deeplyshalllow

[deeplyshalllow]

There is something endlessly sweet and hilarious about the fact that every Fiyero, no matter how long ago he played him, can't resist doing the dance (and wearing whiteish pants) when he sings Dancing Through Life.

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Remembered I'm ass at reblogging my fic on Tumblr. It's 7 chapters now, would love it if you read it!

“I have to find her,” he says, realising this has been his aim only as he speaks these words. Whatever has happened – and he knows so little – he’s sure that she needs help, and getting to her is the only thing he can do.

This is the Fiyero intermission fic I've been working on since January! And part of the reason I've been so crap with writing more metas. It's nine chapters and 28k words - and it is all finished so I will be uploading every Friday. I'm so excited to share it with you all!

Read here

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everything that happened at the first preview of heathers (6/22/25) <3

- i sat in the plaza next to theatre after the matinee i had just seen and about 10 minutes later a bunch of the cast showed up. i ended up meeting some of them then (kerry butler, syd sider, erin morton, cade ostermyer, and devin lewis)

- they were sitting there for over an hour. some more of them showed up but i didnt go back over

- the press was at the show. idk why this surprised me i probably shouldve figured but it never crossed my mind. they were taking photos and videos of us while we were in line, i got singled out for a bunchhhh of photos!!!! like these guys had literal professional cameras and they were pointing them AT ME.

- also got to meet a mutual friend/someone ive observed in this fandom for years/my new bff (hi @alexandra-dautriche <3)

- the second i made it to the merch line mckenzie kurtz just walked right past me?????

- i saw ANDY FICKMAN almost immediately so i went up to him and had a complete fangirl moment, while i was talking to them i saw kevin murphy and i went “am i hallucinating or is that kevin murphy?” and andy said that is kevin murphy. so i ALSO MET KEVIN MURPHY they both signed my sweatshirt and i got a selfie with them

- i also saw paul taylor mills, but i didnt go up to him then

- i spent over $100 on merch and i plan to buy more tomorrow. i got 2 enamel pin sets (all four blazers and a slurpee), a keychain, a magnet, the scrunchie set, and the tote bag

- i was in complete shock when i went in the theatre. i was so close to the stage. the set i’d been looking at in photos and videos for the past 3.5 years was real and in front of me.

- this one photographer girl who had followed us from the line to inside came down to the front row to take photos of me and my mom, she loved us hahhaa (I LOVED HER TOO)

- andy did a preshow speech, everyone was screaming, as soon as he said something about being back in nyc for the first time in a decade i almost started bawling

- during big fun kurt’s flower necklace thing like fell apart and i ended up catching 2 of the flowers

- during dead girl walking, when jd said “ow” he whipped his head around and i swear to god casey looked directly in my eyes.

- at intermission i went back out and my friend and i ended up saying hi to paul

- i was sat in the front row but not only that, apparently i was sat like in an exact perfect spot bc literally it felt like the characters were standing directly in front of me every five seconds. i swear every single major character stood directly in front of me at some point. like they were six feet away from me at the MOST. it was freaky

- kerry ran over to my side of the stage during shine a light and waved at me and my mom

- the gunshot went off twice after dgw reprise. i cant remember does this usually happen??? i swear it doesnt??? i was like oh my god….

- remember what i said about the cast always standing right in front of me? yeah so the pre-i am damaged bomb exchange happened literally right there. casey likes said the words “i’m not gonna let you die like my mom” RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME.

- i think i was so completely in shock that i couldnt cry. like i teared up once before it even started and then also seventeen reprise/curtain call but tears would NOT come out of my eyes. which is insane bc erin’s kindergarten bf blew me away, i am damaged happened right there and i have to skip that song every time bc i cant handle it, seventeen, seventeen reprise, literally the fact that i was there at all …… how did i not cry.

- before any of the cast came out for stage door, someone dressed as a giant inflatable slurpee came out and handed out slurpees to people in line who were willing to sing freeze your brain 💀

- everyone came out, i got pictures with almost everyone, they all signed the front of my westerberg sweatshirt!!!! it was mildly overwhelming but oh my god best time EVER

- i got so many compliments on my nails/outfit/sweatshirt

- a bunch of the cast (even the ones i hadnt already met) said they saw me in the front row and thought i was awesome (i was indeed having the best time of my life.)

