Is the world finally growing wise?

Cause it seems to me, some kind of harmony is on the rise.

[allthefights]

But there is one thing he cannot take away from you: your faith. Believe, for we will see God's wonders.

[princesssarisa]

Wicked is so different in tone from The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Prince of Egypt, despite all having music and/or lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and despite all sharing some of the same heavy themes. Yet as I've read a little about the history of Wicked, I've realized that without The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Prince of Egypt, Wicked would never have been adapted as the musical we know today.

Part of how Stephen Schwartz became acquainted with the novel of Wicked and came to see its potential as a musical was that in 1996, he was working on The Hunchback of Notre Dame with Demi Moore voicing Esmeralda, and at the time she was in talks to star as Elphaba in a film version of Gregory Maguire's then-new novel. That movie was never made, but the inspiration stayed with Schwartz.

Schwartz has also said that a main inspiration for the choice to focus on Elphaba and Glinda's friendship was The Prince of Egypt, which was released just around the same time that Schwartz and Winnie Holzman started work on Wicked in earnest. The way The Prince of Egypt gives the epic story of the Exodus a human heart by focusing on Moses's relationship with his adoptive brother Rameses, showing the tragedy of two people who love each other but end up on opposite sides of a conflict where the fate of a nation is at stake, was what Schwartz and Holzman realized could also make Wicked work onstage.

If not for those dark and epic animated musicals of the '90s, the musical of Wicked as we know it wouldn't exist.

[heartnosekid]

a rainy late summer afternoon

these gifs were created from my own personal footage. please link back to this post if you use them.

do not upload to any other websites.

[habken]

he looked so good when he was absolutely miserable

[susanoos-wife]

Kingfisher and Globe-flower, by Nakayama Sugakudo

[followeroffiskjesus]

Eva Stratt is stronger than I am because I would lose my shit if a man had the audacity to tell me he would rather watch everything (yes everything) slowly die whilst also slowly dying alternately sacrificing another less competent person to die in space so that person would definitely die while he also dies.

Ryland Grace is a lot stronger than me because I would never have the confidence to look a woman who has sacrificed so much (including her morals) in the eye and tell her no even thought I will die anyhow and even if that makes all the horrible decisions she’s made to save humanity be in vain, I could never look at a group of people who are so much braver than me and admit I am lesser than them

[somekindofharmonyisontherise]

Grace is an absolute SAINT.

Cause I wouldn't have blamed him in the SLIGHTEST if he'd refused to send the Tauomeba & let the planet die after he remembered what was done to him.

The people he thought were his friends violently ripped his life & choice away from him to save their own skins, just to save some TIME.

They weren't entitled to his life. No one was.

Stratt stupidly allowed the primary AND backup science officers in the same room with a combustible substance.

That wasn't Grace's problem.

Stratt took on that job, it was HER responsibility to find a willing replacement. And if that caused delays, well, she shoulda taken responsibility for the consequences. Instead, she took a cowardly short-cut & stole someone's life & body. She made someone else pay for HER mistake.

Cowardly move, TBH.

Stratt had even LESS of an excuse in the movie because the coma gene didn't exist & we literally saw tons other equally qualified scientists studying astrophage.

I still can't fathom why this fandom so...aggressively defends someone who committed an indefensible abuse of power.

And seems intent on blaming her victim.

[raccoon-coded]

Artist: kuku_karina on Instagram

[capinejghafa]

WICKED: FOR GOOD (2025) dir. JON M. CHU

[lonnieontherun]

Elphaba Thropp // alternative defying gravity

[raccoon-coded]

Artist: kuku_karina on Insta

[morgangalaxy43]

Ryland was forced on a one way space mission to save earth and came back with

An alien and his mate

A blood soaked convict

Another alien whose a reporter from Kansas (loved by James Gunn)

A half alien half human teenager who loves ice cream and singing

His genius (billionaire, playboy, philanthropist) ex boyfriend from college

An outcast group of space adventurers (also loved by James Gunn)

[ecstaticadventures]

‘bread is bad for you’ ‘rice is bad for you’ sorry im not subscribing to the idea that staple grains that have been integral to cultures for centuries are evil. i love you carbs

[aspiring-weird-old-man]

[ismenes]

you know those studies showing that cursing helps with pain tolerance or whatever. that’s how i feel about making my weird little noises to get through my basic daily activities. sometimes you just have to go hggblaaaah for a minute so you can find the strength within yourself to get up or wash the dishes or send an email. mmmnneh. urgh. the torments are unending but you can always make some little sounds about it.

