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The Promise

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my favorite

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break like an artist.

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a collab between me and @slashmagpie for hermitadaymay's Solstice Social Collaborative Event! make sure to check out magpie's amazing fic for this too :D

(alternate ver under the cut)

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“Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, ‘What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.’ Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.”

— Vincent Van Gogh

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Henry Clerval and the creature

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I'm starting a collection (X, X, X, X)

BONUS:

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thinking about how the best case scenario that elphaba can imagine in the wizard and i is that finally someone will come along who will be able to change everything about her. even in her wildest dreams, she views that as her best option.

and then.

along comes galinda. who - after spending an entire night attempting to give her a makeover - settles on: ‘actually, you’re perfect just the way you are. i wouldn’t change a thing. except maybe to tuck a little piece of myself in with you, just there.’

and i just think that’s neat.

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CRYING at Galinda performing the most flamboyant like...tropical bird mating dance the world has ever seen

Meanwhile poor Elphaba, who has never experienced flirting with ANYONE before, let alone the world's most flamboyant closeted lesbian tropical bird, has no idea what the hell she's looking at and is just like ??????

Still, points for at least attempting to match Galinda's freak

Truly the most magnificent sapphic fail-flirt scene of all time.

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My girl forgot she was supposed to be loathing for a sec

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Thinking about how Glinda never really hated that hat. She actually really loved it. It was dear to her. Her granny made it for her and probably played pretend with her, making Glinda’s dreams of becoming a sorceress come true. Glinda was just embarrassed when Pfannee and Shen Shen found it, so she pretended to hate it.

Maybe when she said she didn’t hate anyone that much to give it away, she really meant she didn’t love anyone that much— she didn’t trust anyone to understand how she could love a hat so hideous.

Maybe she knew Elphaba would understand. Maybe she knew Elphaba would take care of it.

And maybe Elphaba proved her right. And now, Glinda gets to admire as the most fearless person she has ever met cherishes her hat as dearly as she did.

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dead teammate dissing u beyond the grave

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Every 21st century piece of writing advice: Make us CARE about the character from page 1! Make us empathize with them! Make them interesting and different but still relatable and likable!

Every piece of classic literature: Hi. It's me. The bland everyman whose only purpose is to tell you this story. I have no actual personality. Here's the story of the time I encountered the worst people I ever met in my life. But first, ten pages of description about the place in which I met them.

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i have a brainworm for this movie

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Galinda never had a choice in defying gravity. The dice had been tossed on her long before Elphaba asked her to go with her. Not just from the character’s understanding and past but also from an omniscient viewpoint of her as a mirror to Elphaba and a major moving piece in a tragedy.

Firstly, on an external level Galinda is supposed to be the inverse of Elphaba. She’s conventionally attractive and well loved whereas her best friend is shunned for her physical appearance. Which leads into a discussion of what exactly makes her “choice” in defying gravity so far out of her reach as a character. The thing is she has to pick opposite Elphaba, to keep the tragedy, to fully make the lead’s choice to “defy gravity” so powerful and so isolating. Not only this but Galinda’s setup as Elphaba’s opposite means she is also pre-setup to make a wicked choice, pick herself over others. Because showing someone deemed “ugly” by society doing good strikes home- but not as far as someone deemed beautiful and “good” making a wicked choice. All setting the character up to never truly have a choice, since she was designed around the overall themes of the story.

But all of that doesn’t take away from her realism, it doesn’t create some lifeless void of a choice. Instead, the character is brought to life by it. She’s a girl just like Elphaba, just with a different lot in life. Instead she was born with perfection in mind, shaped and created into something. Her character’s choice was already made before she met Elphaba, because of the way she understands the world and love. Everything for Galinda is about perfection, about achieving a goal (undoubtedly set by her parents). Her entire direction as a character is pre-set by how she was raised and the lack of love she has felt her entire life. She’s isolated and alone, just like Elphaba, vying for her parents love and approval. She shows a crude understanding of lack of love and fakeness in Popular, when she analyzes what gives love and acclaim. Stating that skill and hard work do nothing, not against being well liked. Which depicts her understanding of the situation with the wizard, since this is what she expected, someone who had fought hard for a facade to be loved, not someone actually great and powerful.

Galinda’s journey with her parents' affection is very much unknown to herself unlike Elphaba’s journey with her father. Which sets them up as two different sides of the same coin. To emotionally neglected and abused kids, but trying to earn love and respect. However, the difference in upbringing and circumstances set them on two different paths. Making Elphaba hardened to rejection and allowing her to proud in her own skin, all while it makes Galinda fearful of herself hiding behind a facade as she attempts to fashion love out of popularity for herself, every choice she makes revolving around how she is viewed by others vs what she actually wants or desires.

Now Galinda had true unadulterated love for a moment. Had Elphaba and almost got to become comfortable in what it was like to receive love without perfection or earning. But it terrified her. She couldn’t let go of what she knew, of the barely there popularity that meant she’d always have some facsimile of love and support. It was too much like falling.

All to say if she had more time.

But she didn’t. It’s a tragedy. She’s just a broken girl too scared, who’s barely had a taste of love her entire life and hasn’t built the crucial understanding that real love doesn’t withdraw or run away. So she can’t pick Elphaba. She has to pick the known evil, the safety of an abusive dynamic.

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hot take maybe, but my opinion of you automatically dives if the first reaction you have to a cool character is to ask if there’s a c.ai bot of them. write shitty fanfic like the rest of us, or just maladaptive daydream if you must. find a community and rp online!! we’re losing important social and writing skills to a tech product controlled by and overseen by the slimiest, most exploitative billionaires silicon valley has seen in a generation and we’re doing it willingly???

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🪽

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You tell people on TikTok that gelphie kiss in the book and homophobic weirdoes crawl out saying friends kiss on the mouth too, and that their relationship is just them fighting over fiyero and that the author saying they’re canon and encouraging people to see them as queer is nonsense. 🥴

And why do so many people think they’re SISTERS?! 😭