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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 5 years

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Animorphs in Zombie Apocalypse AU?

• It’s been seven years since the end of the war. Three years since the Animorphs — all six of them — stumbled off of the Rachel on its return, over two dozen ex-yeerk-hosts in tow. It’s beginning to feel like this peace might last.

• Rachel’s in the middle of a business lunch when the call comes in. Her line of fragrances (“Animal Essence by Rachel Berenson: Let out your wild side”) has performed pretty well this quarter. But there are always marketing campaigns to manage and deals to sign, which is why she and her PR manager Linda are in a trendy Brooklyn café when the phone in her purse buzzes.

Jake tries to sound calm, as he tells her that they’re being called in. Because it’s Jake, he almost succeeds. No details yet, he says, just a behavior-altering pathogen. Possibly extraterrestrial origin.

Around her, the room has gone cold and strange and far away. How silly the delicate spread of quinoa and avocado on her plate appears now, how pointless the fan of business cards in her hand and manicure on her nails.

“My cousin,” she says, and then “family emergency,” and then “I have to go.”

• Marco’s head lifts when the din of the crowd goes quiet ahead of him, scanning automatically for trouble. Jordan Berenson is cutting through the crowd on the dance floor. She’s utterly out of place in her full business suit amidst the night club’s flash and camp, her straight posture bizarre among the half-naked slouch of bodies that surrounds her.

“Hey there, G-woman!” Marco calls over the music.

“She’s a fed?” his security guard Rena asks sharply, glancing at the line of cocaine clearly visible on the nearest end table.

Marco waves Rena away. “She’s family.”

He sees Jordan absorb the label with no small amount of surprise. He’s not sure what the fuck else they’d count as: they’re not friends, but that doesn’t change the fact that they fought and cooked and lived and nearly died together during the war.

“I’m here on behalf of the NSA-CDC joint commission,” Jordan says, trying a small smile.

“And what’s Uncle Sam want with little old me?” Even as Marco says it, he knows: he really really does not want to hear what Jordan is about to say.

• Cassie rolls to her feet when the Army transport jeep approaches, heart already beating faster. The hork-bajir preserve doesn’t get many human visitors, and the official ones never bring good news. She glances over at Tobias – who was, like her, listening to Toby tell a surprisingly entertaining version of their war story to a group of youngsters – and sees him tense, feathers flaring.

Please, she thinks, don’t let it be the start of another “human” rights battle. Which just goes to show that it’s been a while since the war, long enough that she thinks another spat over land grants is the worst thing that can happen to this community.

• «Prince Aximili.» The aristh looks nervous enough to be about ready to trip over his own hooves. «Sir, there’s a message for you. It’s from Earth.»

Ax nods automatically, even knowing that the gesture won’t mean anything to his fellow andalites. «Who on Earth?»

The aristh shuffles his back hooves, tail tucked close to his body. «Just… Earth. A human called the President of the United States. She says she’s calling on behalf of the entire planet.»

A war-prince must always project calm and confidence, to reassure all warriors and civilians who might be watching. Ax manages, only just barely, to remain still and inhale slowly. To keep his voice level when he says, «Thank you. I’ll take the call in my private quarters.»

• There are three of them in the cramped observation room. Then four, then five, and finally six. A unit, huddled together and barefoot and unable to speak. They’re not the only ones here for the meeting, of course. Other people await them in the next room: the Joint Chiefs, the U.N. representatives. Collette and Timmy. Peter. Tom, Jordan, Walter and Michelle. The president.

On the other side of the glass, Eva beats her hands against the wall. A guttural moan gargles in the back of her throat. She’s walking forward, not seeming to realize that she encounters a wall again and again.

The flesh has already rotted off her extremities, leaving bone and putrescent muscle exposed underneath the peeling curls of skin.

“We’ll find a cure,” Cassie says. Even as she tries to breathe through a nightmare come to life, a flashback made present. “We’ll find a way—”

“My mom is dead.” Marco’s voice is as steady as the hands of a man sawing off his own leg. “No heartbeat. No brain activity. No respiration, digestion, circulation.”

Tobias looks back into the room, then at Marco. «But…»

“She’s an organ donor.” Marco’s eyes are dry, but he sniffs hard to keep them that way. “Wanted her body used for science, for humanity, when she couldn’t use it anymore. She’s dead. We’re respecting her wishes.”

Eva’s mouth gnashes at the air, teeth and jawbone exposed where her lips have already decayed. Her fingertips leave streaks of gore on the plexiglas.

“We know it spreads by fluids,” Jake recites dully. “That even a few drops can infect an entire water system. We know that it kills the hosts within hours of infection, and then uses their bodies to try and reproduce itself. We know it can be killed by fire, and by beheading the host, but so far that’s all we know.”

«How many humans have suffered its effects so far?» Ax asks.

“We don’t know,” Jake says. “Lowest estimate’s a few thousand.”

“And the highest?” Cassie asks.

He turns to look at her. The answer’s there on his face, in the way he can’t seem to stop himself from reaching out to take her hand.

• “How bad is it?” Ronnie asks Cassie that night.

She pulls him into her arms, desperate to sink into warmth and soft muscle and still-living flesh. “Remember last time humanity got attacked by an alien pathogen?” she asks. “Remember how that ended for the invading parasites?”

He has to know that she’s dodging the question. But then he wasn’t in the room when the graph tracing the U.S. watersheds spread slowly from blue to red, the entire continent glowing sickly crimson within weeks. The heading at the top said Conservative Estimate. They never saw the non-conservative one.

• Please remain calm, the president’s broadcast says, and stay inside your homes. Boil any water before drinking, she adds, even though they don’t think that that will do any good. Better to give people something to do, some way to feel like there’s still hope.

• Rachel goes up against entire hordes. She becomes elephant, alligator, grizzly and cheetah. She perfects the necessary motions to grab and rip, to sever the spinal column in one bite or one slash. She wades through firestorms as a salamander or rhinoceros, swoops in on kafit wings or surges upward on lerdethak tentacles to rip bodies to bits. Sometimes the others join her. They get infected a dozen, a hundred times, and each time they morph and survive.

• Which is where Tobias’s suggestion comes from.

«I say we arm the populace,» he says.

It’s the six of them, sitting around Marco’s kitchen table — one of his kitchen tables in one of his houses — after yet another bout of endless killing and very little progress.

“Meaning what?” Jake says.

“The civilian death toll’s already high enough, if you ask me,” Marco says. “Seeing as how everyone and their aunt is out there with hunting rifles and modified dracon beams blowing their neighbors away.”

