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elphabaoftheopera · 8 months

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HELLO!!!! how are you? it's been a while haha 😅... but, long story short, after watching wicked last night im back in the fandom! and what better way to celebrate than read a fic by my favourite author 🥳 ? so, i read "In Any Universe", and boy do i have a lot of good things to say about it!!!!!

this fic is awesome, im sad that i didn't read it earlier! it had my favourite tropes that were amazingly executed, along with so many wacky and interesting alternate universes 😁😁! some that stood out to me were fake dating, masquerade, family and musical. to say that i really enjoyed these would be an understatement!!!! first of all, fake dating is my absolute favouriteee trope, so i was so so excited to see it applied to fiyeraba so well! the masquerade was honestly a really interesting plotline, and the musical universe was cool to see referenced! and family au was soo adorable, and parents fiyeraba make me feel so happyyyy ❤️❤️! overall, they were all so so romantic and cute and made me realise how much i miss fiyeraba 🥺!! i also really liked the general storyline, and the pipeline of fiyero coming to terms and accepting his situation was so lovely and satisfying to read!

i was wondering if you had any little facts about this fic? it was super creative and i couldn't help but love every separate storyline!!!!!

sorry for gushing, im just super happy to be back and reading your fics again! ill hopefully in the fandom again for a while, so i can find the time to read some other works of yours and maybe reread 😁😁😁

@melop-sia!!!!! It's so wonderful to hear from you!!!! Welcome back to the Wicked fandom! Your message just made my entire day, I actually screamed when I read that I was a favorite author of yours, words like that TRULY go a long way. thank you for your thoughts on In Any Universe. I had so much fun writing that one!

Welllllll since you asked, I'd love to share a little bit about it!

Light spoilers for In Any Universe below the cut!

The idea came to me when I was just thinking a lot about fanfiction tropes in a loving way, inspired by fanfiction writers and our tendency to put the same characters into countless different situations/lives and have them fall in love all the same. I got the idea when I was driving (most of my ideas come when I'm driving) about my otp essentially going on a "tour" through the different tropes. Initially it was supposed to be 100% comedic and self aware.

I didn't have a strong throughline planned out in the beginning that would set them off on their journey. I thought about (and even drafted) Fiyero mentioning how "random" it was that they got together and if any one thing was different they'd probably not be together, then I'd have Elphaba take offense to that. But it just wasn't working, especially because I was clinging to the idea that I wanted Fiyero to be human in the present timeline. Once I finally released my hold on that idea and let him be a Scarecrow, the story throughline became much clearer to me! It was easier to write when Fiyero had a "lesson" to learn (sort of "It's a Wonderful Life" style, though I've never seen that movie). That of course made the throughline a bit more serious, as well as some of the timelines getting increasingly darker.

I just can't resist angst and hurt/comfort no matter how hard I try!

I just really love the quote I put at the beginning of the story about finding the same person over and over.

As for the stories within the story, I just started by making a list of as many tropes I could think of. Fake dating, fix-it fic, crossover, etc. and eventually trimmed it down to the stories that made the cut. I wrote them all out of order and then stitched them together later with the throughline story. I think I did the coffee one first, then the masquerade, and then I put it down for several months (as is my style) and picked it back up with the Wicked actor one.

I really considered breaking the story up into chapters and sometimes I regret the fact that I didn't, I still consider breaking it up because I know it's very long. Still I think it flows better as a singular piece but at least can be easily read in multiple sittings if you're like me and need mind breaks.

When I decided to make it one single piece I made a real effort to keep the sections snappy and not longer than they needed to be. I was pretty obsessed over word count and keeping it below a certain amount (I think 1000 words). I think the Fake Dating one ended up being the longest and the hardest to keep trimmed. Still, I wanted each story to have a satisfying arc in its own way.

One challenge I gave myself (which was VERY difficult) is that I didn't use the word "love" until the very end when Fiyero told Elphaba he loved her after getting shot. I came to that idea later on and had to edit a lot of the earlier stories. Then he says he loves her many times in the finale scene.

I thought it strengthened his lesson about being grateful for what they did have. I found it really important to mirror the "can't imagine thinking about how things might be different" (paraphrasing) in the worst timeline with her dying in the cornfield with what he'd said in the beginning.

As for the ending I did leave it slightly ambiguous, but I believe as the writer that the journey he went on was real and not a dream (kind of like I believe that in Wizard of Oz Dorothy's experience really happened, even though it seemed like Dorothy was waking up from a dream). However, I wanted to the reader to decide for themself!

I think my favorite ones to write were the Fiyeraba family (I love them as parents!), Coffee shop AU, and the Masquerade. I also found it clever and trippy to do the Wicked actors, but that one was by far the hardest challenge!

I so appreciate your readership and engagement with my work!!!! Please reach out in the future if you ever have thoughts or questions.

