Sofie’s Realm

[one-step-at-a-time25]

I LOVEEEE it when the ship dynamic is “I’ve tried all my life to be better to be extraordinary I have pushed past all my limitations dying in the process and I want nothing more to be the best” X “I’ve tried all my life to be normal to fit in i have hidden all the parts that make me special even if that meant changing everything about me I want nothing more then to be average” I EAT THAT SHIT UP EVERY TIME

[galindaisgay]

Elphaba being an idealist while Glinda is a realist always gets to me. Like you would expect the girl who’s been ostracized all her life for being green to be cynical and think that the world can’t change. But no, Elphie is all starry eyed and hopeful that she can change the world. That she can fix its wrongs and create a better future, not just for her but for every citizen of Oz.

Meanwhile Glinda, the girl who’s had everything, admiration, money, etc, knows how the world is. She knows that the world is led by those who are popular despite their talent or lack thereof. She knows how to play the game, knows the rules of the game, and knows that not playing by those rules will make you an outsider. She’s already resigned to the world as it is.

[my-little-safe-corner]

I don't see Elphaba as "starry-eyed and hopeful". She rebels because she just can't bring herself to choose otherwise. She has a strong sense of justice, which she herself wishes she didn't have, but she can't help it due to the hateful attitude she's been getting from people all her life. It made her sensitive to the Animals' plights because she feels their suffer deep in her heart, so she tries to help, but I think she understands she can't do everything alone, which is also why she wanted Glinda to join her in the end of act 1.

[saturnyukaa]

i actually think hating a character because they get in the way of your ship is really funny if the character is a man and your ship is yuri. the way the wicked fanbase talks about fiyero like he personally killed their entire family with a chainsaw while they watched is hilarious

[uisceb]

One of the weirder tendencies I’ve noticed about people who demonize Glinda and sanctify Fiyero is that they don’t seem to want to engage with the fact that Wicked is about characters from The Wizard of Oz and that there’s genuine and intentional significance to that. It’s not just a schtick, it’s not just a marketing tactic, there’s a real actual purpose to the fact that it centers on already well-established characters from a story that has existed in some iteration for over 100 years.

Elphaba isn’t just Generic Misunderstood Outcast Rebel Girl fighting fascism, she is very specifically the Wicked Witch of the West, far and away one of the most iconic characters in film. And she’s iconic, because she’s a caricature. Pure evil. No nuance. Green skin, crazy cackle, setting people on fire, terrorizing a whole nation over a pair of shoes, tried to kill a kid and her little dog too. Completely irredeemable.

Glinda the Good Witch? Same deal, but flipped. A caricatureof pure goodness. 

And after watching Part 1, so many people decided Wicked was a SURPRISE TWIST THE GOOD GUYS ARE THE BAD GUYS AND THE BAD GUYS ARE THE GOOD GUYS story. 

Which is so completely insane to me given that right from jump, Wicked is screaming at the top of its lungs “The concept of Absolute Good and Absolute Evil is NOT REAL, it is a tool used by a fascist regime to subjugate and control the masses.”

If Wicked were a Good versus Evil story, or a Hunger Games-esque Fight Fascism story, Elphaba and Fiyero would be the central relationship, Elphaba as our Outcast Rebel Protagonist, Fiyero as our secondary lead who would presumably show some textual evidence of a grander moral backbone and awareness and aspirations beyond just running away from it all and becoming Mr. Elphaba Thropp.

But Elphaba and Fiyero aren’t the main characters, Elphaba and Glinda are the main characters; because Wicked is not a Good versus Evil story, nor is it even a Fight Fascism story. Fighting fascism is Elphaba’s personal goal, and it’s the reason why her image has been twisted and exploited - but it’s not the overarching theme of the narrative itself.

The narrative itself is about Good and Evil as propaganda, not literal moral states of being. It’s asking you to look at the Wicked Witch, and Glinda the Good, two of the most recognizable icons in film who represent Absolute Evil and Absolute Good, and dismantle both of them.

Not SWITCH both of them; DISMANTLE both of them.

