#kotlc rambles

[thefanboyhub]

If i see one more person call Sophie mutha fuckin Elizabeth Foster a "marry sue" or diss her in any way I'm going to lose my shit.

You don't have to like her but don't talk about her god damn character if you ain't even know it. Like are you even reading the book? DO YOU UNDERSTAND HER AT ALL?

Homegirl has been through a lot, even before Fitz basically ripped her life by the roots and tossed her into a new world without warning.

How about you fucking think what your life would look like if you had thought constantly blaring into your mind, being bullied because you're too "smart" or stupid shit like being a geek. Imagine hearing how your family REALLY thinks about you, all. The. Fucking. Time.

Imagine being so scared to stand out more than you already do that your whole fashion and personality is shaped around being bland and boring. Imagine only having a damn cat to comfort you because you couldn't hear it's thoughts (which in actuality she probably did which I'll talk about later).

Imagine a cute guy changes your world, you get new parents and then they cancel the adoption, then you get fucking KIDNAPPED. WITH YOUR ONLY FRIEND ON TOP OF THAT.

Survive almost dying right after being kidnapped and realize you have more abilities that make you stand out EVEN MORE IN A WORLD THAT YOUR SUPPOSEDLY SUPPOSED TO FIT PERFECTLY IN WITH.

Then over the course of the next three years have your friends risk their lives after you BEGGED AND PLEADED WITH THEM TO NOT BE STUPID. On top of all that, y'know all the ADULTS trying to kill you and the "actually good guys" telling you to be a leader (but actually just need you as a damn puppet), you have normal teenage drama?

4 FUCKING YEARS OF TRAUMA AND GUILT AND DEATH AND DESTRUCTION. AND Y'ALL CALL HER A DAMN MAREY SUE AND SHES "so basic" OR "she's kinda bratty" OR, OH THIS ONES JUST SO FUCKING GREAT! "She risks all her friends lives"

Y'all. I swear. Don't talk about a character if you can't even BEGIN to understand them.

You don't gotta like em, but don't you DARE try to talk about em like you know em. Ugh.

Anyways, #sophiedeservessomeloveandtherapy!

[hantilever]

there's so much tension in the main gang that i feel like isn't being addressed. the foxfire lunch scene specifically where they chose to sit on either sophie or stina's side of the table feels very intentional, not to mention linh and tam arguing, sophitz trouble, etc

overall, imo many of their friendships are pretty strained at this point, especially sophie's friendships since she barely talks to biana, marella, linh, and maruca, despite them being considered her friends

anyway, my point is, i need to see shit go down in book 10. the main gang has a huge fight, they all confront and yell at each other for an hour to get everything off their chests. maybe they don't speak to each other for while after the fight

but halfway thru the book, they make it up to each other, hug it out, and maybe actually hang out as regular teens for a bit. then they figure out the neverseen's plans and have a big showdown with the neverseen or whatever. i feel like this would genuinely solve a lot of their friendship problems and help everyone in the main gang be included

*note: by main gang i mean sophie, keefe, fitz, biana, tam, marella, linh, dex, maruca, and stina

[when-wax-wings-melt]

no no it's ok, shannon is just trying to help immerse us in the life of a kotlc elf, whose lifespan is indefinite. like sophie, we too understand that some things will last without any sign of an end (some might say a long-awaited one) for what feels like thousands of years!

[three-bunnies-in-a-trenchcoat]

Would be really funny I think if Sophie was one of those kids that pretended to be a horse. Can you imagine how she would've reacted upon the alicorn dna reveal

[little-blurry-stars5]

i have been thinking about this for weeks and i NEED to put i somewhere ok

sophie foster is not a well written character.

for one, she grew up with humans for over half her life, and she was a mindreader. violence makes her nauseous my ass. she grew up in the USA, the holder of the highest number of suicides and (as of now) school shootings. these def weren't as common then as they are now (shes a 2000-2012 kid fight me) but still. also, i hate this sm, why is she written as innocent? she was 12 and a high school senior who could read minds. ur telling me all those high schoolers didn't have a single dirty thought? no way should she be blushing at js the thought of sum1 liking her. she probs saw horrors unlike any others in those highschooler's minds.

shannon barely conveys that sophie was raised by humans other than her seprate world veiws and unknowingness of the elven world. where's the slang? the random movie quotes? the being shocked at random, tiny things? where's her human culture? its all missing. and its smth that grates on my nerves.