[shanestyreshop]

Every time somebody tries to argue with me about why what Eva Stratt did wasnt justified/ was unnecessary/ was rash i pull out the photo i made:

And they just get reallll quiet cause now they have the perspective

[somekindofharmonyisontherise]

And everytime someone thinks they sound SO smart using "tHe tRoLlY pRoBlEm" to justify a lazy, gross abuse of power from an incompetent buerocrat, I'm gonna use THIS picture 👇 that shows the Trolley Problem actually has a solution where you can actually USE the switch to stop the trolley.

And this 👇 picture of the countless other equally qualified scientists Stratt had working for her studying Astrophage, one of whom may have been glad to go & been flown to the launch pad in a few hours.

And they'll get REAL quiet because they'll realize they've just been defending a completely unnecessary human rights violation.

[shanestyreshop]

hey man so you did not read the book which is fine but they glossed the fuck over this in the movie and it made me SO FUCKING MAD THEY IGNORED IT but anywho.

Actually none of the other scientists were qualified. Not in the doctorate way, but in the way that (in canon) in order to even potentially survive the trip in a coma there they had to have a coma-resistant gene which only about 1 million people worldwide had. This limited the gene pool SEVERELY, and in the book it is covered that this caused a major problem finding enough candidates and Stratt had been incredibly lucky to find DuBois and Shapiro.

so no, there actually genuinely WEREN‘T any other candidates available. At all. Even if the scientists wanted to go, they would die before reaching Tau Ceti. Grace was the only option left.

Actually RIP only movie fans because that was such a crucial element that they left out of the script and it bugs me to an unfathomable degree.

As for the whole ‘lazy, gross abuse of power from an incompetent bureaucrat‘ thing, Eva stratt is absolutely none of those things. In the span of months she helped create and then ran a taskforce to save all of humanity. Lazy? She was single-handedly running an international space organisation to stop space bacteria from eating the sun. This woman was organising conferences with world leaders and trying to basically stop international collapse. If you reference one of my old posts, she was consuming at least 900mg of caffeine daily to stay on it. She operated and did everything in her power to stop earth from DYING. She did not abuse her power- hell, she did far from that. She gave Grace and the crew as much autonomy in the project as she possibly could purely so they could formulate a fix to the issue as soon as possible.

And she sent Grace into space. Yeah, i agree, it was not kind. It was not good. But it was not easy, either.

Sending the only person you are friends with (movie examples: nobody knows anything about her but grace knows about the German youth choir, she is seen to first truly smile around him. Book examples: knows his exact coffee order, has him come along to meetings he wouldn‘t be of much use to because she likes his companionship.) to outer space to DIE is not easy, is not LAZY, and is CERTAINLY not a gross abuse of power.

Eva Stratt did everything in her hands to be able to save earth, and that was all she ever wanted to do throughout the entirety of the movie. Her actions were not just a flick of the hand as much as completely calculated and entirely necessary. Though may not inherently ‘good‘, Eva Stratt sacrificed everything for earth. She was faced with an insanely hard decision and chose humanity not over Grace, but also over herself. She knew the mission would only succeed if Grace went. Is it a human rights violation? Yes. But it saved every single one of the 8.3 men, women, people, children and teenagers who walk this planet‘s lives. And not just theirs, but the ones to come after.

So no, i will not get REAL quiet over this (although forgive me for sounding so arrogant in the first post, me and my friend were arguing about this and i sent ‘to sum it up‘ and that photo and she said ‘…yeah ok fair‘ so i thought it was funny). Eva Stratt HAD to send Grace, she was given no other choice because of the coma resistant gene, and her actions were always fully backed by her desire to save all of humanity.

Eva Stratt is not a saint, she has done wrong. But at the end of the day, she has also done good, and made the hardest choice to save earth. And save earth she did. That is what matters.

