u/kotlc6898678

Having a major dislike or even outright hatred toward a character is completely normal. I mean, I’m pretty well known for being a major Keefe, Sokeefe, and Sophie slanderer. I write rants about them because I get frustrated with the way their characters and relationships are progressing. Some people agree with me, some disagree, and some have even made slander posts about my FAV.

(And yes, FAV. As in Fitz Avery Vacker. Get it? Okay, I’ll shut up now.)

And honestly? I LOVE that people disagree with me. That’s half the fun of being in a fandom. I don't expect everyone to suddenly see the light and realize that my opinions are obviously correct. 😼 (I'M JOKING OK?!)

But some of you really need to learn where to draw the line between fandom banter and taking things way too seriously.

There is a HUGE difference between saying, “I hate this character, they annoy me so much,” and making posts about manifesting their gruesome death. THEY ARE TEENAGERS. 😭

Like... most of you are literally older than the characters you're wishing death upon. Please take a step back and realize how insane that sounds.

And before someone says, “It's just a joke!” — yeah, I know. Dark humor exists. I'm not saying nobody is ever allowed to joke about fictional characters dying. I'm talking about when the joke stops being funny and the fandom drama starts getting genuinely hostile.

The same applies to shipping.

You cannot call someone a psycho or crazy bitch because they prefer Fitzphie over Sokeefe. You cannot tell someone to go to a psych ward because they like Sokeefe. And you definitely cannot tell someone who enjoys BOTH ships to jump off a bridge because they refuse to pick a side.

Like??? What are we doing here???

It's a fantasy series. These characters are not going to come through your screen and personally ruin your life because somebody made a post praising them.

And I say this as someone who makes plenty of slander posts myself. I am absolutely not above making fun of characters I dislike. I will rant about Keefe. I will rant about Sophie. I will rant about Sokeefe. That's part of the fun for me.

But if I see a wholesome post about a character I don't like, I simply scroll. I don't need to comment “ERM ACTUALLY 🤓☝️,” write a 17-paragraph response explaining why they're wrong, or try to personally convert them to Fitzphie.

I just scroooooollllll.

Sometimes you have to accept that not every post is an invitation to debate. If someone clearly doesn't want to argue, leave them alone. If you know you're going to get annoyed by someone's opinion, you can simply... not engage with it.

It really isn't that difficult.

Also, PLEASE let the Cursed Trio exist independently.

If someone makes a post about Fitz, they don't necessarily need someone commenting “BUT KEEFE—”

If someone makes a post about Keefe, they don't necessarily need someone bringing up Fitz.

And if someone makes a post about Sophie, we don't need the entire Sokeefe vs. Fitzphie war breaking out underneath it.

Sometimes people just want to talk about ONE CHARACTER. 😭

And honestly, you can't complain about Keefe slander in this day and age while acting like Fitz and Sophie haven't gotten absolutely obliterated by this fandom too.

Personally—READ THIS AGAIN. P-E-R-S-O-N-A-L-L-Y—I think Fitz is a better character and love interest than Keefe.

That is MY opinion.

You don't have to agree with me. You don't even have to understand why I think that. And that's perfectly fine.

That's literally the point of a fandom.

There are thousands of people with different interpretations, preferences, favorite characters, least favorite characters, ships, headcanons, theories, and opinions. Obviously, we're not all going to agree.

Some people will love your favorite character. Some will hate them.

Some people will ship your fav ship. Others will think it has zero chemistry.

Some people will like both ships, while others will hate both.

Someone might write a 2,000-word essay explaining why your favorite character is horrible and disgusting, while someone else writes a 2,000-word essay explaining why they're the best character in the entire series.

And honestly?

That's FUN.

That's what fandom is supposed to be.

You can passionately disagree with someone without genuinely hating them. You can make fun of someone's favorite character without making fun of the person for liking them. You can think someone's ship is terrible without acting like the people who ship it are clinically insane.

You can take your fictional character opinions seriously without taking them TOO seriously.

Because at the end of the day, we're all sitting behind screens arguing about fictional teenagers with magical abilities.

Nobody is winning the Great Keefe vs. Fitz War of 2026.

Shannon Messenger is not going to personally appear at your house and congratulate you for successfully proving that your ship is superior.

So PLEASE just have fun with it.

Make your slander posts, make your appreciation posts, write your essays, defend your favorites and hate fictional characters with every fiber of your being if that's what makes fandom fun for you.

Just remember that there's an actual person on the other side of the screen who might have completely different opinions.

And maybe, just maybe, don't wish death upon them because they like a fictional teenager you don't.

Disagree, argue, slander, debate and have fun.

Just don't take it so seriously that you forget we're all here because we like the same damn books.