[skylilac]

its so funny shannon described dexs hair as curly and then had collective amnesia w the whole fandom over it. like even the book 1 cover has no curly hair in sight she wrote ONE line at the VERY beginning and immediately erased it from her memory. curly haired dex??? never heard of him

[yourtwistedlies]

i feel like

diving deeper into kotlc means getting past your hatred for fitz vacker to some point

[team-moonlark]

Keeper isn't trending we need to work harder

[imthatweirdratinthecorner]

i am both endlessly afraid and incredibly excited about the kotlc movie

[fintan-pyren]

I feel as though a lot of people ignore the less palatable traits of autism when headcanoning characters as autistic. It's always just some smart character who enjoys reading or is good with tech or math or science of some sort.

And yes, a lot of us do have special interests, but they're very commonly not an academic subject, they're not necessarily a skill we're good at, and it's not even necessary to have a special interest to receive an autism diagnosis.

To be diagnosed, you have to have impaired social skills and struggles with communication. For many of us, that's going to result in us appearing rude and antisocial. And yet it's always the quirky smart likable character who happens to enjoy reading or school being headcanoned as autistic. Rarely do you see characters who are interpreted as rude or blunt or unfriendly or who are picky about food or who aren't smart or skilled being headcanoned as autistic.

And yes, maybe headcanoning those characters as autistic isn't going to give people the most positive image of autistic people, but autism is not all sunshine and rainbows. Accepting autistic people isn't very helpful if you only accept the traits that are socially acceptable.

[councillor-bronte-is-best-boy]

It's so disappointing to me that there's not much background gossip that we get to witness. Where are the awkward family conversation topics. I want Sophie to be eating dinner and pouting about being unable to date anyone. I want Edaline, trying to be helpful, to say something like "I never thought I would be able to date anyone because I was in love with your father while he was dating Councillor Oralie." I want the silence to fall. I want Sophie to make the world's most ghastly face and simply leave the table. I want her to wreak havoc and stomp around until she mentions it to one of her friends, who respond with "You didn't know that??"

[thefanboyhub]

Read a fanfic on A03 and it awakened a love for Bronte. I mean he was already my favorite councilor since book one but like now it's a whole new view. It's like seeing clearly for the first time in forever. He's... so fine. And like... DONT JUDGE ME. HE CANONICALLY HAS CURLY HAIR AND IS KIND OF AN ASSHOLE— PLUS CANT HAVE A FAMILY? FORBIDDEN ROMANCE BABYYYY—

[clarity2electricboogaloo]

Watch me incoherently rant about the vackers and kinda vent and most definitely get information wrong for who knows how long

Fitz and Alvar (Fitz especially) as characters are just

Amazing and scarily relatable to me.

Starting with Fitz, he’s virtually the oldest sibling once Alvar becomes older and goes away on assignments or whatever a lot, and he’s held to a very high standard, not much different from the rest of his siblings.

But he’s successful in being the best, and now he’s expected to keep that up. And now it’s affecting his siblings’ expectations from parents, and he can tell they resent him for it.

Not to mention he reached the higher status by aiming to be like his older brother and being expected to be like him.

Now for Alvar. Something I hate that my parents make my younger siblings aim for is trying to get my grades or similar because I’ve had all As or 4s or 100s or whatevers since maybe first grade.

I hate it. Because they just aren’t me and shouldn’t be expected to be, but if they’re doing worse my parents will compare them to me. Fucking stupid.