Cassie winces. He’s not wrong. The riots have cost more lives than the plague, according to the latest estimates.

«We’re safe,» Tobias points out. «Or we can fix ourselves. Because we’re morphers. We have the cube… why not use it as widely as possible, on as many people as we can find?»

“That’d be illegal,” Jake says.

Rachel lets out a dull laugh. Cassie can see her point. They’re way past that by now.

“And when the vampires start morphing too?” Rachel asks. “What then?”

“Don’t call them that,” Marco snaps. “They’re dead bodies with parasites inside, not…” He laughs, humorless. “Vampires, revenants, the undead, that’s all stuff you play for pretend on some television show. It’s makeup and bad writing.”

“Yeah,” Rachel says, “just like aliens. Just like shapeshifters.”

«I sincerely doubt that the infected would have the necessary mental abilities to sustain focused attention upon achieving an animal shape,» Ax says. «Tobias’s proposal would indeed break several laws set by at least half a dozen species… and it may be the only way to save this planet.»

“How do we make sure the civilians are using the morph tech responsibly?” Jake asks. Which shows that he’s already thinking about it. Already halfway there.

• They make an announcement on the only remaining television channel. They send out a broadcast on every frequency that emergency radios will pick up. They go even more old-school, and pass out fliers. Anyone who wants the morphing can come. Can wait in line, sometimes for hours, to press their fingers against the box in Marco’s hand. Acquiring DNA is their own problem. So is the two-hour limit, for all of the warnings that Cassie repeats ad infinitum to the waiting crowds and the folks at home.

It’s inevitable, really, when the panic breaks out one day outside the elementary school where they’re recruiting. No one can say for sure if the woman was actually infected, or if the man next to her just thought she was.

Eight people are trampled to death in the ensuing crush. Nearly a hundred more are injured, too many to treat in a town that has already run short on dozens of essentials that must be shipped in from other parts of the country. No one can say how many are infected, just that the Animorphs spend nearly a week clearing the undead out of the area around the elementary school before it’s finally safe to use again.

• The reports coming out of the densely-populated East Coast are shocking. There was a battle between human and undead outside Yonkers, and now Yonkers is overrun. All groundwater from the Chesapeake Bay watershed is now considered infected, take precautionary measures. Florida has closed its borders, and is gunning down anyone who gets too close. A riot over a shipment of bottled water took out eighteen square blocks in downtown Philadelphia, and took out the entire shipment of water as well. The wealthiest residents of Boston and Manhattan are moving off-planet as fast as craft will take them, leaving the rest of the planet to die.

And then one day the reports… stop.

No CNN, no NPR, no MSNBC. No U.S., not really, not anymore.

• “I’m going to go lie down,” Jake’s father says, after a long day in the lab. And, “It’s just a headache, I’m sure.”

It’s the last thing he ever says. Eight hours later, Tom becomes the one to shoot him in the head.

• When Rachel picks up the phone, Jordan says, “You know you’re my hero, right?”

Rachel rushes out of the house, phone up to her ear, desperate for a better signal. “How… you…” She draws a sharp breath. “It’s been three months!” Not just three months since she heard from her sister. Three months since anyone that she knows of has succeeded in making a long-distance call.

“Sat phone,” Jordan says. “Government-issue. We’ve all been taking turns using it, in here.”

“Holy shit.” Rachel pulls the gun off of her belt and, almost unthinkingly, puts a bullet between the eyes of the child who has been shuffling toward her on corpse-stiff limbs. “How are you? How’s DC?”

“Not great, actually. INSCOM’s got me and a bunch of other essential personnel in a bunker. Or they did, anyway.” Jordan clears her throat. “The perimeter’s been breached, and there are about twenty of us holed up in this room. Maybe four—” Her voice wavers, steadies. “Four, five hundred hostiles outside, judging from the security cameras.”

“I’m—” Rachel is running down the street, cataloguing morphs. “I’m coming for you, just hang on.”

“Rachel.” Jordan’s voice is terribly sad. She’s three thousand miles away. “Just listen, okay?”

Rachel sits on the ground. Curls into herself. Fetal position, a ball of helpless rage.

“We’re each taking one phone call, and it just seemed really important to me.” Jordan takes a breath. “To tell you that I love you. That you’ve always been my hero. Since… forever, really. And that everything I am, everything I’ve done, is because of you. So…”

There’s a noise in the background of the call. One Rachel doesn’t want to identify.

“Tell Mom and Sarah I love them, yeah?” Jordan says.

Their mom’s been dead two weeks. Sarah is MIA. “I will,” Rachel says. “I promise. Jordan—”

“Time’s up, gotta go.” There’s a click, and the line goes dead.

• Ax lies so smoothly, so thoroughly, that he doesn’t know if he even remembers how to tell the truth. The fight against the pathogen is going well, he tells the Andalite Navy. Humanity is doing well. There’s no need for alarm. No need for drastic action. Yes, he would like to stay here indefinitely, but only to do what he can to assist the clean-up efforts.

• They morph every six hours, setting alarms to make sure that it happens. There is no uninfected water, not anymore, which means they’re constantly exposed. It can’t last forever. One of these days, Tobias knows, one of them is going to go in their sleep. And there’s nothing to be done to fend it off indefinitely.

• The being who appears in Marco’s living room is human and raptor and andalite and most definitely none of the above. (Ketran, Rachel will say later, and then silently shake her head when they ask her what the word means.) They all still recognize the Ellimist when they see him.

“I came to you once with an offer,” the Ellimist says. “Your lives, and your families’, in exchange for relocation to a different planet. I can bring your families back. Save them, and you. A way to preserve the human species, a final desperate measure.”

“And all of a sudden it’s back on the table?” Marco demands.

The Ellimist nods, or maybe he’s just bowing his head in grief.

They look around at each other, needing no words to communicate their thoughts.

They were so young, the last time they had this offer, Rachel thinks now. She was just a little girl, too caught up in worrying about being in love with a nothlit and disappointing her father to understand what was really at stake. She missed it entirely, the reason Jake and Marco were the ones to hesitate and grieve. They’d both lost loved ones to the yeerks already. They’d known what was at stake, the way that the little girl she’d been at the time could not have known.

Now she understands. Now, I can bring your families back isn’t abstract or principled. It’s real down to her gut, down to her pores. Now she understands, as do they all, just how much war can take. They’re adults. This time, their eyes are open. Their decision is informed.

