#kotlc ua

[bookwyrminspiration]

What if when Sophie came to the lost cities the black swan had been overthrown, and their leaders arrested. So by the time she arrived, she doesn’t have that same support. I think it’d take the story in a crazy, but fun new direction.

oh that would be very interesting--not only would she have significantly less guidance at the start of the series, but depending on how the Black Swan were handled, the attitude towards Sophie could be quite different; she'd be the product of known convicted criminals, not just the odd human girl.

She was observed when she first arrived, but I imagine that would've been much more intense in this situation. I wonder when she would've arrived, actually. Because Alden didn't find Sophie by his own work, Mr. Forkle led him to her. So without him, when on earth would Sophie have been brought to their world? Would they have discovered that sort of information through a mind break and located her around the same time, or would years pass?

I'm imagining the Mr. Forkle who posed as her neighbor might've escaped being arrest, which would create an interesting dynamic with her having one singular influence and resource.

But that aside, without the rest of the Black Swan able to work masterfully behind the scenes, there'd be no notes, no clues to prompt hidden memories. It would require a lot more work on Sophie's part to figure things out--which, depending on when she was brought to the lost cities and how (agreeing it was the best decision vs council forcing her, for example), she may or may not be capable of.

I'm also curious how that would impact her morals and sense of right; we see her learning from and guided by the Black Swan for most of the series before she branches out, following their methodology and beliefs on the limits. If they were never there, what's stopping her from going a step further much sooner? Especially if she's being more heavily monitored/judged and in order to make any impact she has to push harder--side note: I feel like in that case she might become similar to Tam in her disdain, she didn't do anything but exist and need help and this is what they did?

Would she be allowed to attend Foxfire with a significant association with a serious criminal organization? Even if she hasn't done anything yet, she might. And if she doesn't go to Foxfire (or is too old when brought), her friend group would be entirely different. She might not even have a friend group and it would instead be her against the world, perhaps a few misfits gathered along the way. Fitz might still be around because he found her, but Biana might stay bratty. She wouldn't meet Marella or Jensi, and she wouldn't have been adopted by the Ruewens (because confirmed huge Black Swan association when he thinks they killed Jolie? no way) so no meeting Dex. If she doesn't go to Foxfire, I could see them sending her to Exillium, in which case she might keep Tam and Linh as friends--but with a very different dynamic, since I think Sophie would be incredibly bitter.

Actually now that I'm thinking about this maybe she'd be picked up by the Neverseen. At least temporarily and in the same way that Rayni was--not that she's for their atrocities, but because they extended a hand when no one else did. Which!! Could then be an interesting exploration on how she wasn't a criminal, but via seeing her as one/as dangerous they limited her options and made her into one. She wouldn't have joined the Neverseen if they'd treated her properly, but they didn't, so now she did. Except they don't see it as their fault, as a consequence of their boxing her in, but instead as confirmation of what they always feared.

indeed, Nonsie, there is a lot of potential for a very different but fascinating story here. I've barely scratched the surface of all the implications and everything you could do with it!

[moon-elves-cult]

Going Home

Hey! This is Quil, (bookwyrm), and I wrote a short little snippet I couldn’t get out of my head involving the melves in the KoTLC world about why and how they first leave Earth. Please tell me what you think, it motivates me to write more.

Enjoy. 

Either read below or click here to read on Ao3

Words: 1.3k

Warnings: like one sentence of implied homophobia, but that’s it

Wonder is a finite resource, and the Earth is quickly wrung dry of pleasures when it’s boundaries are so isolated and conservative. You cannot see what brings you life, you cannot dance to the sound of the sky, and you cannot reach. Reach what? They don’t know. 

 All they know is the constant scorching heat from above, the infernal tug on their core from below, every sight and sound so rough and harsh and demanding and cruel.

 You could cut yourself on the wind and bleed dry in the deserts and the Earth would simply grin. 

Once an elf has scaled each mountain twice and swept the ocean floor to the tick of a clock, they are done. They are done with the ‘wonders’ of the surface and the entrapment of the clouds and the ropes of weeds clawing at their feet, trying to hold them down in greed. They are done with the expectations of society and the restrictions where everyone is the same and is expected to love the same, live the same. 

