imperfectskeleton

[imperfectskeleton]

Suddenly, out jumped a Daffy Duck! Right in Visser Three's path. The Yeerk visser snapper his deadly tail. It flew through the air and Daffy's head went rolling across the ground. <Noooo!> I cried. The girl wearing the costume stuck her head up and said, "Hey! What's the matter with you?" <Aaaahhhh!> the visser moaned. <What kind of creature is that?> p. 159

Congrats random Daffy Duck actress! You have freaked out Visser Three. Not a feat many people can lay claim to.

So, who gets to explain mascot costumes to Visser Three later?

[imperfectskeleton]

A few moments later, the others caught up to me. We watched a pair of Bug fighters rise from the amusement park and streak into the sky. They had hidden the Bug fighters in plain sight. They'd been parked atop the Alien Adventure Ride. As the Bug fighters powered away into the night, I noticed a kid shaking his head disgustedly. "Those aren't what alien spaceships look like," he said. "That's for sure," his grandfather agreed. "I was take aboard a spaceship once. The aliens performed medical experiments on me. And their ship was nothing like that." p. 162-163

So, everyone probably thinks that the spaceships were part of the show. Some sort of fancy thing for the amusement park. Which I guess explains how an alien spaceship can fly around right in front of people and the Yeerks remain hidden.

So, the grandpa was taken by the Skrit Na for sure. But what about the grandkid. Why is he so sure he knows what a real spaceship will look like?

[imperfectskeleton]

im stacking extension cords on each other like theyre tinker toys. constructing a tower of babel in the name of the god of electricity. there'll be at least 100 outlets when ive hooked these boys up nice and good. ill never run out again

[imperfectskeleton]

I'm really behind on Animorphs, but I'm catching up. Just got through 12 this weekend, and since the last time I read, I've gotten really into paleontology, so the pedant in me had to come out lmao. Crocodiles are not that old. They're certainly not older than birds. Crocodilians don't appear until the Cretaceous actually (birds start appearing in the Jurassic), and it's kind of a misnomer to call them living fossils and imagine them as unchanged by time, not a dynamic evolving animal.

The clade that crocodilians nest within, pseudosuchia, has a diverse history with a lot of different kinds of animals filled various niches, and some of them were likely even endothermic. Crocodilians are a relatively recent member of the clade, but before that, diverse pseudosuchians were a dominant lifeform of the Triassic, when dinosaurs were just starting to evolve. But those animals weren't crocodiles. In fact, many of them look more like the 80s/90s portrayals of dinosaurs than modern crocodiles. While the book emphasizes their cold, uncaring nature, crocodiles have an interesting position amongst reptiles. Being archosaurs (the group of reptiles that birds also belong to), they are more attentive parents than non-archosaur reptiles. That by no means makes them cuddly, but it's still interesting imo. They also have a respiratory system similar to birds and are their closest living relative. It's kind of funny to think a crocodile and a red tailed hawk are closely related and have some shared features. Just fun pseudosuchian facts lol.

[imperfectskeleton]

No i havent outgrown it because i had great taste at 7 years old

[imperfectskeleton]

daily affirmations:

i am kind

i am in control of my emotions

it does not bother me when someone is in the kitchen while i was planning to be in there alone

everyone in the house has the right to be in the kitchen

i am kind and in control of my emotions even when someone is in the kitchen while i was planning to be in there alone

[imperfectskeleton]

Love being female it’s like a game show: do I need anti-depressants or birth control? Should I just have a hysterectomy?

[imperfectskeleton]

You can be talking to someone and she'll be like, "Oh I made a silly mistake. Women don't deserve voting rights teehee." And you'll be like, "What." And she'll be like, "Oh I'm sorry! That must sound so bad out of context. No it's this Tiktok meme where, if you're a girl and you do something dumb, you say 'Women don't deserve voting rights teehee.'"

And you'll be like, "That sounds bad." And she'll be like, "No no. It's totally not that bad. It's just a meme. Men say it too. Like if a man does something silly he'll be like, 'I am like those women who do not deserve to vote.'" And you'll be like, "Does that make it better?" And she'll be like, "Well there was one guy who tried to make 'Men shouldn't vote' a popular meme. But it never caught on and also he got yelled at a lot."

And then you drop it there because like, you're harshing the vibe.

[imperfectskeleton]

Clutching my pearls bc I can't deny the fact that Steven Moffat's writing, when it's good, it's really REALLY good

[imperfectskeleton]

[imperfectskeleton]

Andalite Chronicles thoughts (pt. 4):

This book does so much to emphasize that Visser Three really is Esplin 9466 AND Alloran: he has Esplin's arrogance but Alloran's fondness for battle, Esplin's andalite obsession but Alloran's collection of monster morphs and heavy reliance on morph-fighting, Esplin's temper but Alloran's knack for shock-and-awe. Like, Visser Three wouldn't be the guy we see in canon if not for Alloran's influence.