This time, Jake doesn’t hesitate when he speaks for them all. “Go fuck yourself,” he says. “It’s our planet, and we’ll fight for it to the very last man.”

#animorphs #animorphs au #au #body horror #gore #character death #long post #zombie au #canon compliant

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dumbkidsplayinghero · 5 years

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<My name is Elfangor, and I am about to die. I have crash-landed on the surface of the planet called Earth. I believe that the GalaxyTree has been destroyed. We made a mistake; we did not think that the Yeerks would be here in such force. [...]

I will die here. Visser Three thinks he has won our long, private war, but I have left him a surprise.>

We meet our heroes in the fall of 2003, on a beach in Boston, laughing and drinking together at a bonfire. In that moment, they did not know what awaited them. They didn’t know that soon, they would meet a dying Prince, and he would change their worlds in an instant.

In this first episode we begin building our world and bring our interesting cast of characters to life.

--------

Tumblr’s search function continues to be broken.

You can find our podcast at dumb-kids-playing-hero(.)pinecast(.)co

Or the direct link in the source of this post

#animorphs #ttrpg #actual play podcast #dnd #ttrpg podcast #dkph #itwadw

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rjalker · 5 years

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I don’t think you guys realize.

Yeerks can go three days without absorbing Kandrona rays before they die?

humans can go three days without drinking water before we die.

The yeerks are starving themselves slowly to death when they are in a host.

They are literally bringing themselves right to the brink of starvation before they leave their host to feed.

That’s the equivalent of a human only drinking water every three days.

IS IT ANY WONDER THEY FEEL LIKE SHIT???????

IS IT ANY WONDER THEY THINK THEIR NATURAL BODIES ARE WORTHLESS SHIT?????

THEY’RE LITERALLY ALWAYS AT THE BRINK OF DEATH!!!

AND THEY DON’T FUCKING KNOW ANY BETTER!!!!!!!!!!!

And if they’re doing this to themselves??????

Imagine what they’re doing to the taxxons.

If they literally bring themselves to the brink of starvation and are LITERALLY ONLY EATING THE SMALLEST AMOUNT THAT THEY CAN POSSIBLY SURVIVE ON

IMAGINE WHAT THEY’RE DOING TO THE TAXXONS!!!!!!!!

Imagine if you only ever drank water every three days and you only ate the absolute bare minimum you’d need to not-die.

Imagine always literally being on the brink of death, and feeling like you’re on the brink of death.

I don’t fucking imagine you’d be in love with your body either.

It’s not natural for yeerks to be constantly hosted. It’s literally detrimental to their health. It’s killing them.

And they don’t fucking know any better! How the fuck are they supposed to know any better?? How the fuck are they supposed to know what being healthy feels like when Visser Three and the other warmongers controlling them are forcing them to be in hosts all the goddamn time???

AND SERIOUSLY!!!

THE YEERKS THEMSELVES ARE DRIVING THEMSELVES TO THE BRINK OF STARVATION.

IMAGINE WHAT THEY’RE DOING TO THE TAXXONS.

Maybe the fucking solution to both their problems is to not be at fucking war. Maybe the fucking solution to both their problems is to just sit the fuck down and eat more than the absolute bare minimum that they need to not-die.

#Rjalker reads The Animorphs #yeerks #taxxons

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innumerablemuses-a · 4 years

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Mobile Version: Canon Characters

(For those that can’t view the page due to being mobile or other issues!)

FOR OC’S, REFER TO HERE--> oc muses

» AXIMILI-ESGARROUTH-ISTHILL -------ANIMORPHS

Younger brother to Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, Aximili had feared of always living in his older brother's shadows, despite the warmth and affection the two shared, especially as he had always looked up to Elfangor. His brother was a war hero against the Yeerks, an species that sought to bring control over every world they can for hosts (for the Yeerks are parasites by nature, and in need of hosts to live beyond the world of sludgy pools that, in essence, were their very reason for staying alive). But as any younger sibling would, Aximili would hope to one day outshine his brother.

Little did he know that he would get to in a very nasty way; he would end up becoming the sole survivor on the Andalite fleet ship GalaxyTree, crashing into the alien world's oceans where he had to wait for months before he could be rescued. And that rescue were done by those that his brother would break the ultimate code before dying... the Animorphs, a group of Earthling kids who were the only ones to fight the Yeerks while needing to wait roughly over a year before Andalites would be able to send help.

Many battles had been won, several more were lost. Aximili had served the leader of the Animorphs as well as he can, the one he would call Prince Jake. After a little while, he had begun to truly accept them, and had become a loyal member to fight the Yeerks. After the final battle, and a uneasy solution was truly found between the Yeerks and the rest of the galaxy, Aximili was able to stand in the same spotlight that his own brother had stood. While it didn't bring him the joy that he had expected long ago, he felt as though he could be content, knowing that his brother was proud for what Ax had managed to accomplish.

VERSES:: Mass Effect (tba) Dragon Ball Z/Super (tba)

» CYNDER -------LEGEND OF SPYRO

Cynder was born in the same clutch of dragon eggs that Spyro was in during the Year of the Dragon, making her and Spyro the same age. On the night the Dark Armies raided the Dragon Temple, the Ape King Gaul kidnapped Cynder's egg, choosing her to be the dragon who would free the essence of the Dark Master, Malefor, from his prison in the Convexity. She was corrupted by Malefor's dark powers shortly after hatching, which transformed her into a monstrous and horrific adult dragon brainwashed to do Malefor's bidding. But after being freed from his control and brought back by Spyro would Cynder truly begin to be her own dragon.

It took a lot of soul-searching, as she had been plagued by the guilt of everything she had done by the bidding of Malefor, one in which many creatures wouldn't let her forget. But after overcoming her past demons and rising to the challenge at Spyro's side, she was able to conquer not only her own self-doubt but to put to rest what had once been her sole purpose of living; Malefor's defeat.

While she has truly strong feelings for the purple dragon, Cynder would still struggle to find the words to form a summary of how much she loves him. Even after Malefor's final defeat and being dragged into the central gem by the ancestral dragons, confessing a simple uttered confession as she refused to leave him to mend the world that was breaking apart, she's unsure if he truly recuperated her feelings. But she intends to continue to remain at his side, whether as merely a best friend or more.

VERSES:: Wings of Fire (tba)

» GIG -------SOUL NOMAD AND THE WORLD EATERS

"The destroyer of everything!

The commander of the World Eaters!

But hell, you can call me Gig."