(this is also rushed so sorry for any spelling mistakes) I am incredibly happy that keeper of the lost cities isn’t that popular anymore. OK so I do not know how the fandom was when the first four books were out since I joined pre-Covid. But I do know that they were more popular then. Which is understandable because there has been some quality decrease during the entirety of the series. and like this isn’t hate like even though I criticize the book series and deriding and character development so much keep all the lost cities is still one of my favorite books from my childhood. This said I am still happy that it isn’t that popular. I’m sorry to say this, but like the books past book six or absolute dog shit. The plot is all over the play and the romance is so hard to get through a cringes me out. The fandom is at war and it isn’t even an exaggeration. Like the most people I know who are also reading the books are just sticking around to figure out what ending is and personally I do too. If keeper of the lost cities had more fans/ readers, I could guarantee that Shanon would be absolutely dragged through the mud. People call her out on her character, development, writing and so much more. The Fitz vs Keefe beef would be even worse im not kidding bruv. The fandom now is so small that you just have to accept others opinion because you generally don’t hear much about anything about a series. So most of us generally appreciate somebody mentioning kotlc even when it’s like an opinion when we disagree with. If the fandom was bigger… no one could be at piece.

(by the way, I am writing this in a rush, so sorry if it has any spelling mistakes) but oh my gosh, I hate Stina so much. It isn’t funny anymore. Like recently, I have seen people glazing the fuck out of her everybody’s like oh my gosh she’s so cool blah blah, blah blah blah. Like how could you like her? Like first of all, she’s a bully she is a mean bully. She constantly bullied dex for no reason. Cause why are your hating because his parents are bad match when your parents are technically a bad match too? Like she’s one of the elves who agree with the current system. Fitz got dragged through the mud because he didn’t want to date Sophie after it came out she was unmatchable and he wanted to preserve his families honor. Which is understandable because like they went through so much because of Alvar. And Fitz has nothing else going for him anymore but his amazing family. Like Sophie is genuinely better at everything. But stina shows those views and she has fans? Not only that, but she’s also kind of a bitch. Sorry for my language but come on guys be serious. You can’t hate on other characters for being arrogant or supporting the system in a way and then still like stina. Cause she’s like worse like she did animal cruelty in book 2 when her and her family tried to kidnap silveny. And then she was also just a rude bitch. She constantly puts down other people and belittles them and their accomplishments. She was so mean for no reason then she joined team Valiant. She had like character development for five minutes then she went back to being a bitch. Omg just take all her Screen Time and give it to Dex.

I genuinely don’t understand the Marella/Linh ship hype.

Don’t get me wrong, I love LGBTQ+ representation, but I genuinely do not understand why this ship is so popular. Maybe I’m missing something, but I honestly can’t remember them having some amazing bonding moment or a particularly deep relationship in canon, which is why I’m so confused whenever I see people talk about them like they’re one of the biggest ships in the fandom.

It feels like a lot of the hype comes from the fact that Linh is a hydrokinetic and Marella is a pyrokinetic, so they’re opposites and therefore apparently soulmates or whatever. But having opposite abilities is not automatically chemistry. Fire and water is a cool aesthetic, sure, but that alone does not create a relationship.

I’m not even saying people can’t ship them, because obviously ship whatever you want, but I genuinely don’t understand why this pairing gets so much hype when they barely have any meaningful interactions compared to other characters. Their relationship feels more based on fanon potential than anything that actually happened in the books, and I think the popularity makes it seem like they had this huge romantic buildup when, from what I remember, they really didn't.

Maybe there are scenes I’m forgetting, but I genuinely cannot think of a major bonding moment between them. So what am I missing? Why is this ship so popular? Is it literally just the fire-and-water opposites thing, or is there some interaction between them that everyone else saw and I completely missed?

The locations of the Lost Cities

I genuinely don't understand how humans haven't discovered at least one of the Lost Cities by accident.

Yes, they have illusions. Fine. But the cities still physically exist somewhere on Earth. They occupy actual space. So what happens when humans map the area? What do satellites see? What happens when someone flies over it, surveys the land, tries to build a road, or digs into the ground?

If humans see an empty field where an entire city is physically located, wouldn't that immediately create some kind of geographical inconsistency? And if the illusion makes humans see something else, then does it also alter satellite images, radar, sonar, geological surveys, and every other form of technology?

Because otherwise, the explanation is basically that humans have somehow explored and mapped the planet while completely failing to notice that massive chunks of physical space are secretly occupied by invisible cities.

I can accept a illusion hiding a city from someone's eyes. I cannot accept an illusion apparently hiding an entire city from every possible form of observation without the books ever properly explaining how that works.

At some point, a human should have tried to build a road through one of these places and hit an invisible building. 😭

Ok so I really hope people do not think I am weird for this, but please hear me out.

I am a fanfic writer myself, but right now my main readers are basically pressuring me to finally finish my two Fitzphie fanfics, so I do not really have the time to start another one. Plus I do not think my writing skills are good enough to actually pull this off the way it deserves.

