#project moonlark

[frizzle-mcshizzle]

what r your thoughts on forkle /gen

as a writer i think hes a very well written morally grey character, as a reader i hate his freaking guts here is the list i literally keep in my notes of why i hate him.

he broke into her room who knows how many times when she was a little girl (idc if he had REASONS its FREAKING WEIRD)

he asked Sophie to meet him (a grown man) on a island alone and when she took Keefe with her he told her she had to come in the cave with him alone

he just about left Dex for dead in the Neverseen hideout and only brought him because Sophie refused to go without him. Dex was a innocent child. Dex wasn’t just anyones child he was a member of the collectives child someone who he worked with side by side for years, and he was still willing to leave him behind (he later said he was going to back for him but like...)

Dex ended up with scars because he didn’t bring enough elixirs for him.

he thinks of Sophie as an accomplishment and doesn’t expect her to want him to think of her as anything more (Everblaze, Page 447.)

he calls her his moonlark. which sounds sweet until you realize that’s her project code name he’s literally calling her “my creation” aka “my weapon”

he will act very cryptic and only give out bits of information, just enough that she will look into what he was talking about then act proud and flatter her, saying things like “i underestimated you kids” when she and her friends figure out the thing he wanted her to know.

he will tell her about problems in the world making it sound horrible and hopeless, then saying "this is the thing we made you to fix, but that’s your choice"

he’s constantly switching from dehumanizing her because she is the Moonlark and it’s her job to change things and this is what she was created for. then treating like his child at the drop of a hat

excludes her parents from the conversations and tells her she has control over her life, not them, like she isn’t a young teen

he told a fourteen year old that if he and the rest of collective died Sophie and her friends would take their place, not care about what kind of pressure that would put on her. then admits to grooming Sophie and her friends to lead the Black Swan one day

he is constantly reading her mind and never lets her have her thoughts to herself but expects her to not read other peoples minds.

he put all this importance on Prentice and told a child that they where going to use her to brake into prison and almost got another child killed who didn't even need to be there (they could have done that without her they have dwarves)

finds it funny to exclude Sandor from conversations that could potentially put her in danger

had Sophie recruit other children, which is disturbing, because fine they don’t have a choice if she’s in danger but putting other children in danger and taking on missions is completely unnecessary, he could have done it himself or had adults do it.

Ignored tam being taken by the neverseen, and told them to focus on other things

Not to mention he basically took advantage of Emma Foster's health issues, knowing full well he'd be taking her child away from her and her husband at a later date. Sophie's human parents were done so dirty, and all they wanted to do was let her be a kid for as long as possible

[you-have-been-frizzled]

“Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good – misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous."

- Frankenstein, Mary Shelley 

@crymeariveronceagain asked me to draw Sophie crying over that Frankenstein quote, so here it is!!

@stopstealingtomatoes @kale-of-the-forbidden-cities @winterfireice @the-one-and-only-aroace @honey-the-dinosaur-ate-our-kid @xanadaus @fr3akteenager @official-kenralie-fanbase

[icantrememberwhoiwaslastdecember]

another cool kotlc au idea

mr forkle actually created project moonlark to try and merge sophie's abilities so he can bring back his dead lover (which ever one said that they had a lover once)

never told the other twin or anybody else

not even sophie

[theunmappedstar]

also did you ever think about how sophie's notebook is sentient

WHAT 😭

[bookwyrminspiration]

power is SUCH a vague word what tf are you talking about ever shannon. what are you saying. revoking her right to use that word

[soulless-angel25]

you like kotlc?

Yep! I think that the story is really interesting overall. And the concept of this world that is completely hidden from us is soooo intriguing, and the fact that there are so many things that we just don't know because Canon (Sophie) doesn't know either is really fun! It also provides a lot of opportunities for fanfic to be made for it, just fan content in general. It's like how I have a few ideas for heavily canon divergent AU's for it. I've also seen some really good fan content as well!

So yes. I very much do like KOTLC.

[the-way-astray]

reading legacy is making me super annoyed because nobody ever criticizes forkle for project moonlark to the extent that they criticize sophie's bio parents

[alaydabug2]

Hey guys

What the actual frick

Like I just got to thinking how messed up project moonlark is

Like I've thought it was before but it just REALLY sank in

Like I gwt that their were good intentions behind this but...