[somekindofharmonyisontherise]

Did you not READ my post?!?

I specifically laid out WHY sacrificing Grace was COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY.

There IS no Coma gene in the movie. Book canon=/=movie canon. And your little graphic features the movie versions of the characters, soooo...

Stratt had PLENTY of other options, as I posted in the photo. Those scientists probably kept studying astrophage long after Grace made his discovery, so they woulda been equally experienced & knowledgeable on the subject as Grace.

"but I think my guy is better" is NOT an excuse to violate someone's consent & bodily autonomy. No one is entitled to the life and body of another human being. PERIOD.

Stratt is a short sighted bureaucrat who was careless enough to let her only 2 science officers in the same room with an explosive fuel.

And then she expects her terrified, untrained (in the movie version Grace had no idea how to survive in space or how the ship worked) civilian subordinate to take the fall for her negligence. She wasn't some "brave visionary who saved earth." She was just a negligent boss who threw her unprepared subordinate under the bus and he ended up succeeding because he just HAPPENED to meet & befriend a helpful alien. That was a one in a million chance. If Rocky hadn't shown up, Grace woulda eventually gone crazy & accidentally gotten himself sucked out the airlock and Earth woulda been dead.

That friendship is why everything worked out. And Stratt couldn't have predicted that. She wasn't right. She just got LUCKY.

The whole project itself was terribly planned and horribly mismanaged. (https://www.cyberpunksurvivalguide.com/p/project-hail-mary-design-plot-armor/)

The coma thing was a particularly insane idea. What would they have done if there was a mechanical breakdown while they were sleeping? 3 people in a coma would never catch a fatal engine malfunction.

In book canon, Keeping at least 1 crew member out of the coma woulda eliminated the need for a scientist with the coma gene. Surely they could've made the logistics work. Better than having a meteor accidentally destroy the engine while everyone is sleeping.

Sending a panicky newbie against his will was a terrible idea. Dude coulda had a freak out and gotten himself killed.

I know it was supposed to be a 'Hail Mary' but if it was humanity's ONLY chance, why not mitigate EVERY possible point of failure?

And why not have back up projects on earth? Genetically engineer and mass produce crops that can survive the cold? Genetically engineer the Astrophage to cannibalize each other? Make nanobots to eat the Astrophage? Grace could have been perfect for any one of those efforts!

Like I said before, there is no such thing as a true "trolley problem." There is ALWAYS A 3RD OPTION if you're resourceful enough to find it.

Stratt wasn't a "strong, girlboss leader who made the Tough Choices (TM)."

She was an arrogant, careless, quasi authoritarian who committed a gross human rights violation because she lacked imagination.

[shanestyreshop]

Every time somebody tries to argue with me about why what Eva Stratt did wasnt justified/ was unnecessary/ was rash i pull out the photo i made:

And they just get reallll quiet cause now they have the perspective

[somekindofharmonyisontherise]

And everytime someone thinks they sound SO smart using "tHe tRoLlY pRoBlEm" to justify a lazy, gross abuse of power from an incompetent buerocrat, I'm gonna use THIS picture 👇 that shows the Trolley Problem actually has a solution where you can actually USE the switch to stop the trolley.

And this 👇 picture of the countless other equally qualified scientists Stratt had working for her studying Astrophage, one of whom may have been glad to go & been flown to the launch pad in a few hours.

And they'll get REAL quiet because they'll realize they've just been defending a completely unnecessary human rights violation.

[grocki]

sci fi is all about getting so scared and ripping tubes out of yourself. people miss this

[grocki]

sci fi is all about desperately trying to reclaim your violated bodily autonomy. it’s all about asserting that you are a being with agency, and you can choose what happens to your own person, even if that’s ripping tubes out of yourself. and also sometimes an alien is there

[thesecretthirdoption]

I’ve seen too much Stratt love. I hate that bitch with my whole chest. “It all worked out for the better” so what? They still sent him to die. And yes, Grace didn’t have a partner or pets or close family, but he had soul, kindness, humanity. And he THOUGHT he had people that cared about him, that would think he deserved to live.