#principles*

[irregodless]

popular is actually a very important song to the themes in wicked. even the wizard confirms them

glinda tells elphaba that political figures and social influencers arent those who are the most qualified, theyre the ones who are most accepted. ol oscar echoes this later by telling elphaba history is just the perspective of the favorable. whether or not youre regarded as a protector or a tyrant has everything to do with your pr and who ends up coming out on top

in fact he even goes so far as to say yeah we all know even our celebrated leaders are kinda shit BUT we choose not to acknowledge it. because its easier that way. which is how oz functions at a whole which plays into how maguire played with how it was viewed in the book. the wizard of oz is a magical fantastical place! because dorothy is a child. because the ozians want to show off their best. maguire notes how even the emerald city was filled with slums and ghettos. but are you going to show that to a visitor? is a child from kansas going to know how to pick out vagrants or prostitutes? the wizard of oz was created to be enjoyed by children and so maguire writes the land to, by its leaders, be callow and immature even in its handling of mature issues. its part of why you get such silly wacky fantasy names in a story about. well. A Lot.

oh hes a winkie from the western vinkus isnt that so silly >w<!! We Are Committing Eugenics Against Animals

glinda points this out to elphaba. by having a visceral emotional reaction she has ruined her cause. i dont think even in the books she had any sympathizers that werent Animals. but she needs more than the side of the oppressed to make cause. glinda would have been her best pr manager. elphaba COULD have swallowed her pride and played along with the wizard. i mean after all she has actual magic and he only has parlor tricks. but thats not in her character and is arguably a fatal character flaw of hers

that is until you consider glinda. glinda sympathizes with elphaba at least to some extent. and we see her gain great success... but she still only holds up the status quo. would elphaba have been able to slip out of the political trappings to actually reform oz from the inside? or would the background players like morrible who are also in control subdued her

glinda certainly didnt end up changing anyones minds. not even when she tried to make people have empathy for elphaba by explaining how she had a family and childhood like anyone elses. of course... ephabas family having religious and political Eminence probably didnt help the lower classes who elphaba should have been able to appeal to easily view her favorably

"its not about aptitude, its the way youre viewed" well elphaba already knows how shes viewed. shes so keenly aware she has an entire speech she starts ranting off the minute she introduces herself to anyone. she doesnt want to play along with this game of optics because shes been losing it her whole life and has been victimized by it

she idolized the wizard. she viewed the wizard as the way to absolve how shes perceived. but when she sees the man behind the curtain she doesnt want that anymore. she CANT want it anymore as she says. now that she cant rely on oscar... shes given up on the concept that anyone could make her be viewed favorably. and so she takes the road that makes HER happy. its not the most effective one and its not the comfortable one but its the one that doesnt jeopardize her morals and values and doesnt keep her grounded

she died a villain who couldnt do much for her cause beyond terrorism and being an antaognistic force for the wizard who otherwise would have faced no pushback but she died being true to herself and not changing herself like how everyone in oz wanted her to

and yet did she actually not achieve anything? the world needs a scapegoat, after all. oscar said so himself. elphaba didnt stop the cruelty against animals completely, but she gave oz a new player to target their hate against. and in this way she also manages to undermine oscars power if only slightly

to quote twisted which itself was inspired by wicked:

What remains of a man when that man is dead and gone? Only memories and stories of his deeds will linger on, but if a man's accomplishments aren't in the tale they tell, are the deeds that go unheralded his legacy as well? [...] The question then is whether 'tis nobler in the mind to be well-liked but ineffectual, or moral but maligned? I'll never be the hero all the citizens adore, but if I hide to save my life, what has my life been for?

[eternalgirlscout]

i adore being confronted with the staggering breadth of what individual people can get obsessed with. there's nothing better than having That One Mutual with an advanced degree in ancient greek tragedy who writes minecraft youtube fanfiction to remind you that anyone can love anything

[aroaceleovaldez]

i had a thought of "do people not know what AUs are anymore?" and then i remembered nobody explains fandom stuff to new people anymore so it is entirely plausible people genuinely don't know what AUs are and nobody has explained it to them, so for today's lucky 10,000:

"AU" stands for "Alternate Universe" or "Alternative Universe" (same difference) and is basically any thought scenario for a fandom that isn't canon and can't fit within the canon universe. If it takes place in the canon universe but something is notably different, that is typically what's known as a "Canon divergent AU," because it diverges from canon.

an AU can be absolutely anything. There's a couple of widespread pan-fandom au scenarios that often get thrown around, like coffee shop aus, genderbend aus, hanahaki aus (hanahaki is a whole thing in itself i'd recommend researching on your own), etc. One you might hear sometimes is "crossover AU" which is when you have characters from one fandom interacting with characters from another.

You can have as many aus as you want. They can be whatever you want and you can do whatever you want in them. It's a sandbox for you to play around in and explore how things would be different or how the characters would act in those circumstances or environments. Maybe they have different relationships with each other. Maybe they behave slightly differently. Or you can just say "Okay, [x] is true. How did they get here? How would things have to be different for this to occur?" which can also be fun.

If you are ever confused about why people ship something that seems completely out of the blue or doesn't make sense to you in the canon setting, there's a good chance they like it in an AU setting! Not everything everybody is interacting with is necessarily the canon! Not everybody wants things to exist in canon and just want to explore playing dolls in a different sandbox and that's okay. And their sandbox might look a lot different than yours, and that's also okay. You have the freedom to make your sandbox whatever you please. Do whatever you want forever. Get funky with it. AUs are fun.

Okay that's my schpeal. everybody go have fun and play nice now.

[goldensunset]

all electric/flying types go to hell

[rolameny]

le miserable. there's just one of him

[zillychu]

everyone sh. shutd up im cooking smthn

[repotting]

So it's clear a lot of the "I'd even vote for Hitler" Democrats are trying to impress upon us the urgency of the situation, like "things are so dire I'd even resort to this!"

And of course one major problem with this tactic is that you're assuming we'll be like "wow, you'd overcome your obviously strong principles" but like.

You haven't established you even have those principles. You've just told us that you'd collaborate with Nazis and like, yeah, that is famously something many liberals have been okay with doing.

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

hehee ty for all the love on my redesigns post :3, heres a full ref of all of them!

[moleshow]

[liberalsarecool]

American organized religion is horrible.

The Christian Right are deplorables.

[classycookiexo]

[sphor-art]

good ending

[transsexualhollyleaf]

a scourge on the name of all good cats

[komsomolka]

i hate this attitude of LGBTs towards revolution. socially conservative dotp is still times better than pro gay/trans dotb and you are no comrade of mine if you don't share this opinion.

[chicafinal]

he's just like me fr