#marco is ok being the bad guy if it means his boyfriends are safe and taken care of

[xamaxenta]

Marcosabo thoughts where Marco holds Sabo down with that crazy beast zoan strength and heals the wounds he’s come home with

Sabo hates it, spits that he’s never gonna be able to do his work right if he doesn’t suffer if he doesnt heal naturally, the healing via phoenix proxy method still hurts but it never lasts for long

Marco remains calm, keeps him in a hold Sabo has never to his dismay learnt to break out of and asks him why does he want to hurt? When he can fix it, hasnt he had enough?

Sabo always thinking of others before himself snaps a retort that viciously asks Marco if he will play healer for the entire army and Marco scoffs and presses his fingers into the edge of a laceration just to see him flinch

“I don’t have any personal commitments to them.”

Sabo looks stricken for a moment, hes always so expressive during these healing sessions, twists in Marco’s grip his mouth tilted in a tight unhappy line

“You’re a selfish bastard.” Sabo hisses, his good eye glitters with something more than anger, shining between the strands of sweaty blonde hair sticking to his face.

“So we’ve found out.” Marco agrees and tugs Sabo back, who comes unwillingly, but, with a burn of satisfaction that Marco had to transform his hand into talons just to keep him close.

“I’m going to do the fractured rib now. If you think you’re going to pass out—“ Marco nods at his burning breast, phoenix flames wreathing his clavicles and torso in a soft invitation.

Sabo glowers at him, “Ace hates it when you get like this.”

“I dont really care what Ace likes and doesn’t like me doing to you.” Marco slowly lets go of Sabo to move his hand down to where the bloody bruise mottles across Sabo’s flank and radiates in a throbbing swell to his hip.

“You—“ Sabo almost bites off his own tongue, teeth snapping shut over an agonised groan, blue flame burns against his skin, penetrates deep and invasive and unnatural as he feels his insides, his wounds react to the phoenix.

“Lucky.” Marco murmurs, eyes glowing a faint violet, clearly fixated on Sabo’s trembling whitened lips, “I would’ve healed that too.”

Sabo doesnt doubt that, he’d rather choke on his own blood than allow the phoenix into his mouth.

He refuses to moan in the wash of relief that comes with his fractured ribs being reset, refuses to give Marco that satisfaction.

But he cant stop the tears spilling down his cheeks and loathes that Marco obviously enjoys to see it.

[demicorpse]

My qualms with the Animorphs ending. (Spoilers, duh)

So. Around a week ago I finished all 54 of the core Animorphs books, and like many, I was pretty disappointed by the ending. I’d even go as far as to say I was angry about it. Not angry enough to write a rant tweet at the main author, but angry enough to rant about it on a tumblr post where 10 people might see it and agree with me. I’m going to list some of the main issues regarding the last few books, as well as the final book itself. Let’s take it from the top.

The Auxiliary Animorphs.

On paper? This doesn’t seem like a bad idea. Writing in a bunch of handicapped kids and giving them cool powers, while also slowly developing them and not focusing on just their disabilities? Sounds great! Only Applegate didn’t exactly understand what that meant. The Aux. Animorphs are introduced in book 50, The Ultimate, and after a big battle, they’re almost immediately moved to the sidelines. They’re mentioned in passing as ‘James and his group’ when they’re needed to provide a distraction or maybe fight some kind of battle, but other than that, and maybe some characterization of the kids in book 50, we don’t learn a whole lot about ‘James and his group’. I get it. Balancing so many new faces is hard, especially when your series in ending in 4 books, but maybe you could’ve... I don’t know... lessened the scope of the group? Or maybe you could’ve introduced them earlier, so that we can, at the very least, gain a glimpse towards what they’re like? We know so much about the main Animorphs, but when it comes down to the Aux. Animorphs, all I remember is that James wanted Pedro, his best friend forever, to get a morph of his own (which never really developed into anything? Or maybe Applegate forgot to explicitly state he’s part of the group, but, whatever.), and that in the end, they all die namelessly. Again, as part of a distraction tactic. A bunch of handicapped kids who were told the world is being taken over by aliens are introduced, and all they do is die at the end. No mention of them whatsoever in the ending book, after the war was ended. Not even a single page regarding how brave they were, to just trust the Animorphs despite how crazy they sound, and fight by their side, even LOSE one of their own before they all die a book later.

