Doin' my Best

Florence | Writer of Nonsense | Pretty Cool | Pretty Tired | Pretty Gay | She/Her | 27 | TectonicDisaster02 on Ao3 💚🩷

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Fic Masterlist (TectonicDisaster02)

🩷Wicked💚

She Sees Through Her (A gelphie-centric longfic)

Unsteady Ground (A gelphie-centric one-shot)

An Impasse (A gelphie-centric one-shot)

🐸Naruto🍥

Basking in the Glow of Glory (A Sannin-centric longfic)

All on AO3 for your readerly enjoyment (and my writerly satisfaction)

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Salmon and Soup from She Sees Through Her by TectonicDisaster02🩷💚

@angst-soup

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Perfection 😭😭 Elphaba and Galinda's childhood cuddly toys brought wonderfully to life 🥹 Guess who belongs to who...

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✨Fic Excerpt✨ She Sees Through Her

Chapter 28 of my on-going Gelphie fic, She Sees Through Her, will be posted next Wednesday 💚🩷 For now, please enjoy this sneak peek! You can catch up here 😇 Appreciate the support! Working on some fanart too, so watch this space 👀

*Spoilers ahead if you've not caught up, of course*

From Chapter 28: Longing

Fliaan was, Elphaba had to admit, full to the brim with the peace and solace she had craved the night she left Oz.

Presently, she was quite literally doing nothing but listening to the birds. She tilted her head back, letting out a sigh. There was a chill in the air, being late January, and the garden she’d been attempting to cultivate over the handful of years was wilting from the cold. The poppies - Nessa’s poppies, as she referred to them as - were the only things still in bloom, bringing a splash of red and pink to the otherwise grey expanse that surrounded Gold’s Rest.

She and Fiyero had found it in the end, that fabled cottage belonging to Cecily Upland. It was tucked away in a quiet corner of Evervein, a cobbled town nestled in the heart of Fliaan, though it had been in a state of disrepair when they eventually arrived. It took two years of hard work to clean the place out and make sure the foundations were sound, but, as Elphaba had been pleasantly surprised to learn, the people of Evervein were more than happy to lend a hand. She and Fiyero stayed in the local inn while it was being mended, practically free of charge. They were both somewhat of a fascination to the Fliaanians - not only were they from Oz, a country they thought to be almost mythical, but she was green, and he was a living scarecrow. 

At first, Elphaba’s back was up. She didn’t like to be stared at or treated as a curiosity. It reminded her far too much of what she’d escaped. But the scrutiny came not from scorn - rather they were simply fascinated by her. It was helped by the fact so few of them had met Ozians before, so as far as they were concerned, everyone beyond the Deadly Desert might’ve been green or some other varied colour. Elphaba wasn’t about to correct them. For the first time in her life, the looks she was receiving were not those of fear. The Fliaanians practically embraced she and Fiyero as their own, not caring for skin colour or burlap flesh. Certainly, Fiyero’s ceaseless charm helped with that - he had his own fanclub within a month of arriving in Evervein - though she couldn’t help but wonder whether the locals were simply kinder than those she had grown up with. Green or not, it seemed like the Ozians were allergic to her presence even before they were taught to fear her thanks to Morrible’s smear campaign. Whether or not it was something entrenched within her old countrymen remained a mystery to Elphaba, but regardless, she cherished the unexpected hospitality of her new neighbours and tried not to bristle too much if she felt pairs of eyes watching her as she meandered around the market square. 

Truthfully, she was surprised that Gold’s Rest even existed. Pinning all her hopes on a wild tale from Cecily’s aggrandized lips was a risky thing. Even Fiyero said as much, when he finally caught up with her on her pilgrimage, and discovered her plan. But it was the only corner beyond Oz that Elphaba had heard of. Since the place had been standing empty and no one could actually locate its owner (Cecily’s alleged lover), there were no complaints when Elphaba and Fiyero decided to move in. You do it up, and it’s yours, the town Mayor had said. She was a stern but fair woman by the name of Glifina Dhomarel, and she, like most of Evervein’s residents, was rather taken with Fiyero. Honestly, Elphaba smirked to herself, he’s no better than a walking sack of straw, and he still has oodles of charisma. 