But I feel like the way the Vackers and Alvar and Fitz especially were written is very similar to this situation and the situation of many families with a more gifted kid.

Alvar was a very smart, gifted, top boy type child. He’s even helped with government assignments from a pretty young age. When fitz moved to this age, he was expected to hold up the reputation paved by Alvar. But he did it better.

Alvar resents him. Fitz’s siblings are seen as below him.

The stress builds up and it gets worse and worse until it shows up in the form of anger issues. And people don’t help.

They just reprimand him for having them.

And it only makes it worse.

Fitz is too relatable anldejkellzjsk and I don’t want to feel like a bad person for saying this idk watch me be a fitz defender frfr

I have no idea where the rest was going. Get my man a therapy is all. please and carrots 🙏🏽🙏🏽

Okay bye if I got info wrong tell me or add on 😀

[when-wax-wings-melt]

Y'all wanted the presentation? Here's the presentation. Image descriptions are below the cut!

(technically this wasnt part of the assignment, which was "write an essay and read at least one full page to the class" so the reason why there's those huge blocks of text is because that is taken directly from the essay. i can condense things if I WANT to condense them)

[ID: 15 screenshots of a powerpoint presentation. The text is either white or gray, and the theme is various shades of purple, typically with bubbles of dark/light purple and images.

Slide one: Title reading "Keeper of the Lost Cities: A Love-Hate-Love Relationship, And What It Can Do To Your Psyche" with three images on the side. The first image is a meme of two stick figures, the first saying "kotlc lore is second nature to us rabid fans so it's easy to forget that the average person only knows the average special ability count and one or two vackers", the second figure saying "and valin, of course," and the first saying "of course." with text at the bottom reading "Even when they're trying to compensate for it, experts in anything wildly overcompensate the average person's familiarity with their field." The other two images are of Shannon Messenger, a white woman with blonde hair. The images are captioned "The dastardly mastermind behind it all" and "meet Shannon Messenger".

Slide Two: Title reading "Background" with a block of text and two images. The text reads "In total, the Keeper of The Lost Cities (KOTLC) series has over 7000 pages, split between nine and a half books (Book 8.5 was, uselessly, a novella) with a planned tenth coming in late 2024, and a graphic novel dropping in November. It’s the kind of series that hooks you the same way a fisherman hooks a fish: with a promise of a treat that goes very, very unfulfilled." The top image is the cover of the first keeper of the lost cities book, captioned with "book one of what will soon consume my entire brain for years and years and years" and the bottom image is a fish staring at the top image as if it is a tasty treat, captioned "Poor, innocent little 6th grade me".

Slide Three: A block of text reading "This is to say: KOTLC is a good series, at least at first. It’s certainly been my core obsession for a good (or bad) five years. It’s a hook because you can’t escape once you’ve begun. It’s my own personal brand of heroine, as Edward Cullen might say if Bella were a too-long book series that doesn’t resolve any plotlines or character arcs and instead piles more information on top of worldbuilding until contradictions are more plentiful than the packed main cast." An image of Edward Cullen from twilight is captioned "Me, apparently".

Slide Four: A small caption at the top reads "If the series ever ends you can call me Brant when Jolie asked him to leave the Neverseen the way I will burn down my house and kill everyone I love (haha just a joke to get us going)​" with an image of a huge explosion below it. Text reads, "Basically, KOTLC is a good series, but the idea of recommending it feels like I’d be violating several articles of the Geneva Conventions. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. The thought of it ending is an impossibility on the scale of the apocalypse and I hope (I'd rather) the world ends before this series does."