- WHEN SYD SIDER SAW ME THEY IMMEDIATELY SAID “hi [real name]” and i was so shocked i just yelled OMG YOU REMEMBER MY NAME???

- AND THEN THEY SAID,

WE WERE TALKING ABOUT YOU BACKSTAGE

- so basically im famous <3

- everyone from the plaza recognized me at the stage door i honestly couldnt believe what was happening 😭����

this was the absolute best night of my life. i can’t believe i finally made it to heathers after this long. you truly do hope dream pray + get your way

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Explain yourself.

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the reimagining of gabe into a sad wet mama’s boy is incredible for a lot of reasons but i love it most as a reflection of diana. who does she need her son to be?? typically the answer has been a strong, healthy lad without any problems of his own, who can never fail and can always protect her. but this version has her craving a boy who needs her completely, a sweet defenseless thing she can nurture and never ever let down. she can be a mother to him the way she can’t be to her living child and receive the kind of love from him she hasn’t earned from natalie. just great stuff. the virgin chad gabe vs the chad virgin gabe

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I tried pretending that I don't give a damn.

NEXT TO NORMAL (2024) - Wyndham’s Theatre

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thinking about how dan sings "and all my fears just sit inside me screaming to be heard" and "and there's no one around" then gabe appearing and screaming with him because he is dan's fear and grief demanding to be heard. no matter how much he represses his grief, it has always been there with him — if only he could just acknowledge it

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to add on to your gabe post! if how gabe appears reflects diana's needs, what does it reflect about DAN that when HE finally sees gabe, gabe is forceful & demanding/even scary? how he's still needy but his need for love is more immediate b/c of how intensely dan has denied his own feelings about the loss of his son and how gabe even overpowers him physically b/c that's how powerfully dan's grief finally hits him?

yeah baby “”’haunting the narrative”’” isn’t enough i need to freaking Grab you.

[deeplyshalllow]

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Wicked - All Media Types, Wicked (Movie 2024), Wicked - Schwartz/Holzman Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Elphaba Thropp/Fiyero Tigelaar/Galinda Upland, Elphaba Thropp/Fiyero Tigelaar, Elphaba Thropp/Galinda Upland, Fiyero Tigelaar/Galinda Upland Characters: Fiyero Tigelaar, Galinda Upland, Elphaba Thropp Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Developing Relationship, Angst with a Happy Ending, Relationship Negotiation, Polyamory Summary:

Trying to explain it makes Glinda realize how little she understands of the past few days – weeks, really: a letter from Elphaba, delivered by a Pigeon at her window, entreating her for help. Elphaba, alive somehow against all odds. And Fiyero too, apparently right there under her nose all along, hideously transformed into that straw abomination. And then transformed again, worse still, back to this state of brokenness, on the edge of death.

Elphaba has been the architect of it all, Glinda thinks, yet barely present. Certainly not explaining or apologizing. Talking about resources and expectations. Telling her that Fiyero didn’t want her involved. Suddenly feels like the biggest fool of all, for trusting Elphaba yet again despite all of the times she’s been betrayed.

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There's something so funny to me about the fact that the entire Heathers fandom (including me) failed to realise that Big Fun was on Saturday when Dead Girl Walking is very explicitly set 30 hours before Monday 8am.

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idk how to word this properly but wrt the fanfic thing you reblogged earlier. Why do fanfic writers have such different expectations than any other content hosting platform?

Like lets take youtube as a point of comparison, Engagement like comments and likes largely exists to boost the works place in algorithm, thats why youtubers put in calls to action and other engament bait. Few with decent reach even read the comments and the audience shouldnt try to develop any weird parasocial relationship with the youtuber. Fanfic authors ask for likes (kudos, because the websites gotta use nonstandard language for some reason) and comments despite them not having any impact on an algorithm, and seem to want the audience to try and develop a relationship with the author based on tumblr posts like that one.