They’d spoken about it, his transformation. When they’d made the perilous journey across the desert and Elphaba actually had the time to process what had happened to him - her head was a mess since leaving - she’d felt nothing but guilt. She couldn’t help but remember what she’d inadvertently put Boq through, and how much pain he’d seemed to be in. Of course, Fiyero’s pain had been for another reason, given Avaric’s brutal treatment, and he’d assured her that he could not feel a thing during the ordeal.

But the man could not eat, drink, or sleep. While he could feel, it wasn’t the same as when he was entirely human. He had emotions. He still laughed at corny jokes, still got frustrated if something didn’t go his way, and still felt sad if he saw a crushed snail on the cobbled path that led up to their cottage. He could also feel pressure whenever Elphaba held his hand, or tapped him in the shoulder. But he had quite literally chopped a few of his fingers off doing some building work and hadn’t even noticed until one of the other villagers had let out an earsplitting shriek. Elphaba had sewn them back on, feeling slightly sick, and had to periodically restuff him with straw when he lost it through the shoddy job she’d done. He took it all in a wobbly stride, though. He even made light of it. 

‘You know what I miss most, even more than a nice whisky or a lovely romp?’ he would say cheerfully. ‘...Taking a massive dump.’

Elphaba would pull a face and mutter under her breath about how foul such a proclamation was, and he’d laugh it off or pat her on the back. He always thanked her for saving his life, and assured her that not being ‘enslaved’ to bodily needs was in fact quite freeing. 

Yet he still had nightmares. Though nightmares was the wrong word, since he technically never slept. But Elphaba would hear him crying out in the early hours, and when she would run to him, he would be clutching the back of his head where Avaric dealt the final blow. She would cradle him when that happened. He couldn’t cry, and yet he sobbed. 

They rarely spoke about those times. 

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can you talk a bit about your planning process for SSTH? same person as those two previous anons haha

Thank u for your support, firstly!! 🫶

Happy to🙂‍↕️ When I first started the fic, I was only going to cover the Shiz era, and have each chapter focus on one specific element of Elphaba or Glinda's respective childhoods. However, the more I wrote, the more it evolved, and I realised the story I wanted to tell went beyond Shiz. I'd had the first 15 chapters planned out before I even started, but when I realised the story was growing, I tweaked the plan and decided to firm up the world building and introduce OCs etc.!

Generally with each chapter, I write out the major plot points. Then I decide which POV would be best suited to telling that section (obviously it's easier when the girls are apart). I then write a more detailed structure in each POV - this looks like the ramblings of a madwoman if anyone ever saw my notebook 💀 - and start writing!

Naturally the chapters change and evolve the more I write, so I'm constantly going back and adding notes. When I'm happy with the draft, I send it off to my lovely beta readers, who help with typos and offer different perspectives 🥰

Since I started to focus on the world building aspects, I used aspects from Maguire's universe and what I remembered from Baum's original Oz novels (which I loved as a kid!) and incorporated more and more of their work into mine, especially with religions. I found that stuff so interesting that I ended up reading Wicked! So the fic suddenly became a mashup of the stage/movie verse, the OG verse, and Maguire's verse - with my own ideas and creative liberties of course.