Anyways, last night I was thinking about possible developments for Book 10 and somehow I randomly remembered my old post about Keefe and Fitz's friendship. So I went back and reread some discussions about their dynamic and how other characters tend to see them.

Then I saw the most PEAK Keefitz animation I have ever seen.

And now I kind of ship them too. (Sue me i ship with Fitz with Sophie and Keefe. oh nooooo!)

Please hear me out because I genuinely think there is something here.

Imagine Sophie and Keefe break up. Maybe something dramatic, maybe they just realize they are not working out, but either way Keefe ends up taking it harder than he lets on. He keeps pretending he is fine because that is what Keefe does, but everyone can tell he is in a terrible mood and trying way too hard to act normal.

Fitz notices immediately.

Not because he is openly emotional about it, but because Fitz knows him well enough to tell when something is wrong. And this is where the fun part starts because Fitz is such a tsundere.

He starts doing little things for Keefe because he is worried about him, but every single act of kindness comes with the most annoyed attitude possible.

Like he brings Keefe something he knows he likes and then acts offended when Keefe thanks him.

"Do not make a big deal out of it."

Or he checks on him after a bad day and immediately follows it up with, "I was just making sure you were not doing anything stupid or whatever"

Everybody can see that he cares except Fitz himself.

Meanwhile Keefe finds this absolutely fascinating.

At first he starts teasing Fitz because he thinks it is funny how easy he is to fluster and annoy. Then the teasing slowly turns into flirting because Keefe realizes that Fitz getting all angry and pissy is hot af.

The problem is that Fitz gets ragebaited by literally everything.

Keefe says one mildly annoying thing and Fitz is immediately ready to argue and insult him playfully but also not for the next twenty minutes.

And somehow, for reasons Keefe himself does not understand, he starts finding that attractive.

Like one day Fitz is in the middle of a rant because Keefe said something stupid and Keefe just sits there thinking, "Oh no."

Because this is no longer a joke.

He actually likes him.

Fitz, on the other hand, is completely in denial because he is too busy trying to convince himself that he definitely does not care what Keefe thinks of him.

Which is exactly what someone who cares way too much would say.

Then you have everyone else watching this train wreck unfold from a distance.

Biana knows, Dex knows, Tam and Linh know.

At some point even random background characters probably know.

Everybody is watching these two act like the most obvious situationship in existence while neither of them will admit what is happening.

The only person who somehow does not figure it out is Sophie. (Obviously.)

Then one day she accidentally catches them making out and suddenly every weird interaction from the past few months makes sense.

I do not even know if I can explain why I like this dynamic so much. I just think they have the perfect combination of personalities for it. Keefe is playful, dramatic, and constantly pushes people's buttons. Fitz is stubborn, intense, and gets annoyed way too easily. The amount of banter they would have would be insane.

Maybe I am completely losing it, but I genuinely think the potential is there.

I'm honestly getting tired of the series acting like the main teenage friend group is the only collection of elves with powerful abilities.

One of the biggest examples is telepathy. The books constantly treat telepathy as this rare, prestigious, and highly valued ability, yet it feels like a huge percentage of the important characters are telepaths. If telepathy is supposed to be uncommon, why does it seem like almost every major Character has it?

The same issue applies to other abilities. The Lost Cities have millions of elves, yet whenever a specific ability is needed, the story almost always turns to a teenager. We're told there are entire groups of elves with abilities like pyrokinesis, but they rarely seem to matter. Marella becomes incredibly important because she develops pyrokinesis, yet there should logically be adult pyrokinesis users somewhere in elven society. Even if many of them have chosen to hide their abilities or avoid using them, it seems unlikely that there wouldn't be at least a few experienced adults who understand their power better than a teenager who only recently manifested it.

More broadly, the worldbuilding sometimes makes it seem as though the Black Swan have access to only a handful of gifted individuals when they should realistically have thousands of options. The Lost Cities have existed for centuries and have extensive records on their citizens. If a group needed telepaths, empaths, pyrokinesis users, or any other rare ability, why does it feel like they can only find teenagers?(The Elven world has a system, whom many aren't satisfied with. So it wouldn't be wrong to assume that Blackswan could recruit more people if they wanted.)

This becomes especially noticeable when new characters are recruited into dangerous situations. Maruca, for example, had barely any experience before becoming involved in conflicts with the Neverseen. The books treat her ability as valuable enough to justify putting her in danger, but surely there are adult Psionipaths who have spent decades mastering the same skill. Why are they never considered?

The Lost Cities are home to millions of elves. Statistically, there should be powerful adults with almost every known ability, many of whom would have far more experience, training, and knowledge than the main cast. Yet the story often acts as if the fate of the entire elven world depends on the same dozen teenagers, which makes the supposedly vast and complex society feel strangely empty.

So I’m a huge bookworm, and a few weeks ago I decided I wanted to write and share my own story. I've been designing characters, drawing them, figuring out their personalities, motivations, etc.

