flying monkeys

Audiovision: Glinda the Good

The word came down from the Tower of Smoke and Mirrors like a week-old tornado warning! Glinda the Good, that shimmering, pastel-drenched enigma whose public persona suggested a diet of spun sugar and unwavering good will, had landed herself a lifetime gig in the judicial system of Oz. Permanent. Locked in tighter than a Winkie guard’s sphincter at a tactics and control seminar. The Wizard, bless his holographic heart, figured she was a sure bet, a pre-packaged yes-woman bobbing along on her iridescent bubble, ready to rubber-stamp whatever flimsy decree wafted down from his lofty, smoke-filled cranium. He envisioned compliant nods and sparkling affirmations. What he got was a freakin’ constitutional originalist.

The first seismic tremor registered not on the Richter scale, but in the Oz Toot-sphere, that swirling cesspool of gossip and digital bile. A post, brutal in its unflattering candor captured mid-mastication on a truly formidable ripe yellow elongated berry-fruit, courtesy of the local trading post no doubt. The toot declared in no uncertain terms: “She’s a big problem!” One hundred and seventeen thousand-plus digital thumbs-up slammed into that poor banana, a collective grunt of outrage echoing across the digital plains. Initially, one might peg this as the handiwork of the Quadling Liberation Front, those tireless advocates for opening Oz’s borders to every Tom, Dick, and Kansas refugee with a hard-luck story. But no, this particular broadside originated from the very heart of the Wizard’s support base, the frothing legions of tin-foil hat keyboard warriors. Glinda’s transgression? A simple, yet devastating, vote to allow two billion gold coins poured into the Outer-Realm black hole. O-Z-A-I-D, for Christ’s sake… to some nebulous, faraway land that wouldn’t know a Poppy Field from a peyote button. The outrage was palpable, thick enough to choke a gaggle of giggling Munchkins.

Then came the inevitable chorus of “diversity appointment” accusations, a low, guttural moan that swiftly escalated into a full-bore demand for Glinda’s immediate and public immolation. Glinda, bless her pastel-hued soul, merely blinked. She understood the Oz vernacular all too well. Diversity appointment was simply the contemporary euphemism for anyone who didn’t enthusiastically sign onto their perpetually expanding list of grievances. The Befuddled Witch of the East, a creature whose default setting was apoplectic rage, even managed a semi-coherent screed opposing the aid, though her reasoning remained, as always, lost somewhere in the dense fog of her own bewilderment.

But here’s where the plot thickens, loopers, like a cauldron full of ill-conceived witch’s brew. A deep dive into Glinda’s magical rap sheet revealed a rather inconvenient truth for both sides of the Oz divide. The notion that she was some secret weapon of the Progressive lobby was pure, unadulterated fantasy. Nor was she some knee-jerk anti-Wizard revolutionary, itching to dismantle his flimsy empire of illusion. Case in point: her staunch defense of the Wizard’s “Official Oz Legal” immunity, a loophole wide enough to drive a fleet of Winged Monkeys through, protecting his every questionable act committed under the banner of “governance.”

No, Glinda, it turned out, was a far more insidious beast. She was a disciple of the “persuasion paradox.” Forget your ancient spells and dusty grimoires, this was a weapon forged in the fires of pure, unadulterated observation. Watch. Listen. Ask questions. Argue less. Persuade more. It was the antithesis of everything Oz stood for, a land where political discourse generally involved escalating decibel levels, launching personal attacks with the accuracy of a drunken Monkey, and, when all else failed, unleashing the aforementioned simian hordes.

