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elphabaoftheopera · 1 year

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rereading lfay chapter one! was missing the fic so hard and couldn't help going back to it after getting more hyped about seeing wicked later this year :')

have any other little facts about lfay? maybe some specific unfound parallels to point out? did you intend to make elphaba left handed in the promo photo for the fic?

ps. congrats on the greg awards :))) 🎉🎉

Oh my gosh hi!!!! It's so good to hear from you! Thank you for letting me know that you're rereading, this message made my heart so happy. I'm so excited you get to see Wicked again this year! I just bought my tickets to see the tour again in a few months.

I'm actually so excited you asked about behind the scenes facts, I have a bunch of behind the scenes stuff that I haven't shared.And thank you about the awards, I was super flattered to be nominated/voted for in all of those categories!

Cover Art

As for the cover art, I've always had the head canon that Elphaba is left handed or ambidextrous. However, the real reason I made her left handed was because the cover art is actually a photo of my real hand painted green. I'm right handed, so it was easier to paint my left hand and take the picture with my right. I got black press on nails and everything. The "Love Fae and Yero" letter was paper I stained with tea and I hand wrote the title. I like to craft so I figured that was easier/more fun than photoshopping. It took many tries to find a good angle for the pic and I have a whole folder of the pics that didn't work as well.

Please let me know your thoughts if you continue to reread, and ask any questions you like. Thank you for giving me the permission to info dump about my story!!!!

Warning: Spoilers ahead for "Love, Fae & Yero"

References to source materials

The original characters were homages to famous pen pal stories (in name only, not in personality).

Amalia- Named for Amalia Balash from Parfumerie (1937 Play) and She Loves Me (1963 Musical) Vicar Mathias Popkin- Named for “Mathias Popkin”, the fictional name given to Klara’s anonymous suitor in The Shop Around the Corner (1940 Film) He is also intended to be the same “Owl in Munchkin Rock, a vicar with a thriving flock, forbidden to preach” from “Something Bad”. Lieutenant Jozsef Fox- Named for Joe Fox from You’ve Got Mail (1998 Film) Jerusha Pendleton- Named for Jerusha Abbott and Jervis Pendleton Daddy Long Legs (2009 Musical) Miss Garland- Named for Judy Garland who starred in In The Good Old Summertime (1949 Film) and of course The Wizard of Oz (1939 Film)

There were also some lines inspired by these stories. Elphaba says "I wanted it to be you so badly" in Chapter 17: See How Bright which is a line from "You've Got Mail", Glinda and Elphaba visit a Parfumerie, the last line of Chapter 14 is a nod to "She Loves Me", and Glinda says she got the dress for Elphaba at "The Shop Around the Corner". All of the references to them meeting at "eight o'clock" is a nod to the song "Tonight at Eight" from She Loves Me. Elphaba also says "Will he like me when we meet" in Chapter 11, a line and song from She Loves Me. There's likely more I can't think of right now.

In (almost) all of the versions of the pen pal story the girl waits for the guy at a cafe with a rose in a book so he knows it's her, so that scene in Chapter 11 is a nod to that as well. Except in those versions the guy *does* find out it's her but doesn't tell her he's the pen pal right away. I did consider keeping this story more true to that model (meaning Fiyero would realize Elphaba is the pen pal but wouldn't reveal it) but I'd already gotten the idea to have Glinda reveal it at the Ozdust and I didn't want to change that.

The sorcery is inspired by The Wizard of Oz.

The magic I decided to incorporate into the story, primarily teleportation and crystal balls, were inspired by The Wicked Witch of the West’s magic in the movie. When The Wicked Witch of the West first enters she has a red cloud of smoke but when she exits there is fire. Then of course, there is her crystal ball she uses to spy on people.

The Epilogue: The Badlands

My decision to have Elphaba and Fiyero go to the Badlands was largely inspired by earlier drafts of the musical.

In the San Francisco Tryout Elphaba has a conversation with Nessa during WWOTE about the Badlands. They call it “the bleakest most Ozforsaken place you can imagine” and how no one ever returns from there, and Elphaba says she could because she could fly. She said Animals fled to the Badlands and were so frightened they forgot how to speak.

I was also inspired by this passage in Defying Gravity: The Creative Career of Stephen Schwartz by Carol de Giere about an ending in which Elphaba and Fiyero run into Doctor Dillamond in The Badlands and Elphaba helps him speak.

“It was to take place on a scruffy farm in an isolated area of Oz called the Badlands.” (p. 309)

“He [Stephen Schwartz] liked the down-to-earth feel of having her use natural healing abilities rather than magic. Dr. Dillamond then bleated with difficulty: “El-pha-baaaa.”

“On some emotional and philosophical level, it was why I wanted to tell the story,” Schwartz later revealed about the last scene where Elphaba tries to heal the Animals who have fled to the Badlands. “It’s the fact that it’s completely anonymous and she’ll never get any credit or public affection for it, but she does it anyway.” (p. 310)

I felt the line about staying anonymous was particularly fitting, so I wanted to loosely incorporate his original vision into the epilogue.

Additionally, some other plot points/dialogue were taken from the San Francisco Try Out, particularly in Nessa and Elphaba's talk in Chapter 28: Sister Sunrise. Elphaba says "So it's you they're talking about, I thought it was another lie about me" and Nessa says "not everything's about you". Fiyero also originally had a line in the Lion Cub scene where he says "you cared about the cub so much it changed everything, what's it like to care about something that much?" which I used as well in Chapter 10: Fair Weather Friends.

It was really cool to see the different versions/drafts that didn't make the cut and use them for this mishmash of different canons.

The story was originally going to be *much* shorter.

I didn’t originally plan to set Elphaba off down The Wizard path. It was just going to be a Shiz-era story and I considered ending it after “An OzDust Do-Over”. I also considered ending it after “She’s Off To See The Wizard” on an ambiguous note, and then maybe continue in a sequel. Then ideas like the sonnet, cave, and trapdoor started coming to me and I realized I had to continue it through. As a writer, I usually tend to make a story darker/more dramatic than I originally set out to do lol.

Lost chapter

There is a “lost” chapter of LFAY that was originally between Chapter 19 “An Honest Go” and Chapter 20 “Out Loud” in which Elphaba helps Fiyero through his test anxiety. It was ultimately cut because it wasn’t serving the grander plot, but the current plan is to use a lot of the dialogue I wrote in a different story I have in mind. It still exists in my draft folder.

Parallels

As for parallels I'm sure there is many that I wrote and forgot about, I may have to reread myself. But one that I particularly like is a parallel between Chapter 17: See How Bright and Chapter 34: Dorothy and the Darkness. It repeats the line : "Fiyero had come…and he’d brought the light back with him."

Elphaba also says "Follow me, Yero?" to which Fiyero responds "Anywhere" three times. Once in the museum in Chapter 19: An Honest Go, once as they're heading into the seedy market in Chapter 27: Mockbeggar Market and once before they're about to leave Oz in Chapter 34: Dorothy and the Darkness.

I'm positive there are more I'm not thinking of, I really went off on the parallels. 😅 Let me know if you ever catch any more!

Bonus: I got bored once and created them on Sims...

Thank you again for reaching out, please do so again if you have other thoughts/questions!

#melop-sia #long post #love fae and yero #lfay #lfay spoilers #fanfiction #info dumping #wicked fanfiction #fiyeraba fanfiction

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