#and i just love it when i dont get weird looks for asking for a table for 1

[eurydicees]

oh dont apologise i loved your essay 😭 and i 100% agree with everything. Theres such a innate theme of choices and consequences in wicked the musical and its so fascinating to me how choices made by all the characters have such profound consequences at the end. And fiyero’s choices are no different in the way they alter the trajectory of multiple characters.

He is really the only one i can think of who sacrifices everything for elphaba and does it all willingly. How do you like elphaba and then dislike the one character who was ready to give up his whole life and everything that came with it for her 😭

Twitter is very binary in that regard honestly, and its such a shame that they miss out on some pretty interesting character analysis about their favourite characters bc they decide to be so rigid and weird about other characters who had an impact on their faves. Couldnt be me lol, making multiple threads about a character you hate. I also think something else is at play here but dont wanna say it publicly lol but given your other responses i think you’d probably agree.

And yes totally agree about dividing the film in two parts - i can only hope the film watchers stick around for part 2 and see fiyero’s whole arc

thanks for the ask! also i wrote another fiyero ted talk. if i were like charles dickens or whoever and i was getting paid by the word to write about fiyero, i could be so goddamn rich btw.

anyways, choices and consequences!!!!! like that's the whole thing!!!!!!! and the way our choices affect and change other people!!!! fiyero isn't an exception to any of that!!!!

you're so right that fiyero is truly the one who makes the ultimate sacrifices for elphaba. like glinda loves elphaba, she absolutely does. but she isn't able to take on the work and life that elphaba chooses in defying gravity.

when it comes to the things that are most important to her, glinda prioritizes comfort and reputation over, like, morality and principle. and the thing about glinda is that she actively makes this choice. she chooses not to go with elphaba. she wants elphaba to succeed, but she's not brave enough to join her. in order for glinda to find the bravery to take up the work elphaba starts, she has to lose everything that actually matters. and she has to be complicit in her own losing of those things.

fiyero loves elphaba to the point of sacrificing all of those things that glinda can't resist. the day with the lion cub, and elphaba's general influence on him, changes fiyero profoundly in a similar way that she affects glinda, but fiyero finds the bravery to act on all of that. the difference is that he doesn't get the choice to go with her until mid-act 2 after wonderful.

in thank goodness, there's that one exchange between fiyero and glinda where they say smth like "you just can't resist all of this" "well who could?" "you know who could, and who has." and he's talking about elphaba, he's talking about how she had all the love she ever wanted at the tip of her fingers when she met the wizard, and she chose to let it go because she saw the ugly parts of the wizard's world. and this exchange is so clearly boiling it down to "elphaba resisted the temptation of being universally/publically loved and glinda did not." which tbh is something so in character for a person who has never had that, and a person who has always had that and thus doesn't want to leave it behind.

ok i was going somewhere with this but i don't remember where. just. fiyero isn't a perfect character. and for SURE the choice to erase gelphie's romantic subtext from the book when adapting it for broadway was an act of homophobia. but if we're just looking at musical canon, fiyero is brave enough to give up everything first to save elphaba, then to go with her, and then to protect her. and so-called elphaba stans don't think that's good enough. which is CRAZY to me.

also like. he's literally not the comphet love interest. sorry you didn't mention that but i keep seeing people throw those words around and like that's not what's happening here guys. elphaba loves him. she sings a whole song about it. multiple, even.

comphet implies that she mistakenly thinks she loves him because society has molded her into believing that's how she should be (fyi if anyone's experiencing that, it's glinda but i digress). elphaba, who notably has never been able to comply to the mold society makes for women, because she's never been pretty white woman enough to be afforded a place in that society? you mean that elphaba?

guys elphaba just...loves him. that's all there is to it. she loves him when she realizes he's more than he thinks he is, more than the airs he puts off. she loves him when she feared he might have changed, she loves him when he proves he did change--for the better. she loves him when he sticks by her, when he chooses her. she loves him when he's a fucking SCARECROW. ("go ahead, touch, i don't mind" "you're still beautiful" lives in my head rent fucking free).

when she has her breakthrough "okay. fuck this world that has never been good to me, if you want me to be wicked, i'll be wicked" moment, it's because she loses fiyero. she gets betrayed by nessa, and she fails dillamond, and she loses fiyero--and it's then that she loses sight of what good she had begun fighting for. it's a love for fiyero that drives most of no good deed (broadway songs of all time btw). like sorry but you dont sing someone's name like that if you don't love them. that's just musical theatre rules. trust me i was a theatre major.

anyways. sorry for that detour. back to the point. twitter treats everything as so black and white which is crazy because this is a revisionist musical about how evil isn't black and white. like?????? whatever. imagine being so bitter about a character you dislike that you want to change fundamental pieces of your favorite character so that he isn't relevant.

look. gelphie is great doomed yuri and i support that so hard. but dont try to tell me fiyero isn't deeply important to elphaba and to understanding elphaba's character. tbh the love triangle here isn't fiyero choosing between glinda and elphaba. it's more like elphaba choosing between glinda and fiyero and what either of them represent to her (glinda and working within the system, or fiyero, and abandoning it).

and hot take maybe but like ultimately--as someone who has never been conventionally accepted, as someone who has been hunted down to be murdered, as someone who has been the victim of a smear campaign and propaganda against her character/intentions, all of which was in part driven by glinda--she was always going to choose fiyero.

i respect gelphie shippers, i do. in another world, maybe one without the wizard, they could've been so happy together. i'm with y'all. but given canon, even if all others fall, i will be the last fiyero defender standing. god i hope movie-only fans watch part 2 and at least learn to RESPECT him. at the bare minimum. please. please. please.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

your movie charles art gives me cuteness aggression

obsessed with getting these asks back to back and yet they both hold some truth i think ...... thank you very much everyone ....

