marshmallowfathdon

[marshmallowfathdon]

"kotlc should have been harry potter level of popularity" nuh uh. i like kotlc exactly where it is. it becoming a global phenomenon would be the worst possible outcome for everyone involved.

[marshmallowfathdon]

in honor of the graphic novel’s second part being announced

what if Fintan flashback here 👉👈 please Shannon/Celina/Valeria 🥺 I'll do anything

[marshmallowfathdon]

KotLC as some things my family has said (pt. 4):

Biana about her dress: What is this feeling? Sophie, without hesitation: So sudden and new? Dex: *steps on an ant* [sirens in the distance] Dex, holding both his hands up: I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING. Elwin, holding a stuffed animal: I've been trying to shove this in my sock for a really long time.

Dame Alina to Sophie and her friends: I don't know how any of you got into this institution.

Keefe, holding a lamp: Does this work? *shines it directly into his eyes*

Fintan while eating ice cream: Oh, HOT!

[marshmallowfathdon]

hi so ms messenger i am at your door can u please please elaborate. if we get a 10.5 i want it to be exclusively an in-depth map of all the different connections between your adult characters

[marshmallowfathdon]

happy valentines day

[marshmallowfathdon]

people in the fandom: oh alden is using the 'no need to worry' bc he's secretly part of the neverseen!!!

alden, trying to pretend he's mentally stable 24/7 never not insane and on the brink of shattering haha...: :) 👍

[marshmallowfathdon]

Honestly Shannon’s losing me at this point. Feels like it’s been too long since any news on book 10 has been released. I understand it takes a lot to write a book, but at least throw some teasers at us every once in a while to keep us engaged in the series??

[marshmallowfathdon]

I bet Fintan tried to lick the wall of the ice prison and got his tounge stuck to the ice atleast once

[marshmallowfathdon]

I will never forget about that one scene in Neverseen where Fintan literally throws a ball of Everblaze at the Council and engulfs their stage in front of their castles. It's so iconic.

[marshmallowfathdon]

why does everyone hate alden

[marshmallowfathdon]

Thought of the day: I'm just gonna be straightforward with this one. I have a theory that Fallon Vacker is a founding member of the Black Swan (or just a member y’know).

[marshmallowfathdon]

Merry Christmas!

[marshmallowfathdon]

Hi-can I ask for your opinion on Alden as a person?

Not Aldella-though that's a very nice ship, possibly the purest one in KOTLC (apart from Dex's parents and Grady and Edaline)

I mean, just Alden as a person.

Like........he's a good father figure to Sophie and co, but I've also seen people saying that he unintentionally pressured his children to be social stars, which meant he kind of abused them because they were traumatised in some ways. I've heard people say all of this, and honestly-

I don't care about that. Like, yes, that is bad, but you know the one thing I care about?

He wiped Sophie's human family's memories-he ripped their lives away like they were nothing more than, I dunno, dumb animals or something. To make it worse, he's the one who suggested the idea (I think ) and Sophie's family had to suffer and had no autonomy in the choices because he didn't refuse to do this.

I'm not blaming Sophie-I'm blaming Alden for this.

Actually, why I'm sending this is because I read one of @cynicalclairvoyantcadaver's posts and they have a rant about the terrible thing that he did and I went back and read the first book and HOLY SHIT THEY'RE RIGHT.

So what's your opinion on Alden as a person? (Saying this as someone who loved the Anti Keefe rant) No pressure to do this immediately

ah, that post. i saw it, but figured the op wouldn't want a fight.

but first, to clear things up, i personally don't see aldella as a pure ship. it's pretty nasty. fucked up in all sorts of ways :)

so the argument seems to be that sophie's human parents did not have any autonomy, and that they'd have been better off thinking sophie was dead over having their memories wiped and being relocated. (and quick clarification: he was not the one who suggested it. that was sophie. alden was for killing sophie off in her human parents' minds, and in fact tried to talk sophie out of her decision.)

anyway, i really, really disagree that sophie's human parents would've been better off thinking sophie was dead. later on in the book, you can see sophie describe to marella how heartbroken her mom was when her grandma died. she was in a really bad place and incredibly emotional over it, and was thinking all sorts of devastating thoughts. sophie has seen her parents deal with the grief, and that's why she suggested to alden that they shouldn't have to be put through that unnecessarily.