One thing I keep running into is the "comic relief" character.

In almost every book, movie, show, or game I've experienced, there's usually a funny character. The problem is that I don't want a character whose entire personality is just "the funny one." I want them to have depth, goals, flaws, and motivations like everyone else.

What I'm struggling with is that most advice I see boils down to: "Give them a tragic childhood and have them use humor as a coping mechanism." Honestly, that feels overdone to me. A lot of writers seem to do this, and it often turns the character into someone who's either annoying or defined entirely by their trauma.

Another trope I've noticed is the "funny" character who's constantly self-deprecating while somehow also acting like they're the greatest person alive. They'll spend five minutes talking about how much of a disaster they are, then immediately get offended if anyone else agrees.

I want to avoid both of these approaches. I want to write a character who's genuinely funny but also feels like a real person. Someone with depth, goals, flaws, and motivations that aren't just built around a comedy gimmick or a cliché backstory.

Another issue is that whenever I come up with a funny character who actually has a good backstory, personality, and depth, they end up overshadowing the main character. Sometimes they even feel like a better love interest than the person they're supposed to be competing with.

Does anyone have advice on writing funny characters with depth while still keeping them from taking over the story? What makes a comic relief character feel like a complete person without relying on the usual clichés? And how do you keep them entertaining without accidentally making them the most interesting person in the cast?

Okay this is something I don’t see people talk about when people bring up Jolie theories, but like… I feel like it would change WAY more than just Brant’s storyline or the emotional stuff.

Like yeah, I get it. Her story is tragic and people want closure. But in-universe it would basically rewrite a lot of what already happened.

First of all, Brant. His entire character shift and everything he becomes is tied to what happened with Jolie. If she comes back alive, it doesn’t just undo a death, it kind of breaks one of the biggest cause-and-effect moments in the early series. It would make his arc feel way less final or meaningful.

Then there’s the whole idea of consequences in the Lost Cities. The series already shows that elves have insane abilities, but there are still supposed to be limits. So if Jolie is actually connected to theories like her being Elysian, or the mysterious figure people link to the Unraveled cover (the one who looked like they were watching Keefe), or even her being Tinker, then that changes the story in a totally different way than just “she’s alive.”

And honestly, I don’t want another Forkle situation where a huge identity twist happens again. The first time it was like eh, but if more major characters keep turning out to be secretly someone else (like disguised identities or hidden roles), it would start feeling repetitive and like no one is ever actually who they seem.

Also, it would mess with how we view other tragedies in the series. Because Jolie isn’t the only example of loss shaping characters. A lot of motivations in KOTLC come from things that can’t just be reinterpreted later without changing the emotional weight of everything.

On top of that, Jolie theories would affect basically everyone’s understanding of the past. It wouldn’t just be a small character reveal. It would change how readers interpret Brant, the Council’s actions, and even how certain organizations operated behind the scenes.

Like even Sophie knowing about Jolie from the start makes it more complicated. She’s always lived with the fact that Jolie existed and died, and that shaped how she sees Grady and Edaline and even herself a bit. So any twist where Jolie was secretly involved in major events would reframe a lot of Sophie’s understanding of the world too.

And I feel like people underestimate how much the story would have to “recontextualize” for any of these theories to be true. The Lost Cities already struggle with secrets, ability limitations, and hidden histories. If Jolie turns out to be tied into something like Elysian or Tinker or major undercover identities, it basically rewrites a lot of the background lore.

So yeah, I’m not saying people are wrong for theorizing about her, I just think it would change way more than just “Jolie gets a twist reveal.” It would shift how a lot of early-series events are interpreted.

What I would do if I got dropped into the Lost Cities:

1. Stop the Neverseen.

Seriously. I know they're supposed to be this huge threat, but there can't be that many of them. You're telling me an entire civilization of talented elves has been struggling against basically the same group of people for years? I wouldn't magically solve everything, but I'd at least try to get everyone to work together instead of making every decision ten times harder than it needs to be.

1. Convince the elves to reelect the Council.

The Council spends so much time debating things and then somehow still manages to make bad decisions. I'd be campaigning for Council reform on day one.

1. Become best friends with Dex and Biana.

No explanation needed. They're both great characters. Dex is underrated, Biana is awesome, and I feel like they'd be fun to hang out with.

1. Get Sophie and Fitz back together.

Yes, I like Fitzphie. Shocking, I know. I don't care if it's unpopular. They clearly cared about each other, and half their problems came from terrible communication. If people in this series would just sit down and have a normal conversation, so many problems would disappear.

1. If that doesn't work, I'll just get together with Fitz myself.

Before anyone says anything: not in a weird self-insert way. I just think he's cool. This is mostly a joke, but if Sophie doesn't want him, I'll volunteer. I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE!

Im back!!! (I should be studying for a test but oh well)

Tam is literally the only character in the series that I cannot criticize at all.