Gig is the Master of Death, a powerful entity hailing from the world called Drazil that was sent to the world of Haephnes, under orders by the rulers of Drazil to wreck havoc and to send as many souls from that world to the other as he could. While he certainly did accomplish the goal in some regards, he did it with a kind of savage glee that had nothing to do with it being his job. However, Haephnes had a fair number of heroes that would rise to the challenge; in such, one would come to fight Gig when others had failed. And that was the original Layna (with the aid of Virtuous), who would sacrifice her very soul so that the Master of Death would lose his body and become sealed in the Onyx Blade. For the next two hundred years, he had remained sealed, and the three World Eater titans that served him were put into a sleep.

However, things would not stay peaceful, especially as the rulers of Drazil were impatient for their need for more souls to come to their world. The three sleeping World Eaters were waking and would resume their havoc without Gig commanding them. Soon, Lady Layna (the body in which would come to house Virtuous but had kept the name of the original owner) had to find someone who could not only wield the Onyx Blade, but as well as keep Gig in check who wouldn't stop at taking over the body and forming himself anew. That would come to the one called Revya. As the one who would wield him would slowly uncover throughout the journey to stop the three World Eaters though, Gig was so much more than the eye would see.

AU Verses;; Dragon Ball Z/Super

» KID -------CHRONO CROSS

Talented as a thief and a world traveler, Kid always appears to be a carefree individual who took what she'd need (unless of course the other totally deserves to lose all their coins, then she'll take a lot more). But back before her chosen lifestyle, she was found as an baby orphan and had been raised by Lucca, who'd form an orphanage where she took in other homeless children. Up until she was eleven years old, she had a good life, until tragedy struck; the orphanage was burned down by an demi-human name Lynx along with his ally called Harle. Lucca was killed in the process, and most of the other kids would drift off to find another life, leaving her to fend for herself where she sword to herself that she'll get her revenge on Lynx.

However, there's a lot more to her than a petty criminal with a scarred childhood memory; Kid is the daughter-clone of Schala, a woman who was bound to the old entity called Lavos, though upon absorbing the woman would become the Dream Devourer. Having feared for what little mind she had as she was slowly corrupted while bound to the entity, she had opted instead to send the part of herself that could be saved out as a clone, which resulted in Kid being born, given the pendant that was the family's heirloom, and sent to Lucca on purpose rather than simply found by chance.

Having saved a guy named Serge, Kid would attach herself to his company; after having overheard the Acasia Dragoons were looking for him by the orders of Lynx to apprehend the 'ghost boy', she knew that Serge would be the best chance she'd get to finding the demi-human that had destroyed her childhood, killing Lucca whom she regarded as close to a mother as one could get. From there, history was in for a lot of alternations.

VERSES:: Final Fantasy 7 (tba) Final Fantasy 9 (tba)

» TENEBRAE -------TALES OF SYMPHONIA: DAWN OF A NEW WORLD

The Centurion of Darkness, one of the eight elements, servant to Lord Ratatosk, Tenebrae is a well-mannered creature who governs over the element as well as those that used darkness as their element. Like the rest of the servants, he had been slumbering and rarely interacting with anyone outside of the small group as well as Lord Ratatosk. However, things would change when two humans would come along into the world of Ginnungagap, at first to warn Lord Ratatosk of the world's mana crisis, though things would escalate, resulting in one human in being killed, driving the other to kill the summon spirit. Lord Ratatosk was reduced to his core state, and before the remaining human could destroy it, Tenebrae had awoken, taken the core, and fled to the surface to save him.

Meeting Marta on the surface, who wanted to keep the core of Ratatosk safe from the Vanguard who also wanted the summon spirit's core, Tenebrae would team up with her, developing a kind of admiration for the girl. When they were separated in the city of Palmacosta during what would become known to history as 'the Blood Purge', Tenebrae would come to find Marta with a fake core attached to her forehead, and the real core had taken on a human guise so as to hide in plain sight. Understanding the situation, Tenebrae wouldn't reveal any of this to Marta, or, later on, to the man called Emil until nearly the end, who would turn out to be the guise of Ratatosk... in the image of the last human he killed.

Filled with information and facts, Tenebrae had proven to be both an infallible source of knowledge as well as brimming with useless facts. Oftentimes he'll inform the group of tidbits of knowledge (whether they wanted it or not), though there are times that his spiteful side would make him less than helpful.

» CAPTAIN BENJAMIN FRANKLIN “HAWKEYE” PIERCE -------M*A*S*H

Born and raised in Crabapple Cove, Maine, Hawkeye is the son of Dr. Daniel Pierce, and an only child. His nickname "Hawkeye" was given him by his father, taken from the name of a character in the novel The Last of the Mohicans, the only book Hawkeye's father ever read. He doesn't remember much about his mother, as she had died very early in his life, and it's little wonder that he is as close to his father as he is.

After his medical residency in Boston, Hawkeye is drafted into the Army and assigned to the 4077th MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) during the Korean War. Between long, intense sessions of treating wounded soldiers, he makes the best of his life in the isolated Army camp by indulging in heavy drinking, carousing, and pulling pranks on the people around him, particularly Majors Frank Burns and Margaret Houlihan, which later on would include Major Charles Emerson Winchester III, when Frank leaves.

Hawkeye proved time and again to be an excellent surgeon, which was rewarded by Colonel Blake when he was reluctantly appointed Chief Surgeon, much to Frank and Margaret's disgust; a warranted visit from General Barker eventually convinces him that Blake made the right decision. He has a very strong moral code, and often questions the validity of the war and why they're all there in the first place. He loathes racism and is angered whenever someone else uses ethnic slurs.

» LEO -------JUNGLE TAITEI/THE NEW ADVENTURES OF KIMBA THE WHITE LION (1989)

Strong, passionate about freedom and justice, and never backing down from what he believes to be right, Leo is a fierce lion who tries to be friendly as well as offer advice as needed. However he wasn’t immune to flaws - he has one hell of a temper when pushed to the brink, as well as indecisive when it comes to whether following his father’s teachings or doing it his own way. Sometimes he struggles with the identity that animals associate him to (his father’s) and his own.

Leo is an rarity among all lions - like his father Panja, he was born with a white coat. With only a tuft of black at the end of his tail and the tips of his ears black, he was the spitting image of his own father. However, Leo would never meet his father and would only know his mother for a short time. Before he was born, Leo’s father had been the ruler of the jungle, always thwarting humans that would dare come to his territory to hunt his subjects as well as keeping order and harmony. But his pelt was greedily sought for by many poachers, which more often than not was the reason they would come to the jungle in the first place. This event would happen before Leo's birth.