Her most audacious deployment of this insidious tactic came during the Great Ruby Slipper Debacle. Some wide-eyed innocent from Kansas, whose flying contraption had inconveniently pancaked the Wizard’s favorite Western Witch, was in possession of the coveted foot wear. The Wizard, ever the pragmatist when it came to optics and power consolidation, wanted those slippers. Badly. His master plan involved Glinda snatching them and handing them over to the Befuddled Witch of the East (BWE), a transparent attempt to appease the increasingly unruly Eastern provinces. But Glinda, that quiet operator, had been watching. She’d listened to the girl’s simple, desperate longing for that flat, desolate landscape called “home.” And instead of engaging in the usual Oz screaming match with the Wizard, she simply started asking questions. Deceptively simple questions about the true nature of power, the purpose of magic beyond political maneuvering, and the fundamental need for belonging that resonated even in a bewildered Kansan. She didn’t argue. She didn’t counter. She simply… guided. And like a whisper in a hurricane, she prevailed. The slippers stayed put, the girl and her mangy mutt skipped back to Kansas, a refugee crisis averted by the gentle, almost imperceptible, force of quiet persuasion.

And so Glinda watched the latest digital lynching party unfold on the Toot-sphere, a barely perceptible smirk twitching at the corner of her lips. Let them rage. Let them post their tiny digital toots until their fingers bleed. She would, in her own unsettling, deeply humane way, continue to win. She would observe, she would listen, she would ask, and she would quietly, irrevocably, prevail. The swirling, chaotic vortex of Oz politics, a Category 5 shitstorm of epic proportions, would simply spin around her, the eye of the hurricane, a place of unsettling calm.

Stay tuned, loopers! The Yellow Brick Road is paved with broken promises and the occasional well-aimed banana. And Glinda? Well, Glinda is just getting started. The Oz citizens know it. And somewhere, deep in Riviera City, so does the Wizard. He just hasn’t quite figured out why yet.

Audiovision: You Can Run…

The wind carried a faint scent of desperation and bruised fruit through the dusty antechamber, a space where grand pronouncements went to fester amongst discarded banana peels and mango pits. Here Curtis Loki, a simian with a spiffy vest and eyes hinting a few gears shy of full-blown psychopathy, laid his grand designs before the Wizard of Oz.

The Wizard… a man whose booming voice couldn’t quite mask the tremor of age and whose dramatic flair usually landed somewhere between impressive and vaguely menacing, reclined on a leather captain’s chair, a gift from a prominent Oz lobbyist. He sipped tea, courtesy of the perpetually twitchy Castleforce Guild leader and listened with an air of bored indulgence to Loki’s manic pronouncements.

Loki, all frantic monkey paw-wringing and self-important chest puffs, unveiled his masterpiece: the “Doctrine of Inherent Wizardly Prerogative.” It was a deliciously simple concept, dripping with the kind of logic only a megalomaniacal monkey could concoct. True governance, he argued, sprang solely from the Wizard’s “divinely-inspired” (a phrase Loki lingered on with sycophantic relish) mind. All that tedious business of elections and public sentiment? Mere distractions. Like shiny pebbles to a flock of easily-amused working-class munchkins, winkies… and quadlings.

The Wizard, whose patience for town hall meetings was non-existent, lapped it up. No more endless debates about the poppy trade? No more agonizing over the precise shade of yellow for that infernal brick road? The prospect was intoxicating. Good Witch Glinda, with her tiresome insistence on “the will of the people,” suddenly seemed as appealing as week-old guacamole.

Loki, sensing the hook firmly set, elaborated. First, a subtle campaign of disinformation against those pesky elected munchkin, winkie, and quadling officials – whispers of poppy crop hoarding and an unhealthy fixation on blingy stones. Then, “streamlining initiatives”: petitions on enchanted parchment only the Wizard could decipher, town hall meetings atop Unclimbable Mountains, voting booths guarded by creatures whose temperament matched their sharp claws. The Wizard chuckled, a wheezing sound that promised impending doom. “Devilishly clever, Curtis!”

Finally, when the inevitable bleating of the disenfranchised masses arose, the flying monkeys, Loki’s nominal command, would “encourage compliance” with persuasive aerial maneuvers and, the pièce de résistance, strategically deployed protester blacklists. The details, Loki waved off, would bloom in the “glorious theatre of conflict.” From the next room, the Befuddled Witch of the East (BWE), a creature defined by confused chirps and water phobia, mumbled something about restless winkies.