It’s stupid. The Aux. Animorphs could’ve been so much cooler had Applegate wasn’t so deeply invested in her ‘these books tell a war story!’ thing. They had potential to be memorable, and yet, I don’t even remember the names of the main kids that were intro’d in their book. Just James. By the way, James was a way better leader than Jake by the end. Actually, let’s talk about Jake.

Jake’s character was brutally murdered and replaced with an evil clone. So was Rachel’s.

Reading the last few books was, honestly, a festival of awkward and head-shaking moments for me. You mean to tell me that this is where Jake breaks? Jake, the leader of the Animorphs, the one who’s kept the alive, the one who’s brought them together when they thought they wouldn’t be able to make it, Jake, Marco’s best friend, Cassie’s boyfriend, Rachel’s cousin, JAKE, breaks at the end and sacrifices everything. His cousin? A sacrifice. The Aux. Animorphs and one of the only military officials willing to listen to him and his men? A sacrifice. 

I can’t put it into words how disappointed I am over both Jake and Rachel. Jake turned into a monster. He turned into someone he vowed he never would turn into. Remember when he said, like, two books before the end: “Defeat the Yeerks. Don’t become them.” What the hell happened to that when you flushed down 17 thousand Yeerks into space and let them freeze to death? 

Don’t get me started on his hatred towards Cassie by the end (which is 100% totally fixed when she has a mental breakdown don’t worry guys ahahaha fuck I fucked up their relationship and now I can’t really fix it well enough ok they hugged and they’re ok now). Like, I get it. I get it, Jake. You lost the morphing cube and Tom because Cassie thought she’d do something good. But is he seriously daft enough to just disregard any reasoning for what she did and go around acting like a child who got his toy taken away? Isn’t he the one that’s supposed to move on from things quickly? Just... Jake isn’t the same character by the end, but it’s not even a fluid change. It’s so drastic that when you’re reading it, it’s like a completely different character was introduced into the Animorphs with no explanation whatsoever. Yeah, war changes people, but Marco stayed the same. Tobias, more or less, stayed the same. Ax changed, but that was after the war, and it was for the better. Cassie stayed the same. 

Jake should’ve been written better. Because if he was, he wouldn’t have gotten so many people killed, including himself right at the end. 

And, oh God, Rachel... what have they done to you? Rachel went from someone who likes the thrill of the fight (admittedly, maybe a little too much) and is capable of making smart decisions, to someone who’s willing to drive over a military general even though he’s simply asking her to stop (in a truck full of EXPLOSIVES no less), as well attempt to hit Cassie in anger (good thing Tobias is her moral compass) after she confesses that she let Tom go on purpose. Hey, while we’re at it, let’s talk about her death.

Rachel’s death is stupid.

Let’s get one thing out of the way: Rachel is my favourite character in Animorphs, second close being Ax. I’m obviously upset about her death, so I’m sorry if I sound a little biased. 

Rachel’s death is plain dumb and stupid and shouldn’t have happened. It wouldn’t have happened had Applegate not convinced herself that all of her character deserve to suffer and die by the end, leaving a hopeless pit in my stomach after I closed the .PDF to the final book. You’re telling me that one of the most fierce human warriors I’ve read about in my entire life just gives up at the end. She spits out Tom’s body, demorphs, and that’s it. She gives up. Doesn’t even attempt to go down fighting. She just says some cliche line to Tobias and dies. I will give Applegate credit for creating one of the best post-death scenes I’ve ever read (”You mattered.” is so good), but that doesn’t redeem her death in my eyes. She’s killed off because Applegate claims Animorphs is a ‘war story’. A war story in which kids turn into animals, alien slugs crawl into people’s ears and control them, time travel happens on more than one occasion, and Ax is Tobias’ uncle. Sure. War story. Since it’s a war story, there’s no hope for any of the characters. But I’ll get to that at the end.