I don't want to jinx it because it's still early days but I'm excited to say I've been writing again (Fiyeraba, obviously) now that my life has more time. We'll see where it takes me, so be on the lookout!

#melop-sia #wicked fanfiction #in any universe #writing tag #comments and reviews #story: in any universe

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melop-sia · 1 year

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for @elphabaoftheopera

WOOT WOOOOOT!!! TO CELEBRATE THE FINAL CHAPTER BEING RELEASED, ME AND MYSTIC THOUGHT OF A BUNCH OF QUESTIONS TO ANSWER IN REGARDS TO LFAY!!!!!!!!!!! TO SHOW OUR GRATITUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What was your overall experience / journey reading the fic?

esper / melop-sia: when i started reading, i was instantly hooked. i genuinely don't think i have liked a fic this much as this one. i loved it so much that id actively check my gmail inbox every hour or so to see if a new chapter was posted 🥲 the most chapters i read in a row was 6, and that was when i first discovered the fic!!! after, i became a slow reader and soaked up every little description you wrote because i didn't wanna miss anything– thats probably why i noticed so many parallels 😁!! doing that also let me take it your writing and it's awesome! even awesome enough to get me back into reading stuff! hell, this fic was a reason why i bought gregory maguire's wicked novel 😅 it lit back a love for reading that i hadn't seen for a few years at least! and back to parallels, they were undoubtedly a key part of enjoyment in my journey with lfay! i always got so excited when i found one and wouldn't hesitate to kick around all energised 🥳🥳 im so glad that you went the extra mile by adding the parallels, it vastly improved my reading experience!

mystic / mystic-oni: Okay I've gotta admit I'm not usually the romantic type but they r so cute omgggggg 🥺

I think if i could change anything about the story or my experience reading it i would leave everything the same. It was just something fun, exciting and immersive i could go to after a rough day and although I am guilty of sometimes having one or two chapters stacked up after forgetting to read 😅, I was never finding myself not wanting to read it unless I was trying to savour it for a time when I would need it most. Plus gave me something extra to talk about with esper/melop-sia 😁😁😁

Especially if we were both reading a chapter at the same time. O ye and the characters are so well done and like the ones we all know so sometimes i just forget i'm reading something fan made because it's that good. I actually sometimes finding myself just melding the two together on accident (i mean thats probably expected considering i'm still somewhat new to the wicked fandom but still it wouldnt be possible if the characters weren't portrayed accurately)!

What about the AU stood out to you (in comparison to the adapted material)?

esper: i think what really stood out to me was how much more you fleshed out each character in comparison to the musical. i loved how you gave everyone another layer of personality along with the ones already set by the musical, yet keeping dialogue and interactions so on point 💓! one thing that is so important to me is a character's personality being accurate. i have so much less enjoyment with a fic when characters are written completely different to their "source", so it was a relief and delight to see the consistent characterisation ⭐️⭐️⭐️!!! a bit off topic but i also really liked how you included some references from the book!

mystic: Well, i've only seen one of the musicals on yt (so far, might read the book cuz esper has it and she said she could lend it to me after they had finished it 😁😁). I really felt though from my experience with wicked (not much but anyways 😅) it really fleshed out more of the characters, like how elphaba has nyctophobia cuz it just added another like, obstacle and really added to her character and existing challenges. Also like the letters were a crucial part of moving this fic away from the original material, im rlly proud of myself because while it was in the part of the story where letters were most important, i noticed a lot of familiarity with something but i couldn't figure out what. Then i remembered i had seen the movie "You've got mail" and it was one of the inspirations which i love and made me enjoy the story even more just because it felt familiar in a way.

What was your favourite chapter? Why?

esper: wooof that is a hard questionn 😯😯 i have a few favourites, but ill try to limit it to one or two...... after a bit of thinking, i think i have to say 11 and 19: each for pretty different reasons admittedly 😅. for one, i loved 19 particularly because of how sweet the fiyeraba date was!!! it was the [infodumping gf] and [polite listening bf] dynamic that i lovee so much 🥺🥺🥺 it was so cuteee!!!! the angst was saddening to say the least, but i really enjoyed how you wrote their dialogue and how they finally came to an agreement.

and. onto 11. that chapter was just insane /pos. it was so good i reread it multiple times and thought about it for a while and, at the same time was utterly speechless. i can say one thing though: the yearning. THE YEARNING!!!!!!!! the yearning was so good dudee!!!!!! i usually don't even like yearning but it was just wild how caught up they were both getting and the suspense was palpable. it was so impactful and therefore one of my favourites. close runner up for most favourites is 9 i loved how it finally broke down the established initial barrier and tension between elphaba and fiyero in an engaging way!! another runner up is 21 for an awesome sequence of scenes that made me feeeellll 🥺 soon to be elaborated on!

mystic: Oke im gonna be honest, in order to answer this question i found myself skimming over a lot of chapters that i had remembered i liked and i cant decide on one because they were all so great or had an important event that i couldn't compare to other chapters. I was planning on going into specifics but since i'm so torn im gonna save it for the moments question 😭

Tysm for the indecisiveness cuz all ur chapters are soo good u should be proud. Also it gave me a reason to look back to try and find my favourite and although i didnt get a clear result it was really refreshing reading the older chapters again.