In the throne room, amidst the Wizard’s smoky, slightly threadbare projection, the doctrine was unveiled. The munchkins, winkies, and quadlings, a motley crew easily bewildered by anything more complex than a freshly polished coin, listened with growing unease. Loki, perched beside the shimmering visage of the Wizard, radiated officious self-importance. When a brave munchkin dared to inquire about their recently elected Poppy Distribution representative, Loki smoothly dismissed him. “The power of the Wizard will not be questioned!” Doubt, he declared, was the rust of progress.

A winkie mentioned the existing “Charter of Oz”. Loki scoffed. A “quaint historical document,” a “preliminary sketch” awaiting the Wizard’s glorious final brushstrokes. The Wizard’s projection beamed, oblivious to the rising tide of bewildered resentment. “Embrace the Loki Doctrine,” he bellowed!

Then, Glinda’s voice, clear and sharp, cut through the smoky air. “Oh dear. It seems someone has been reading too many pamphlets on ‘How to Subvert Democracy for Dummies.’” The audacity, she implied, was truly breathtaking. Loki paled. The Wizard’s projected face wobbled.

In the ensuing chaos, as the assembly began to murmur and regard the flying monkeys with newfound suspicion, Loki knew his window was closing faster than a winkie’s eyelid in a dust storm.

Back in the increasingly chaotic antechamber, littered with stray feathers and overturned furniture, Loki stuffed pilfered blingy stones and suspiciously shiny adornments into a small satchel. “Strategic repositioning,” he muttered. The glorious chaos having arrived, though not quite as he’d envisioned.

The Wizard burst in, looking crestfallen and thoroughly put out. Tomatoes, overripe ones at that, had been hurled at his projection. Glinda was being sweetly reasonable, droning on about fundamental rights. Meanwhile Loki feigning concern, suggested a tactical retreat to preserve the Wizard’s “magnificent aura.”

“But, but, but… my absolute power!” the Wizard wailed.

Loki, patted the Wizard’s arm condescendingly. Power was fluid, he explained. Sometimes, a cunning individual needed to let the turbulence subside, a new power vacuum to form. And who better to fill it than a seasoned advisor with a name that had a certain… ring to it? He glanced meaningfully at his bulging satchel..

Suspicion finally dawned in the Wizard’s bewildered eyes. “Curtis… are those my spare emerald cufflinks?”

“I saved them for you!” Loki chirped, just as a gaggle of singed and furious flying monkeys stormed in. Promises of fermented mango juice had yielded only angry prohibitionists and a lecture on temperance from Glinda. Loyalty, it seemed, had its limits, especially when faced with ripe projectiles.

“Loki!” they shrieked, advancing menacingly.

The Wizard pointed a trembling finger. “You were using me! This whole ridiculous ‘inherent prerogative’ BS was a ruse!”

Loki grinned sheepishly. He knew the jig was up. “All’s fair,” he quipped, “in love and the overthrow of democratically elected swamp critters. Besides, think of the legend! Curtis Loki, the monkey who almost…”

His voice faded into the chaos as flying monkeys descended in a flurry of feathers and angry chitters. The Wizard watched, a morbid fascination replacing his outrage. From the next room, the BWE’s voice surprisingly lucid, drifted in, complaining about the recent surge of migrant Oompa Loompas.

The lights faded on the sounds of simian squabbling and the Wizard’s bewildered sighs. The Loki Doctrine, born of manic ambition and a surprising taste in spiffy vests, had imploded. The game, as Loki had craved, had indeed begun, though he now found himself firmly on the receiving end of its brutal, sticky consequences. For now, at least. A monkey with a taste for power rarely stays down for long.

Stay tuned… to be continued.

Audiovision: Who Dares?