Born on a human ocean ship that was taking his mother overseas in the hopes that the cubs she bore would have the father's white coat, Leo had only known that small world for a much shorter length of time. Eriza would tell him stories about his father, how strong and brave Panja was as he would protect the innocent and would do everything in his power to do right. This would fuel Leo’s morals as he wanted to be just like his father, and even when he did eventually make it back to the jungle, his mother's stories would still inspire him, despite much of his early memories growing hazy over time and age.

VERSES:: Kung Fu Panda (tba)

» SOREN (BOOK INTERPRETATION) -------GUARDIANS OF GA'HOOLE

Soren, a male barn owl, (Tyto alba), leader of “The Band”. Soren was born in the Kingdom of Tyto, where he lived with his father, Noctus, his mother, Marella, his older brother, Kludd, his younger sister, Eglantine, and the family’s nest snake Mrs. Horace Plithiver. He was snatched by patrols from St. Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls after somehow falling from the nest, a terrible place filled with owlets that were similarly snatched from their families, most never having been orphaned. The purpose of this 'academy' was to moonblink owlets and making them do many various tasks as mindless slaves, from hatching snatched eggs to picking apart pellets to find what were called 'flecks'. He later escaped with his friend Gylfie and together the two met Twilight then Digger before journeying to the Great Ga'Hoole Tree.

It's later revealed, after rejoining with his nest maid Mrs. Horace Plithiver, or better known as Mrs. P., that Kludd had pushed him out of the nest on purpose. And it would be much later on that killing a member of one's family was part of the initiation process of joining the Pure Ones. And someday, Soren would come face to face with his brother, who had achieved much more ambition since officially joining the Pure Ones, under the alias Metal Beak after having taken over as leader of the Pure Ones, with his mate and second-in-command, Nyra.

After joining the the owls of the Ga'Hoole Tree, Soren and the band were put into groups of owls that were named 'chaws', each chaw specialized in specific talents. The Barnowl was double-chawed in weather interpretation and colliering, meaning that he was to not only learn how to fly in any weather, but to also learn to collect coals so as to stoke the fires of the Ga'Hoole Tree. This would be when he would soon be taken under wing by the ryb (teacher) of this particular chaw, Ezylryb.

VERSES:: Kung Fu Panda (tba)

» GIN -------GINGA NAGAREBOSHI GIN

Gin, second-generation leader of the Ou Army, inheriting the position from his father Riki after the battle with Akakabuto and his massive army of bears. Gin is a silver-brindled Akita dog, which are some of the most prized dogs to track and kill bears, said to be the strongest of the Akita dog breeds. The man that had raised Riki and the whole line that Riki had descended from, known as Grandfather by many, had taken Gin as a puppy to train him after losing Riki down a chasm while hunting down the massive murderous bear known as Akakabuto. Enduring many months of tough training that many wouldn’t considering putting a dog through much less a pup, Gin had grown into a strong young dog. He was just as determined to defeat Akakabuto as Takeda Gohee (Grandfather), for killing his father.

Soon following comes the event where Gin would come across a pack of wild dogs that were gathering recruits for their army, as ordered by their mysterious leader. One of the generals known as Cross would tell him to go home, but Gin was determined to join the pack, eventually able to meet the leader. It was with great surprise that it was his own father, Riki! However, the leader had suffered from loss of memories due to the fall in the chasm, only holding onto the vague memories he had of the fight with Akakabuto. After the end of the war with Akakabuto, Gin is now the leader of one of the greatest pack of Japan, having gathered some of the best fighters that had joined to bring down the strongest and dangerous bear. There was now only peace…

Gin is a natural born leader with a lot of charisma, known for being brave and strong. He has a strong sense of justice and wants to protect his friends and all those who are unable to protect themselves. He isn't afraid to die for his friends or his mission that he believes in. Mostly due to the training during young age, he became more mature than most dogs of his age and is mentally strong and unlikely to give up, which means that he isn't all that playful and tends to be quite serious. Though he can sometimes joke around with close friends like Smith, even if it's done a more shy way, given that it doesn't come as naturally to him.

» LARA CROFT -------RISE OF THE TOMB RAIDER

Resilient, strong-willed, open-minded, Lara Croft has come a long way from the days where she didn't believe in the supernatural and had been a far more timid but energetic girl; several events had come to help her open her eyes to the world on a far larger scale and come to accept that the world is far more than the modern day will reveal. She is confident with her ability to adapt and respond to situations, especially in a life-and-death situation where it would have otherwise killed someone else.

It's not to say that she doesn't have issues that would come having to experience everything that she had. Lara is always fighting with her personal demons at having to kill in order to survive, though she will always rationalize it in the mere fact that if she hadn't done as she had, she wouldn't be alive today, and would do so again, especially when her friends are in trouble - after having lost her mother to an illness, and then her father through the actions of the organization called Trinity, she has come to deeply care for those that she grows close to.

She has but one main purpose for all the travels she endures; to thrawt the same organization that had killed her father and framed it as a suicide, though it's not as simple as wanting revenge. This organization is dangerous because they have goals to change the world, and they would do it with any means of an artifact that holds such powers. If she can reach the artifact first and keep it out of their hands, it would be plenty enough until she can start wiping out the cells of the organization, however she can.

» ALEX FIERRO -------MAGNUS CHASE AND THE GODS OF ASGARD (PERCY JACKSON UNIVERSE)

Alex Fierro is a gender-fluid einherji, a child of Loki, and an astonishingly powerful shapeshifter. When he first arrives in Hotel Valhalla—identifying as male at the moment—he turns into a cheetah, destroys his room, and attacks his new hall mates. Later, she (female now) transforms into a weasel and tries to escape the hotel. She finally appears in her human form: a hauntingly attractive teenager of slender build with facial features that closely resemble Loki’s, minus the scars. She wears layers of pink-and-green clothes—skinny green pants, a pink-and-green sweater-vest, rose-colored high-top sneakers, and a second sweater, also pink, tied around her waist. Her hair is green with black roots, and she has one dark brown eye and one amber-colored eye.

Alex’s parentage arouses suspicion at first, much as her half-sister Samirah al-Abbas’s did when she first came to Hotel Valhalla. In time, Alex proves herself to be a trustworthy addition to floor nineteen’s group. She’s a fearless fighter, wielding her weapon of choice—a garrote made from a wooden-handled clay-cutting wire—with terrifying efficiency. She helps Sam to see her own shapeshifting ability as an asset and to resist their father’s mind control. After years of being shunned for who she is, Alex holds most people at arm’s length. But she comes to trust Magnus, and ultimately allows him to get closer to her than anyone has for a long time.

