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4ce-of-2pades-inkwell · 4 months

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I had the idea to combine my two current fixations into a Casino Cups + Wicked AU.

Elphaba and Nessa are daughters of the Devil in the most literal sense. (Ironic, considering how religious book Nessa is, and how book Elphaba wrestles with the idea of having faith and a soul.) Elphaba appears human, but is green, as one would expect. You initially assume she’s a plant hybrid, but then you see her fangs that no, she never lost, and her horns almost hidden among her dark hair, and her tail. That’s why people are afraid of her, that and her “father.” The Devil is very clear on the fact that she was more invented than born, and she assumes she is basically just another imp, albeit one that looks closer to human and is treated as an actual daughter. But still, despite the fact that she is loved, she receives far less warmth than she does expectation and responsibility. She is cold and calculating, sturdy and reliable, and serves the purposes asked of her.

Nessa, on the other hand, is the more doted on child, because she is not expected to take on responsibility, and perhaps subconsciously because she shows more of both her parents. Nessa is not a rose, as I had considered, but rather looks like any Devildice fanchild you might pull out of a hat at random, because she is. She’s a black die with golden dots, and a diamond-aligned head with three dots as her face, taking after her aunt. Her name should be some pun on dice, like Nessaroll. I can’t tell if that’s stupid or if it’ll grow on me. Maybe if I find a dice pun for “Nessa” too, or if there’s some general casino term with the word “rose” I could use instead. (Let’s say “Elphaba” means something in Enochian?) At any rate, it goes without saying that Nessa’s still a wheelchair user, but I sort of want to come up with some kind of unique cartoony or demon-ey type of accommodation for her to use instead, because it would be cool. (I’m picturing a backpack with wings or long tentacles or something to lift her off the ground.) Or perhaps I could borrow from the book and have her be armless instead? Anyway, she’s a hit singing at the Devil’s casino. Elphaba is a hit as a hitman perhaps, or maybe she’s learning to manage the finances.

Dice is getting older, and wants to retire soon, and Devil intends to retire right along with him. Ownership of the Casino is expected to pass to Elphaba for a good many decades, and possibly forever if Devil never decides to reclaim it, but when Elphaba does… I don’t know, some plot thing like in the musical… and goes AWOL, it falls to Nessa to take charge. And she takes to it remarkably naturally. Not a year of training, and she’s in charge, fully and completely, writing out soul deals of her own and ruling with an iron fist. If she does, in fact, have fists. I’m still trying to decide.

What it takes Elphaba time to discover, but I will lay out plainly for you for clarity’s sake, is that she’s not just some imp or demon that happened to get raised like a kid. She was created and designed specifically as Devil’s attempt at making an angel. He did have an interest in creating souls, didn’t he? What does an angel look like if it’s born fallen? What sort of manner of being is Elphaba, part of both worlds, belonging fully to neither? The Devil probably created this demonic angel with some kind of Big Scheme in mind, but at some point he realizes that he loves this thing like a kid, and is having a hard time balancing that with his need to use her like a weapon. Unlike Nessa, who he can certifiably call a child and nothing more or less, he doesn’t quite know what Elphaba is to him now, and that’s the source of his coldness and formality with her. If he’s gonna launch her at heaven like a nuclear weapon, he doesn’t want to get too attached.

Part of Elphaba’s estrangement is that she feels like a stepchild because she doesn’t have a connection to Dice. Nessa clearly shows both her parents. Elphaba shows only one, and that’s far offset by the green and her humanlike appearance. “Why did you invent me green though??” “Oh, it just matched your eyes. ;)” Dice has given her more than she realizes. One would never assume one of their fathers is blind because he literally gave his eyeballs to his firstborn. A demon needs demon eyes. Much of Elphaba’s being was formed from and around Dice’s demon eyes, with Devil’s magic (and some bit of holiness he had lying around somewhere). And the things that these demon eyes have seen give Elphaba a wisdom beyond her years through experiences she’ll never be able to consciously know. Also, she always knows when someone is lying. It is very difficult to hide anything from her. This is not an ability she manifests only at certain times, giving her visions of truths and desires, like with Dice, but a skill she uses continuously, one of purely mental intuition.

Glinda is an angel. Quite literally. I don’t have much to say about her story, because I don’t know much. Perhaps she senses someone of a similar nature and finds and befriends Elphaba. Perhaps they meet by chance. But this is the start of Elphaba having actual friends and a life outside the Casino. (Devil is uncertain about this, but Dice encourages him to let Elphaba have her fun. Weapon or no, she’s also a teenager, and Devil knows it.) Perhaps Gelphie becomes canon. I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t, but frankly I’m too aspec to care, as long as they have a good friendship. The pair’s eventual encountering of the Wizard is, instead, an encounter with some high-level angel, or even maybe God? Probably not God. Maybe Gabriel? Elphaba is powerful, but it’s a strange and unusual power, and Gabriel is intrigued by this unknown being with angel-like abilities that no one can remember giving her. Glinda is very proud of having talent-scouted her friend, and tags along hoping she will be rewarded as well, becoming more than just a minor angel that didn’t even make it into any literature by name. Elphaba is invited to join the heavenly host or something like that. She can become important. Gabriel can teach her and learn from her as well. Or hey, she’s kind of goth, so maybe she’ll want to be trained up as some kind of angel of death like Azrael. And of course Glinda jumps at Gabriel’s now open offer for guidance. They could do this together, Elphaba and Glinda, learning and training under two great angels, finding their purpose, becoming important, etc etc etc… Of course there’s some kind of confrontation wherein Elphaba discovers dark ulterior motives. Which, coming from God, doesn’t bode well. Probably something along the lines of that one thing Devil said about being an experiment and a puppet or something. I don’t know. But Elphaba wants nothing to do with this eerily pristine, fake perfect paradise. She turns away. But Glinda doesn’t intend to fall. Even knowing what she now knows… this is just who she is. So the two good friends officially take their sides on this most legendary struggle between “good” and “evil.” Elphaba now personally understands her father’s struggle, and she’s going to make a nuclear weapon towards heaven out of herself. But she intends to do it on her own terms. So she runs away to study and plan and prepare for… something.

