blessedislandofgoodboots - Tumblr blog

[blessedislandofgoodboots]

hmm, interesting...i've always been struck by how both berensons are so isolated at this point. jake is calling the shots on his own, and he sends rachel to go behind everyone's back. so i just can't help but think that things would have been more complex if the whole team got involved. the kids' major strength is their ability to work together and bring all their perspectives to a problem. i do agree that cassie would really be fired up to try to find an alternative way out, such as roping in the YPM (who go tragically underused). i don't necessarily think that the kids would be able to execute a plan that didn't result in rachel's death, but i do think that as a group they would have come up with something more subtle/well thought out than just "get into the blade ship and take tom down"

i've always wondered what if the team somehow got wind of the plan to send rachel to the blade ship before it could be put into action. what would happen? obviously we can assume that tobias would find a way to go along with her somehow once he inevitably realizes that she can't be stopped, so both of them would end up dying. this is obviously more depressing than the canon ending, but it's also somewhat comforting in the fact that rachel would not be alone at the end. and this would also strengthen the parallel of jake facing down the blade ship together with others

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the ancient and noble art of Hating must remain distinct from the dogmatism of the moral crusade. hating has no greater goal. it is not about engineering change or imposing one's will upon others. to hate is a complete act in and of itself

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what if andalites wore big mustaches

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do the animorphs ever see the war effort as a way of procrastinating on homework

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what if at the final battle(s) at the end of the series the helmacrons just showed up and shrunk everybody

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i've always wondered what if the team somehow got wind of the plan to send rachel to the blade ship before it could be put into action. what would happen? obviously we can assume that tobias would find a way to go along with her somehow once he inevitably realizes that she can't be stopped, so both of them would end up dying. this is obviously more depressing than the canon ending, but it's also somewhat comforting in the fact that rachel would not be alone at the end. and this would also strengthen the parallel of jake facing down the blade ship together with others

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ok you know how cassie says that being in rachel morph makes her want to do stupid things? it would be really funny if ax being in jake morph when he's eating with cassie's family keeps feeling the instinct to think about basketball or his brother or something

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honestly what was the point of portraying taylor as basically a reflection of rachel and then not give them any substantial confrontations...they're both blonde pristine knockouts with the same preppy tastes, but more significantly, they both feel isolated by experiences of trauma and react by longing to be "normal" girls again. except taylor is way needier in a way rachel reflexively cannot allow herself to be, and that could have brought in a lot of interesting interactions between them!!! taylor is abased in rachel's eyes to the extent that she can't even see taylor as a vulnerable fellow human. but taylor makes the choice to cede her independence because she's driven by the same raw and largely unnoticed desires rachel has (for others to accept her, for her old life) even though they're coded as polar opposites. so i think it would be really great for rachel to grapple further with why she hates taylor so much, not just because of their differences but also because taylor embodies so much she sees in herself. fundamentally rachel sees her real self as a weak human girl. and that's who taylor is

Whoa the last line. yeah. i wanna see them fight (tobias wouldnt let it happen though)

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crytyping as an alternative poetry structure

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i hope all the little ballerinas who live in music boxes are okay. i hope it isn’t too dark in there.

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you can be peeling a boiled egg and think to yourself wow. that was so simple. and then you peel another one and it’s like being in the throes of war. shell everywhere. egg mangled. tears in your eyes. that’s how god keeps you humble

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i have a feeder cam up on my board and a mourning dove is trying and absolutely failing to seduce a lady mourning dove and my students are all making fun of his rizz game

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Lazy Tobias doodle

ID: [a digital drawing of Tobias from animorphs. He is in human morph and sitting on the floor, loosely hugging his knees. The blue faded face of a hawk floats behind him.] /End ID

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Nice Is Neat :)

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[blessedislandofgoodboots]

ax's relationship with rachel and cassie is so rich and underexplored. it's interesting to read his perceptions of them in light of his inherited andalite sexism. obviously he doesn't quite apply his assumptions towards them in the same way he does with estrid, since they're 1) from a different species and 2) have looked out for him and saved him time and time again, but it's worth noting all the same. the boys do their share of wildly dark and arguably unjustifiable things, but it's the girls who literally represent the worst of humanity to ax (rachel's unruly emotions and delight in smiting enemies, cassie's fatal kindness).

that being said, for all his distaste for certain parts of their respective characters, he's a lot like them. he constantly strives to adhere to internalized scripts and do as he's told, but like rachel, he's quick to compulsively act on desires on the spur of the moment. he draws a great deal of purpose and satisfaction and excitement from being a warrior. (not to mention that he's the only animorph who can somewhat understand the pain inflicted on her by the david saga, since they endured david's screams together. i really wish the series pursued this link further.) and he's the animorph who apart from cassie is most visibly invested in moral codes and the concept of obligation, up to the point where they're both willing to go against how the others feel if that's what they think is right. as a result they both do things that are read as major betrayals of the team.

i've always thought that the scene where she decides to infest him to perform surgery in #29 is one of the most disturbing things in the series: it's such a thorough violation of his autonomy and sense of self, and it's also a great illustration of the stubbornness of cassie's commitment to survival. (it's a real missed opportunity that she never substantially confronts how messed up this was!!!) their attachment is one of the most touching friendships in the series imo. the boys supply him with companionship but i think cassie's sympathetic care for him is unique: she walks with him and holds his hand when he cries, and she's also the only one who invites him to dinner. but when she lets the box go (again, another violation of his core values as a desperate act of mercy) their intimacy pretty much shatters and never entirely recovers, even though they're still nominally friends at the end. rachel's relationship with ax is more consistently strained and distant, but it's significant that he specifically recognizes her near the end as a vulnerable child, which is actually closer to how rachel sees herself than cassie ever gets.