» MERLIN JAMES MACKINTOSH QWILLERAN (QWILL) -------"THE CAT WHO..." BOOK SERIES BY (LATE) LILIAN JACKSON BRAUN FACECLAIM;;ARAKAWA (THE MELANCHOLY OF HARUHI SUZUMIYA)

Qwill is a resident of a place called Mooseville (400 miles north of everywhere), his past work history including being a crime reporter and writing news columns in many major cities, as well as an author to the book "City of Brotherly Crime". He had only recently become a millionaire (or billionaire) from a fluke of his family's friend leaving him as her sole heir upon her death. However, he had retained his thrifty tendencies and is reluctant to spend the money on himself.

Setting up what's called the Klingenschoen Foundation to distribute his wealth among the community, the town is ever improving and hails him as a local hero despite being previously an outsider. Now he's a column writer for the recent newspaper owned by his best friend Riker (whom in which was at the behest of Qwill) called the "Moose Country Something", posted two times a week and often always in need of a new story.

Koko, his ever extraordinary cat, is a well-known figure among the police force and Qwill's close friends. Digging into cases that stumps the police force, he had been able to solve many cases, some in which were thought to be closed years before, having Qwill follow the clues and leads Koko would reveal, all the while not showing more than catly whims. It is unclear to the poor human whether it's all just coincidences, or if the cat is smarter than he'd ever know.

» ACORNA -------"ACORNA THE UNICORN GIRL" BY (LATE) ANNE MCCAFFREY AND MARGARET BALL

An alien girl found drifting in an escape pod in space as an infant, she was raised by three human asteroid miners, Gil, Rafik and Calum, who would all regard her at first a curiosity before coming to love her as a shared daughter. They would name her Acorna, partly because of the growing golden spiral of horn on her forehead as well as the quatrant of space they’ve found her, where they named mineral-bearing asteroids with the letter ‘A’. Her deformities were unique to humans; the horn, her cloven feet, furred legs as well as her four fingers that lacked a third joint were all part of what seemed to be her unique being.

In the very short years that her foster fathers were caring for her, she had been targetted by several various people for their own reasons. Scientists wanted to study her, doctors wanted to "fix" her deformities, and even Rafik's own uncle wanted to have her as part of his collection of rarities. But she had grown up far faster than anyone could imagine, including reaching her maturity at around a mere five years. Those that sought her out, only a few of them would want to have her on their side for the good of others.

This would lead her to meeting another very successful man by the name of Delszaki Li, who wanted her to be the center of the plan to eliminate child labor on his world Kezdet - this, in which, would ultimately be her true beginnings of her legacy that went beyond her mere strange appearance. After the cruel practice had finally broken up and freed the children to be taken to a new home that would help them learn to live a true life, Acorna found that she had truly made a difference. And she'd only want to continue to do so, even when the search for her people would be on everyone's minds.

» ELIZA THORNBERRY -------THE WILD THORNBERRIES

Eliza is a young girl who has a family that travels the world, their quest to find animals for their parent's show "Nigel Thornberry's Wild Show", to share the wonders and facts about these amazing animals to the rest of the world. Elixa is the youngest sister, with her sister Debbie who's five years older. They are also accompanied by the wild child they named Donnie, and a chimpanzee that's named Darwin. This particular child had always ever known the comveee life of traveling and has extensive knowledge on animals thanks to her parents. In all definition, she's a nerd, right down to having braces and glasses.

But there is one secret that she has, one that she must keep to herself from other people if she wants to keep the power; the ability to talk to animals.

Making friends with animals had become a lot easier when one could understand them, and they in turn knows that there was one enthusiastic human that would listen to them. Sometimes, this power had brought more trouble than good; predators attempting to take advantage of her, involving the young girl in troubles that she'd be well over her head with.

There is only one other person that had come to know her secret (a struggle that had briefly rendered her without this power), and that's her big sister Debbie. The teen has always had trouble understanding her younger sister and her obsession with animals, not when she's struggling with wanting to be normal. But now? She sort of understood, especially when her sister had lost the power in order to save Debbie's life.

» LUCIFER MORNINGSTAR -------LUCIFER (NETFLIX SERIES)

The Devil, Satan, Old Scratch, Lucifer is known by many names, all feared and hated by humanity (except for the better minded individuals who don't blindly follow his father's little book). Having been forced to rule Hell for countless millennium when his take-over for Heaven had failed, resulting him to be banished, he longed to break free of this forced imprisonment. And one day, it would bring him to Los Angeles, becoming the owner of his own nightclub that he named Lux. His closest friend, personal bodyguard and longtime servant, Mazikeen, would follow him out, devoted to the fallen angel though determined to return him to Hell one day... for his own good, as well as the good of keeping Hell in check. With excessive reluctance, she would cut off his wings when ordered to.

The last few years, he had made himself a reputation, all the while not even attemptin to hide who he was from the world. Most humans assumed that either he changed his name to 'Lucifer Morningstar' so as to make his club all the more interesting, or his parents were anti-Christ supporters, which in either case amused him. However, even while he parties hard and has certainly kept his bedroom skills regularly tested, Lucifer is and always has been a punisher. The wicked needs to be punished; this was perhaps one of the reasons he was sent to Hell, not just because he tried to overthrow his father.

Circumstances worked in his favor as, when one of those that made a deal with him long ago returned to thank him for all he's done for her had been shot and killed in a drive-by, it would eventually lead him directly in the path of one Detective Decker. Instantly intruiged by her and her ability to resist his ability of persuasion that had made almost every being except angels to reveal their deepest, darkest secrets, he'd also secure himself a spot as a 'civilian consultant', working with the police, though more specifically, with Chloe.

» RICHARD B. RIDDICK (RIDDICK) -------PITCH BLACK // THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK

Riddick is a man of many skills, with a reputation that makes him a highly wanted criminal in all the universe, enough where the bounty on his head is within a million's worth. Yet he won't hide what he is, going so far as to introduce himself as 'escaped convict, murderer', just to keep people on their toes. He has no desire to get close to people; everyone he'd dare to care about often gets killed despite his best efforts, so he'll keep everyone at an arm's distance.