So they leave. 

They leave and they never look back. Why would they? 

What on Earth is left for them? Those they hold most dear no longer look to them, and instead have little ones looking up to them in wonder and curiosity. They are just an old story now, mentioned here and there. Their presence is no longer required. They can only steal kisses behind closed doors, only hold hands when they’re alone.

So they leave.

When an elf leaves they always take three things. No one knows why. No one tells them to. They have no guide, yet the story is always the same. 

Item number one: a jewel. A necklace frothing with diamonds, an earring dripping molten gold and burning their skin, a diadem laden with feather carvings and crushed starlight, it doesn’t matter. Just pick the one you can’t forget and wear it proudly. It doesn’t matter its original purpose, just put it on. 

Item number two: their second favorite scent. They may be confused as they grab a stick of cinnamon and place it in their pocket, or tuck a bloom of wisteria into their braid, but it’s essential. To what? They don’t know. But they hold it near and dear and don’t let it go. The grass will try and take it, seeking to keep them here, but they will persist. 

And lastly, item number three: a memory. This part takes more time. They take a moment to stop and peruse through each moment of time like a bibliophile in the buried tomb of a library, the lights dim and flickering, the scent of rotting pages and dust floating through the air. They’ll take a moment to grab a volume, sift through the pages, and gently set it aside. 

Once they’ve chosen, they will no longer be the same elf they were only moments before, but that’s for the best. 

Then they wait.

They wait for the golden rays of light to turn hollow and blue and cold. And then they step beneath the leapmaster’s cascades of crystals, and they don’t say a word. They don’t need to. 

Instead of the burst of warm feathers beneath the skin that typically accompanies a leap, this feels as though cold water is dripping down their skin as though the light is frozen rain, the condensation clinging to a cold cup on a warm day. 

It’s the longest leap an elf will ever take, following the beam up and up and up into the sky, past the clouds, the particles of their being slipping through the atmosphere and dancing among the stars. 

Of course, once they truly get out there, they realize just how alone the universe really is. The stars are years and years away, and there is nothing but a dark, blank expanse between them and their destination. They won’t forget that. 

They don’t know how long they were in that void when they arrive, their form still slightly scattered as they stumble to the ground, disoriented.

Their hands slap against a floor made of solid black, small dots of white and gold and red and blue and purple splattered throughout. It takes them a moment to notice their reflection staring back, and a moment more to recognize the dots as stars and constellations.

There is a small crystal next to a window, directing the beam of light they leapt with to form a perfect circle in the middle of a circular room. 

They’re still on the floor when another form shimmers into being in front of them, kneeling down to help them to their feet. 

The stranger has sharply pointed ears, the trademark blue eyes, and curling silver locks reflecting in the soft light. They have so so so many questions, but the stranger simply shakes their head, smiling.

 “Welcome home.” 

And they are. They can feel the pressure holding them down lighten, the restraints have eased. The stranger doesn’t ask why they came, doesn’t need to. They’re both there for the same reasons. 

Love. They love themselves. And they were no longer willing to let their inner beauty be stifled by the people who claimed to care about them, and desires are sacrifices for the sake of pleasing others.

The stranger introduces themself. “Aydan,” they say. They give their name and Aydan asks if that is really the name they want to keep. They say that they changed their name when they arrived, stopped being she, and became they. Became Aydan. 

Some elves take up the offer, either immediately or with time. There is no time limit to discovering and loving yourself. Others keep their name, keep the same personal identity, and Aydan smiles just as bright either way. 

They ask what jewel they chose to bring, and tells them to observe it now. Silver rings turn iridescent, a faint speck of moonlight is suspended in the place of a diamond in a diadem, the center of white sapphires have turned black as the void. 

They can see Aydan’s own jewel, a layered necklace displaying three phases of the moon, glinting as softly as their hair. They notice the stare and give a mischievous smile.

