE WELL MOMBY

he has barely left my side the whole day and I love him beyond understanding.

[phantomarine]

What are some shows, books, games, other webcomics, or any form of media that have lived rent-free in your head for years and years, and subsequently carried and inspired you to create Phantomarine?

In no particular order:

His Dark Materials - for ‘our world but a little different’ stuff and religious conspiracy vibes, also some evil spirit shenanigans in the second book

Final Fantasy X - for tropical locations, more religious conspiracy vibes, a world populated by angry dead spirits, and a BIG BAD FISH

Sinbad: Legends of the Seven Seas - for Eris, just Eris, also that scene where Eris summons a puppet of Sinbad and possesses him is basically my proto-inspiration for how Cheth works

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker - for sailing stuff and for Pavel (he was inspired by Komali!)

Baten Kaitos - for costume ideas and some worldbuilding concepts, I just love the colors and the idea of fantasy islands existing after a cataclysm

Beetlejuice Cartoon - for the ‘I’m friends with a weird stripey dead guy and it’s fun’ concept

ReBoot - Cheth is just Reverse Hexadecimal when you think about it

Aladdin: The Animated Series - both FCheth and Halea have some Mirage in them

The Dark Crystal - more stuff about broken spirits/gods that need to be made whole again to save the world, and darkness when it’s appropriate

Princess Mononoke - humans vs gods and how nature suffers as a result, good gray morality characterization

Return to Oz - Halea is literally Just Mombi

[jamiegeode]

Why yes I would love to know more. I’ve only ever read The Wizard of Oz (and seen the sequel movie to The Wizard of Oz a long time ago) so please feel free to tell me all about them. Also who’s the pumpkin man??

YESSSS YAYAYAY

SO! Jack Pumpkinhead is a scarecrow made by Ozma(at the time known as the boy Tip) and then brought to life by Tip’s guardian, Old Mombi, one of the illegal witches* of the time. Jack is then taken by Mombi and locked up, and she tells Tip(who she never wanted in the first place**) she will turn him into a marble statue and use the Pumpkinhead as a servant instead. Also Tip’s basically been a slave, and Mombi’s like ‘hm. Less annoying AND I don’t need to feed it? Bye kid.’ This leads to Tip and Jack running away, and the rest of the events in The Land of Oz

It’s also worth noting that Jack Pumpkinhead? He has a deep, severe fear of death. Like he gets anywhere near water and goes ‘dear god, will my head start rotting from the inside?’ He also calls Tip his dad for the entirety of The Marvelous Land Of Oz(second book in the series) and ends up starting a pumpkin farm after his adventures, so that he never has to worry about running out of replacement heads. He’s great. Anxiety rep at its most whimsical.

*Mombi’s brand of magic being made illegal after the laws the Scarecrow passed upon becoming king, mostly prohibiting ‘unnatural’ or harmful magics, but pretty much stopping the majority of magicians and witches not directly loyal to the crown from doing any magic. Which. Mombi herself ain’t great but BRO he essentially banned TRANSITIONING SPELLS! **she was paid by the Wizard of Oz to take the heir to the throne of Oz and hide her so she would never be found- so she turned the princess of Oz into a boy. He doesn’t give a shit about gender tho bc of being what we would in modern terms call ‘a genderqueer icon’, but this did make it pretty hard to find them.

Ok. NOW TO THE ICON HERSELF, POSSIBLY BEST KNOWN FOR THESE ILLUSTRATIONS(WHICH APPEAR IN THE OFFICIAL COLLECTION, AND FROM THE BOOK PUBLISHED IN 1909):

(Yes these photos are from my own copy of the collection of books 1-5, Twas a gift)

OZMA, TIP, THE MONARCH OF OZ!!

She’s an icon. He helped a revolt led by the women of Oz. He then helped the scarecrow escape that same rebellion by making a cursed beast out of some rope, couches, palm fromnds, and a deer head. The curse is how much it hates its own body, being more confusing than a chimera. He fathered a horse. She gave another girl free rein of the palace, including Ozma’s private chambers, and that girl is Dorothy. She helped Dorothy’s entire family move to Oz to escape Debt, and might’ve also helped them commit tax fraud. She then took Dorothy’s family on a tour of the entirety of Oz, usually sharing a room with Dorothy. It was literally love at first sight(paraphrase: she loved the other girl when she first saw her). Before Dorothy moved in, they used a magic portrait/mirror set to call each other at a specific time each day. Dorothy can’t always make the calls, but Ozma is always there. Ozma gave Dorothy a magic belt so she could come and go from Oz as she wished. He’s part fairy. His cousin is part rainbow. Said cousin lowkey flirts with Dorothy. She made Dorothy a princess of Oz, with as much say in what happens as they have. They don’t give a fuck about gender but will perform gender roles like it’s a 30s television show, and I legit think that’s just for the fun of it. He made sure everyone in Oz has a minimum of one bread tree per family. He told the gnome king to fuck off and then stole his trinkets. Those trinkets were actually a neighboring kingdom’s royal family. She freaked out a little when she transitioned but then her friends went ‘it’s still you, we don’t care as long as youre you’ and it was deemed the smartest and wisest thing ever said by the speaker. She’s friends with the guy who paid Mombi to hide her.

I could go into the impact that having a canonical queer character in such an old and well known franchise had on me as a kid, and how reading Oz books helped me feel like I was stepping into a safe place, but tbh I’m kinda stuck on the amount of batshit she got herself into in the second book. Wild.

By the way, all of this was written in the 1900s, the decade, not the century. Frank Baum was a real one.

[throwaninkpot]

i.

