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when-wax-wings-melt · 6 months

Text

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]

#this id was HELLLLLLL by the way. like I had to take breaks and stuff this was TERRIBLE #i hope it's good enough because fellows. my eye is actively twitching from writing that shit out manually #anyways hope u enjoy the essay might make it somewhere sometime blah blah #summer rambles #kotlc #keeper of the lost cities #the essay was actually mainly about sophie's insecurity but #it's even better w the transitions #i'll have you know my class LOVED this they were giggling and chortling and such #if the quality is bad. well. good thing we have these lovely image descriptions

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