Basically, I always have a plan, but sometimes the chapters go in different directions and I then try and go with the flow 😎 It's a lot longer than I ever anticipated, but the more I wrote, the more I wanted to explore in greater detail their relationship and how they became the witches we know and love 💚💗

[sakurabraches]

i still can't believe there's a real shot in hit 2025 movie wicked: for good where elphaba leans in way too close and glinda's eyes immediately fall on her lips wtf

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My Gelphie fic, She Sees Through Her, has reached 1000 kudos?! 😭 I'm so grateful!! It's the first of my fics to reach this milestone 🥹🫶

Working on the next chapter as we speak and it's gonna be a good one (I hope) 🩷💚

[just-your-average-shiz-student]

#real subtle there glinda

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This just made sense to me, idk what to tell you 😌

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Crazy how Wicked got me writing AND drawing again 💚🩷 Of course referenced from one of my fave looks for Glinda in Wicked: For Good 🫶

Started this months ago and forgot about it 💀 It's been a hoot to pick up my pencil again 🥹

Toying with the idea of drawing some stuff from my fic...🤔

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the thing about GITB that ultimately makes the song fall flat imo is that within the song, schwartz keeps getting at the idea of glinda's bubble needing to pop and her needing to put aside that inauthentic self she's grown to rely on so heavily, but he never quite manages to touch on who, exactly, glinda is outside all of the pretense and pretending outside of vague gestures

what's most interesting about glinda, and what makes her compelling to me is the constant struggle between her internal and external self. in almost every scene she's in, we see her putting on this very elaborate performance to maintain her social status and appeal to the masses at the expense of what she knows is right and her internal thoughts/desires. her movements when she's in front of a crowd are always stiff and awkward, like she can't quite manage to fit into the perfect popular society girl she wants to be. compare this to a scene like popular, where she's much sillier and more relaxed because she can truly be herself around elphie. she often makes rash and dumb decisions in order to get people around her to like her. she gives elphaba the hat after being pressured by pfannee and shenshen. she changes her name from galinda -> glinda because she hopes that by trying to engage in the Animals cause, she'll feel less excluded from elphaba and fiyero

it quickly becomes clear that glinda is someone who's extremely insecure in herself, which is why she's constantly chasing the approval of others and is so quick to self-abandon for the sake of public praise. so her character early on leaves us wondering: what is the source of that insecurity and the need to be liked? why does she feel the need to constantly self-abandon and put forth this constructed persona in front of others? who is the girl in the bubble really when that persona is stripped away?

GITB would've been the perfect opportunity to answer these questions directly. TG establishes glinda isn't happy and longs for elphaba. INTG reprise is the first moment where she really has to directly reconcile with the consequences of her choice to stay behind. GITB wants to be a moment of growth; it serves as a moment of reflection, but ultimately one that propels her into goodness. but where the song fails imo is that it never really manages to accomplish the second. at one point, glinda asks herself who she would be if she stepped out of her bubble. in theory, i like this question because it starts to get at glinda's stuggle with internal vs external self. her finally being willing to shed the glinda the good persona and rushing to save elphie is the culmination of her character growth, and makes it all the more tragic that she'll ultimatley have to remain in the facade (at least in part) so she can help oz

but i don't think schwartz was really able to get at who exactly glinda is under glinda the good. GITB never manages to quite pop that bubble. the song lays out that the persona she puts forth is a false one ("beautiful life built on lies") and that now she can't really slip back into that persona ("its hard to unsee what you've seen"). but it doesn't really give any insight into why leaving her bubble of comfort is such a terrifying concept for glinda. solos like this in a musical are supposed to provide us deeper insights into characters, but schwartz seems unwilling or unable to dig deeper into glinda's psychology

so why has glinda been so reluctant to step out of the bubble? i personally subscribe to the closeted lesbian reading, where the bubble is synonymous with the closet. her public persona is a desire to appear as a socially desirable heterosexual woman. she loves elphaba and wants to be with her, but doing so means facing intense social scorn and isolation. the "bubble popping" means that she's finally brave enough to strip back her public persona and go to the woman that she loves. i do think the cast and crew is very aware of this reading; ariana's favorite pass time in 2024 was reposting lesbian glinda memes on her instagram story, and her being locked in a literal closet at the end of FG is just. painfully obvious. that being said, i doubt the studio would've let them explicitly touch on the whole lesbian glinda thing, and it's quite possible stephen and winnie just see her as straight cuz they're gliyero's strongest soldiers for some fucking reason