  There once was a boy who never felt right. It itched, maybe. Chaffed and claustrophobic, like when the witch who raised him would threaten to transform him into a bug and keep him in a jar, and even the thought had made his throat feel tight and his limbs weak and confined. That threat and all the other threats of equally awful punishment were never enough to make Tip behave. Once, when Mombi sent him to bring in clothes from the wash line, he kept a few items back from the laundry basket. Just a scarf and a blouse--how would that witch like it, Tip thought, if a little Mombi entered the house one day wearing her clothes, hunched over like her, and barking the same commands she gave him and promising the same nasty magics in an exaggerated mimicry of her voice. It would be sure to earn him some harsh punishment, but the prank would be worth it for the startled look he imagined on her awful face. So, he secreted the items away, and a few days later he ducked behind the house, threw the blouse on and tied the scarf over his head. Then grinning, he leaned over the rain bucket to catch a glimpse of the ridiculous image he made. 

In the water's reflection, his grin slipped away replaced by a curious frown. He looked...pretty, almost. The witch's clothes were nothing fine or lovely, made of the same practical lavender fabric as his own. But unlike Tip's own clothes, there were little blue and white flowers dotting the collar of the shirt. And the scarf framed his face in a way that made him look less like the old witch Mombi, and more like one of Gillikin girls he often saw at a distance working in their fields.  

It was strange. Well, yes, it was strange, but not in the way Tip had thought it might be, not in a bad way at all. It was-- 

"Boy! Where are you?"

Tip started, tearing the scarf from his head and hurrying to shrug the blouse off. The moment, like the prank, were forgotten and the day went on.

The days went on. Tip went, and went, and went, on and on, and found himself in a high room in the Emerald City. And it was himself, wasn't it? Tip wasn't a girl. How could Tip be a girl? How could Tip be?

But, well, if it had to be done...

So it was.

Tip went to sleep and Ozma awoke. When she sat up, a mirror was held up to Ozma's face, and looking at her new features didn't feel the way she expected. All those years of seeing a face shakily reflected in water barrels and puddles, and this was the first time the face looking back felt like--felt like-- Something tugged at Ozma's heart that she didn't understand. Me? Me. Is that me?

"Well?" Glinda asked gently, still holding the mirror for Ozma, smiling encouragingly at the child. 

"It's...strange." Ozma started. Oh, was that her voice? High and fluid as a bird song? Nothing like the cracking thing her voice had become in the last few years as Tip. 

"Strange, perhaps," Glinda allowed. "But not so bad, is it?"

"No," Ozma said. Oh, that was her voice. Oh. "No, it...it doesn't feel bad at all."

Once, there was a boy. But that boy isn't. That boy was a dream, or a threat of a tight jar made a reality that Ozma lived in every day. But the dream is over; Ozma awoke. Ozma continues to wake, now in open rooms all arching ceilings and wide windows looking out on her kingdom stretching wide. The clothes are as light as anything on her, and even when she orders adventuring outfits from the dressmaker, they come in lovely shades with little flowers on the collar and they never itch to wear.

      ii.

There once was a boy who was made a boy, cursed to be a boy, never knew anything but being a boy and there was joy in this.  He was happy in a way he had never noticed because he had never thought to question something so intrinsically true.

No one else had felt the need to question it either, until now.

He had tried to tell them--Glinda, the Scarecrow, Woggle-Bug, all of them. He wasn't a girl, he was Tip. He was no girl.

Glinda, smiling sweet, patted his hand. And for a moment he thought--maybe she would--but-- "But you were born a girl," she told him simply, like he was only confused. "So you must resume your proper form."

Tip looked around desperately. All these smiling faces. All the friends he had spent so many adventures beside. None of them would listen. Well, Jack listened. Jack cried at the prospect of losing his father. And Tip had never been comfortable with his parentage of a pumpkin-headed man, hadn't wanted to be Jack's father, but he wanted to be Jack's mother even less. Jack's protestation didn't matter. If Glinda and the others didn't care about Tip's objections, when he was the one who was heir to the throne of Oz and whose life they would be changing, why would they listen to anyone else?

All the while, they were kind. Reassuring him that he would be just fine. Guiding him with care to a couch. Meaning so well as they let him be put to sleep and took away everything that Tip knew as Tip. 

There was a boy, once. He is a boy no more.

Even the clothes were different. Tip didn't know why that hurt the most. His scuffed but sturdy purple pants covered in all the dirt from every stop of his travels were magically gone, and in their place was a dress of green gauze and flounce. Oh, and why were his legs put together funny? They weren't meant to sit like that on his hips. Oh, his hips. They were wrong. It was all wrong.

He sat up, burying his hands into the frilly fabric mess for something, anything, to hold onto. Glinda brought out a mirrored glass and it showed a face that was almost but not like his.

"Well?" Glinda asked gently. 

"It's..." Tip started to speak, and then burst into tears when the voice that came out was not his own.

"Give it time," Glinda soothed, days later, after Ozma's return had been announced, and ceremonies and parades had been held. "It must have been such a trial, dearie, and it's only natural it would take you time to adjust after the experience."

The experience. No one liked to speak much of it now, and when they did, it was only in the vague terms. The experience. Ozma's time away. The curse. Before.

If the experience had been such a trial, why did this now feel so wrong? That was the way curses worked, Tip thought: A person was happy, then a spell was cast on them and they were wretched, then the spell was broken and they were happy again.

That order had gotten a bit mixed up here.

He gave it time. Days, months, a year passed. Tip didn't adjust. Tip didn't feel right.

He wondered if maybe this, now, was in fact the curse. Maybe Ozma isn't him. Maybe it never was really, and never will be, even as he answered to that name and smiled at the subjects who murmured it adoringly. 

Maybe fate had found its way through accident and misfortune, and the initial transformation into Tip had been the universe setting something to right. Maybe Oz had been meant to have a king again. Well--after all, Glinda had said no respectable sorceress would deal in transformation magic, but she hadn't said anything about sorcerers. And maybe it wasn't a sorceress who sat on the throne of Oz after all. Maybe Oz was meant to be ruled by a sorcerer again. Give it time, Tip swore, and he would put himself to right again.

      iii.

There once was a boy. There now is a girl. And he would, if she could, live in that space between. Where eyes are fluttering, falling asleep and waking, as Ozma is coming and Tip is going. 