Slide Five: Titled "Queer-Coding in the Lost Cities" with the image of Sophie Foster and Fitz Vacker on the side. Text reads, "The queer-coding doesn't just stem from Sophie’s dedicated denial of both her worth as a human being and her desire to kiss her pretty girl friends. A connection called a “Cognate Bond” is often referred to in the text as the closest two elves can become, emotionally and mentally. Cognates exist when two Telepaths (such as Sophie) have such a deep and unbreakable trust bond that they become more skilled together than they were apart. In creating and maintaining this bond, they have to complete trust exercises and not hold back secrets keeping them from total confidentiality. Sophie’s cognate is her friend (and love interest, and, debatably, ex-boyfriend) Fitz, whose romantic relationship was in a large part focused on their cognate one. Their trust exercises involve staring into each other’s eyes, holding hands, having matching rings, and Fitz telling Sophie that she’s the only person he can truly trust. Fitz also asks his father at one point if cognates are allowed to date each other— his father affirms the statement."

Slide Six: Titled "Queer-Coding: Qualden, Tiertice, and such other 🤨🏳️‍🌈 moments​" with the text, "Notably, Alden has the authority to do so since he himself was a cognate, only undergoing a nasty breakup— sorry, only losing the bond after his cognate, Quinlin, kept too many secrets. It’s implied that two other characters were once almost Cognates, only to grow too far apart when one of them, Prentice, has his sanity forcibly shattered and is locked in prison, leaving his (gay lover) best friend, Tiergan (code name Granite), to raise his son. The choice to parallel Fitz/Sophie, Alden/Quinlin, and Tiergan/Prentice was possibly not a conscious one, since Messenger has never attempted to hint at the existence of homosexuality before, but it still resonates with hundreds of queer teen readers who look at the portrayal of utter devotion and trust between two men and think, wow. this is what i see in myself.​" The image is a quote from Neverseen, reading "'What did you give him?' Granite asked, cradling Prentice like a baby. Prentice's head lolled to the side, his body limp and pale." / "Granite held Prentice tighter, whispering, 'It's going to be okay.'"

Slide Seven: Titled "Honorary Errol "I have five identities and they're all the true me" Forkle Mention​". Smaller text below reads "Strut it Magnate "I inspired Loki but don’t even ask about the horse thing" Leto!​" A picture of Mr. Forkle is next to a tumble post by me about Forkle being trans based on the Loki thing. The slide is decorated with several trans flags.

Slide Eight: Titled "Beauty Standards" with text reading "Speaking of things Shannon Messenger did subconsciously, it’s so painfully clear that this series was written by a white American woman that it makes me break out in hives. Messenger establishes very early on in the series that all elves, no matter who they are, are gorgeous in comparison to humans. For some reason that I’m sure has no correlation to Sophie and therefore Messenger’s personal biases (aka Western hetero/cisnormativity and gender roles), every single elven character is slim with clear skin and no glasses. For some reason, beards seem to be impossible for elves to grow naturally, since the only time facial hair ever appears on anyone’s face is when they take an elixir to change their appearance." An image of Sophie with her human family is captioned "Sophie with her ugly nasty disgusting human family apparently​".

Slide Nine: Text reading "Valin is a member of “the drooly boys” who, had they been “human, would’ve been skinny, with acne and braces. Since they were elves, they were fairly good-looking—or they could’ve been if they hadn’t slicked their hair into greasy ponytails” (Messenger KOTLC 170). It seems elves have evolved past the need for brown eyes, acne, crooked teeth, facial hair beyond eyebrows, and variations in body fat—not to mention most other features that make people unique. ​There is indeed a single elf who is fat and even has wrinkles (elves also don’t physically age past 30, fun fact). He alters his appearance with berries that swell his skin, making him the only unique body type besides Sophie’s human family, who are consistently thrown in terrible comparison to her new, movie-star-looking adoptive parents. The berries also make him smell, interestingly enough.​" Images of Councillors Zarina, Terik, and Clarette line the right side of the slide.

Slide Ten: Text reading: "By portraying the elves as the standard for beauty and then removing any pimple, stretch mark, fat roll, body hair, crooked tooth, big nose, or any of the thousands of features that add depth to faces and bodies, Messenger tells us that perfection lies in eliminating all “flaws.” She tells her young readers that they are desirable if they look like Sophie, or Biana, or Keefe—not Stina with her curly hair, or Dex’s too-skinny arms, or Forkle’s large stomach, or my human body.​" The family portrait of the Vackers is also there.