You're trying to tell me that forkle decided

"Hey let's make a whole life and give her crazy powers so she can correct our world"

Ignore the fact that they were planning to wait until she was older to bring her the the lost cities

How messed up is that to do that and rip her away from the people she knows and loves without her getting a say

And not give her the information she asks for about HER life and HER memories that were stolen from her

And then you just expect her to go along with this

"You have a say in this" MY ASS

She doesn't

Whether it's intentional or not that's guilt tripping her into it cause that's the whole reason she was born

And she feels like if she can't do it she was created for nothing and is useless

Idc how much firkle denies

Sophie was created to be a weapon

But she shouldn't

She's just a kid who needs a break

And then people who don't understand the pressure of the whole reason she was born get upset when she tries to make a stand for herself (like the storehouse)

JUSTACE FOR SOPHIE FOSTER

[you-have-been-frizzled]

elves should be fundamentally than humans in more ways than just all of their eyes being blue and their abilities, there should be little things that make humans go

“there’s something diffident about that them, something wrong, something not human” but they can never put their finger it

that’s the true reason that Sophie was treated like an outcast, not because she was a smart and nerdy twelve year old, but because there was wrong about her in ways she was completely unaware of and that the humans around her couldn’t understand.

when she’d walk it looks like they are almost floating on air, when they run they seem to fly and when she’d jump they stay in the air just a little to long. when she’d swim the water seems to move with her, she can stay underwater long enough to make you think she’d drowned. butterflies will land on her more often than they should, and she could find where the birds are singing from without any thought. she could find the prettiest rocks in the rivers ones that sparkle like precious jewels.

her existence makes humans uncomfortable, and they can’t understand why, all they know is whatever they’re looking at can’t be completely human, and it terrifies them because the unknown is something we have learned to fear.

Sophie should have noticed Fitz because it was the first time she saw someone who just was different, someone who acted just a little wrong, someone like her.

when she got to the lost cities she thought she would finally stop feeling like an other.

but she didn’t.

her eyes are the wrong color and glow red when she’s upset, she will finish her mentors sentences when they are teaching her history of her new world that she should never known, her mental strength is too much for someone her size, she can understand animals in ways she shouldn’t, she can read their minds at any time and they would never know it, she’s a weapon in the body of a child

her existence makes Elves uncomfortable, and they can’t understand why, it terrifies them because the unknown is something we have learned to fear.

[loveydovey-leviathan]

Does anybody ever think about how Sophie was never able to develop herself as a person outside of her role as Project Moonlark because of all her burdens and responsibilities? She had likes and dislikes and things she enjoyed when she was still living with her human family but when she went to the lost cities, she was never given the opportunity to know herself. She doesn't really know what she likes in the elvin world, only what she's good at. Before you know it, almost her entire life has revolved around taking down the Neverseen and she never had the chance to find out who she really is.

[horaitos]

That’s right. He has one card. A very important card. The reason he’s here, most likely. He is going to slit the ghost’s throat with that card.

As if reading his mind on his face, it smiles. It gestures at his empty plate. “Shinigami love apples.”

He is going to use its heartstrings as tooth floss.

—

Or: they both hesitate to press the trigger.

———

My @dnsecretsanta Secret Santa gift for @celestialbruise !

[icantrememberwhoiwaslastdecember]

okay hear me out aGaIn-

re-reading the kotlc graphic novel rn (i finished neverseen on a train and didn't have lodestar ):) and i was like-

in the gethen scene, what if forkle wasn't there?? like, what if gethen did grab sophie and get away?

what if the neverseen swayed her to their side, making her believe in evil??

like imagine project moonlark completely backfiring

[thishumanformislimiting]

this “theory” has been bouncing around in my head like the dvd screensaver logo for about 6 months now

So calla helped with project moonlark but she also helped make a bunch of sleep plants and stuff right?

calla is almost exactly the Telugu word for dream…

[neverseen-official]

do you have a evil version of project moonlark or smth

When we first heard the name Project Moonlark, we assumed it was about an actual moonlark and set about making our own version. Moonlarks are pretty hard to obtain, though, so we used geese instead. We couldn't figure out how to give them elvin special abilities, but we did successfully teach them to hold a knife and use matches.

[bookwyrminspiration]

Had Sophie stayed in the human world until she was older like the Black Swan planned for her to, do you think their experiment would have worked?

