#ask-me-stuff

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what are your thoughts on the elvin economy?

(sorry for it being so broad)

General opinions? It’s pretty clear Shannon didn’t think it through very well and was just trying to add something to make the lost cities have more utopian elements, but most authors don’t think about their worlds economy so it’s not a big deal for me and it’s mostly just a fun thought experiment to try and make it function semi-properly.

General headcannons?

Elves don’t know shit about how human money and inflation works and Della was taking a wild guess about the exchange rate which is really about 1 luster = 75 dollars

Birth funds are only activated once you manifest an ability

A big chunk of your birth fund is spent on building your house

Most businesses work on commissions

Foxfire and Exilium are the only public schools(government funded schools), so if you don’t get accepted into Foxfire you’ll either go to Exilium, not get an education or your parents will have to pay for a private school

There is a large class disparity Sophie doesn’t know about since her elven connections are almost exclusively nobility.

Gnomes do almost all the hard labor in this world in trade for a safe place without fear of orges or other species taking worse advantage of them.

The elves main export to the other species is luxury items and gnomish produce.

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🎁 Fitz

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What do you think the money is actually used for in the lost cities? Like in what contexts is it actually valuable despite the fact that everyone has all of it?

The term “birth fund” is misleading. In truth while the elves do say everyone has a birth fund they will only be able to access their fund once they manifest.

Now you may believe those who manifest will have an infinite amount of money, but the birth funds will probably only last them 150 to maybe 300 years depending on how they spend the money, which will not cover their infinite life span, add that with the low birth rates and the vast majority of the population don’t have any of their birth fund money and require their job’s payment to keep them afloat.

Generally lusters are only used between the elves themselves and are used for things such as:

The process of getting an house(hiring architects, and builders, and illusionists, and paying for all the materials to make the house, and buying all the furniture, and)

Taxes

Food

Clothing

Jewelry

Entertainment

Hygiene products

School(If your kids aren’t going to Foxfire or Exilium aka the only public schools)

Etc.

It should also be worth noting the idea that one luster = a millioin dollars is bullshit. While the coins are made out of a metal humans have no acsess to and as such would be expensiive to them, Lusters themselves in terms of straight exchange would be close to about 75ish dollars. There's been no need for a straight exchange in thousands of years so Della was making a wild guess based of the knowledge Luster coins would be valuable to humans.

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Ok great!

My question is this: how the FRICK did Sophie convert money from her elven birth fund into pounds using an ATM???

I don’t have the exact page number, but it happens twice in Legacy, once when she was buying biscuits for Keefe and also when she buys him the EL Fudges. Because it doesn’t say she stole money from the ATM, it says that somehow Dex converted money from her elven birth fund into pounds/dollars. Maybe I don’t understand how ATMs work but how would an human ATM take money out of an elven birth fund if elves haven’t interacted with humans for thousands of years?

I found the two scenes you’re talking about:

ATMs basically work by having a bunch of cash inside of them which they disperse out by how much you cash you ask for and removing that amount of money from your banks account. ATMs can generally work with a bank account whether or not the account is with a bank of that country as such I wouldn’t be surprised if Dex managed to somehow access Sophie’s birthfund through the ATM because technopathy and since there was no direct conversation he just made the machine read the number of Lusters in her account to a number of pounds or euros or some other human currency.

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🎁 Sophie

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🎁Grady RueWen

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Neverseen college au

Vespera has no idea how she got into the friend group and wants out

Alvar has the worst sleep schedule known to man

Gisela keeps failing all her science classes and refuses tutoring from anyone but Vespera who doesn’t want too

Brant is the only one that actually knows how to cook

Everyone else’s skills range from Can only microwave leftovers to the apartment is on fire because they tried boiling water

Nobody knows anything about Ruy or his past

He just showed up one day with Gethen and has been there ever since

Rayni is the perpetual third wheel to Trix and Umber

Fintan is Brant’s tutor in history

Rayni is majoring in biology because she forgot to pick a major until the last second