Lindsey Boq was admiring Riviera City’s shimmering skyline in the summer heat, when a voice like a Carnyx came. “Boq, get your ass to the Riviera Gate. Stephen K. Moros is loose again. And the Wizard’s campaign is hemorrhaging Oz bucks faster than a Munchkin after a night of bad poppy-field wine.”

The whole scene was a goddamn circus. The air, thick with the stench of fear and burnt toast, buzzed with the frantic energy of a thousand Quadling Scouts gone mad. And in the center of it all, like a particularly odious toadstool in a field of poisonous mushrooms, was Stephen K. Moros.

This wasn’t some two-bit grifter peddling snake oil to the Gillikins. This was the man who, they say, earned his city planning degree and a frickin’ Castle Guard fur hat before seeing the light… or maybe just the dark, twisted underbelly… of the whole Oz Kingdom. He started as a loyal Oz Youth, a card-carrying member of the establishment, until a botched operation by the Winkie guards (oh-ee-oh, yo-ho, indeed) flipped a switch in his brain. He went from loyal lapdog to a full-blown, anti-establishment zealot… a secret rebel with a sneer and a plan to burn the whole rotten system down.

His first move, a brilliant stroke of pure, unadulterated cynicism, was to get in bed with the BWE’s conspirators on the castle wall and make a killing on poppy futures. Insiders. Trading. The man was a financial genius, but not the kind the Wizard of Oz would want to see on his campaign posters. With a bulging sack of gold, he was free. Free to unleash a storm of Molotov cocktails, first against the Gillikins, then against anyone who had the gall to defend them. He wasn’t subtle about it either. He called the Gillikins “something much darker” than the BWE and her Flying Monkeys. Even Boq, who’s no slouch when it comes to bomb-throwing, said he (Moros) was a bully who’d sell out his own allies just to back another bully, The Wizard.

Moros saw the BWE’s cult for what it was… a seething cauldron of “rootless white Quadlings” with “monster power.” He saw an army, a horde of flying monkeys and Quadling trolls who would come pouring in through the Riviera Gate, “turned onto politics and The Wizard.” He understood the dark magic of demagoguery, the power of fear and hate to bind a mob together.

The man wasn’t just a political hooligan, though. He was also director of Oz-sphere2, some closed ecological system experiment that was supposed to help Winkies live in outer space. But under Moros, it turned into an exercise in pure, self-serving, anti-science madness, shifting its focus to obfuscating Oz’s environment and pollution data, all to serve his own twisted agenda.

He rode The Wizard’s coattails, spreading fake news and half-truths, a one-man disinformation campaign. His reign of terror ended, as these things often do, in a firestorm of his own making. A “Unite the Quadlings” rally went sideways, turning into a riot, and the blame… “many sides,” they said… came straight from Moros himself. The Riviera City representatives, not known for their bravery, even put out a statement calling on The Wizard to fire this “well-known Quadling supremacist leader.”

And what did Moros do? The moment The Wizard threw him to the wolves, he turned on his former boss, calling him a “crooked business guy” and “just another scumbag.” He was pure Machiavelli, a man who saw no loyalty, only opportunity. The word on the street was that he saw the BWE as a fellow nationalist, a kindred spirit in the crusade against cosmopolitanism.

His end, for a time anyway, was ignominious. Arrested for conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering connected to the Oz Wall fundraising campaign. He pleaded guilty, got a slap on the wrist… three years of conditional discharge, but his luck ran out. The Oz Supreme Court laughed his appeal out of court, and he found himself in a federal prison for a year, a caged beast.

Now, he’s back, a little grayer, a lot crazier. He’s got a new obsession, a new target for his rhetorical Molotov cocktails: magic and anti-science. He’s proud to be an Oz Luddite, preaching against artificial intelligence and other new technologies, terrified that the Winkie guards might one day be replaced by some soulless machine. He’s a man fighting yesterday’s wars, a dinosaur roaring at the meteor, but a dangerous one all the same. The circus is back in town, and Stephen K. Moros is still the main attraction. And somewhere, we can hear a low, familiar growl “oh-ee-oh, yo ho!”