[astralzeraphias]

“he was mentally ill. this monster was a- was a sick fantasy. a product of his dementia.”

“…i saw it too. does that make me disturbed? demented? does… that make me sick too?”

[buwheal]

hey spamton! anything interesting happen recently?

[puppyeared]

its so hard to watch time pass when things like careers and assignments exist. what do you mean im supposed to take that seriously

[moeblob]

Right and his work menaces (Brent and Karen).

I don't remember last I mentioned it but apart from crude nicknames to people (except Chris), he also just puts them in his phone really weird (except Chris, who is literally in his phone as Chris). And I bring this up because in Right's phone, Karen is saved as "Lawful Obligation".

[jrueships]

r u the grew up poor never being able to buy the little things in life u always wanted as a kid so now u buy whatever little thing u want as an adult and struggle with saving for the big mandatory thing,

or the grew up poor never being able to buy the little things in life u always wanted as a kid so now u just never buy anything small bcs u had to learn to live without it and constantly try to save for the next big thing in 500 yrs

[sqlmn]

Lightning, water, and fire! Like forever before the plot starts. By the time the plot starts, the lightning and fire deities have been subjected to punishment by the two gods that picked them.

Oh (the fire deity) is first to be punished. They basically decide that since they're going to live for a long time, gotta set some long time goals! And they opt to be the wrath of the gods since most of the other deities are too 'soft' in their opinion. So Oh just. Smites humans. This isn't really a /good/ thing and in their defense mentally, they do it to help Ymber since he's the softest of them all. So their punishment by the gods is to be split in two, effectively halving the power of one into two. (Now they are in a male and a female body and use both male and female pronouns apart since they together make they but apart it feels weird to be they. But prior to the split they use they/them. Also the split bodies go by the names Ohiwe and Ohime.)

Fulj is the second to be punished. She falls in love with a mortal woman and that is a crime according to the gods. Mortals and immortals are not to be together and it will only bring suffering to both sides. So her punishment is her memories of the woman are stripped and her body basically broken to the point she can't remain physical all the time.

Ymber, unfortunately, is the one who blames himself for the discoveries and punishments. If he had only tried to restrain Oh more then maybe they would have chilled out and stopped before being punished. If he had only tried to persuade Fulj to not continue seeing the mortal woman so often perhaps she wouldn't have been punished. So he's just increasing the guilt on his shoulders every day that he remains unpunished since the elder gods have both laid down to rest. They can't enforce their laws anymore and none of the deities are keen on harming one another at this point. They just want to continue existing in peace.

[guinevereslancelot]

for the first time in my life i was just asked if i have kids instead of if i'm in college yet. the years start coming and they don't stop coming huh

[foccaccia]

does anyone have recommendations for fictional media that has like. actual lesbians in it. not like supergirl Two White Skinny Girls, One Blonde and One Brunette Kiss media, or "its implied lesbianism!!!" but just regular fucking lesbians

[synchlora]

something to be said abt a foster pleading for anyone to adopt their extremely sweet and playful disabled tabby cat for over a year with absolute Crickets in response vs us making one post at 8pm with a frankly very poorly taken photo of a cute no-personality fluffy white kitten we have (who's not even been here 3 days!) and we have 45 comments within the hour and three of our adoption people with their phones blowing up

[mcybree]

Ok ok ok I'm not Tryna start discourse but bluestars prophecy was my first ever warriors book and bluestar will always be my favourite so I'm gonna make some counterpoints to you about her being a Smajor character

bluestar has always been led by an intense loyalty and dedication to those she loves and cares for - this includes her mum, her sister, her clan, eventually Firepaw when he joins the clan, and she has a VERY strong moral compass when it comes to doing the right thing - when she sees thistleclaw teaching tigerpaw to hurt a then baby scourge she very much discourages it and is against it

Afaik scott is Not like that, he doesn't have an emotional or love-driven moral code, he does things because they're smart decisions in the long term or because he wants to. Granted I havent seen a ton of his stuff but I have seen his limited life and 3rd life perspectives and he is very much a singular team player there, there to look after himself and well if people align with him that's great he's got allies (jimmy and Martyn) but he won't go out of his way to care for them

Bluestars defiance of starclan in the first series is BECAUSE she gave herself to them and what the warrior code demanded so much - yes she broke clan rules by having kids with crookedstar but she did everything in her power to make sure they'd have a happy life and felt terrible that thrushpelt was willing to say they were his to save her reputation. She didn't do it out of a selfish want, she only ever wanted to help her clan and those she loved, and her becoming clan leader is emblematic of that want. When she rejects starclan so wholeheartedly in the first series it's because THINGS KEEP GOING WRONG WHEN SHES TRIED SO HARD TO STOP THEM FROM DOING THAT - starclan has never cared about the sacrifices she made to keep her loved ones and clan safe, she lost her mother, her sister, her kits, her mate, literally everything, and things STILL KEEP GETTING WORSE. it's not a demand that she deserves to have everything good, it's a cry for help that shouldn't something go right after she's tried so hard???