Because both the “Wicked Witch” and “Glinda the Good” are creations of the Wizard’s regime; they’re pawns, they’re puppets, they’re caricatures manufactured by the authoritarian government to keep control over people, to keep people from questioning or rebelling, specifically by weaponizing moral panic. As such, both the “Wicked Witch” and “Glinda the Good” are just as much the antagonists of the story as the Wizard and Morrible. Because they ARE the propaganda machine.

And the only way to take down the fascist regime is to take apart the propaganda machine, which means taking apart the two most pivotal pieces keeping it together.

Basically you’re supposed to be unearthing the humanity beneath the icon, on both ends of the spectrum. 

When we first meet Elphaba and Galinda in Act 1, back when they had no idea they were going to become political props, they were both very human - BUT, very notably, they were both extremely armored in these protective facades they’ve been carrying around since childhood. For Elphaba, that armor manifests as brutal honesty, self righteousness, and disdain for social hierarchy. For Galinda, that armor manifests in hollow, self-serving proclamations of goodness, and an obsession with outward appearances of perfection, both physical and moral.

What’s interesting about their “loathing” era is that they loathe each other specifically because they see the human in each other. Galinda doesn’t hate Elphaba for being green, she hates her because she publicly took a sledgehammer to the Galinda Is Perfect statue she built of herself and said nah, you’re not perfect, you’re just a person, and kind of a lousy one at that.

In a very weird way, Elphaba just created the first genuine human connection for BOTH of them - Elphaba has always been treated like an inhuman monster, Galinda has always been treated like the superficial embodiment of perfection beyond reproach - so for the first time, these two girls have someone looking them dead-on and saying, no, idiot, you’re human. And because of that, they’re obsessed with scratching and picking away at the armor of each other. It’s loathing, but there’s a give and take to it, even a sense of satisfaction and enjoyment - they want to find the human in each other, even if they claim it’s for purposes of mutually assured destruction.

So by the time we get to the Ozdust, they’ve both worked away at each other and gotten to see the human in each other so well, Galinda recognizes the vulnerability in Elphaba when she’s dancing alone, when no one else does - when even Fiyero just thinks Golly it’s so super duper cool Elphaba doesn’t care what anyone else thinks about her. 

Both Elphaba and Galinda are at their most vulnerable during the Ozdust duet, because they’ve earned it. They know each other better than anyone, they both see each other as human when no one else does. But this time it’s changed tone - Galinda dances with her because of this recognition of holy shit, this person whose armor I’ve been obsessively chipping away at is vulnerable in the way that all humans are vulnerable, and I did that, I’m responsible for that, and I don’t want to be that person, and I actually admire this person, and care about this person, and I want to fix the damage I’ve done, I need to do something to show her I’m with her.

Of even more significance is Elphaba’s acceptance of Galinda dancing with her. Elphaba is very shrewd and very guarded and very good at seeing through people’s bullshit, so by accepting this olive branch, she’s also recognizing that this person whose armor she’s been chipping away at does actually have a genuine desire to make amends, to admit she was wrong, to be better than who she was - to be human, not just a one-dimensional icon superficially beloved by the masses. 

It’s not elegant, but from both Elphaba and Galinda, that scene is a slow unfolding of “I was obsessed with hating the fact that you called out the human in me,” to “Oh, there’s a vulnerability to the human in you.”

So now we’ve got Defying Gravity, and Elphaba and Glinda hit the irreconcilable differences mark, and they part ways - and the dictator swoops in and uses them to embody an ideal of Absolute Evil and Absolute Good, effectively stripping away the humanity that Elphaba and Glinda found in each other. Thus begins the propaganda machine.

These are not roles Elphaba or Glinda ever meant to find themselves in. And they still love each other, but over time, we see them begin to relapse into their old pre-Ozdust facades in order to protect themselves - Elphaba withdrawing into self righteous solitude, Glinda fixating on surface level adoration from the world, both of them beginning to deny and reject the vulnerabilities in themselves that the other brought out.

The Wizard and Morrible very much succeed in driving this narrative of the “Wicked Witch” and “Glinda the Good,” to the point that both Elphaba and Glinda start to find comfort and strength in these roles as their personal lives and relationships begin to fall apart. Toward the end of Act 2, they have largely embraced and committed to these caricatures of themselves, which means that just like the rest of Oz, they’ve been suckered in by the propaganda machine, while at the same time, literally being the propaganda machine.