Most characters have at least one thing that annoys me, one storyline I'd change, or some wasted potential that drives me insane. Tam doesn't really have any of those problems. He's one of the most fleshed out characters in the series, his positive and negative traits balance each other out really well, and unlike a lot of other characters, he actually feels consistent.

Honestly, I just hope Shannon doesn't randomly ruin him in the actual series.

Only major change is Glimmer.

Tam is naturally suspicious of people, especially people who are clearly hiding things, so I never really bought how quickly he started trusting her. In my version, he stays suspicious for a lot longer and keeps questioning her motives even when everyone else starts warming up to her.

Also, no Tam x Glimmer.

Absolutely not.

Other than that, Tam stays pretty much the same.

Now Linh is a completely different story.

Compared to Tam, she honestly lacks depth. Most of the time she just feels like "the nice twin", while Tam gets all the complicated emotions, development, and internal conflicts. Seeing the nice twin and mean twin dynamic for the millionth time in media is honestly exhausting, especially when there was so much potential to do more with her character.

Because of that, I'd completely rebuild her arc around her relationship with water.

In my version, her abilities manifest in a way that almost kills her parents, while she nearly drowns herself during the same incident. An experience like that would leave permanent scars, so instead of seeing water as something calming or beautiful, Linh grows up terrified of it. Swimming becomes impossible for her, deep water sends her into a panic, and every use of her abilities reminds her of the day her life fell apart.

Rather than viewing her powers as a gift, she mostly sees them as a curse.

Everything changes once Ravagog happens.

Flooding the city becomes the biggest moment of her entire arc, because for the first time she's willingly placing her trust in the thing she's feared for years. Water had always represented loss, guilt, and fear, yet suddenly it's helping her protect the people she cares about most. Realizing that her abilities can save lives instead of destroying them completely changes how she views herself, and that realization is what pushes her toward the Black Swan afterward.

Choosing that path becomes entirely her own choice, because she finally understands that her abilities can be used for something good.

Naturally, Tam follows, because she's the person he trusts most.

Another thing I'd change is how easily people seem to influence her.

Linh would still be kind, compassionate, and patient, but kindness doesn't mean accepting everyone who treats you badly. Because of that, she never becomes friends with Stina, Maruca, or Marella. Working alongside them is one thing, actual friendship is another, and years of being rude to people don't suddenly disappear because somebody has a few nicer moments later.

Political disagreements would also become a much bigger part of the twins' relationship.

Tam wants absolutely nothing to do with the Council because he doesn't trust the system at all, while Linh believes lasting change can only happen from the inside. From her perspective, abandoning a broken system accomplishes nothing, somebody actually has to stay and fix it. Neither twin is completely right or completely wrong, which creates some of the first genuinely serious conflicts between them, and allows both of them to stand on their own instead of constantly agreeing with each other.

Okay, now it's Dex's turn.

Unlike Keefe and Sophie, I actually really like Dex, so there aren't many things I'd change about his personality. Most of my issues come from how little the story actually does with him.

For a character who's supposed to be one of Sophie's closest friends, he spends way too much time standing in the background while everyone else gets major storylines. Half the time he's either building something, helping with a mission, or solving a problem for somebody else, and then the story just moves on like he didn't really matter in it.

So instead of changing who Dex is, I'd actually give him an arc.

Everything starts after Everblaze.

One thing that always bothered me is how quickly the ability restrictor gets brushed aside. Dex helped create the thing that was used against Sophie, and while he obviously never wanted her to get hurt, good intentions don't erase what happened.

In my version, that guilt sticks with him for years.

Sophie forgives him pretty quickly, but Dex never fully forgives himself. Every time he sees her use her abilities, every time she gets hurt because of something connected to the Council, that mistake comes back into his head, and it never really leaves.

At the same time, he's becoming more and more frustrated with elven society.

Dex has spent his whole life dealing with the consequences of a reputation he never created, his family gets looked down on, people constantly judge his parents, his brothers are treated differently because they're triplets, and no matter how smart he is, there will always be nobles who think they're above him.

Eventually all of that frustration starts turning into resentment.

Then Alvar shows up.

For probably the first time in his life, someone from one of the most respected families in the Lost Cities looks at Dex and sees more than a bad reputation, Alvar respects his intelligence, respects his inventions, and treats him like someone important.

Honestly, Dex falls for it because he's tired of being overlooked.

When Alvar starts talking about the Neverseen, Dex listens, and some of what they're saying actually makes sense to him, he's seen the flaws in the system his entire life, he's lived with them.

Joining the Neverseen doesn't feel like joining a group of villains.

It feels like finally doing something about the problems nobody else wants to fix.

People listen to him there, his ideas matter there, and for the first time in a long time, he feels important.

Of course that doesn't last.

The longer he spends with them, the harder it becomes to ignore what they're actually doing, whatever good intentions they might have started with are long gone, and hurting innocent people in the name of change is still hurting innocent people.