The child left by this sits up, and there is Glinda waiting with a mirrored glass showing a new face for them to meet.

"Well?" Glinda asks gently.

Tip-turned-Ozma can only look between the sorceress and himself in wonder, unable to answer. When he--she?--rises, there are her friends looking just as startled as she feels. She speaks finally: "I hope--" Oh, is that what he sounds like now? Well, his voice had changed once already before; this is nothing stranger than that, only quicker an ordeal than when his voice began dropping and cracking. "I hope that none of you will care less for me than you did before. I'm just the same Tip," she says, and for a moment feels like crying. Struggling to put into words what she doesn't even understand yet. 

What she means is: I'm the same me.

What she means is: Can't I be both?

It's elusive--fickle--ephemeral, fragile as her new gossamer gowns under the touch. Sometimes, he can feel it take shape at his fingertips, as solid as the crown Glinda places on her head. There is Tip. There is Ozma. Sometimes, there seems like little difference between the two. And other times, it is all he can do not to cry as the crowds call out "Princess! Princess Ozma!" as he passes through the streets. It's more than the names. It's more than the new clothes she must wear. It's more than the new way his friends treat him now even though they had promised it would still be the same. It's something like the way the skin wraps around their bones so distinctly different and differently distinct. It is each of these, and still more.

If they could have started as Ozma then turned into Tip then back again to Ozma, maybe the boundaries between are more malleable than people seem to think.

Ozma-still-Tip will learn the words to explain, and invent new ones where she finds the need. Slowly, he comes to understand herself. The citizens of Oz will learn, too, and so come to love their ruler whether there is a king under the crown today or a queen. This is Oz, after all. Where straw or clockwork walk and talk, and heads may be swapped, and young girls in houses fall from they sky then fly away home again. A little multitude of identity is not so odd at all.

(x)

[witchesoz]

What we know of Oz: The second extravaganza

If you remember what I said a long, long, LONG time ago, the first Oz book was adapted into a stage musical (an “extravaganza” as they were called back then) by Baum in collaboration with other big names of the time, and it was a MASSIVE success, so much that the MGM movie actually borrowed a lot of elements from it. It was the success of this extravaganza that made Baum write the sequel to “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”: “The Marvelous Land of Oz”. The book’s more adult tone, love for puns and jokes, and great focus on the Scarecrow and the Tin Man (the stars and most beloved actors of the Wizard extravaganza) were all intended so that the book would be easier to adapt as a musical. When you think about it, the big reveal of Tip as being Ozma is also actually something Baum wrote with in mind the idea of a stage play: indeed, at the time, young male roles and boy characters were often played by young ladies, and as a result this kind of “gender reveal” where a male turns out to be a woman was very common and very easy to do in those kind of theatric performances. (So yeah, to all of you who hoped Baum was defending transgender rights, he was actually trying to make money out of a future musical. Sorry for your hopes.)

But Baum had a tiny bit of problem… He had already started to write a musical that would follow the first one, a stage adaptation of the second novel titled “The Marvelous Land of Oz: Being an Account of the Further Adventures of the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman”. Hell he started writing it in 1903, so before “The Marvelous Land” (the book) got even published. As you can see he really designed it all to feature the two iconic character of the play. But turned out that the star actors, Fred Stone and David Montgomery, refused to play in it, because the “Wizard of Oz” extravaganza was still playing and they refused to abandon the show for a potential sequel.

As a result, Baum had to rewrite his intended story by removing the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman… so he had no Dorothy, no Cowardly Lion, no Scarecrow, no Tin Woodman… who was going to be the main feature? * looks over to Tip/Ozma* IT’S GOING TO BE THE WOGGLE-BUG of course!

Indeed this secondary character with no relevance to the plot of the actual book, here just for laughs, has become the star of the extravaganza. And thus in 1905 “The Woggle-Bug” was released, the second Oz extravaganza and an adaptation of “The Marvelous Land of Oz”. So what was different?

# When Jack Pumpkinhead comes to life there is a dance where “Harvest Sprites” appear in the pumpkin field surrounding Mombi’s hut and bow down to Jack as if he was their king.

# After Jack is brought to life and Tip leads him away from Mombi’s hut (no mention of petrification potion or Tip fleeing Mombi), we cut to the school of Professor Knowitt (who you might remember from the Woggle-Bug’s story, where he was called Knowittall), where the students are actually here children (in the book itself it was unclear if the school taught to children or older pupils). As with the original story, the Professor magnifies the Woggle-Bug on a screen with a magic magnifying glass, only for the bug to get off the screen and bow down to everyone. The Professor tries to put him back in the screen, to not effect. As in the book, the Woggle-Bug is very fond of puns, making tons of them, but the thinness of his so-called education is much more prominent here due to constantly mistaking or mispronouncing words (for example he calls “patois”, aka regional language, “patties”, like a beef patty).

# Surprise, Mombi appears right in the middle of this scene! As it turns out, the school of professor Knowitt is the school where Tip studies (big departure from the book, where Tip lived with Mombi and never went to school). Mombi is searching for him, as he actually fled her house with Jack, and the Woggle-Bug, eager to be of assistance, puts himself of service to her – he mistakes the story of Tip and Jack running as the one of lovers fleeing their parents to live their love freely. (There is also a little joke about how, if the Powder of Life can bring to life anything it touches, it should be used on the Democratic Party). The Professor actually fights a bit with Mombi because he refuses to let the creature go, claiming it as his property and discovery, but the Woggle-Bug scares the Professor away by saying that if he is held too long at school, his parents will come “bite him”. Again, jokes and jokes and puns.