Related: the motif of rigid power structures being a bad damn idea continues in this book. Alloran is more responsible for Alloran getting infested than Elfangor is, and Elfangor takes forever to realize Alloran has been infested, because Alloran has such absolute power over the others.

Would the andalites have been able to take back the taxxon planet, if they'd just bothered to ally with the taxxons? It certainly seems that way, given how well the rebel taxxons do at attacking the spaceport and how incompetent the andalites seem to be at managing the situation. If Elfangor had just stuck around and fought with Arbron, they might've been able to turn the tide of the war right there. Too bad Elfangor didn't have access to a morphing cube when he crashed on this planet...

Seriously, though, I love the use of the taxxons and hork-bajir as Freud Masterplots for the humans: they parallel the humans to show how the humans could end up, if humanity didn't have Animorphs on its side. Waiting for the andalites isn't enough; the hosts have got to be their own heroes or they'll be crushed between the imperial powers no matter whose side wins.

Also, I love the... IDK, identity horror? Of the protagonists' attempt to use the Time Matrix. Like, it shows that the technology is terrifying because it is beyond all human comprehension — but in ways that are scary because they're weird. It answers the question of "why not use time travel to fix everything?" with "because no one knows how to use it effectively, and your brain will tear itself in half if you try."

Animorphs books can be read here | Book Club schedule is here

[imperfectskeleton]

I wonder... did Tobias actually choose the form the Ellimist's reward would take here?

IT IS DONE. <What's done? Nothing is done, you lunatic! I'm still a bird!> OF COURSE. <Help me!> The racoon was literally looking down at me like you might look at a steak. He was deciding where to bite first. THE ANDALITE GAVE YOU POWER. USE IT.

The power is obviously the power to morph, but at this point I think it could have taken two paths:

A) Tobias interprets this as having been given his power to demorph from hawk to human and becomes human. It's enough to scare the racoon away.

or

B) Tobias interprets this as he does in canon, deciding that the power has been restored to his hawk body, allowing him to acquire and morph the racoon to avoid becoming lunch.

The Ellimist's wording is vague enough that I think Tobias himself decided to make hawk his new base form by choosing to acquire the racoon as a hawk rather than trying to demorph because he didn't even think it was possible.

One the form of the reward is chosen by Tobias that's the form it sticks to.

[imperfectskeleton]

divorce themed restaurant menu

dessert: CUSTARDy Battle

yeah that's all i've got so far sorry

[imperfectskeleton]

i have no idea if you were the account that i said this to so if you’ve read it before i apologize.

but picture this: one day ax sends the gang telepathic images of cinnabons all day while they’re at school and they’re all sick of it, until marco concentrates really hard and sends ax an image of a middle finger and accidentally unlocks thought speak as a human

Headcanon accepted!

[imperfectskeleton]

Alloran is such an excellent character. Even disgraced he holds his head high, with the disdain of someone who thinks he was right. Seerow died, he had nothing to prove to anyone but himself, but his friends were killed, and he didn’t want the war to make it past the Hork-Bajir homeworld.

Even disgraced, and physically small and scarred, he exudes mythic power in ordinary situations. He’s broken, with no time for KINDNESS, but he still shows gentleness, sympathy and compassion at times. Certainly he feels the shame of the sidequest as much as Arbron and Elfangor do, but he seizes on the need to save the galaxy, and he shows he is proud of both of them when they prove themselves in battle. He is cruel to Elfangor at times, because he knows this awkward teenage is a legend in the making, and he knows hardship forged him to what he believes is the character of someone who could win the war. And he’s knocked out by a panicking teenager and Esplin 9466 lives out his dream of possessing an Andalite host for over 20 years, leaving him broken, begging for death, and most critically, always remembering his wife who he loved enough to create a work of art with her name to take with him whenever he is away from home.

Allorans brother is a lunatic genius who tries to kill him. It is possible he has a daughter who is a renowned tailfighter and is willing to replicate her father’s downfall in the hope it works better this time. He’s acquired more monsters than the average Andalite, and is actually quite good at using morphing for stealth purposes. Esplin turns his aura of power into one of dread. The first thing he does on regaining his freedom is relish in it, the only time we see him happy. This is followed up by going to bat for aliens, and for the choices Elfangor made in his dying moments. Elfangor was nearly as much his rival as Esplin’s for a moment. Also, both he and Esplin are racist. He’s the Andalite boogeyman twice over. Honestly, they were probably thrilled when he was infested and they could start calling him an abomination.

[imperfectskeleton]

Gotta admit, I never did work out if Dracon beams and shredders have opposite power settings. Elfangor and Arbron are playing 3D chess (they’re both too traumatised to deal with more dimensions. Too bad for Elfangor I guess.) and I can never quite parse the scene well enough to understand whether Arbron is lying or just bluffing Elfangor.

[imperfectskeleton]

Rachel and Tobias (medieval AU 🤔) for a friend I owe my life to 🙏💕 this turned out so cute 🥰