The story hinges on their ability to recognize that they’ve become part of that machine, and their ability to dismantle it. 

I don’t know where the article is anymore but I remember Jon Chu said something along the lines of them being each other’s salvation, which in addition to being the most insane way he possibly could have phrased that, is actually the crux of their relationship. They saw each other as human before anyone else did, then they had that humanity torn away from them, then they took comfort in the stripping-away of their humanity…so how do they get it back?

Essentially they have to come back to themselves at the Ozdust. Glinda has to confront the fact that she’s let herself be ruled by her own denial and fear and need to be adored, and Elphaba has to confront the fact that she’s let herself be ruled by self righteousness and hubris and the need to be respected, and that neither of them has had any real effect on the state of Oz as a whole, except to serve the narrative created by the Wizard and Morrible. That’s the point: they have both been reduced to pawns who exist to propagate the unchecked authority of the Wizard’s regime.

Wicked has heavy Fight Injustice, Resist Fascism, and Stand Up for What’s Right Even If You’re Standing Alone messages, and it does raise parallels to the real world stripping away of human rights and using “otherness” as a scapegoat to manipulate a disenfranchised populace (I’m gonna say they were clumsy about it and really lost that whole plot in Act 2, but…y’know…that’s…it’s Wicked Act 2 - Dana Fox, you did the best you could with what they gave you, angel, truly Act 2 is a whole mess to try to work with, you’re a hero honestly <3)

But as the audience, you really are supposed to be looking at Good and Evil as propaganda, not a true moral binary to simply be flipped on its head. You’re supposed to be taking two of the most recognizable fictional images of Good and Evil in media, and questioning the whole concept of Good and Evil, and how this authoritarian government was able to use these young women to embody that concept to further their own agenda, and to what degree both Glinda and Elphaba submitted to it. 

And you’re supposed to be looking for the human in both Elphaba and Glinda when they’re at their worst, when they’re petty or vengeful or self-serving. You’re supposed to be rooting for them to get free of the roles they’ve been corralled into and come back to themselves, which in turn will allow them to, y’know, overthrow the government. That is actually the point of this very oddly-paced and inconsistently-toned weirdo story, that’s the reason Elphaba and Glinda are the main characters, because the evolution of their relationship from beginning to end actually addresses the main themes Wicked has laid out. 

…Or! Alternatively! You can just say Elphaba is a precious pure cinnamon roll who’s a misunderstood but morally pristine freedom fighter and is also meeeee :D and Glinda is a self-obsessed fascist >:( and Fiyero’s a noble hero and martyr and should actually be the main character <3 and thank goodness Elphaba’s arc ends in being provided for by a man who loves her so she can live out the simple life she REALLY wants as wife and mother in the story of Anthony Bridgerton’s Adventures in Oz ;) Like genuinely some of you are so determined for Wicked to be about quite literally anything except what it’s about, and I’m just over here smacking my head against the wall slowly going insane.

^I am aware that this is me right now btw. like it’s fine. i know what i’m about. showin up to tumblr with my clown shoes writin my clown essays. the wicked era is over and i’m still here muttering and shaking my fist at the sky, full clown. this will still be me in the nursing home i fear. do they make nursing homes for clowns. god i hope so.

[ihavebeenchangedforgood]

🤔🤔🤔 yes

[the-rambling-bluebottle]

so I watched bridgerton s4 and there’s a LOT of talk about Francesca’s sapphic arc next season but I see nobody praising what the bi representation in this show through Benedict has done and why it is subversive. it is actually good I fear??? despite all my issues with it as a show???

because for so so much of tv history the bisexual character has had to be in a same sex relationship to be valid or their identity gets ignored/invalidated as soon as they find a straight partner. but we see Benedict tell Sophie that he is as capable of loving her as any higher class woman or man. and not only is she fine with that it is the thing that makes her trust him with the ugly circumstances of her birth that she believed might be problematic for him because he too is the black sheep. i don’t recall ever seeing this before for a bi male character and his gf in any piece of media period.