# The plot of Jinjur’s army also crosses over here, because five peasant women (noticed for their lack of grammar and typical “hillbilly talk”) arrive searching for General Jinjur – who soon arrives, and everyone (including the Professor, Mombi and the rest) bow down to her, as if she had some sort of regional power. The Professor and the Woggle-Bug try to dissuade them from going to war, but the “army of gallant milkmaids and scullery ladies” is determined for war. Mombi refuses to be enlisted in the army (though Jinjur proposes it), but does make the deal of helping her with magic in exchange of capturing Tip and his Powder ; and the Professor also agrees to assist the army. The five peasant girls also want to join the ranks of Jinjur’s fight against the men, but Jinjur is a bit… let’s say she doesn’t knows too much what to do of those five peasant-ladies and is a bit awkward around them, so she precisely names them the “Awkward Squad”.

# About the Awkward Squad, their “captain” and most prominent member is a girl named Prissy, and she is at the center of a very bizarre humoristic subplot about the Woggle-Bug: the Bug falls in love… with Prissy’s dress. A beautiful checked dress that he loves and wants for himself, constantly trying to snatch away from the girl.

# Another major change: Jinjur isn’t a little girl anymore, oh no. In this play Jinjur is an adult woman (or at least a young woman), and she mentions that she used to attend this very country school house – with Professor Knowitt! Apparently they are of the same age, and there was a strange love triangle where Jinjur was courted by a certain “Tommy Bangs” (that called her “Sweet Matilda”), while Knowitt himself in his youth at the school tried to seduce Jinjur (in fact it is implied he obeys and follow her due to this old infatuation).

# The City of Emeralds has been changed here to “The City of Jewels” (though it is still in the Land of Oz). Interestingly, Tip visibly knows that he used to be Ozma, princess of the City, but was enchanted by Mombi. Tip even has very clear memories of her time as a princess (contrary to the book, where Ozma was enchanted as a baby, this Ozma was visibly enchanted as a young girl). In fact, Tip recalls that as Ozma he had many lovers despite her mother’s “watchful eye”, and one of them almost won his/her heart.

# The Scarecrow has been replaced by the Regent of the City of Jewels, Sir Richard Spud, alongside his faithful sidekick “Lord Stunt”. As with the Scarecrow, the Regent is tired of the complicated and sophisticated life of a king: he wishes to return to simplicity and honesty, and when he learns about Tip he is so joyful to find back the real ruler that he promises to hunt down for Mombi, to have her return Ozma to her true form.

# The subplot of the dress continues as Mombi suddenly appears wearing Prissy’s dress (for… unknown reasons) and the Woggle-Bug, desperate to obtain it, tries to seduce Mombi, to the point they even exchange blowing kisses. Mombi comments that never has anyone fallen in love with her before, and after slipping a few innuendos and “naughty jokes” she resolves herself not to answer the Bug’s seduction, because if she ever got married the “hobgoblins” would stop obeying her (aka, she would lose a part of her magical power).

# Mombi and the Bug, who are in the City of Jewels, meet all the other characters, and the Regent threatens Mombi with a public execution if she does not restore Ozma (and Mombi thinks the Regent is a fool for trying to give up his job, visibly not understanding why someone would not want to be king). Hopefully for the Witch the Army of Revolt marches on the City, with their banner “Give us Victory, or Give us Fudge!”. The Regent tries to talk the girls out of the war, to no avail, and so there is a battle and…

… You remember how in the novel the victory of the Army of Revolt was mostly humoristic? Yeah? In this musical… THE ARMY BURNS DOWN THE CITY OF JEWELS! BURN BABY BURN! And they take as prisonners the Regent, the Woggle-Bug (who decided to abandon the army and thus was deemed a traitor), Tip and Jack.

Note however that they don’t destroy the city, since the rest of the play takes place in the royal palace, like in the book.

# We get to see the spoiled and ridiculous behavior of the Army of Revolt once their conquered the City and it is a bit different than in the book: here they spend their days chewing gum, playing games (which always end up with them fighting for real since they are sore losers and cheaters), they choose whatever house they like in the city to be their own (and if they forget which one they chose, in the case of Prissy, they just get another one randomly), and they also bathe in champagne. As in the book, all the men are forced to do cleaning duties and taking care of babies.

# The Regent, who has been enslaved by the Army, has attracted the eye of Jinjur, who wants to marry him – but the Regent, whose main wish is to live a peaceful retirement in the countryside, refuses to marry Jinjur… unless she becomes a milkmaid. Jinjur of course is not going to do so, so she decides to just lock him up in a room until he agrees to marry her.

# The tensions between Mombi and Jinjur explode as soon as after the victory: Mombi wants Tip and Jack, she claims that Jinjur’s victory was due to her, and she even calls Jinjur her “slave”. Jinjur of course rebels, but Mombi threatens to turn Tip back into Ozma and make Jinjur lose her throne – so Jinjur plays on Mombi’s great vanity (calling her “beautiful” and all sorts of lovely names) to convince her to actually destroy Tip, Jack, and the Woggle-Bug too. Mombi refuses to kill Tip at first, but Jinjur ultimately convinces her to do so. Though her “convincing” isn’t maybe so great – when later Mombi sees Jack, she promises not to destroy him if he becomes her servant and obeys her every orders. Mombi also promises Jinjur to cook for her a love-potion they will give to the Regent.

# When Jinjur brings in her prisoners, we finally have back the “petrification” episode of the book: to prevent Tip from ever becoming back Ozma, she will turn him into a marble statue ; she also says she plans to kill Jack to make a pumpkin pie out of him the whole Army of Revolt will eat. As for the Bug… WARNING RACISM ARRIVES, but for the Bug Mombi calls “Aunt Dinah” (a mammy character, on top of that played by a man) and asks her (as she is the cook of the army) to prepare the Bug on toasts, “Newberg style”. Fun fact – the dress subplot continues! Because this time, it is Aunt Dinah who wears the checkered dress (how come the same dress is worn by three different people? I DON’T KNOW) and so the Woggle-Bug tries to seduce her ; but the Aunt, thinking he is a lobster, rejects him (because she is… lobster-phobe apparently).