Everything finally falls apart when Sophie's human parents get kidnapped.

That becomes the point where he can't keep making excuses anymore.

Whatever problems he has with the nobility, whatever problems he has with the Council, Sophie's parents have absolutely nothing to do with any of it.

So he helps save them.

He knows exactly what that choice is going to cost him, the Neverseen will see it as betrayal, his friends might never trust him again, and if everything goes wrong, he could lose both sides.

He does it anyway.

The rescue actually works, Sophie's parents get out, and for a moment it feels like there might still be a way back.

The Neverseen catches him right after.

His friends are there when it happens, Sophie, Fitz, Biana, and the others all see it unfold in real time.

One moment Dex is helping get everyone to safety, the next a gorgodong is on him, one of those mutated beasts from Book 6, and it slams him straight into a wall with enough force that Dex gets seriously injured.

The impact is so violent it looks like he might not get back up at all.

That moment changes everything, because now nobody can pretend he didn't choose a side, and nobody can deny what he risked for them.

Even if trust isn't repaired instantly, everyone finally understands where he stands.

That becomes the point where things start shifting, where Dex is no longer just the friend in the background, but someone who actually made a choice that cost him everything.

Things stabilize for a while, but it doesn't stay that way because Gisela gets involved.

Instead of threats, she uses something worse, manipulation through Rex.

Gisela knows Dex would do almost anything for his family, especially for his brother, so she slowly feeds him hope.

Maybe the Neverseen knows something the Council doesn't.

Maybe there is a way to help abilityless elves.

Maybe there is a way to help Rex.

Dex wants to believe it.

Even when part of him knows it's dangerous, even when part of him suspects he's being played, the idea of fixing what his brother has gone through is enough to pull him back in.

So he gets dragged into the Neverseen again, because he can't let go of the possibility that Rex might finally get a chance.

That puts him in a terrible position where he's constantly lying to people he cares about while working alongside people he knows are dangerous and Dex isn't just the smart kid building gadgets in the background.

He's forced to make impossible choices, carry secrets that eat at him, and figure out who he even is when both sides are pulling him apart.

The best part is that he doesn't have a crush on Sophie. So no weird crush-cuff scenes.

Overall, I'd rewrite him because he has some of the most wasted potential in the entire series, and I think he deserved an actual storyline instead of spending half the books getting pushed to the side.

Biana is one of those characters I actually like, but she gets stuck in a very specific box most of the time, where she is either “Fitz’s sister,” “the pretty Vacker,” or just part of the group without much space to exist outside of that.

So I’d keep her personality the same, but I’d build her arc around how suffocating that box actually is, and what happens when it finally breaks her confidence instead of just irritating her.

First thing I’d lean into is her relationship with her ability.

Instead of it just being something she has, I’d make it something she actively resents at times, because it constantly reinforces how invisible she feels inside the Vacker household. Fitz is always the center of attention, always the one people talk about, and even Biana’s strengths end up feeling smaller in comparison, like nothing she does ever fully registers.

That builds this quiet pressure in her, where she is always trying to prove she is just as important, even if nobody is actually asking her to.

At the same time, her relationship with Fitz starts off really complicated.

In the beginning, it is not just normal sibling dynamics, it is comparison, constant indirect expectations, and people only talking to her because of him. That slowly builds resentment, because it is hard to feel like your identity exists separately when every conversation drags him into it.

But that changes over time.

Once she sees the pressure Fitz is under from their parents and the Vacker image, she starts understanding that he is not just being favored, he is also being trapped. That shift turns their relationship into something more balanced, less competition, more shared weight.

Then everything breaks after the Vespera incident.

That is the moment where all of Biana’s internal pressure finally snaps.

She falls into this really dark emotional space where it is not just insecurity anymore, it is overwhelm, guilt, and the feeling that she completely failed at proving herself in any meaningful way.

The scars become part of that too, not just physically, but mentally, because they constantly remind her of how quickly things can go wrong and how powerless she felt in that moment.

After that, her confidence is basically gone for a while. She is buried under doubt, anxiety, and this constant fear that she is always one mistake away from proving everyone right about her being “less than” the rest of the group.

That changes how she acts in missions, how she talks to people, even how she sees herself in comparison to Sophie, Keefe, Fitz, and Dex.

Over time, she slowly starts rebuilding herself, but it is not clean or instant, and it definitely does not go back to how she was before.

Overall, I would not change Biana’s core personality. I would just let the Vacker pressure actually break her confidence for a while, and then build her back up into someone who is strong because she understands what it feels like to lose that sense of self completely, not because she was always confident to begin with.

The next part is the Song twins! :)

I know I mostly make posts complaining about things that annoy me in the series, so I thought it'd be fun to make a post about how I would actually rewrite it instead.

Characters

And who better to start with than the fandom's least favorite character and my personal favorite, Fitz Vacker.