and also who Sophie is (being poor, illegitimate) is so fitting for his identity because of course his love is always subversive regardless of their sex. that is who he has always been. he is still breaking rules and ‘coming out’ in a sense by marrying this woman and probably will give Francesca a kind of self-permission to go les out in Scotland regardless of whether she knows that about him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he becomes her safe space and favorite brother next season because of their shared queerness

anyway we are so back

[kublakola]

"Francesca needs to have biological children so that she knows she's not broken" so you admit you think infertile women are broken. So you think that infertility is a character flaw or a personal failing instead of a completely uncontrollable and morally neutral state of being. I hope that Francesca and Michaela are able to build a family together, but if you think the only way to resolve an infertility plotline is to reward the woman with a magically functioning womb you're fucking crazy... she needs to learn that she is more than what society demands from her and that both Michaela AND John (before his passing) love her far beyond her ability to provide an heir. She is not broken!!!! She does not need a biological baby to have a happy ending!!!!!! You people are under SPELLLS!!!!

[eternalellipses]

thank you!!!!!!!!

and I remember reading the book and being disappointed in the end that she ended up having a baby and it was like suddenly all her problems were solved. And it was (and still is) one of my favorite books in the series because the characters deal with such real and raw grief and have to work to choose happiness for themselves and work to lean into love despite the crush of guilt and survivor's remorse and they do it!! and then the last minute addition of a baby felt less like a "cherry on top" and more like "and now they can ~actually~ be happy" and it's like girl, they were happy. I really thought we were finally getting a Bridgerton who didn't need a biological baby to feel like they were complete but alas.

That being said, I am soooo excited to see Francesca and Michaela come together because I feel like this adds so beautifully to the theme that, sometimes, you have to choose happiness. You can't choose who you love, but you can choose to love them no matter the cost, and you can still choose to live a life of love and happiness, despite the weight of grief and shame. I'm excited to see them come together and choose to be a family, whether they build a family with children or not.

[serdunkthelunk]

I think in the same way there's a 90/10 rule with horror and comedy (horror works best when it's 90% horror and 10% comedy and vice versa) there's a 90/10 rule for some relationships in fiction that's like. Wholesome and fucked up. A good friendship is at its most compelling when it's also 10% a bit fucked up. Fucked up relationship is at its most compelling when there's at least 10% of something actually sweet and substantive within. Do you get me

[thatssomeplaygirlshit]

guys question, i can’t find a specific supercorp fanfic. I just remember its a bodyguard au? and i remember a scene where theres a car chase and they crash, after they go to a safe house and kara is hurt, i literally will go crazy if i can’t find it please help a girl out

[randomthingsthatilike1]

So who’s going to tell Alura that Kara was in the phantom zone for 24 years and that she wasn’t able to take care of Kal-El and that Astra is now dead and also tried to kill Kara and Kara knows what Myriad is also that Kara didn’t go into science or law but journalism and has a sister now or that Kara knows Alura lied to her to draw Astra out of hiding

[leeluthor]

AND that she gave Aluras necklace away to her summer fling

[storiesbyreese]

Who just happens to be the Prince of Daxam

[sunshinedamnvers]

How much of a gut punch must it have been for Kara to find out that her mother was alive, that krypton, at least a part of it survived? To find out she wasn’t the last? Did Earth seem even more of a punishment now? Did this feel like a dream? Kara’s entire journey since krypton was destroyed must have made her question things. So much of who Kara is has been centered around her loss. Did a part of her feel panic when she found out Argo City still stood? Tell me about Kara’s anger over suffering for nothing. That she could have stayed. Tell me what the 14yr old girl feels,who was forced to flee her planet and watch it burn as she was hurtled into the empty pitch black nothingness of the Phantom Zone, about finding out the very thing that’s agonized her existence on our planet is still there. That her own mother didn’t search for her or Kal after launching them into the stars towards a wish of a planet light-years away that would shelter them. Tell me about the angry 24 yr old who called Earth a life-sentence that her mother and father sentenced her to. The girl who considered what her parents did a punishment. Tell me about the girl that felt like a sacrifice. Like a failure. Like she was offered up to the universe for her parent’s and planet’s mistakes.

[devondeal]

Anyone else noticed the season 1 parallel in 5x08? Alex uses Kara to stop Lena from unleashing myriad just like Alura used Kara to capture Astra to also stop her from unleashing myriad.