even ignoring the lesbianism of it all, there's deeper insights we could've gained into glinda's psychology, and showing her shedding those could've made GITB a much better song. take her struggle with magic. while a lot of people seem to take this as a very surface level "oh she's just upset she can't do spells and elphie can boo fucking hoo," i think on a deeper level, her inability to do magic reflects the way people don't believe she can do anything substantive. obviously glinda's very beloved and popular, but no one seems to believe in her in a more substantive way than "wow glinda you're so pretty and great." her desire for magic represents her desire to do something real, but every time she brings this up, she's shut down. morrible straight up says she has no faith in her. her mother is like "why do you need this everyone loves you. you don't need to be anything more." even elphaba in that one deleted scene dismisses glinda's wish for magic as unnecessary

and this leads to an intense feeling of powerlessness. not only does she lack magic, but people seem to agree that she's incapable of learning it. the bubble and her public persona are a way to overcompensate for this lack. if popularity is her only asset, then she has to retain it. without it, she has no power. this ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy, though, because as long as she stays in the bubble, she can never truly reach her full potential. breaking out of the bubble is glinda's defying gravity moment, the moment where she decides that she's not going to let other people's expectations of her define her, and--magic or no magic--she's going to try and save elphie

ig my point is that GITB could've been so much more. we could've gotten a much more thorough examination of glinda's psychology, which would've made the payoff of the bubble popping far more rewarding. ariana's acting/singing and the cinematography in that scene are great. unfortunately, i don't think the song itself really does justice to her character or flush out her internal struggle in a particularly interesting and compelling way--which is a shame because she's such a compelling character

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same anon from earlier. i keep reading the new chapters and im just in tears. how can you write such amazing things. im in disbelief

Thank you 😭 I'm glad the emotions are hitting - I spend ages on this stuff (for the joy of it!!) so it makes me happy to hear it's having an impact 🫶

[sakurabraches]

rip elphaba you would've loved calling glinda Your Haughtiness to her face. especially in the bed on the way to the emerald city

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✨Gelphie Fic✨ She Sees Through Her

Extremely anxious about this chapter 😟 But I hope you all enjoy it. Chapter 27: Sacrifice is ready and waiting 🩷💚

Put my whole ass into this fic. Thank you all so much for your support. I know it's a long-fic, which is exactly why I apprecaite the time spent reading 🥹

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your fic has made me feel every emotion under the sun oh my god it’s perfect you’re amazing

😭😭 Thank you so much. Needed this today as I'm battling with the next chapter, but it should be ready for tomorrow 🫶

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Chapter Delay: She Sees Through Her

For those still reading and interested, the next chapter of She Sees Through Her is delayed. Apologies - should be ready by next Weds.

I've started a new job and am also planning to move, so haven't had much time 🥺 But it's about two thirds finished so that's something!

I really appreciate your patience and support! 💚🩷

[sianruns]

Art for See Shes Through Her by TectonicDisaster02

@angst-soup 🩷

'Before long, Elphaba was up to her neck in sweet smelling bubbles. Galinda was kneeling beside her, her fingers swirling in the crests and tufts of white foam. Her face was flushed from the heat, and she was gazing at Elphaba with bright, fond eyes. 

‘How’s that feel?’ she asked, as Elphaba sunk deeper into the water with a satisfied sigh. 

‘Perfect. You know, I even think the steam is already helping my congestion.’

‘Good.’ Galinda leaned her forearms on the side of the tub, resting her chin against them. ‘Now, I promise I’m not trying to seduce you right now, but you really do look gorgeous.’'

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✨Gelphie Fic✨ She Sees Through Her

Let's go lesbians, let's go!!! Chapter Twenty-Six of my labour of love has landed 🥰

Elphaba goes through it this chapter (sorry) - but hey, who doesn't love a bit of angst 🤷‍♀️💚 Check it out and let me know what you think!! Thanks for reading 🩷