A lot of the changes I'd make to Fitz are about making his character arc feel more connected and giving his flaws actual reasons instead of having them show up whenever the plot needs drama.

First, Fitz's breakdown in Exile after Alden is almost killed stays exactly the same. I actually think that moment makes complete sense. He's a kid watching his dad fall apart and he's under a ridiculous amount of stress. Of course he's not going to handle it well.

I would also give him another breakdown later in the book after Sophie gets seriously injured. Instead of being angry, he's mostly scared. He never got the chance to properly apologize to her, and now he's terrified that he might never get that chance. I think that would show a more vulnerable side of him and make his feelings a lot clearer.

One thing I would completely remove is the matchmaking argument. I know it's supposed to show Fitz's flaws, but I honestly think there are way better ways to do that.

After Alvar's betrayal, I'd have Fitz start resenting his parents a lot more.

Not only did Alvar completely destroy the Vacker family's reputation, but instead of helping Fitz deal with everything that happened, Alden and Della end up putting even more pressure on him. Since Alvar ruined the "perfect Vacker family" image, all of those expectations get dumped onto Fitz.

He's expected to be the perfect son, the perfect Telepath, and basically the person responsible for restoring the Vacker name. Meanwhile, Biana gets kind of overlooked because everyone's so focused on Fitz and what he's supposed to accomplish.

This is also when his parents start pushing the matchmaking stuff even harder. From Fitz's perspective, it feels like they're trying to control every part of his future. He's already struggling with the pressure of being the only Vacker son left, and now he's being told who he should be with and what his future is supposed to look like.

Over time, all of that pressure starts turning into resentment. Not because he hates his parents, but because he's exhausted. He feels like nobody actually cares about what he wants. They care about what he represents.

This is where I'd start giving him actual anger issues. Not random outbursts, but anger that's been building up for years because of the pressure, grief, and frustration he's carrying around.

Later, when he and Sophie are attacked by Umber in Book 7, I'd use that as a major turning point for his character. The echoes would still affect him, and he'd still struggle with controlling his emotions. Eventually things get so bad that he almost kills Alvar.

But the worst part wouldn't be what he almost does to Alvar. It would be what happens to him afterward.

All of that rage, hatred, and guilt would make the echoes spiral completely out of control. Fitz would end up in a near-death state because the echoes are literally feeding off all of those emotions. For the first time, he'd be forced to face the fact that his anger isn't just hurting the people around him anymore. It's destroying him too.

That moment would completely shake him.

For the first time, he'd have to face the fact that he's become consumed by his anger and that continuing down this path is only going to hurt everyone, including himself. Instead of just moving on from it, I'd have him spend time genuinely questioning himself and trying to figure out where everything went wrong.

Eventually, this would lead to one of the most important conversations in his character arc. Fitz and Sophie would finally sit down and be honest with each other about their fears, mistakes, and everything they've been keeping bottled up. No arguing, no misunderstandings, just an actual conversation. I think it would be a great way to deepen their cognate connection and strengthen their friendship.

Instead of Fitz's development feeling like a bunch of disconnected moments, this would give him a full arc. He starts as someone desperately trying to live up to impossible expectations, develops unhealthy ways of coping with all that pressure, hits rock bottom when his rage nearly gets both Alvar and himself killed, and then slowly starts learning how to be his own person instead of the person everyone expects him to be.

Overall, I'd make Fitz a character whose biggest flaws come from the pressure of trying to be perfect. His story would be less about pointless drama and more about someone learning that he doesn't have to spend his entire life trying to be the perfect Vacker.

Okay, now Keefe.

I’m being completely real here, he’s my least favorite main character, so out of everyone, he’s the one I’d change the most.

I don’t think he’s useless or anything like that, his story just gets messy sometimes, and it starts taking up space in ways that don’t really feel needed.

So yeah, I’d basically redo a lot of his character.

First change, Keefe and Sophie are not a couple, and I’m cutting that entire thing out.

Romance isn’t the problem, I just think his story works way better when it stays focused on him instead of constantly looping back to Sophie every other arc.

Next, Gisela is straight up evil from the beginning, no soft side, no “maybe she cares” moments, just cold and clear from the start.

She keeps Keefe around purely because he helps her look like a normal woman in public, so he exists for her image, nothing more.

Keefe doesn’t really walk around thinking she’s some amazing mom anyway, but there’s still that small part of him that wants it to be more complicated than it is, so when it’s revealed she’s the leader of the Neverseen, it still hurts him a lot, even if it isn’t shocking in the traditional sense.

What hits him hardest is realizing he wasn’t wrong about her, he was just avoiding the full truth, and that she genuinely doesn’t care about him at all, not emotionally, not personally, not in any real way.

After that, his empathy ability breaks, same idea as Vespera, it just shuts off completely, and suddenly he can still understand emotions in a logical way, but actually feeling them is gone.