[sofiesrealm]

Two people Kara loved and trusted used her to stop two other people she loved and trusted from using myriad.

[gl00mt0mb]

I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason why nobody ever notices all of Peter’s strange and insane behavior is that everyone at Midtown high is equally deranged and there’s just something in the water fountains turning these kids into evil mad geniuses.

I was watching the deleted scenes of the homecoming movie and I felt myself get transported back into my classroom. These little cretins are all freaks that perfectly represent the American school system.

Ned will hack the property of giant technology company’s and help his best friend commit acts of vigilantism in the middle of HOCO, he will also play with alien bombs during robotics club and lie to people’s faces about any of it.

MJ has been suspicious of Peter since the homecoming movie. She even admitted to it on that little Midtown morning news vlog that got cut out of final production. She willingly sits in detention to sketch people in distress. She could not care less that her classmate is a whole entire super-powered vigilante. Also she’s a conspiracy theorist and people watcher with an interest in the creepy and weird.

That kid Tiny? He literally just picked up alien technology that he found on school property. No malicious intent he just seemed really excited about having that arm ray gun thing. He’s not even hiding it he’s walking around school strapped.

Betty just has a fake ID, for no particular reason. She also canonically interns for the Daily Bugle and even after peters identity gets reveled she testifies that “he’s actually a really nice guy!” While recording a smear campaign against him.

I don’t know what Flash has going on but he’s streaming everything for his viewers on live and causally trying to run over Peter with his car. He’s a borderline pathological liar with insane attachment issues and starts a business based on his fake association with Spider-Man. He’s also completely fine with giving his cars to vigilantes on missions. And the funniest it’s thing about this is that he’s not even really that bad, like he’s not commonly associated as a bully because everyone shits on him just as often.

Abe could not care less about being polite. He would tell you to your face that nobody liked you. He would tell you to you face he didn’t find you funny. He would deconstruct exactly why someone was acting the way they were to their face. I can not stress how insane this is for high school. No laughing or fake niceness or group of kids to laugh at his jokes just deadpanned statements.

Liz was the most normal person in that building and she ended up being the daughter of a supervillain.

They had kids taking “inappropriate selfies” with the bad guy that Peter webbed to the side of a school bus during homecoming and posting them to their socials.

Every field trip they go on leds to them almost dying and nobody acknowledges it to any degree.

The teachers aren’t even that much better, the entire time Roger Harington was complaining about his divorce and failed couples therapy. Any moment he wasn’t complaining he was trying to keep his students alive or telling them to stop being little shits.

That other teacher Julius? Could not give less of a fuck about them kids. I don’t even know what he did for that entire trilogy other than avoid responsibility.

His identity gets reveled and the first thing they do is pure pressure him with the help of a gym coach into climbing on walls to get lost gym equipment.

Nobody cares that Peter is cooking up webs in the labs during class. It’s a STEM school, the staffs probably just happy it isn’t drugs.

So what if he runs off in the middle of party’s and disappears on field trips? They’ve got plenty of introverted anti-social people enrolled there.

He might be super flaky and so so suspicious all of the time but he’s the only hint of athleticism the school has. They can not afford to lose him.

Peters just that guy who disappears for days on end, comes back with zero explanation and only has a like two friends who he talks to in hushed whispers and horrified glances as if he’s hiding state secrets.

That’s it. I’ve decided this is cannon now. It’s become a part of my MCU belief system you can’t convince me otherwise.

[sofiesrealm]

Peter and Ned are the friends who talks in hushed whispers about the most mundane things before proceeding to discuss ACTUAL state secrets like MJ can’t hear them 3 seats away.

