One Of My Favorite Parts Of Any Fantasy, Including Keeper Of The Lost Cities, Is The Inclusion Of Multiple

One of my favorite parts of any fantasy, including Keeper of the Lost Cities, is the inclusion of multiple races. My Roman Empire (one of six, anyways, lol) is the idea that humans could've been alive when other "homo-" species and Neanderthals and stuff existed and the fact that they would've had to interact. It's the same with the question, "What would happen if aliens came to Earth?" There's this weird knowledge that they are also intelligent and have these similar processes to us but they have fundamental differences to us, because they're different species.

Maybe it's because they're slightly less developed ("perfected"), such as Neanderthals to humans or us to some weird scifi aliens. Maybe it's because they have longer life spans (Fae, elves, vampires, y'know) or they live in completely different places with maybe different magic systems or something (mermaids who live in the OCEAN with more storm powers and powers of seduction versus fairies who typically live in more natural areas than humans with weird druggy shiz and mischievous abilities or sometimes nature powers/godlike ones).

Either way, there's a deep dive into completely different habitats and biological patterns and in a good one it might even have to look at what makes humanity what it is. Why is this species different from humans? What fundamental traits do humans have that they maybe don't, or have a more evolved form of? That's also why I am happy to see Shannon at least mention that cultural progress and innovation is so slow in the Lost Cities versus in the human world because she takes this idea of mortality rushing humans to do things faster versus immortality kind of allowing elves to be more sluggish.

Sophie coming to the Lost Cities, and even being born in the first place, ushers in a weird sense of urgency to the elven world that they hadn't had before. More death, more reform, more modernistic ideals slamming into their society before they can fully comprehend it as a human raised girl and two organizations who have studied humans extensively all try to change the world.

Gnomes are pretty cool for this reason too since they're so different in their plantiness and alternative powers and different diseases. They are so clearly different from other species and I think its interesting they seem to care a little less about the fact that they were literally uprooted from their home than they should be. As plant humans, they also probably care more about their own survival and sticking around than the reforms that other species might start which is why once they root themselves in the backyards of elvin homes they're content remaining there.

Okay please tell me if the first book ever says something about this but I don't remember it mentioning who Fitz's competition was before Sophie came around. Since I imagine Timkin had probably trained Stina from a young age (having gone to Exillium and all), I also headcannoned that Stina and Fitz were top splotching competitors. And it really annoyed everyone because they obviously wanted to hate her. BUT Fitz secretly really loved the challenge and felt it exhilarating to be so close to failure (Golden Boy needs some adventure), even if he always won anyways. He still didn't like her off court yet though, and her attitude after losing brought him back to his senses every time.

Now that they're both older and less annoying in their respective ways, competition would be even more fun between them, and way more friendly. Maybe Stina finally wins and Fitz can't decide if he really likes being humbled by her or hates that he actually lost.

I had a couple of external sources of Stina x Fitz for a hot second there on my feed but it appears Stina x Jensi has taken over that tiny spot of Stina shipping space. There is nothing wrong with Stina and Jensi, I think they're cute, but now I feel like its my duty to post more about Stina and Fitz just so everybody is well annoyed and aware of them by the time I'm through haha. Who knows? Maybe Shannon will pull a surprise on us and it'll become canon (thats delusional).

I'm also still not a very good artist or writer so if I just get everybody else on board I'll be able to lovingly and gratefully soak up their beautiful content and deservedly give them all the compliments for their amazing talent

As a human I don't always like reminding myself that Alden was at least 100 when his future wife was being born but I try to move past that. And also, why is it so common to focus on match packets at 15 if elves live forever and can find matches hundreds of years younger than them? Like, imagine you get all five before you're 200 and then when you're 1900 or something some perfect elf shows up that could've been a good match but you squandered all your match lists already.

Elvin age gaps should work like human age gaps.

Five years is a big deal when you’re 12 and 17, but they don’t really matter once you’re 20 and 25, and they matter even less once you’re 35 and 40.

So like for elves it would be like, a 50 year age gap is huge when you’re 20 and 70, but not a big deal when you’re 250 and 300.

A 100 year age gap is a lot when you’re 40 and 140, but doesn’t even matter once you’re 310 and 410.

A 1000 year age gap is INSANE when you’re 200 and 1,200, but if you’re 2,500 and 3,500, nobody cares.

I feel like it shouldn’t just be “once they’re adults all gaps just kinda cease to exist” like ear pointiness being a thing does show that as people get very old there are visual reminders that the person is your elder and it feels like it doesn’t mean nothing

A short excerpt I wrote (from a larger excerpt) about Stina's friends, who are OCs of mine. They aren't very plot relevant but I've always loved contemporary fantasy so I don't care lol.

"The Frasers, Forsts, and Corlans were all family friends of the Heks, and they all had children close to Stina's age. Sirri Fraser was one of Stina's "henchmen", as everybody called her two best friends. Her family owned a slightly smaller pegasus sanctuary on their property. The land was full of dug out caves to hold them. Clayton Forst, her other henchman, was part of a less significant family, with two parents out of the nobility. Clayton was hidden by her family for being a twin. She was treated well at home but she absolutely wasn't allowed to leave the property until school started and she was able to pretend to be younger by going in the year after, making her older than both Stina and Sirri. Nikk Corlan and Calum Fraser were best friends, and the Corlans basically did whatever they wanted as their parents didn't pay attention. Nikk could've almost been a nice father figure to his younger sister, Lilia, but he also didn't care what she did with her time. They were pretty relaxed and only hung out with the girls when they were trying to mess with Sirri or had nothing better to do. Otherwise, they stayed with their human-inspired boy band and did whatever elvin boys do when no one was there to keep their tomfoolery in check.

It's Coiffe/Timkin in the wild

Are we really shipping couples that are already in a loving committed relationship?

Do you ship...