as for alden, it's very clear to me that the reason he eventually backs down is because he realized he'd be putting sophie's human parents in the same position grady and edaline were in. if you read the line right before alden agrees to sophie's proposal, it's sophie saying something to the effect of "this option is better than them thinking their daughter is dead". then there's some line about alden realizing something, though at that point, sophie doesn't have the information necessary to piece together that it's about jolie. but it obviously is.

in fact, just in the line before the one i mentioned, the one about sophie saying it's better than thinking their daughter is dead, alden himself brings up op's main point: that they'd lose their jobs, friends, and home. he's well aware, but he has seen the exact kind of grief he knows sophie's human parents would have to live with. he knows exactly how they'd be affected, as someone who's close with grady and edaline.

there was no perfect solution there. like, fully nothing they could have done would have been a pure thing to do, there's no option that was indisputably good. there were just two options, both with some level of dark areas to them, and they picked the one that would cause the family less pain. or at least, that was the idea. obviously it didn't go according to plan. but that's because of a completely different flaw of alden's which i shall not delve into at this exact moment. so that's what i say to the notion that sophie's human family had their autonomy ripped away. like, yeah, but also there really wasn't a better option, as far as i'm concerned.

the entire situation falls under the category of morally ambiguous in general, but i've always been of the opinion that situation doesn't dictate a character's moral grayness, if that makes sense. a morally good individual will do the best thing morally they can given any situation, even if that decision is a bit morally gray. but what else could they have done? the situation only allows for morally gray choices to be made, meaning if the person makes the best moral choice from a series of morally gray choices, that actually makes them morally good, not morally gray. it's only when a character has free reign to choose between good and bad choices and chooses to pick a morally worse option that they are morally gray.

but in alden's case, as i've said, there was no perfect choice. there's no way he could've made a perfect morally good choice given the circumstances. he was backed up against a wall. he made the best moral choice from his options (in my opinion at least, for the reasons i've given above), which actually does mean he's morally good in this particular scenario.

i do personally see alden as a tiny bit morally gray, because of one thing he does at the beginning of nightfall. but that's a different thing entirely. when it comes to this particular situation, i do see him as morally good. i really don't see how a better moral choice could've been made.

and about the pressuring his kids, there's actually no evidence that he did that in canon. that's a fanon trait that's frequently given to alden in fic, and, if i'm understanding correctly, it's because people like to explore fucked up vacker family dynamics in fic. but as far as canon goes, there's no evidence he's ever pressured his children to be perfect, even unintentionally. i personally headcanon (and it's actually backed up by canon, so it's not even really a headcanon) alden and della to be fantastic amazing spectacular perfect parents, except they just have a fucked up relationship with each other. this doesn't affect their parenting abilities, only strains their relationship with one another.

anyway. the point i'm trying to make is that a lot of people seem to think alden pressured his kids (even unintentionally) in canon, because i do think that these fics have influenced fanon, which in turn has influenced the way people see alden. which is fine. but people do really need to admit that, as far as canon is concerned, there's no evidence to suggest alden did any, even unintentional, pressuring of his kids. there's in fact evidence to suggest the opposite, as we can see from the way he treated keefe in the flashback memory. he wanted keefe to take a break and wanted his father to stop pushing his so hard. i think (and this next part has little-to-no canon basis, but it's extrapolated from canon, so) that alden would actually go out of his way to make sure he was not subtly pressuring his kids because he'd seen the way keefe was affected by his father. i think alden's aware of that whole cassius-thinks-he's-doing-everything-for-keefe-out-of-love nonsense, and he'd be worried that he's accidentally doing the same thing with his own kids. so i really do think he'd go out of his way to make sure that he's not pressuring his kids at all, even accidentally.

[marshmallowfathdon]

every day we must wake up and live with the knowledge that keefe sencen's legacy is a real plotline that actually exists and is not an exaggerated nightmare that our brains somehow compounded into existence

[marshmallowfathdon]

Does anyone else think it’s weird that nobody’s family is close knitted in kotlc? By close knitted I mean the fact that majority of them don’t seem to be close to their grandparents, cousins, and or aunts/uncle. Obviously we know some lore about Kesler and his family but you would think, with Keefe being abused and all, that at least one grandparent would step up to help him or something. Same thing with Wylie. Why was he given a guardian when he could have been put with family? It’s as if family trees or line dont matter much to them.

[marshmallowfathdon]

Thought of the day: Let’s not forget that Fintan—with Brant, Ruy, Gethen, and Vespera—brought down Lumenaria (a very large castle, mind you) on all of the intelligent species’ rulers. Like, that was such a cool part of Lodestar!

[marshmallowfathdon]

everyone underestimates how powerful the Councillors can be.

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