[kurtsvonneslut]

it’s so interesting to me that the fandom seemingly collectively decided years ago that emma was the goofy, happy-go-lucky golden retriever to regina’s black cat. maybe it’s just because they needed to contrast the two somehow? but it never quite felt right to me because emma, to me, is just as hardened and guarded as regina is, maybe even more so.

sure, she still has some idealism in her, still believes there is good in the world, but it’s not for her. that goodness is for everyone else. she doesn’t frolic, she doesn’t relax, she’s never known how.

to me, emma and regina are similar in every way but one: when the world broke regina’s heart, she gave up entirely on the idea of goodness and became determined to make the rest of the world suffer with her. when the world broke emma’s heart, she held goodness in her tightly balled fist and refused to let go of it, determined to take the pain away from everyone else and take it on herself instead. for emma, to love is to suffer on her loved one’s behalf. to bite her tongue and bear it through gritted teeth. she’s the savior; she exists to sacrifice. she’s a living martyr.

they are both bitter, jaded, spiteful women who have fought tooth and nail for every little bit of happiness they have. which is why no one can understand them but each other. no one can truly love them but each other.

anyway. i always wondered where that characterization of her being the goofy carefree one came from, because it’s so opposite to the emma i see in the show.

[queen-of-wisdom]

So I'm really tired so just let bring that behind us

So I saw multiple posts questioning why the great prophecy only meant children of the big three and not also Demeter kids or even possibly Aphrodite kids and I think I have an answer and the short form is: Self fulfilling prophecy.

Greek myths talk over and over about how believing in a prophecy can change the requirements. You can't escape a prophecy, sure, but you can change who it applies to.

And because Greek Gods ARE still kind of sexist and egocentric, they simply didn't thought that the great prophecy would apply to a Demeter's or Aphrodite's child. So it didn't.

[sofiesrealm]

I feel like an AU where it DOES turn out to be a Demeter or Aphrodite kid (or even like idk an adopted Hestia or Hera kid?) would be so cool. Like if Percy was one of the two or if someone like Meg or Silena or Piper, etc. turned out to be the prophecy kid while everyone was expecting one of the big three’s kids to be that would be interesting.

[tangerinearies]

If Zeus turned Thalia into a tree to prevent her death, he must have expected something like the fleece to revive her down the line.

So what if Luke’s reason for desperately wanting a quest was because he believed the next one was to be about finding this way to revive thalia… instead, after all his begging, all he got was a dumb place holder quest for an item no one wanted.

[devils-little-sistaaa]

Nico and Percy both looking so much like their fathers and both wishing desperately that they could look more like their mothers. They’re both smashing mirrors on a regular basis and hoping all that bad luck will kill them one day.

Thalia and Jason are both indifferent to which parent they look like. Neither of their parents were saints after all. They have to look like somebody. It’s inevitable so there’s no point in fussing about it.

Hazel doesn’t like seeing her mother in the mirror. It makes her sad. It makes her remember things she wish she could forget. But she doesn’t exactly want to look like her father either. She believes she got the least worst option out of the two.

Bianca. The one most proud to look like her parent. The luckiest out of all of them when it comes to a parents likeness. The only one destined to die so tragically and so young. All the while not even remembering her mother. Not even remembering the great woman who she is a carbon copy of.

[isagrimorie]

One of the things I like about Agatha All Along is that Agatha is still Agatha, they’re not woobifying her in a way that changes her personality immediately. She’s still an asshole and selfish and she’s suppressed the part of herself that has empathy in pursuit of power.

Agatha got opposite Rogue’d instead of siphoning powers she got her own power siphoned from her and then imprisoned and just like Dream from The Sandman she is changed by this experience even though she’s in denial of it.

I’ve seen some reactors shocked that Agatha was still selfish and grumpy, and still very much not a team player but I love it for her also just because she just went through a traumatic experience doesn’t mean she’s going to be nice all the time. Agatha is Vegeta.

In fact, I bet when she’s feeling particularly threatened, Agatha is going to double down. Agatha resists caring for these women because she’s been betrayed and betrayed others before. But this circumstances will drag Agatha kicking and screaming into giving a damn.

She’s… I just realized. Agatha is going through the kind of story I’ve wanted for Katherine Pierce from TVD, except she’ll actually get a chance because this is Agatha’s story.

This is… this is finally the Haven storyline I wanted with Mara — where Audrey Parker’s original personality emerges and she’s forced to work together and change into becoming a better person. (Or someone less of a dick).

I’m so excited for this story because I finally get to watch a story of a survivor turned antagonist/villain turned hero of her own story and they’re not going to take the easy road of personality change.

Agatha is going to earn every single moment, even if circumstances/fate has to shove Agatha into it.