Slide Eleven: Text reading: "Mostly, what defines KOTLC is how it’s interpreted rather than the content itself. I look at Sophie Foster and see parts of myself, but that does not make her me. These characters always feel so painfully real, desperately relatable, as if Messenger cobbled together a main cast from bits of my life, but they are not. In the end, they are just characters. ​In the end, it’s just a series made for middle schoolers, in the same way the sun is just the sun, and the stars are just there to twinkle merrily and not to be explored.​" Sophie on the cover of Exile is also there.

Slide Twelve: Text reading "Literally the day after I finished this presentation a new Marella short story came out in the paperback version of Stellarlune (book 9). This is a quote in the short story:​" with a picture of the short story of Marella being gay about Linh. Also on the slide is "🚨🚨🚨Alert Alert!🚨🚨🚨​" "🤨🤨🤨🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈⁉️⁉️⁉️⁉️​" and "Everyone is excited about Marellinh canon but I think she will simply never acknowledge it again.​"

Slide Thirteen: Just the text "Oh, By The Way, This Series Is Off The Walls Insane​"

Slide Fourteen: Text reading "Things that happen in this series: Alicorns have sex and then there is a graphic birth scene (but the Forkle as Loki thing is going too far 🤨)​, Love Interest confesses his feelings by telling Sophie he wants her to be assigned to marry him by the government​, An ogre bodyguard plays matchmaker with her charge and his crush (successfully)​, There's a guy who can sense "potential" except is definitely lying about this​, Villains die so disappointingly. So far we have "hit on head with rock" "smushed by door opened too quickly" "exploded" "fell into evil birthing sauce" (this last one was cool though)​, and A school principal becomes president​" Three tumblr screenshots and memes detailing other things that happen in the book are also there.

Slide Fifteen: THE END. A screenshot captioned with "Credits for the fake book 7 cover go to @/aphelea on tumblr​" shows a canva/booktok style fake cover for Flashback, with a dancing couple, a horse, and the words "he was a boy. she was a horse. could I make it any more obvious?"

/end id]

[everliving-everblaze]

is now a good time to mention i dont remember the context for the buttons quote and i only have my copy of stellarlune with me at college

I got you!

So the end of Flashback is where the troll hive is discovered at Everglen. The Neverseen shows up, and some of the dangerous baby trolls escape. In the chaos, Alvar sets more of the trolls free.

But Fitz catches him doing it. Keefe brings Sophie to see what happened, and she sees Alvar trapped in the hive, floating. This conversation then takes place:

"I wasn't planning to kill him this time," Fitz whispered, making Sophie jump. "I was just trying to trap him, so he couldn't get away or let any more newborns. And Biana had shoved him into that cubby, so I started hitting buttons on the panel to see if there was a way to lock him and... next thing I knew, the glass lowered and the goop started pouring in and..." Biana shuddered. Fitz swallowed hard, blinking several times before he turned to Sophie, his eyes absolutely unreadable. "Is it wrong that I'm not sorry?" Sophie needed a second before she could answer. "No. Not after what he did. And... he had lots of chances." Fitz swallowed and went back to staring at the floating body. What if I told you I stopped pressing buttons? he transmitted quietly. I... don't know what that means, Sophie admitted. There was a moment, as the cubby was filling. Alvar was pounding on the glass, shouting things. And... I looked at the panel and realized one of the buttons probably opened up to a drain. And I stopped pressing things.

So "What if I told you I stopped pressing buttons?" is the moment that Fitz admits that he saw his actions were probably going to kill his brother, and he decided to let them. Whatever the consequences, he decided to walk away and let Alvar drown, deciding a world without Alvar was better than a world where Fitz did not kill.

What if I told you that I stopped pressing buttons?

[worldsunlikemyown]

Would anyone. Would anyone be interested in a writing system for the enlightened language