“You will look the same one day,” they say, “the moonlight has its effects. The more you leap with it, the more the light will seep into your body, and it will eventually be physically noticeable. It may be silver hair, or freckles of constellations, or a map scrawled across your skin. Who knows? Your eyes may even turn black”

Next, Aydan asks for their scent, and it takes a moment to remember the flower in their hair or the cloves in their pocket. They hand it over, and Aydan places it in a small pouch they didn’t realize they were carrying. They don’t know what Aydan will do with it, but perhaps they’ll find out eventually. 

Curious, they ask about the memory they selected before leaving. Aydan doesn’t respond right away. “You’ll know what to do with it.” 

They begin to walk away, gesturing for them to follow. As they approach the wall, a small light passes through them, and a tall circle in the wall rolls to the side, revealing an iridescent hallway. Stepping through, they see small specks of light coming from small swarms of lightning bugs, and they find themselves on a balcony,  far up above they see a bubble surrounding on all sides. A clear force field--likely the work of a few psionipaths--protecting the elves from the harsh reality of the outside. 

Looking down, they see a sprawling city, rising up on mountains and sinking into craters, elves of all kinds bustling around and laughing. There are women in suits and boys kissing behind alleyways and children passing below in wheelchairs alongside friends. The dull lights shimmer for miles and miles, farther than they can see. A small burst of flame catches their eye, and they turn to see a group playing with fire--literally. The restrictions from Earth are non-existent here, that’s why they all laugh so loud and smile so bright. 

It’s home. 

[stellarune]

ok but kotlc mha au bc im a weeaboo

QUIRKS

sophie :

switchblade :

an incredibly powerful quirk allowing her to switch between 5 quirks she absorbed. shes unable to absorb a new quirk unless her system is entirely reinitialized during a near death experience. her current quirks are Telepathy, Enhancement, Teleport, All Speak, and Infliction.

biana :

flicker :

she is able to make herself invidible to the human eye for any period of time. she however still shows up on cameras and other radars. overall a classic invisibility quirk

fitz :

mindmelt :

a form of telepath, able to read and form thoughts in the head of others as if they were his own. hes able to "posses" someone for a very short period of time if they are close enough for him to look them un the eyes.

keefe :

moodswing

similarily to fitz, he is capable of reading and forming emotions in others, although he described forming emotions as extremely taxing. he needs to be feeling that emotion to project it onto someone. he much prefers simply emplifying already present emotions.

dex :

artificer :

he is able to communicate with technology to an advanced level, and only needs a thought to enter a line of code in a programm. overall, a very good suport quirk, although it would be hard to use in battle

tam :

ombrelle :

a classical shadow manipultion quirk, although he has proven able to pull shadows from thin air, witch had rarely been seen before. his technic is extremely similar to a water manipulation one.

linh :

flood :

an extremely powerful water manipulation quirk. she has shown capable of manipulating enourmous bodies of water with little to no training. she reports that she feels as if water is talking to her, and often uses this to detect people in a 1 kilometer radius.

marella :

pyromaniac :

what appears to be a classical fire manipulation quirk, but is in reality an air temperature manipulation quirk. she is able to heat the air up until the point where if theres even the slightest bit of dust it will catch fire. she is able to direct it by using air currents.

HERO NAMES

sophie is moonlark for obvious reasons

tam is Styx

linh is Oceanus

marella is Phlegethon

the three of them go together as they intend to be a team of heroes

their names are three of the 6 rivers of hell btw

Cyclothymia for keefe bc it means mood swings (i think)

Discord for fitz (it makes sense ill explain later)

and Anonymous for dex

AS HEROES

so i loed, this is just as much Superpowered and HCP as it is My Hero and UA

so the progress rhey make with their powers, and how they are as heroes :

dex is a subtelty major, which means his job is basically to be a super spy.

he is both a hacker, and a field guy, his job is to act and get informztion by any means necessaries.

he also created some very specific elements for heroes armors

biana, even though all of her teachers tried to get her to pick subtelty as a major, is in Weapons.

ever since the attack in which she got her scars, she is dead focused on leanring to use dzrts as her main weapon.