Anyway, Rachel shouldn’t have died. No amount of convincing will have me think otherwise. I don’t care how reckless she was described as, she’s not reckless enough to go on a suicide mission and die to make the reader feel upset. Plus, if Jake was SO hellbent on winning, why couldn’t he have sent James up there to deal with Tom? It’s not like he cared about the fates of the Aux. Animorphs by that point, so why not have one less trauma on your head and send in someone you see as disposable? At least let Jake retain some of his intelligence, Applegate.

Oh, yeah, the ending.

The ending is hopeless, and if you thought your characters’ struggles will pay off, fuck you.

“Ram the Blade Ship”, Jake says with Rachel’s smile, and seconds later, he and his friends die in a horrible explosion in space, limbs either blown apart or frozen. Oh, and Ax has been assimilated into some omnipotent entity that comes quite literally out of nowhere, so it’s safe to say that he’s classified as ‘dead’. The only one left on Earth is Cassie, who has to live with the fact that she’s the last Animorph left alive. Thinking about it, it’s pretty funny that the only one who lives in the end is Cassie, who always advocated for a more peaceful approach, if possible. Great irony, Applegate. 10/10.

Anyway, this whole thing stinks. Applegate claims the ending is up to interpretation (I think, from what I’ve read in her epilogue it certainly seems that way), but I think it’s bullshit. She claims there’s no happy endings in war. That’s bullshit. I can’t express how... just bullshit the ending is.

These kids who have fought for 3 years, these kids who have shed blood, sweat, and multiple tears across 54 books and several spin-offs, these kids who went through so much and where a ‘win’ barely counted as that, these kids get... nothing. No one is happy. Even Marco, who was relatively happy with his post-war life is dragged into Jake’s suicide mission, only to die alongside him, because poor Jake couldn’t get over the fact that he didn’t think of a better plan to save both his cousin and his brother.

No, thinking on it, they DO get something! They get death and an ‘open’ ending, which is just as open as Chick-fil-A on a Sunday. When you make a reader constantly read through HEAPS of books about how depressed these kids are, about their struggles and their failures and how they never really win anything, they mostly react to their enemies’ movements, it just makes the reader feel hopeless. And so by the end, when you just kill off everyone but a single character that knew better, the reader feels sad, and angry, and upset. And maybe Applegate wanted to go for that. 

Conclusion. Jesus Christ, Applegate.

The job of a writer is to string words together well enough to make people feel an emotion, whether negative or positive. And admittedly, she achieved that. But in my opinion, I’d rather close Animorphs knowing that these kids know at least some form of peace. That Jake rescues his brother and he can live out his life alongside him. That Rachel survives and that she can attend high-end fashion shows. That Tobias and his mother (who isn’t mentioned at all at the end, by the way? Guess she wasn’t important enough to the plot!) make up all the time they’ve lost when Tobias didn’t know she actually cared about him. That Marco does his thing, being a comedian, in peace, and visits Jake and his friends whenever he wants to. That Cassie pursues her own career and yeah, maybe she’s not together with Jake anymore, but at the very least, they’re happy to see one another. That Ax avenges his brother by killing Visser Three/One, and becomes a War Hero in his world, as well as a very good War Prince, and that he doesn’t forget to visit his second home.

Whether you liked the ending or not, this is the kind of ending I was hoping for. Something to ease me at the end. Something that would make me feel good after reading so much about the lives of 4 human kids, a half-bird half-boy, and an alien. But no. I get despair. I get death and I get sadness and I get an empty feeling in my heart that will always remain so as long as I remember Animorphs. Because no matter how much I’ll try and rewrite the ending, it’ll always stick with me, this one thought: Everybody dies and no one is happy. 

Animorphs has war, but it’s not a war story. Animorphs has tactics, strategy, guerilla warfare, espionage, but it’s not a war story. And even if I’m wrong, even if it is a war story, why can’t the characters be happy? Why can’t the characters get the one bit of compensation for their struggles?

Maybe I’m just too much of an optimist, and none of this matters. Maybe I should get used to bad endings, because let’s face it, this isn’t a good ending, or even a neutral one. This is as bad as it gets. Maybe I should suck it up and grow some thick skin.

But God damn, the ending to Animorphs sucked.