# This fun subplot also mixes with another subplot: Professor Knowitt and Prissy (the captain of the Awkard Squad) fell in love, and want to marry. One of their lovey-dovey scenes is interrupted by the Woggle-Bug, who is lamenting the fact he is heartbroken and will never be able to be with the love of his life – and he tells them his story. Prissy wants the Professor to squash the Bug, but he refuses. The Professor proposes to save the Bug’s life from the cook’s kitchen by shrinking him back, but the Bug refuses. Ultimately Prissy, to have the Bug leave them alone, suggests that he cuts a piece of the dress and wears it close to his heart, so that like that he might be with his “beloved” at all times.

# Here we have the Gump episode – that Tip, Jack and the Bug build to escape. Mombi sees that and tries to order those around her to hunt them down, but neither Jinjur nor Prissy nor the Professor follow her orders. So she decides to take matters in her own hands… she does incantations around a cauldron, she invokes a bunch of other witches for a dance, and there is also another dance of black cats this time. This whole thing casts a spell, which at first breaks a storm upon the group, then creates a field of gigantic chrysanthemums with the faces of the Army of Revolt, a field that moves to block the way wherever the heroes go (a clear re-invention of the sunflower field episode from the book). And, strangely, this time it is the Woggle-Bug that saves the day by… revealing that his father was a wizard and invoking a flood to wash the flowers away.

… Yeah.

This play is bonkers I tell you. Completely crazy.

# Now, there is no Glinda here in this play. Rather we have another witch of Baum’s works, “Maetta the Sorceress”. (Maetta is a Glinda equivalent Baum wrote for his book “The Magical Monarchy of Mo”, and he already used Maetta as a replacement for Glinda in some versions of the first extravaganza). Interestingly, Maetta’s palace seems to have electricity to light it up? Maetta welcomes the travelers (her talismans warned her beforehand that strangers were about to arrive). After hearing all of that she has her favorite page, a boy named Athos, send a group of fairies to summon here Jinjur, Mombi, Prissy and Knowitt. There, Maetta plays “the Wizard of Oz”, as in she asks everyone what they want: Tip wants to become Ozma again, Jack wants his head not to rot, and the Woggle-Bug wants the dress he is in love with. Suddenly the Regent barges in the palace: he escaped the City of Jewels by riding on the Sawhorse (which then tried to kill him when he offended it, it is a long story).

Mombi is punished by Maetta by being cast in a dungeon, and she is dragged away as she throws insults at everyone. Jinjur appears before Maetta dressed as a simple milkmaid, because this is what Maetta condemns her to be as she dismantles her armies. The Regent, seeing Jinjur as a milkmaid, falls in love with her, and the two former rulers agree to get married. Interestingly, here it is Maetta herself that turns back Tip into Ozma by singing a magic song while he rests on her lap – and Ozma proceeds to name Jack Pumpkinhead her Prime Minister (yeah, nominates the idiot who can’t understand simple things as a Prime Minister… it makes sense). Prissy is also here, wearing the famous dress, but also a coat covered in military medals (it was a running joke that Jinjur gave medals to her girls for nothing and everything). Maetta takes away those medals and orders Prissy to return to being a simple milkmaid, and when the Professor and Prissy reveal they are about to get married, Maetta sets them free because apparently they are a punishment enough for each other.

But before Prissy leaves the “romantic dress” subplot is solved by… the Bug tried to rip the dress away, the annoyed girl ripping the skirt herself and throwing it at the Bug’s face, and then the bug wearing the skirt as a vast under his coat.

Oh yes, and to solve Jack’s wish, a servant of Maetta puts a big tin can over his head and labels it “Canned Pumpkin”. So it can’t rot. Get it?

- - - - -

And here is "The Woggle-Bug", the 1905 play following "The Wizard of Oz" extravaganza. This play, contrary to the first musical, was a disaster. Critics did not like it, audiences did not like it... a disaster. A failure. It basically killed all dreams and projects of future Oz plays. Mind you, Baum did another musical adaptation of his Oz work on stage... but it was also a failure. More on that later. On top of the already convoluted and crazy plot (oh yeah I forgot another element of the "Woggle-Bug is actually a wizard" subplot is that at one point he conjures up Sawhorses for all the main characters in the play to dance with... yeah) ; critics of the time mentionned that the play felt too "simple", as in it was truly a children story, in the sense adult audiences would not (and did not) enjoy it. It was too childish. Plus the special effects weren't apparently really great? Notably at one point there is a literal "rain of cats and dogs", and one critic remembered this moment as looking like animal corpses were thrown down... So yeah, big failure. BUT the whole subplot of the Woggle-Bug falling in love with a dress has stayed pretty well known in the Baum "fandom", and is now often mentionned in modern Oz adaptations as an inside joke or clever reference ("the incident with the dress" as Oz fans call it).

[jeanstapleton]

thinking abt more return to oz parallels & how roy & linda could mirror the nome king & mombi/langwidere

[...]the Gnome King represents materialist greed. He is driven by a lust for power for the sake of power.[8] Once defeated, the King gains a new sinister motivation, revenge. He and his allies want to enslave people to attain wealth and power. [...] the Nome King enjoys keeping surface-dwellers as slaves—not for their labor but simply to have them. [...] The Nomes' greatest fear are eggs. Sally Roesch Wagner, in her pamphlet The Wonderful Mother of Oz suggests that Matilda Joslyn Gage had made Baum aware that the egg is an important symbol of matriarchy, and that it is this that the Nomes, among whom no females are seen in any canonical text,[4] actually fear.

getting a bit bioessentialist towards the end there but the behaviors between the two characters are very similar, even though the nome king is also similar to lorraine, but again, the parallels arent meant to be literal all the time.