What was your favourite scene or moment? Why?

esper: I HAVE A FEW FOR THIS ONE TOO!!! the first one that comes to mind is fiyero getting to kick jozsef's ass 😁 i absolutely loved how he got back at him after so long and im just a sucker for people getting what they deserve 🥳!!! it was an awesome inclusion and i was so satisfyed with how that turned out. alsooo i loved fiyeraba's bickering pre-museum break in, it definitely wasnt the first or last time i audibly laughed at something in this fic! and elphaba playing go fish with dorothy was hilarious and not near anything i expected for the last chapter of the main story 😅😅😅 that as well as her warming up to dorothy was simply amazing to me!

onto a more wholesome moment, i loved the dance between fiyero and elphie in the empty ozdust, it was such an intimate and romantic moment between them and i couldn't help but love them more after 🥺 following that, the scene of glinda and elphaba making up with each other and becoming friends again! it was just amazing and all around so pleasant to read!!! another few follow ups, glinda confronting fiyero and forgiving him, as well as starting the party! it was a nice flow of funny to touching and then hopeful!

mystic: oke for me its gotta be those bits where elphie does something cool or funny, like in chapter five when Jozsef was tryna splash her with water and she just dumped it all back on him, like that was pretty badass. Also the petition bit in chapter 7 had me dyinggggggg 💀💀💀 (especially the intimidation and fear, i found it pretty funny and also smart how they used that to get people to support their cause). Also the closet bit in chapter nine was really memorable, and exciting to read and I think most people really liked that part. Just the awkwardness and tensionnnnnn aaaaaaah!!! 😁🥲👏👏👏

Okay, and im sure the Ozdust in chapter 13 had everyone on the edge of their seats (Depending on whether u were sitting 😅) when all the secrets were revealed and the truth was spilled everywhere. Ending with quick escape and a great cliffhanger that kept everyone wondering about the chapters to come. There are so, so, so many more but I end up forgetting where after I try to reread (maybe i should have written notes or something idk 😆). Once again thank you so much for making these truly ✨magical✨ moments for people to enjoy.

Thoughts on the ending / last chapter?

esper: i know i already wrote my thoughts in a comment before, but now we have the epilogue so i can talk about that too!! for one, i don't think i would've had the ending any other way. 34 just had a great balance between presented aspects: it was heart-warming but bittersweet. not to mention such a satisfactory read after keeping up for the last month or two!

honestly im so happy about 35!!! honestly after the roller coaster of the "act 2 chapters" im glad we got a tonn of fluff. it was a wonderful peek into fiyeraba's new life and it was sooo cute 🥺🥺 genuinely loved it so much, another one of my favourite chapters❣️ im glad their story got to continue on into a fulfilling lifestyle for both of them 💗💗💗

mystic: Perfect. I didn't think too much about the last chapter before I read it because i didn't really want to go in with a predetermined idea of what I thought would happen because I just knew it might ruin the experience although I was very excited for it and did ponder for... maybe a minute or two 👀, and I came to the conclusion that I wasn't really sure where they would be next, but the fact they got to be together in the end without disturbance was good enough for me. I feel like the mood and especially the dialogue at the end of the chapter and just everything was more than I could have wanted, it was really good and never did I expect she would still be able to help the animals even after she moved and decided to try and just live a quiet, worry-free and normal life with Fiyero. Also just about the chapters before the epilogue, which i also really enjoyed, like how well Elphie got along with Dorothy, how she ultimately beat her final obstacle - her enemy since the beginning, the dark. Also Glinda in charge and Morrible in prison 😈✨🥳 yayyyyy 🎊

Final thoughts

esper: i thank you so much for this fic, it has really helped me through these few weeks and i commend you for making a fic worth all the praise given and more!!!!! im a little sad to see this journey over now, but im glad i was able to be part of it and get my friend into it too! ill likely be rereading as well as consuming some of your past content in waiting for your next project!! i really hope to experience that too 💖 sending much love and support

mystic: One of the only times that I can't help myself from writing "also" way too much because there are so many things I loved about this. Love, Fae & Yero was an adventure that I really felt apart of, and I hope I'm not too attached to let go of it now 😭😭😭

Me and esper spent a while writing this and they and I really want to thank you for your hard work, we tried to have this finished by a certain time and spent a while thinking of our questions as well as the most important things we should say. Hope we weren't too late 😅

AGAIN THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR WRITING!!!!!

FROM ESPER AND MYSTIC 💚❤💖

#lfay #love fae and yero #elphabaoftheopera

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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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