she is very good at it too, and her techer is honeslty impressed, because with her invisibility plus hiw small the darts are, she is basically unavoidable

also she now knows how to make herself invisible to camera, and radars

fitz is a control major

he had choice between focus and control, but sticked with control

(basically, the difference is that control is for others, and focus is for you)

what he does is hes able to possess people way more rapidly, and switches between them in fight to cause discord and basically make the guys punch themselves in the face.

he still needs eye contact to read minds though.

sophie masters her 5 quirks, she is a focus major

marella is a ranged combay major, bc that made sense for her

both linh and tam are close combat majors, because their powers are kinda similar

they developp a very specific combat style that relies heavily on being in sync, but since thisis the hcp overkill trainig, they also are extremely good just on their own

marella is also nicely in sync with them

while tzm isnt a weapons major, he took it secon and thrid year, and he uses a modified umbrella

it makes sense bc 1) gives him easy shadows 2) protectd him from his sosters water

keefe is a control major, and he is a support hero, surprisingly enough. he helps his temmates by giv8ng them all the endurance and bravery they need and incapacitates his enemies by multiplying their deepest fears

yep

[bookwyrminspiration]

So sorry! I accidentally posted this before I finished writing the first time! Let’s try again

Part two to my The Entire Fucking Internet Is Looking For The Crew!! idea

The crew is a little shaken/distracted by the interaction they had with those random humans, which was really just an unlucky occurance (their obscurer blew a fuse and some of the group was exposed, luckily non of the bodyguards were seen tho)

Of course they have much more important things to do than read people talk about them on the internet, so it’s Amy once again who keeps them updated

“Sophie. Keefe is internet famous rn.” “I’m sorry Keefe is w h a t”

That video! Has! Gained! So! Much! Popularity! (Amy can understand the enlightened language and wants to know what Keefe has been rambling about. ‘Why was he talking about Gulons? Something about an incident?’)

It’s given everyone invested in this story new hope, because they were SEEN! So they definitely exist.

Biana is still loving this and the others will begrudgingly admit its giving them some seratonin juice

She is, however, very tired of hearing everything through Sophie through Amy etc and BEGS Soph to help them set up social media accounts

Sophie resists at first but then e v e r y o n e starts pressuring her and she admits it would be fun

They start a bunch of accounts on different platforms under the username those-teenagers-you-can’t-find

Everyone has access to all the accounts through a fancy trick dex did with their imparters to make them function kinda like phones

However, people gravitate and choose their favorites, letting others handle the rest for the most part

Biana and Keefe are the Instagram babes, taking pictures where you can just slightly see different people on the crew and nothing to give away the fact that they’re in the Lost Cities

Tam and Sophie are the Tumblr Cryptids, what with their sleep schedules and general shitpost attitudes sorry I make the rules (Linh sometimes uses tumblr for cat photos)

Marella and Stina DOMINATE twitter, Linh occasionally popping by

I’m not sure where exactly everyone else would fit so I’m open to suggestions!! For now they just kinda switch between and let the others handle it)

It’s the Instagram that gets attention first, because it was photos of them that got them attention in the first place and we all know they’re incredible photogenic

When the Instagram gets popular Keefe posts a selfie of Him and Biana and telling everyone to go check out their other social media’s (this is the first time there’s been a caption and they had to ask either Fitz or Sophie or maybe even Amy for help)

Everyone goes crazy because like holy shit guys we found them but we still know nothing about them

They get questions and asks every single day, and they start signing off with their names to show who answered what questions

At this point they’re so popular that they can’t hide it from the Black Swan anymore and they almost get shut down until Elwin points out how much seratonin and happy chemicals this is giving everyone

Okay I still have more I could add to this but I don’t want his to be too long so should I do a part three? Ngl I’m really loving this

[bookwyrminspiration]

ive begun saying "rad" unironically so. that's something. and i need someone to project on for this, bit I don't know who. i think dex might say "rad" unironically because of human movies that're probably outdated. kesler too probably. maybe all of the dizznees idk BUT maybe not? so who else do you think

Filing this under things that remind me of that phase I had where I described almost everything as "epic" for no reason to the point my family started doing so too out of habit

To answer your question: Keefe. Keefe would also start saying rad for the fun of it as soon as he learned about it from Dex and his human movies. It's a permanent part of his lexicon now, Nonsie. Elwin told him he's always loved him like a son and Keefe told him that was pretty rad.