Princess Langwidere (a pun on the term "languid air", as enabled by her wealthy status and lazy carefree manner) appears in Baum's third Oz book Ozma of Oz (1907) as a secondary villain. She is the vain and spoiled princess whom Dorothy and her company encounter when she visits the Land of Ev which neighbors Oz. Langwidere has a collection of 30 exchangeable heads she keeps in a cabinet constructed of solid gold and studded with gems.[...] Langwidere has a meek-natured dutiful maid named Nanda. Upon spotting Nanda going about her duties around the castle, the Hungry Tiger regards her as exceptionally tasty-looking and eagerly requests her permission to eat her; being denied this privilege, he instead asks Nanda to whip up a sumptuous beef-and-potatoes feast for him, which she shakily agrees to, as her doing so will mean that she will both escape undevoured and temporarily take the edge off the Tiger's voracious appetite.

i see this in the linda commune, where saint linda surrounds herself with the "heads" of other abused women to prop herself up as the sovereign, even though shes the one that groomed nadine/dot. each head extends from saint linda like a hydra, parroting sanctimonious bullshit that, in the end, just reveals the extent of linda's duplicity rather than providing dot with catharsis. the part at the end with the made is very reminiscent of that too (nadine/nanda?). im mostly basing all of this off of the movie rather than the source text since im aware langwidere & mombi were different ppl, but the combination of the two makes the comparisons more convenient & consistent. i think its also worth noting that yes, the lindas all wearing green echoes lorne malvo's riddle about shades of green from season 1, but it also gives off the idea that the commune was emerald city, and, because there was no catharsis found, that the idea of utopia in the real world is not realistic, microcosmic or otherwise. the only real "utopian" ideals we can uphold are that of self-respect, love, and community.

[keithbutgay]

okay okay i need to talk about this for a second

SO for one thing. this is also a book. i did not get very far into the book before giving up, for what it's worth. for context i have read about 35 of the original oz books

right. that being said. i have some stuff to say both about the content of the movie/book and the commentary said (everything i say is based on the book)

i definitely agree about ozma of oz (and about the missing scenes!) and i had no idea about the weird changes to princess langwidere? i actually loved her so much in the books i think she's so so so cool. the name change is fucking awful.

ABOUT THE OZMA THING. OH MY GOD

im going to talk a bit about the marvelous land of oz so that it's understood how this was absolutely butchered. first of all, as said by previous rebloggers, the storyline is of tip, the protagonist, who's a little boy living alone with this woman mombi (the real one, also the fifth wicked witch) and she gets this powder of life, fast forward fast forward tip carves a wooden figure and sticks a pumpkin on its head to scare her and she puts the powder of life on it and jack exists!

(i will agree that jack pumpkinhead as a character is literally just a guy /pos. i love him so much. shaking him violently)

anyways, jack refers to tip as his father and that's probably where that part of the movie expanded from. fast forward, at the end it's revealed that tip was princess ozma, the correct ruler of oz, and she had been kidnapped at birth and changed into a boy and it was all just one big trans allegory and i love her

so for the entirety of the books she like. is a kid. but yeah

in the third book, ozma of oz, the nome king (aka roquat) turns almost all of the characters into various little tchatchkies and they have to figure out which thingamabob is which person, which is presumably where the movie got the whole nome king turning everyone into statues thing.

the wheelers are actual guys! their design in the movie actually doesn't seem to be *too* inaccurate as far as costumes and makeup goes? so that's actually pretty interesting. i think they look kinda cool based on the images i've seen honestly :PP

okay. lets talk about tiktok

in the books, he's almost what you're describing. he has the key for moving, the key for talking, they key for thinking, and he does often wind down. HOWEVER. while there is a one-man army of oz, this is the soldier with the green whiskers. and he is SUCH a guy. tiktok is just kinda a character with a cool design, cause he's entirely clockwork. and the way he talks is written out really interestingly because he talks very haltingly and robotic (for obvious reasons) and he has to be wound up again every so often when he talks for a while

ALSO. ALSO ALSO ALSO i just noticed the gump in the image at the very top. the gump is made of two couches, the head of an "elk-like creature", palm branch wings, and a broom for a tail, also brought to life using the powder of life

anyways, this is getting really long so. i guess in summary this movie is awful and a completely misguided and incorrect representation of the books and if you're looking for a good sequel to the wizard of oz please just. read the books. please. theyre so good

What the heck, I’ll give it a shot.

How bad could it be?

[odairing-a]

@dubovoye <3′d for a starter !

“  BOLKONSKY! ”  barked  more  like  an  instruction than  a  greeting, though  finnick  hadn’t meant  it  to  come  across overtly  unfriendly.  he  approaches swiftly,  weaving  through victors  socializing  in  his  way  and  takes  a  seat  opposite  his  peer,  tone  falling  to  something  far  more  casual. “  mags  said  she  spoke  to  you  earlier about  an  alliance between  our  tributes. mine  have  agreed. ” it’s  typical  for  careers  to  form  packs  with  each  other  prior  to  entering the  arena,  so  this  is  unsurprising.  

despite  this  being  finnick’s  first  year  as  a  mentor, he  holds  no  uncertainty  about  his  capableness for  the  job,  nor  the  justifiability  of  his  win.  he’s  snapped  at  his  tributes twice  already, demanding  their  respect and  submission  to  his  authority  and  has  publicly  smashed a  crystal  glass  against  another victor’s  head  for  their  mockery of  his  young  age.  this  rage  is  completely absent  now,  however. he  has  no  reason  to  be  anything but  civil  with  the  other, although  he  has  no  qualms against  changing  that  should  it  become  necessary. mags  said  she  likes andrei,  and  mags  is  an  impeccable  judge  of  character, so  he  doubts any  issues  have  much  of  a  change of  arising.

“  mags,  unfortunately,  cannot be  here,  so  you’ll  be  talking  strategy with  me.  assuming your  tributes  have  agreed  as  well?  ”  yes, mags  is  currently occupied  with  a  nap  on  the  district  four  floor.  finnick was  sent  on  her  request so  she  could  sleep  a  while  longer, not  that  he  has  any  objections  about  it—  no  one  deserves a  break  more  than  mags.