Why the radical difference in behaviour away from the norm? And honestly with all the (usually) metaphorical blood spilled online about parasociality why are authors really surprised that the audience tries to keep their distance as is best practice with any other content producer?

okay I am going to answer this as kindly and as calmly as I can and try to assume that you are asking this in good faith. because my friend, the fact that you feel the need to ask is, to me, The Problem.

[this is, for the record, in response to this post]

fanfiction writers are not *posting content.* (I also have reservations about engaging with the term "content producer" or "content creator" but let's put that aside for now, I'll circle back to it.) you say "they seem to want the audience to try and develop a relationship with the author" as though it is strange, off-putting, and incomprehensible to you, when in fact that is the point of writing fanfiction. it is a way of participating in fandom. it is a way of building community and exchanging ideas and becoming closer with people.

if authors wanted to solely ~generate content~ that would get them attention (?? to what end, the dynamic you have described seems to equate algorithmic supremacy as winning for winning's sake, as though all anyone wants to do is BUILD an audience without ENGAGING with them, which I cannot fathom but let's pretend for a moment that is, in fact, true) then like. if that were the case why on earth would they choose a medium in which they categorically cannot succeed and profit, because it isn't their IP?

you are equating two things that are not at all the same thing. to the degree that parasocial relationships are to be avoided, and "that person is not trying to be your friend they are trying to entertain you, please respect their boundaries" is a real dynamic -- which it is!! -- like. you have to understand that the reason that is true for the people of whom it is true is because it is their JOB. they are storytellers by profession, and they are either through direct payment, or sponsorship, or advertising, or through some other means, profiting off of your attention. i don't say this to be dismissive, many wonderful artists and actors and comedians and any number of a thousand things that i enjoy very much go this route but they do so as a *career choice.* and so when you violate the public/private boundary with them, you are presuming to know a Person rather than their Worksona. the people who work at Dropout or who stream their actual play tabletop games or who broadcast on TikTok or YouTube are inviting me to feel like i know them to the degree to which that helps them succeed in their medium and at their craft, but there MUST be a mutual understanding that that's a feeling, not a fact.

however.

a fanfiction writer is not an influencer, not a professional, and is not looking to garner "success." there is no share of audience we are trying to gain for gain's sake, because we are not competition with one another, because there is nothing to win other than the pleasure of each other's company. we are doing this for no other reason than the love of the game; because we have things we want desperately to say about these worlds, these characters, these dynamics, and because we *want more than anything to know we are not alone in our thoughts and feelings.* fanfiction is a bid for interaction, engagement, attention, and consideration. it is not meant to be consumed and then moved on from because we are NOT paid for our work, nor do we want to be. the reward we seek is "attention," but attention as in CONVERSATION, not attention as in clicks. we are not IN this for profit, or for number-go-up. there is no such thing: legally there cannot be. we are in this because we want to be seen and known.

like. please understand. i am now married to someone i met because of mutual comments on fanfiction. our close friend and roommate, with whom i have cohabitated for over a decade now, is someone I met because of mutual comments on fanfiction and livejournal posts. that is my household. beyond my household, the vast majority of my closest personal friends are people with whom I built relationships in this way.

you ask why fanfiction writers want THIS and not "the norm," but the idea of everything being built to cater to an algorithm to continue to build clout, as though the only method of reaching people is Distant Overlord Creator and Passive Receptive Audience being "the norm" is EXTREMELY NEW. this is not how it has always been!! please think of the writers of zines in a pre-internet fandom, using paper and glue and xerox to try and meet like-minded people in a world that was designed for you to only ever meet people in person, by happenstance, in your own hometown. imagine the writers of the early internet, building webrings from scratch to CREATE a community to find each other, despite distance. imagine livejournal groups, forums, and -- yes, indeed, of course -- comment threads IN STORIES -- as places where people go to *converse.* in the past, we had an entire Type Of Guy that everyone knew about, the BNF ("Big Name Fan") whose existence had to be described via meme because it was SO DIFFERENT THAN THE NORM. treating fellow fans like celebrities or people too cool for the regular kids to know was an OUTLIER, and one commonly understood to lead to toxicity.

in the past, I have likened writing fanfiction to echolocation. i am not screaming because I like hearing the sound of my own voice, though i can and do find my voice beautiful. i am screaming so that the vibrations can bounce back to me and show me the world. the purpose is in the feedback. otherwise it is just noise.