Born a Furian on the world Furya, his people would be massacred on whole by a Necromonger that was warned that a male Furian would be his downfall; Riddick has dim memories of the events, of being strangled with supposedly his mother's umbilical cords and left among the bodies. It's unclear who had found him and taken him off-planet to raise him, and he pushed those memories deep down where he had almost forgotten them until later on, when facing the very same Necromonger who became the leader of the Necromongers.

As soon as he was old enough, he joined the Company as a ranger, learning to pilot ships and to be a sweeper (those who worked in the tunnels to draw out hidden predators). He quickly earned his promotions to join the Strikeforce academy, learning to be an efficent soldier. But the more he worked for the Company as an enforcer, the more corruption he found, and had attempted to speak out against them with evidence to boost. Needless to say, the evidence was destroyed and he was sent off to prison called Deep Storage. This was where his criminal life began, and within the next few years, he escaped the prison and earned his first million credit bounty. He'd since then been on the run, dodging mercs and bounty hunters, oftentimes captured and sent to a prison only to escape it later. Riddick had killed enough people to earn the fear of one prison system that wouldn't want him in their system again.

At some point, he came to be hunted once again after hiding out on a world of literal ice and snow, learning that this bounty was put on his head by someone he thought he could trust. Events would follow that it was an attempt to get his attention and to recruit him into the struggle against the very people that had killed most of his own kind... one he had refused at first. That it wasn't his fight. Yet... fight he did, and while it was because of him that the Necromongers would be stopped by their very rule, "You keep what you kill", it came with a very heavy cost.

He was leader for a brief time with the Necromongers, but within the next few years, he'd disappear once again, leaving the throne for Vaako to take. No one knows why he left.

No one knows what this meant. Except, perhaps, that the hunt was on yet again for the bounty on his head that never went away. Just no one was foolish enough to attempt to take it until he was no longer surrounded by an army.

» RAVENPAW -------"WARRIORS" BY ERIN HUNTER

As a kit born in ThunderClan, Ravenpaw had great ambitions to become just as amazing as a warrior like the older cats. Almost every kit would hope to be the greatest warrior, perhaps even become leader of the clan one day. When his sixth moon had come, making him old enough to become an apprentice and have his name changed from Ravenkit to Ravenpaw, he was given perhaps the most strongest warrior of the clan as his mentor, Tigerclaw. While the great warrior would push him hard in training, Ravenpaw had been honored to have someone like Tigerclaw. He strived as hard as he could to be the best apprentice he could be for the tom, aware that praises would be few and far between.

But the honor would change to horror when, during a skirmish with RiverClan over a patrol in trying to reclaim Sunning Rocks as part of ThunderClan's territory once again, Ravenpaw witnessed a terrible crime. Even though the deputy of the clan, Redtail, had managed to kill the deputy of RiverClan Oakheart, driving the rest of the RiverClan patrol away, Tigerclaw had ordered Ravenpaw to run back to their camp to get help. Sneaking back, just to make sure that his mentor and the deputy were okay, he'd watch as Tigerclaw would suddenly attack Redtail, killing him with no remorse.

Ravenpaw would come to live in terror ever since returning back to camp, unable to tell the clan what he had witnessed, barely managing to get out that Redtail was dead before collapsing. When he would come to, Tigerclaw had returned, dragging Redtail with him, and proclaiming that during the skirmish with RiverClan that Oakheart was the one to kill the ThunderClan deputy, and that Tigerclaw had been the one to kill Oakheart. Unable to tell the truth now that his mentor had established his story, Ravenpaw could only pretend that he was still oblivious like the rest of the clan... but there was no way to be certain that he was truly safe.

» MAPLESHADE -------"WARRIORS" BY ERIN HUNTER

Mapleshade was once a loyal apprentice and a bold and skillful warrior of ThunderClan. It was believed by some that she would be leader one day. However, she made the tragic mistake of falling in love with a cat from RiverClan, named Appledusk. She kept this a secret by meeting him near the river, sneaking out at night with no cat noticing, but then one day she gave birth to his kits. The medicine cat Ravenwing eventually deduced that Appledusk was the father of Mapleshade's kits, which caused an uproar to ThunderClan and they banished Mapleshade and her kits from the Clan forever for betraying the warrior code. The former ThunderClan warrior had no choice but to cross the river along with her kits, but the swelled water swept them away. Mapleshade almost drowned trying to save them, but they were already gone even as a cat, Appledusk, had found her and dragged her to the other side. To her horror Appledusk blamed her for the accident. He wanted nothing more to do with Mapleshade, and RiverClan refused to let her stay, not even for just one night.

Alone now, from ThunderClan, RiverClan, and even Appledusk, the cat she loved most, Mapleshade had no choice but to live as a rogue. She felt a strong sense of hatred for RiverClan and ThunderClan, for the way they treated her. Her kits, too, were haunting her as spirits, crying out to her in wails without ever answering her. Deciding that this was a sign that she needed to take revenge, especially when a sympathizing apprentice who found her sick and had brought her herbs revealed some distressing news, the former warrior had sought out the three cats that had been the worst offenders - Ravenwing, the ThunderClan medicine cat that ousted her secret before its time, then afterwards Frecklewish, the ThunderClan warrior that could have helped her drowning kits but had chosen to do nothing, and finally Appledusk, for betraying her when she needed him most.

Ravenwing and Frecklewish had both been killed, catching the medicine cat at the Moonstone before killing her former friend the next day at Snackrocks with one of the adders trapped in the rocks. Capturing Appledusk’s apprentice Perchpaw to bring the RiverClan warrior to search for the young cat, she revealed herself and challenged him to a fight after accusing him for not saving their kits, which he said it was her fault, though he refused to fight initially. It was only when his pregnant RiverClan mate Reedshine came along and sent Mapleshade into a fury that he dodged into the she-cat’s claws when she attempted to kill Reedshine, killing him instead. His apprentice delivered a fatal bite to her neck, to which she would weaken and die even after fleeing the territory.

However... death was not the end for a vengeful spirit.

» FRANCIS -------FELIDAE

Francis is a very smart and cultured cat, very different from many other cats. He's involved in many adventures, because of his uncontrollable curiosity and desire to solve cases of murder that affect the cats community. Differently from many cats, Francis exhibits an exceptional intuit and intelligence that bring him to solve complicated cases to reveal the killer (or killers). One of his main features is that Francis doesn't hold back from personally facing the killer and has pointed how a true detective should ever have "sharp claws".