Keefe still stays Keefe though, he still jokes around, he still acts normal most of the time, but his confidence drops a lot because he can’t rely on that usual “I’ve got this” attitude anymore, and he has to actually sit with himself in a way he never really did before.

Gisela also stops being something he constantly talks about, because thinking about her nonstop just drags him down, so he tries to push her out of his head as much as possible even though she still affects everything.

Meanwhile his friends are still in the middle of fighting the Neverseen while he’s stuck dealing with everything that just happened, Sophie, Fitz, Biana, Dex, all of them are risking their lives while he’s basically sidelined, and that guilt builds up fast.

Even without empathy, he keeps trying to prove himself, he keeps trying to show he matters, he keeps trying to earn a place where he belongs, because if he doesn’t have the ability that made him feel special, then he has to figure out what he is without it.

What does he actually bring to any of this, why would anyone still need him, and what is he supposed to be now.

Instead of just dropping him back into the story like nothing happened, I’d have him sit in that confusion for a while, just lost and frustrated and trying to figure out where he fits.

Eventually his empathy comes back, but it doesn’t instantly fix everything, it just makes him realize more slowly that his value was never tied to it in the first place.

Keefe is still just Keefe, and that’s the part that actually matters.

Overall, Keefe gets the biggest rewrite from me, not because I hate him, but because his story had the most wasted potential, and it works way better when it’s more personal, more consistent, and not constantly pulled into bigger plot chaos.

Okay, now Sophie.

I’m gonna be honest, I actually don’t like Sophie as a character at all either, so this is very much me rewriting her from the ground up.

First thing, she is way too much of a Mary Sue in the original story, and I’d change that by actually making her powers come with real consequences instead of just making her stronger every time something happens.

In my version, using her inflicting actually damages her mentally over time, like it slowly starts messing with her head and her sense of identity, so instead of being this “perfect experiment” who just keeps leveling up, she becomes someone who is clearly powerful but also unstable in a very real way because of it.

Second thing, I’d change how she comes across socially.

A lot of people already talk about her being “pick me” or trying too hard to be the cool tomboy girl who is different from other girls, so I’d actually lean into fixing that by making it more obvious that she’s insecure and overcompensating a lot, instead of it just reading like a personality trait she naturally has.

So instead of her trying to act effortlessly “not like other girls,” it would feel more like she is constantly trying to figure out how she is supposed to act in a world she doesn’t belong to yet, and sometimes she just gets it wrong.

Third thing, I would keep her attraction to Fitz.

That doesn’t change.

It’s been there since the beginning and it’s pretty heavily implied from early on, so I wouldn’t remove it or rewrite it into something else. Fitz is basically her first real emotional anchor in the elvin world, and that stays important.

I’d just make that relationship less about constant back and forth drama and more about them actually having a deep, long-term connection that develops over time instead of resetting every few books.

Another thing I’d change is how she reacts to people treating her like she’s stupid because she is new to the elvin world.

In canon she sometimes gets defensive in a very sharp way, and I’d keep that, but I’d make it more consistent that it actually hurts her instead of just being a quick anger reaction.

So when people underestimate her, it doesn’t just turn into “prove them wrong” energy, it also feeds into her insecurity and frustration with how she is seen, especially since she already feels like she is constantly being tested by everyone around her.

Overall, I’d still keep Sophie as powerful and central to the story, but I’d make her way less “perfect experiment who always adapts” and more like someone who is powerful, unstable, emotionally pressured, and constantly struggling with who she is supposed to be in a world that never really gives her space to just exist normally. I will keep the rest or her character tho.

The main three are done! In the next part it's Biana, Dex, Tam and Linh.

I might be overthinking this, but does anyone else think Fitz could be autistic?

I don’t know a ton about autism, so feel free to correct me if I get anything wrong. I’m just throwing out an idea. From what I understand, some autistic people really value routine, don’t like sudden changes, can be very particular about things being “just right,” and sometimes struggle with understanding others’ emotions.

That made me think about Fitz. Sophie describes him as super neat and put-together, and he clearly likes structure. He studies a lot, sticks to routines like training in the morning, and even seems pretty particular about his appearance, like his signature hairstyle.

He also seems to get really overwhelmed when things don’t go the way he expects. For example, during the whole matchmaking situation, he kind of spiraled, and when Keefe became closer to Sophie and things changed between them, Fitz didn’t handle it well at all. Those moments feel a bit like emotional overload rather than just normal frustration. He also doesn’t seem to like not being the best when he usually is, and struggles when that changes.

Again, I’m not saying this definitively means anything, and I know these traits can apply to a lot of people. I also don’t want to stereotype or misrepresent autism. I’m just curious if anyone else has thought about this or sees similar patterns?

Also just to be clear, I love his character either way. This isn’t meant as criticism at all, just something I’ve been thinking about.

Would love to hear other perspectives!