[odairinga]

S O N

“ YEAH MOM?? ”

[bestworstcase]

Wait could you go more into Salem being glinda? (<- person who is bad at allegories but loves your metas)

ok!!

step one is to clear out everything you’ve ever read about rwby’s ozian allusion from your brain because this fandom keeps trying to make it about the wizard of oz and it’s… nnnot about the wizard of oz. the book we’re going to be talking about as the primary text of reference is the second oz book, ‘the marvelous land of oz,’ which is about what happens after dorothy and the wizard go home.

the reason nobody can figure out who rwby’s “dorothy” is is… there is no dorothy. she’s in kansas and not really relevant to this story except insofar as her journey through oz resulted in the wizard’s departure and the end of the wicked witches of the east and west. she’s The Backstory. and—actually as i write this there, um, there IS a dorothy and now i have to go stare at a wall for a little while. 

…

we’ll get there.

context:

at the end of the first oz book, ‘the wonderful wizard of oz,’ the wizard leaves and glinda, the good witch of the south, tells dorothy how to return home to kansas with the glass slippers (which fall off her feet and are lost forever whilst carrying dorothy home)

(the classic film makes something of a mess by combining glinda and the good witch of the north into a composite character, creating the problem of why glinda would not simply tell dorothy how to use the slippers right away. in the book, the good witch of the north sends dorothy to the wizard, who is secretly a fraud, and after he inadvertently leaves dorothy behind she is advised to travel south to consult with glinda instead.)

now, the wizard was the ruler of oz, so his departure created a political problem that he attempted to solve by appointing the scarecrow to rule in his absence. that choice is what ‘marvelous land’ is chiefly about because, you see, before the wizard came along, oz was ruled by a king named pastoria, who had an infant daughter named ozma. then the wizard deposed pastoria, and princess ozma disappeared.

the book’s protagonist is a boy named tippetarius (tip) who’s been raised all his life by the bad witch mombi. tip is in fact ozma, stolen by mombi and transformed into a boy to secure the wizard on the throne of oz. he has no idea; he just knows that mombi isn’t very nice to him and he wants to leave. 

when he runs away, he takes with him jack pumpkinhead—a fellow tip made by carving a jack-o-lantern head for a wooden man, animated by mombi’s magic. their relationship is quasi-parental (jack calls tip “father” but tip is, you know, a boy and not especially fatherly). they’re joined by a living saw horse en route to the emerald city. the trio is briefly separated, with jack and the horse rushing ahead and being received by the scarecrow while tip is waylaid and meets general jinjur, who is leading an army of revolt to the emerald city to overthrow the scarecrow.

that happens. jinjur wins more or less by default because the soldier with green whiskers, who guards the emerald city’s gate, is too cowardly to fight them and simply lets them into the city. the scarecrow flees, along with tip, the sawhorse, and jack. this motley crew heads west to winkie country, once the domain of the wicked witch of the west, now ruled by nick chopper—the tin man. en route to winkie country, the scarecrow mentions to jack that pumpkins rot and jack spends the remainder of the story in a state of ever-present existential dread over his imminent decay. 

anyway, nick accompanies them back to the emerald city, along with the woggle-bug—a very large, knowledgeable bug whom none of them like particularly and whose backstory involves transformation by a professor, an incident about which the woggle-bug has ambivalent feelings—whom they meet along the way. they’re hindered by various illusory traps mombi throws at them because she’s trying to get tip back under control.

reclaiming the emerald city from jinjur does not Go Well. they’re forced to flee again, briefly end up stranded in an inhospitable place on the far side of the desert and attacked by birds. the woggle bug saves them by using a silver wishing pill to repair their means of transportation so that they can reach glinda’s home, in southern quadling country. 

they want glinda to help them restore the scarecrow to the throne of oz. glinda has other plans, because she’s spent all this time trying to find ozma and set right the wizard’s various injustices. she’s narrowed it down to mombi as the culprit, and upon learning that the witch has hidden herself in the emerald city, she… um, immediately lays siege to the emerald city to “starve it into submission” and flush mombi out, then chases her to the impassable desert at the edge of oz, ties a rope around her neck to silence her magical powers, and bodily drags her back to the emerald city to account for her wrongdoing on pain of death:

Glinda had been carefully considering what to do, and now she turned to Mombi and said: "You will gain nothing, I assure you, by thus defying us. For I am determined to learn the truth about the girl Ozma, and unless you tell me all that you know, I will certainly put you to death." "Oh, no! Don't do that!" exclaimed the Tin Woodman. "It would be an awful thing to kill anyone—even old Mombi!" "But it is merely a threat," returned Glinda. "I shall not put Mombi to death, because she will prefer to tell me the truth." "Oh, I see!" said the Tin Man, much relieved. "Suppose I tell you all that you wish to know,". said Mombi, speaking so suddenly that she startled them all. "What will you do with me then?" "In that case," replied Glinda, "I shall merely ask you to drink a powerful draught which will cause you to forget all the magic you have ever learned." "Then I would become a helpless old woman!" "But you would be alive," suggested the Pumpkinhead, consolingly. […] "You may make your choice," Glinda said to old Mombi, "between death if you remain silent, and the loss of your magical powers if you tell me the truth. But I think you will prefer to live." Mombi cast an uneasy glance at the Sorceress, and saw that she was in earnest, and not to be trifled with.

thus mombi is forced to tell the truth, remove the curse she placed on tippetarius (turning him back into ozma), and take glinda’s potion to strip all of her magical power away. 

folds hands. 

here are some facts about glinda:

she rules over quadling country—in the oz books, the cardinal kingdoms are all color-coded; northern gillikin country is purple, eastern munchkinland is blue, western winkie country is yellow, and quadling country? red. (glynda goodwitch’s purple is the first hint that she is not glinda, but rather the good witch of the north who believes in the wizard’s power. her absolute faith in ozpin is the second hint.)

glinda is, despite her youthful appearance, implied to be thousands of years old, and by any measure the most powerful sorceress in all of oz. 