I think once Keefe picked it up Ro might start using it as well. If only because it's something elves don't do/is clearly human and she loves rubbing things in their faces that don't mesh with their world.

Not 100% sure on this one but I could see a line of thinking where Marella would use rad. She's got that kinda popular, chill, aloof attitude. I don't think she'd immediately pick up on it or love it, but it's something she could wield well and deliver sparingly for maximum impact.

Oh also all the drooly boys and Jensi. No thought there they'd just take it and run. Every other sentence is rad, my dude. Coming out of The U like damn those star maps are rad, also mad hard to learn dude.

There may be others but these were the ones that stood out in my mind when I was thinking of the vibe "rad" has :)

[bookwyrminspiration]

What do you think would have happened if Jolie hadn't died? I remember Grady and Edaline saying that Cyrah had asked them if they would take care of Wylie, but didn't because they weren't ready.

okay okay okay so! this depends on how she survived (also, apologies for how long this took me. I saved this to my drafts and subsequently forgot it was there)

i can immediately think of three possible ways she could've ended up surviving: she isn't killed by the fire, but it still happens and she's badly injured/scarred from the experience; Brant doesn't loose control and she's never physically hurt, but she has to deal with the consequences of her fiance being in a dangerous, unhinged rebel group working against her goals; or, she never finds out about Brant so they never argue and the fire is never a danger in the first place.

i personally like the first option best so that's what I'll focus on, but if you prefer another and would like me to talk about it just send me and ask! I'd be more than happy to! /g

So Jolie lives through the house fire. Her parents are worried sick but relieved because she's okay and she'll live. No lingering guilt, no grieving. They're okay mentally, if a little shaken. Jolie has to make the decision of whether she'll still try and be with Brant--because she'd originally gone to confront him and change his mind if I'm remembering correctly. Or if she'll cut him off, which will be emotionally difficult because they've known each other basically their whole lives and were planning to get married. I could see her taking on the "i can fix him" mentality and convincing herself this is something they can work through. In the diary Sophie found she seemed very sympathetic to his situation, loving and caring about him deeply. But that was before he set her on fire.

Jolie would have to decide if she would tell her parents what she'd been up to and that Brant had started the fire, or brushed it off and said it was just a typical house fire. If she didn't tell them if was Brant that would bring more drama to her relationship decision, because her parents would be really confused and suspicious if she just cut him off out of nowhere after fighting to hard for their relationship.

She's also still working for the Black Swan, trying to bring about a better world. She may have information she needs to share and collect, missions to complete (when physically able). But a lot of that depends on what she'd try to do with Brant.

As for Grady and Edaline, the reason they turned Wylie away was because they didn't think they could provide him a loving home. They were still too broken from Jolie's death, but if she never died then they'd have no reason not to take him in. Wylie might not harbor as muh resentment over what happened to his dad and be more welcoming to Sophie initially because he didn't grow up with Tiergan. it's more complicated than that but I'll move on.

Now, when Sophie came into the picture however many years later, she'd likely feel a lot more out of place. One of the things she thought connected her to the Ruewens was their sense of loss. She'd just left her entire family and they had lost their only daughter. But! I think she'd bond with Wylie. He lost both his parents and could understand her better. They could develop a strong, sibling-like bond until Sophie was adopted. And I think they'd be much more open to it and there wouldn't be any adoption drama because they'd have been through the process before.

On top of all this, Jolie would still be there as an older sibling to the two of them. And all three of them would have connections to the Black Swan. I just think the three of them as a family is a really cure idea so I'll probably be thinking about that for a while.

there's definitely a lot more repercussions of Jolie's survival that I could talk about, like how they'd know there was a Neverseen from much earlier on, but I'll stop here for now. This is super interesting and I'd love to talk more about their little family if you'd want me too, so thank you for the ask!! /g