Audiovision: Fly My Pretties!

The rain… a perpetual shroud over the fetid swamp of DC, mirrored clammy despair in the heart of someone whisperingly referred to as the Befuddled Witch of the East (BWE). Not a cackling crone of storybook malice, but a figure of unsettling obsequiousness, her very presence a damp chill upon the sunniest glade. Her name, if she ever possessed one beyond the epithet, was lost in the miasma of her singular, consuming obsession: the great and terrible Wizard of Oz.

Like Uriah Heep, that crawling embodiment of false humility, BWE haunted the periphery of the Riviera, her shadow a constant, unwelcome guest. Each pronouncement from the Wizard, each flick of his theatrical wrist, was met with her fervent, unsettling adoration. “Oh, most wondrous Oz,” she would croon, her voice a wheezing whisper, “your brilliance blinds me, a humble speck in the dust of your magnificent eminence.” The Wizard, a man of smoke and mirrors, found himself perpetually slimed by her devotion, recoiling inwardly at her damp palms and the unwavering, unsettling gleam in her wide, unblinking eyes. He’d force a strained smile, a practiced gesture of benevolence that never quite reached his own authentic countenance.

Her dwelling, a dilapidated hovel sinking into the mire, was a testament to her singular focus. Scraps of emerald fabric, pilfered or bartered for with dubious trinkets, adorned the rotting walls like pathetic devotional offerings. She hoarded every discarded pronouncement from the Wizard, every stray spark from his grand pyrotechnic show, as holy relics. Her days were spent in a grotesque pantomime of service, offering bombastic bumper sticker slogans or suspiciously dubious conspiracy theories to any unfortunate soul venturing near the Riviera, all the while proclaiming her utter unworthiness compared to the glorious Oz.

But beneath the veneer of simpering devotion, a darker current stirred. As Uriah Heep’s false humility masked a gnawing ambition, so too did BWE’s obsession curdle into a grandiose delusion. In the long, dreary evenings, amidst the croaking of unseen things in the swamp, a transformation would take hold. The stooped posture would straighten, the wheezing whisper would deepen into a resonant pronouncement. She would gaze into a cracked, tarnished mirror, not seeing the gaunt, damp reflection, but the fiery eyes of Isobel Gowdie, the Scottish witch who confessed to consorting with the Devil himself.

“I am she!” she would declare to the silent, dripping rafters. “The ancient power flows through my veins! I ride the winds, command the shadows, and the very beasts of the air tremble at my decree!”

And here, the parody took its most ludicrous turn. BWE genuinely believed she commanded a legion of flying monkeys. In her mind’s eye, they were a terrifying, disciplined force, executing her malevolent whims with ruthless efficiency. In reality, the flying monkeys, a ragtag bunch of mischievous creatures with a penchant for petty chaos, simply tolerated her pronouncements. They found a certain amusement in her self-importance and the opportunities her “commands” presented for causing minor mayhem. A market crash here, a stolen election there – they were chaos agents, and BWE, in her delusional grandeur, provided the perfect, self-unaware puppet master.

So, the Befuddled Witch of the East lived out her days in a grotesque ballet of misplaced adoration and self-aggrandizing fantasy. She simpered at the feet of a Wizard who wished her gone, and she issued imperious commands to a band of flying monkeys who merely indulged her for their own amusement. The bogs of DC remained damp, the Riviera remained oblivious to the true nature of its most devoted admirer, and the legend of the Befuddled Witch, a gothic absurdity woven from delusion and damp despair, continued to fester in the shadows. Her end, when it comes, will most likely be as anticlimactic as her life – a sudden, ignominious squashing, leaving behind only a pair of striped stockings and the lingering, unsettling echo of her fervent, misguided devotion.

Stay tuned… much more to come.

Onward through the fog… Rohlfie.

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