in demeanor, she is always calm and collected and resolutely truthful; so great is her dedication to the truth that she has no power over mombi’s magical deception and illusions, hence the need to force mombi to undo her own curse. she always knows when she’s lied to, but she can be fooled (fleetingly) by powerful illusions. and she can be utterly ruthless in pursuit of what she believes is right for oz. 

she, as noted in the last post, is responsible for freeing the flying monkeys from their enslavement by the golden cap. 

now!

the allusions rwby is making to ‘marvelous land’ are really very straightforward—much like cinder and cinderella or salem and maiden-in-tower stories. it is impossible to read the book with rwby in mind and not see the connections:

the god of light is mombi.

ozma is ozma; as ozpin, he has become the wizard (complicit in his own cursed imprisonment), and within oscar he’s tippetarius (a boy who’s lost his true self).

oscar is jack pumpkinhead, ozma’s heir (thus, symbolically, his “son”), brought to life at least symbolically by light’s power (he’s in the story at all because he’s ozma’s vessel), and preoccupied with existential dread inspired by the looming immediacy of his spiritual death.

qrow is the scarecrow, left to carry the symbol of ozpin’s authority in ozpin’s absence and forced to flee beacon, the “emerald city,” by

summer rose, who is general jinjur, holding beacon academy while she searches for the crown. (jinjur spends a considerable portion of the story trying to get the royal crown.)

lionheart is the soldier with green whiskers: not the fearful but truly courageous lion, but the cowardly old soldier who all but hands jinjur the keys to the city in his terror. 

ironwood is the tin man, ruling over a land once subjugated by the wizard’s bitter enemy (pre-war, fascist mantle) now remade into a shining and prosperous kingdom under the command of the wizard’s ally (atlas)—and it is he who gives sanctuary to the scarecrow and tip’s party after the emerald city falls, and he who leads the failed first attempt to take the city back by force. 

vacuo is the nest of jackdaws where the party ends up stranded, far from oz—they cross a desert to get there and i suspect the point of theodore is to signal that vacuo isn’t “in” oz but rather standing in for the deserts and the lands beyond. because dorothy is in kansas, you see. (he’s not the Real Dorothy, though, we’ll get there momentarily).

the woggle-bug is raven, the maiden of knowledge who knows the secret that will bridge the impassable divide between vacuo and salem; her knowledge of what summer did is the silver wishing pill which, incidentally, poisons tip when he tries to use it. 

and salem is, of course, glinda: ancient and aloof and coldly ruthless in her pursuit of the truth, searching for ozma (<- note the congruence here with rapunzel searching for her prince in the wasteland!) and ready to GO TO WAR to bring the god of light to account for what he’s done. i really must emphasize the GOING TO WAR bit: the glinda of the books is not the soft, mistily benevolent lady the classic film makes of her. she has an extremely well-disciplined standing army which she marches on the emerald city with the explicit intention of delivering a siege to “starve it into submission.” mombi looks this woman in the eye, sees death staring back at her, and surrenders with a whimper. glinda is ruthless.

so it isn’t even “glinda would go to war if she thought it necessary” it’s that glinda does in fact go to war and rwby is, with salem, taking glinda’s decision to go to war to achieve her ends very seriously and putting that in a context where salem isn’t revered as a protector and loved by all. the only difference between salem and glinda is that glinda is beloved by the people of oz!

but i also promised you dorothy. so:

allow me to direct your attention back to what glinda does to mombi after ozma’s curse is lifted. mombi is made to drink a potion that causes her to forget all the magic she’s ever learned, leaving her to live as an ordinary old woman—but she is not left alone to suffer afterwards, because ozma makes arrangements to provide for her indefinitely.

this is, of course, what’s in store for the god of light. he’s going to ascend—that’s obvious—and the fairytale ‘the two brothers’ hints quite strongly that he’ll come back as a man (i’d wager a faunus specifically), leaving his power and memories of divinity behind and given a peaceful life in return. mombi’s resolution in ‘marvelous land’ offers a direct 1:1 comparison to ascension. 

but what about the god of darkness?

he’s– he’s dorothy.

dorothy doesn’t appear in ‘marvelous land’ and she has no presence in the book whatsoever except as one of the two characters whose departure at the end of the last book created the circumstances that allow this story to occur: it is dorothy’s adventure that convinces the wizard to leave oz, and then she leaves too. the wizard—through mombi, the real power behind his throne—retains his influence and authority over the land of oz until she is forced to undo her wrongs, but dorothy is simply… gone. she went home, she’s remembered fondly by her friends, she has nothing whatsoever to do with this story, and the silver shoes that bore her home at the end of the last book fell from her feet and were lost forever. 

(she does eventually make it back to oz, in a roundabout way, by accident. but for rwby’s purposes, and within the context of ‘marvelous land’ taken in isolation, dorothy is Gone Forever.)

afterans refer to the tree as home; they think of ascension as returning home to rest and find renewal after a long journey through the world outside. at the end of her journey through oz, she asks glinda to send her home, and glinda tells her:

“The Silver Shoes," said the Good Witch, "have wonderful powers. And one of the most curious things about them is that they can carry you to any place in the world in three steps, and each step will be made in the wink of an eye. All you have to do is to knock the heels together three times and command the shoes to carry you wherever you wish to go.”

and, as i noted, the shoes carry her home but are lost in the process, never to be found again. 

glinda teaches dorothy how to go home. likewise, salem is a repetition of jabber—the argument between the brothers comes full circle—and through this experience dark realizes that he needs to “go home,” i.e. ascend. he’s been trapped in this same disagreement for thousands of years and nothing has changed; nothing will change unless he tries something new. he shatters the moon on his way out and, unlike his brother, there’s nothing to suggest he’s still present in this world or relevant to this story as anything but backstory… because he ascended and became something new.

(the spirits in the relics.)

(which in terms of the ozian narrative, represent the golden cap, which glinda receives from dorothy before she gives it to the king of the flying monkeys to set them all free, so the symbolic through line between dark-as-dorothy becoming the spirits-as-flying-monkeys through his and their relation to salem is relatively straightforward.)

anyway, behold.

toto.