does this make any sense? can you see, when i describe it that way, why an ask like yours makes me feel despair, because it makes us all sound so horribly separate from one another?

perhaps I will try another metaphor:

a professional chef who runs a restaurant will not have her feelings hurt if you never fight your way into the kitchen to personally tell her how much you enjoyed the meal. that would, indeed, violate a boundary. professional kitchens are a place of work, and you have already showed her you enjoyed the meal by paying for it, or by perhaps spreading your enjoyment by word of mouth to your friends so they, too, can have good meals. you show your appreciation by continuing to come back. if a bunch of people sitting around randomly happen to have a conversation about how much they love the food, it wouldn't hurt that chef's feelings to not be included in the conversation. however: EVEN IN THIS INSTANCE, it is ADVISABLE AND APPROPRIATE to leave a good review! you might post about how much you like this restaurant on Yelp, and it would probably make the chef feel great to see those positive comments. but the chef doesn't NEED them, because the chef is, again, *also being paid to cook.* that's why she started the restaurant, to be paid to cook!

i am not being paid to cook.

i am at home in my own kitchen, making things for a community potluck where i hope everyone will bring something we can all enjoy together. some people at the potluck are better bakers, some better cooks; some can't cook at all but are great at logistics and make sure there's enough napkins for everyone; some people come just to enjoy the food, because that's what the party is for. and if I, as this enthusiast chef who made something from my heart for this reason alone, learned after the fact that a bunch of people got together in the parking lot to rave about my dish but no one of them had ever bothered to tell me while I sat alone at my table all night, occasionally seeing people come by to pick up a plate but never saying anything to me -- of course that would bother me, because I am not otherwise profiting off the labor I put in. this is not a bid to be paid, because if someone WERE to say "hey, great cake!! here's five bucks for a slice" i would say no, friend, that is not the point and give them the money back. i'm not trying to Get Mine. I am in it to see the look on your face. I'm in it so you can tell me what about it moved you, so that I can say back what moved me to make it in the first place. so we can TALK about it.

because what happened in the first place is this: one time I had a cake whose sweetness, richness, flavor, intensity, and composition moved me so much that I *taught myself to bake.* so I could see how much vanilla and sugar was too much, so I could learn how to make things rise instead of fall flat, so I could even better appreciate the original cake by seeing for myself the effort and talent and inspiration that goes into making one even half as good.

learning to do so is a satisfying accomplishment in and of itself, yes.

but I also did it because at the end of the day we should EAT the cake. and it's a lonely thing, to eat alone when a meal was always designed and intended to be shared.

so, to answer your last question: i'm not surprised, i'm just sad. because somehow two things that were never meant to be seen as the same have been labeled "content," and thus identical. and it diminishes both the things that ARE intended to be paid for AND the things that are not, because it removes any sense of intimacy or meaning from the work.

i hope you know i'm not mad at you for asking. but i'm frustrated we've come to live in a world where the question needs to be asked, because the answers are no longer intuitively obvious because we're so siloed.

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The dynamic of act 2 of wicked is so funny to me because it's like:

Fiyero: I wish I was marrying Elphaba

Glinda: I wish *I* was marrying Elphaba!

Elphaba: off committing treason, completely clueless

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It's not my fault I'm better at running away from responsibility than writing a book...

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people are NEVER gonna guess what they have in common

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I'm curious what you know of the plot of act 2? Because I'd argue that Fiyero is just as important to it as Glinda. He gets nearly as much screen time and his actions drive the plot forward just as much if not more?

Okay. I want to start this by saying no hate to Jonathan Bailey.

The Wicked: For Good trailer dropped and everyone is happy for Gelphie ofc! But it showed me that Fiyero doesn’t have much to be. I haven’t seen Wicked but I know the plot.

In the past on stage, he has been played by a man of color and I think the movie could’ve gone that way.

Elphaba is green and there’s a lot to say about that but Fiyero could’ve played a parallel to that as a character of color.

I still would’ve shipped Gelphie but I would’ve understood more of Fiyero’s character.

Does this make any sense??

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DID THEY ACTUALLY PUT IT ON SPOTIFY WHAT