i read your tags about the wicked sequel fic and oh my god, if you ever wrote that i would definitely cry and also possibly die. and maybe draw fanart WHO KNOWS TRY IT AND LET'S SEE WHAT HAPPENS (srsly tho, if you ever do end up wanting to write it and need a beta or just moral support or w/e pls hmu b/c i am all about that idea. WOW. it sounds so cool :D )
I’M GONNA USE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO BLAB ABOUT MY WICKED SEQUEL FIC THAT WILL NEVER BE
Seriously I have HOURS of recorded notes for this story which, coincidentally, is why I don’t do recorded story notes anymore, because it actually drains my desire to write, oops.
But basically it was going to be loosely based off the L Frank Baum books in that the Tin Man goes on to be Emperor of Oz, but that’s about where it stops. Because there’s no REAL charges you can bring against Morrible, she didn’t do anything illegal by taking away Animal rights, so basically Hitler-like she does her little stint in jail, and suddenly you have Glinda realizing that just because someone is bad it doesn’t mean society knows that. Cue Morrible building a coalition with herself and Boq as conservatives against Glinda’s liberal government, riding on the coattails of Animal racism. Boq is heartless and really only in it for the aggrandizement and glory, the desire to be the center of attention, and he doesn’t realize how much of this is because he really DOES have a heart, albeit a hard and twisted one.
Oh, and by the way, Nessarose is still alive.
It turns out Morrible was on her way to Munchkinland after she raised the tornado and while sifting through the debris they find Nessarose. With Boq as her patsy at this point, spokesman and political figurehead, it’s always a good idea to have a secret weapon and Nessa is that. Her intentions are to blackmail Boq should he ever misbehave by threatening to reveal that Nessa is still alive, and that he KEPT her alive because he loves her, and with their shared history it would be very hard to disprove, since he stayed with Nessa all those years and he clearly appears at least that he loved her, but as a witch she’s a hated pariah so this “reveal” that he kept her alive would destroy his career.
It gets a little complicated though, because Morrible is somewhat attracted to Boq too. Not sexually as such, but she love the idea of a partner who is purely a machine, swayed only by practically rather than emotions, and so never foresees Nessa a potential emotional blackmail against him too, and when that turns out to be a possibility she’s more infuriated and betrayed than calculating, and that does upset some of her carefully laid plans much later on.
Because Nessa and Boq begin to talk. They start hashing out their shared past, their shared betrayals. Boq does it as first purely to understand this blackmail being used against him to keep him in line on Morrible’s side, but in the process we learn that maybe being turned to tin was so traumatic it’s the true root of his heartlessness, nothing to do with not “having a heart” at all, he’s literally in a shocked state and talking with Nessa begins to melt through that. Nessa in turn is now humbled, bedridden without her shoes and a prisoner in the Emerald City, which makes her far more humble and she begins to realize that the crimes between her and Boq went both ways and maybe, just maybe, there was a real spark between them that they can only begin to really understand as older and wiser adults, both broken and aching from their past experiences and from each other.
Meanwhile in the Real World, Elphie and Fiyero have discovered that magic doesn’t really exist there, so as soon as they arrived Elphie’s magic skin stopped being green (I’m tempted to have her to still be a WOC of a kind, because I want her to get involved in civil rights in our world too) and Fiyero is no longer a scarecrow. They have a life there as civil rights activists, and are planning to travel to the Chicago World’s Fair, which is a major setting for that half of the story, to hear Frederick Douglass speak. Yet while they’re there they run into two people they never expected to see again: Dorothy, and the Wizard, who is doing side-shows at the Fair. Through him they discover the unthinkable: Nessa is still alive, and trapped by Morrible.
Little do they know, however, that this was part of the Wizard’s plan. He’s been in communication with Morrible, and she has promised to put him back in power if he returns to Oz. But without magic like the kind Elphie wields, he can never travel there again, hence he needs someone like her to help him get back, as he now regrets returning to our world. Morrible has decided upon learning Elphie is alive to draw her back on her own terms, discredit and kill her, rather than risk her showing up as a wild card at a later date. Of course, Morrible has no true use for the Wizard except as a lackey, and I think that leads to his death. Before that though, we do have Fiyero and the wizard talking about how he abandoned his daughter, Dorothy comes back with them too in order to help save Nessa because she feels guilty for having “killed” her in the first place, and Elphie before that must wrestle with the fact she’s giving up her full and happy life to once again sacrifice it for Nessa, feeling as if she has no choice in the matter, because as soon as they go back she’s a fugitive and Fiyero is a scarecrow again.
What falls out is a lot of action mixed with politics as everyone interweaves around Morrible’s schemes, the ongoing Animal rights issues, the danger Elphie and Fiyero face while being there, and Boq and Nessa’s slow realization that they must treat one another and themselves as human beings rather than see themselves as separate and therefore just tools to be used, and this realization is the beginning of Boq’s internal revolt against Morrible as well which brings about her downfall.