Okay. Other characters.

Fiyero, I think, is some kind of dish or utensil. (I can’t think of a good pun off the top of my head… something with “fork”???) Paralleling him as a prince, this AU’s Fiyero is a descendant of the Calix Animi, but one who knows all the lore… …and acts like he doesn’t care much. It was a bajillion years ago, big deal! He plays it off because, if taken seriously, that’s a lot to live up to. On his own time though, he studies his ancestors with a passion. He was friends with Elphaba before she fell from a heaven she wasn’t part of in the first place, but after Elphaba cuts ties with everyone, she runs into Fiyero again by accident because they’re both researching. Perhaps they encounter each other in the Calix Animi ruins at like 2 AM? Elphaba sticks with Fiyero after this, at first because she tells him about her cause and he decides to turn traitor on his ancestors and help her by sharing his research and knowledge and stuff. But with time… I dunno, maybe they also fall in love? Like I said, I really don’t care.

Boq. Or rather, Bog. I do frequently make reference to the singular time in the book that Elphaba calls him a frog as an insult, but if that’s not enough to convince you, consider how close “Tibbett and Crope” are to “Ribby and Croaks.” Bog is their cousin, distant or close I don’t know. From the start of the AU’s plot, he works as a waiter at their clip joint, but he really wants to do… um, I dunno? Irrigation theory? In the book he studied agriculture, and in the musical all he did was study Galinda every time he could look at her. I do think that considering all the sentient plants on the Inkwell Isles—which I suppose we should be sure to capitalize here as “Plants,” another nod to the lore of the book—there would be a lot more range when it comes to what you might call “agriculture”, or any study of plants and animals. For all I know, we could be talking Plants and Animals instead, and he technically wants to be a doctor or an anthropologist or something. But I digress. He’s got some kind of professional aspirations, and he’s working a lot of shifts at his cousins’ place saving up for a good education. (Cousins plural, because Ribby and Croaks aren’t actually versions of Tibbett and Crope here, because if they were, they’d be a couple, not related, and since I wouldn’t be changing the names at all, that would get… confusing.)

At some point Bog makes friends with Nessa, which as we all know is always the biggest mistake of his life. I dunno if he makes Nessa think he likes her in this AU, because I also dunno if and how he falls in love with Glinda (who probably doesn’t ever have a name change unless I can think of a good reason). He probably does crush on the unattainable angel though, because if we’re playing by musical rules, then it’s an obligation, and it is also an obligation that Bog share some portion of the fault for his fate due to his own bad life choices. However, this fault can come with the signing of a contract. Nessa doesn’t need to be in love this time. What she needs is ruthless business sense. Why shouldn’t she use a friend/acquaintance as the first victim of her own personal soul deals? Much easier to convince that way. Maybe she tricks him. But I think he kind of has to sign his life away as willingly as possible, so our pity for his predicament can be mixed with a fair dose of “you idiot” as it always should be. I don’t know what she offers him that he’s willing to sign his soul away—probably something to do with making Glinda like him, because I don’t think he’s cares quite that much about agriculture—but Bog goes and loses his heart soul to Nessa. And she must like him at least a little, because his deal isn’t one for eternal torment. Instead, he is Nessa’s first “hired” employee at the Devil’s Casino (under new management). He will stay by her side, serving her, forever. And call me silly, but I don’t think this arrangement is going to end up quite like it did with Devil and Dice. (Though that’s the only love story Nessa’s especially familiar with, so perhaps it’s no wonder this was her plan all along to win Bog over. It worked once, right?)

Bog goes from one waiter uniform straight to a slightly different waiter uniform, this one with a little heart on it, and in any color he wants! Fun, right? Totally worth the, y’know, eternity, right? Bog wonders what exactly he got himself into, and desperately hopes he won’t come to regret it any more than he already does, because there is no escaping this.

I’m not sure how everybody would end up meeting and becoming friends. I know there was no big friend group in the musical, but I am tempted to once again borrow a little from the book, because the Charmed Circle gives me life. However, maybe it would make more sense for them to meet by chance, in twos and threes, and have a little web of interactions, and maybe encounter all of each other in the same space a few times, but never really become a group. As always, whichever best serves the mostly nonexistent plot.

I associate Elphaba with Clubs, Glinda with Diamonds, Bog with Hearts (duh), and Fiyero with Spades. (I have no idea what Nessa is, and I kind of don’t want to decide because there are only four suits and it would mess up the balance.) All of this is up for debate.