They want her to bring change to the human world, but an elf raised as a human being who came to the Lost Cities as an adult would have incredibly hard time adjusting or taking the Black Swan seriously for reasons that I think are fairly obvious. She would have had a life, with friends and family in the human world. Then they would require her to sever all of those relationships because they want her to bring change to a world that she did not even know existed. Once she got to the Lost Cities, she would have incredibly hard time integrating to the different clothes, food and culture. Once she got past those hurdles, she would have to work incredibly hard to be taken seriously. She would be a grown woman that no one in the Lost Cities is connected to, who is advocating for change in a world that she has no connection to. I am thinking of real life equivalents of this, like a child being raised in Russia, who only speaks Russian and thinks of themselves as Russian, is brought to the United States as an adult to tackle American social issues. They do not understand American social issues and it will take a long time before they do. Exchange the word Russia for human, Russian for human world and United States for Elvin world. Her credibility would be very low in this scenario, as she would struggle to get people to hear her thoughts on issues especially because she is not impacted by these problems. Moreso, she would view herself as a human being and would ultimately defend humans and even betray the elves if she felt the elves were going to harm humans.

Ultimately, the Black Swan would not work out. They would bring her to the world of the elves, use her for a different perspective then bring her back to the human world. Then, there is the problem of her abilities and lifespan. Would they leave her with her abilities and do nothing to do with them? Would they leave her, an immortal being, in the human world to spend the rest of her life with people who live quickly and die quickly? That is an interesting way to handle things.

There are so many ways the plans of the Black Swan could have gone wrong.

That depends on what you consider "working" for Project Moonlark. If we're going solely with the goal of bringing a new perspective to the Lost Cities, that still would've been achieved; she still would've been raised with the same human mindset that the Black Swan was looking for. If we're going with the goal for her "to be something new", then she still would've been that.

I personally don't think the problems you're suggesting would be too different from how it is now in the series. Perhaps they waited until Sophie was in her 20s or 30s, before people could notice she wasn't aging, but that's still so small compared to the elven lifespan. That's hardly a difference to their world and those who've lived in it for centuries.

Sophie now still had a hard time adjusting (and is still adjusting, over 2 years later), she had friends and family that she had to sever ties with, she's not used to the clothing and culture--though she has gotten used to the food for the most part. I think almost everything you're proposing isn't unique to an adult Sophie, it's the same as she's going through as a young teen.

I do think you make a good point about having no connections, though. The elven world is incredibly isolated, and she wouldn't have the connections or circle she does without being adopted and going to school, both things that only happened because she's a kid. However, I do think that could be compensated for via connections in the Black Swan. She wouldn't have as much exposure outside of them, but she wouldn't be completely on her own. However, that does also mean there's no easy way for other people to learn about her and hear about her the way there is now, but there could be gossip that makes her more known, people just wouldn't first learn of her at school as her peers.

Based on my understanding, I think the biggest problem they'd encounter is Sophie herself. She goes along with other people's suggestions and submits to certain authority because she's a kid, because she doesn't have the same sway as an adult. Her parents can tell her to do things and discipline her, the Black Swan can partially shut her out and guide her citing her youth. Adult Sophie would be an adult. Redundant statement, I know, but my point is she would be more on their level. She'd have more autonomy, be more individual. Even as unaware as she is, she's more equal. She doesn't have to listen to what people tell her, she doesn't have to do what they say. She's an adult who can do what she wants for her own reasoning. So the Black Swan would have to truly work with her more to cooperate.

However, at a certain point she doesn't have a choice in the matter. She has abilities, she doesn't quite fit in the human world (though in both cases she still sees herself as more human), the Black Swan can hold info over her head (like her parents/origin), etc. She's tied to them and I think would always end up with them and in the elven world.

The way I see it, Project Moonlark still would've worked, it just would've played out differently. Different people in her life, different setting, different dynamics between her and others. But ultimately the core of it the same. Her being a child is crucial to the story as we know it, but not crucial to Project Moonlark. Even if she prefers humans, she's not going to turn a blind eye to elven problems and ignore everything. Her age isn't a huge factor in the project on its own, so a lot of the details (leaving her life behind, struggling to adapt, etc.) are ubiquitous!

[kotlc-fanfiction]

famous last words fic my beloved

Now I Know That I Can't Make You Stay - justmelookingbackatme

Summary: Tiergan tries to convince Prentice to give up on Project Moonlark before he gets exiled. It doesn't work.

My Thoughts: Throughout this whole fic I was having the strangest sense of deja vu, despite not having any direct memory of it in my spotty brain archives. Sure enough, I finish up, go in the comments and I have been unwell about this fic before. Not remembering it was a blessing because I got to re-experience that pain all over. In all seriousness this is another in a long string of beautiful Tiertice fics and I am always a fan of Alden finding a fist in his face for the sillies of it all

Cover: