Can’t believe straw boy stans got mad at you for that. I thought the fandom has joked about him having various vegetables done there for decades? A normal penis is such a copout and it’s cowardly to try to pretend otherwise. And there’s always strap ons and dildos! Now, what there really isn’t a workaround for is kissing of either set of lips. Those straw lips look so scratchy
Now see, first of all…amazing, I love the way you think. Strap-ons are always a fantastic option which I’m sure the Emerald City has a delightful if potentially alarming array of, and I too have reservations about making out with a burlap bag.
Second of all, in fairness, the crack post I made wasn’t JUST about the boy’s lack of functioning penis, it was goofing on the “looking at things a different way” line, which is APPARENTLY a matter of serious contention I very honestly was previously unaware of. Like it is a Whole Thing, I have since discovered. Unfortunately, by ending my crack post on a dysfunctional penis joke, I fear I hit something of a soft spot, for lack of a better term. Since that very ill-fated day, I have learned that there’s a bit of a cultural difference in varying corners of the Wicked fandom. As follows:
Among Elphaba and Glinda enjoyers/gelphie shippers, it is customary to brutally bully both girls, write long analyses about them, make fun of them, emotionally skewer them, wistfully imagine what-if scenarios, then go right back to bullying them, all whilst drawing little glitter hearts around them.
NOT SO for the straw boy stans, for whom I have learned that boy is a noble, self-sacrificing Christlike figure, of which the goofing-upon is a sin punishable by firing squad (or a strongly-worded essay I received which honestly in an academic setting would get a D-minus at best - speaking of being minus a D, Fiyercrow doesn’t have a functioning penis)
Frankly, I LOVE the idea that once upon a time there were straw boy enjoyers who joked about which vegetable our boy is equipped with, those sound like my kind of people. Unfortunately, I think those people were probably fans of the stage play, back when Wicked was for theater nerds only. Now that it’s a blockbuster smash hit, the larger fandom has become something of a battleground for stan culture, performative leftism, non-existent ship wars, and rampant bigotry from straight women who are devastated that Wicked centers around the relationship between two very different women changing each other amidst political strife, rather than being a straightforward romance about a misunderstood outcast girl who fights evil with her hot boyfriend Jonath- I mean Fiyero.
I love the idea that many eons ago, I might have been friends with a Fiyero enjoyer, and we might have covered the important questions—Important questions such as: Was Fiyero’s public role propagating a military presence across Oz morally defensible if ultimately it was done for love? And: Would it be funny to call Fiyercrow’s plant penis a cumquat, or is that low-hanging fruit?
In a similar vein: Are Fiyero’s actions in Act 2 largely selfless as they revolve around devotion to Elphaba and culminate in self-sacrifice for her escape, or are they largely selfish as he uses his position and privilege to fight NOT for Elphaba’s cause, but for Elphaba’s affection, while simultaneously stringing along another woman and being the poster boy for the dictator’s task force? Also: If you write Elphaba and Fiyercrow porn, is it called cornography?
Along those lines: In what way is Fiyero’s new perspective on beauty superior to Glinda’s new perspective on morality, and does gender play a role in the verdict? Also: If Fiyercrow gets an STD and develops a temperature because of it, do they call it hay fever?
Important questions, and I feel like maybe old-school theater weirdo Fiyero fans would at least humor me, even if they rightfully found me somewhat irksome. But instead we are in movie-verse militant stan territory, where everyone’s angry and snarly and no one finds my horticultural genitalia antics endearing.
Alas. Cultural misunderstanding, lads, I’m used to playing a bit rougher with my faves in the gelphie corner of the fandom, I truly meant no ill will. May peace flourish between our two nations, etc, etc.
(that said…fiyercrow still doesn’t have a functioning penis)