C!Scott isn't like that. He puts himself above others and inherently believes he will get the best if he just plays his cards right, and he is good at it, he's very competent at lasting a long time in life series and getting what he wants - the ruthlessness of gem driven by desperation kills him in secret life, Martyn's complete fucking about face kills him in limited life, and I'm pretty sure it's etho who gets him out in 3rd life by luck. He doesn't plan to look after the ones he cares about, because he cares about himself first and foremost. Yeah you can argue when he doesn't get what he wants he gets annoyed, but his is less of a 'why don't I get this don't I deserve it' and more of a 'oh fuck this didn't work. Ok new plan double down on getting what I want by appeasing to people cos they're easy to read and therefore account for'

I don't doubt Scott would make a bluestar adjacent character if he made a warrior cats oc BUT his character would honestly be closer to darktail or ashfur than bluestar and that's that on that.

(sorry you activated 13 year old me's unskippable cutscene sjdjsjsjja this isnt meant to be a serious argument I just love bluestar a lot and love talking about her)

OKAY 1. this is fucking awesome thank you 2. i am going to do something new and exciting (advocate for scott instead of beating him to death with sticks) because unfortunately this bluestar info has only made me believe she is a smajor character even more.

As a general note when I talk about smajor characters as a collective here I’m referring to characters more in the realm of esmp/traffic/rats/pirates/etc, less vampire scott or necromancer scott who are intended to be villainous.

Scott characters tend to operate under a “If I am not a Good Person I may as well die” rule, and consequently abide by a strict moral code to keep themselves feeling clean. For instance: traffic Scott will never go back on his word, he will avoid dishonesty, and he won’t take from others unless he is sure that he can repay them. He will never betray his seasonal primary ally (even when they betray him first), and will often give people things just because they asked him nicely. He stakes a lot of his own identity on this, because it is through being a “good person” that he justifies his superiority (and, by extension, his own existence); in his mind he deserves the best and *is* the best because he is such a good person. When things don’t go his way, he thinks he doesn’t deserve it because he has been nothing but good, so he tries to place a reason. He often assumes that somebody must “have a vendetta” against him, even if this somebody is the world (see: him asking if limlife episode 1 boogeyman is some kind of joke played on him for not giving in to the boogey curse in Last Life.) which is very Bluestar to me, convinced that her misfortunes are a divine punishment.

This is all to say that Scott does have a strict moral code and deep sense of loyalty. Being a “good person” and devoted partner in the ways he understands it are so ingrained into what he is that I think he definitely has the capacity to be a Bluestar if he were raised being taught clan values, even if his internal systems are often built around never letting gross emotions be fully felt rather than what those emotions compel him to do.

[elegyofthemoon]

also to anyone who plays honkai, does anyone have other translations of the game? aside from the official?

i feel like i talked about this with a friend, but the translations just. don't line up with what's being said a lot of the time and it's slightly driving me insane x - x

[desperatecheesecubes]

Every time I see a post making fun of people being afraid to get into comics I think about how when I was first getting into comics I thought it would be fun to read Infinite Crisis because it was a HUGE event and it would give me an idea of what a whole slew of runs and characters were like. I made a post about some panel pretty early into the event (I think it was a build up comic that wasn't even officially part of the Road To Infinite Crisis so EARLY early) and some blog I didn't know made fun of me for not knowing the greater context of the panel I was commenting on. And while I was naively typing up a quick little 'ah sorry I'm new to comics and didn't know that. Thanks for the context!' they had gone through my blog and started doing the same for a bunch of other comics I'd read, and then mocked me for reading IC when I clearly new so little about comics.

Now, obviously, that behavior is ridiculous, and I just blocked them, but it did stick with me. It was one of my earliest interactions with comic fandom and I never forgot it. Most of the people I've intereacted with have been lovely. Even when I have gotten comic cannon wrong corrections are normally very kind. But not all of them are, and the ones who aren't are so vocal about it.

So i actually don't think it's the comics themselves that make getting into comics an unappealing prospect.

[moeblob]

Rey, who is in my very biased opinion, one of the funniest "girls" I have because she's just a guy, truly. Like Rey is just short for Reynold because he was recruited by a a goddess to help the hero she selected and the hero is conveniently Reynold's younger brother. So he agrees to help under the condition that the goddess gives him a female body for the other world. She's like "really odd flex but whatever" and gives him a female form and he's like "you know. I can't really blame anyone but myself for not specifying 'please don't turn me into a Lisa Frank personification'."

[icewindandboringhorror]

finally settling once and for all... with the evidence laid out plainly.. which of these brother boys is more stinkys ,,,