Francis has a pessimist mentality with great tenacity and morality, condemning the actions of many of the killers he has to face. This makes him a very complex being. He often shows witty moments of hilarity even when facing danger. Francis also has a complex view of right and wrong. He does not condone killing but will kill to save his own life. During investigations he often approaches to understand the mentality of the murderers and despite condemning their action, Francis often pities when a being is turned into a monster by human actions or the hardness of fate.

In addiction to his deductive investigative skills, Francis often receive help from mysterious dreams that provide direct and/or indirect clues to solve cases. The reason and the origin of these dreams are never clearly explained and remains a mystery for Francis himself.

OTHER CHARACTERS I’VE BEEN CONSIDERING

Nanaki (Final Fantasy 7)

Cadence (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic)

Gabby (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic)

Thorax (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic) || Completely AU

#mobileversion #o.➤ooc;;Mod

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notananimorph · 7 years

Text

The “Andalite bandits” have splintered. It was largely inevitable. Unlike the Animorphs series, the war hasn’t ended, and it’s cost us a lot of soldiers, human, Andalite, whatever. I was actually part of the original group that happened upon the dying Andalite prince who gave us his Escafil device. I’m the only one of them still alive. We’ve kept recruiting since then, and, well, you get enough people under pressure, and they’ll fracture.

I’ll give you a rundown, and I’m obviously going to be biased towards my own faction. I know these people and there’s a lot of animosity there. So be warned as I discuss these douchebags.

My own group is called the “Protean Collective”, and we’ve got the most people. Problem is, most of them aren’t useful for combat. We’re most closely allied with the free Hork-Bajir colony, and we’ve been freeing human hosts as well. We’ve also got a lot of nothlits, largely humans who got stuck on missions. We do have some intentional nothlits, though, some people who had genetic illnesses that threatened their lives, and, (and I know @selfdeterminedsymbionts won’t believe me) a few Yeerks and Taxxons who chose to trap themselves in another body. Basically, we realize we’re in the middle of an invasion, and we have to try and stop them, but there’s lines we won’t cross, and if anything good is going to happen after the war, well, we’re going to need to work with other species.

The first group that split are the people I hate the most. They’ve cycled through a few names, but they’ve settled on “The Vanarx”, after the Yeerk’s natural predator. These are the genocidal fuckheads who at some point decided that any despicable action was fine as long as it killed Yeerks. And they aren’t too worried about collateral damage they cause along the way. I won’t lie and say my hands (or talons rather) are clean, but the majority of the worst shit done by morphers in this conflict comes from them. Luckily, they have a high rate of attrition, but they manage to recover their losses quicker than I’d like.

The next big splinter are the “Fleet Vanguards”, or as I like to call them, the Heaven’s Gaters. These are the people that still have faith that the Andalite fleet is going to come and save us all. Everyone else, however, has cottoned onto the fact that the Andalites don’t have any plans for Earth that don’t involve a planet-shattering boom. These folks are in total denial. Now, you might imagine that all the Andalites on Earth were a part of this group, and that only Andalites would be a part of this group, but you’re wrong on both counts. There’s more Andalites here than in any other group, sure, but it’s only a plurality of the Andalites on Earth (Like, 30-40% of the Andalites still here), the oldest ones, the ones who were middle-aged when they landed here after their failed space battle. And within the group, they’re outnumbered by the humans. These people… well, they’re to Andalites what those hardcore anime fans are to Japan. It’s kind of creepy. Oddly enough, for their part, the Andalites in the Vanguard actually value their human members. Sure, it’s paternalistic and awful, but they do legitimately care about their little cultists.

Then there’s the “Saviors of Humanity”. They’re basically the opposite of the Vanguards. They may not be completely genocidal, but they are very much of a mindset that Aliens Are Bad. This group is the only one that’s 100% human and they will keep it that way. And, while they tolerate groups like the free Hork-Bajir for now, they’ve made it abundantly clear that when this war is over, they want them off our planet. Aside from that, they’ve got sticks up their asses and are very much authoritarian and militaristic. Our first leader, who died in combat, is treated by them as some kind of hybrid of Washington, Patton, and Jesus, and our second leader, also deceased, is treated like a lesser version of that. Basically, they’re fascist pricks.

The “Defenders of Gaia” are closest to us ideologically. They’re also in favor of working together with alien races and a big multicultural freak fest. Problem is, these guys aren’t only after Yeerk operations. They’ll happily go after whichever human group happens to piss them off. Corporations, militias, hate groups… hell, I’m pretty sure they’re gunning for the US government these days. I mean, the Yeerk Empire often is involved with their targets at some level, and they do go after them as well. Still, they’re wasting time and energy, and increasing the chance of getting caught.

The last group call themselves the “Shadows on the Web”. They’re our stealth and tech-specialists who hack into Yeerk systems, spy on Controllers, and do all sorts of useful things. However, as we started to split, they basically decided they were going to sit out the war. They fight back against the Empire, but their methods are little more than leaving a flaming bag of dog feces on their porch, ringing the doorbell, and running away. They’ve got useful skills, but we’re in the middle of being invaded. Rickrolling the Pool ship isn’t going to make it stop. Still, they can be useful. Hell, they got me this secure setup out in the woods. But everything comes with a hefty price tag. They also have a few organizations that are subtly working to undermine The Sharing which is always a good thing in my book.

But yeah, those are humanity’s last hope: My band of misfits, a group of underhanded monsters, an Andalite cargo cult, a xenophobic militia group, the ELF on steroids, and Anonymous.

Fuck it, I’m going to see if a red-tailed hawk can drink whisky without dying.

#animorphs #andalites #yeerks #taxxons #hork-bajir #nothlit problems #there's assholes a plenty in each faction #ooc: Thanks to featherquillpen for the beta #featherquillpen

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shadow-wasser · 7 years

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WIP Fic Whenever: Atlamorphs 9

WIP Fic Friday Whenever is a place where I will put a ‘quick and dirty’ first draft of either a short story or a chapter from a longer story. This will hopefully encourage me to improve my writing output. An Animorphs/Avatar: the Last Airbender Crossover. Yes it’s strange.

Hard Rock

Here’s how it probably happened:

The people of Kyoshi were walking around, just living their lives. The excitement of the Avatar’s visit was fading, even with the local fans. Oyaji was probably doing something governmental… or maybe seeing to the training of a new batch of warriors, seeing as Suki’s squad had left.

Anyway, a man knocked on the door, came in, and started asking lots of questions. Questions about the Avatar. Oyagi didn’t know the man, which was weird in such a small town, and grew suspicious. He told the man to leave. The man pulled the usual line, that he was working for great spirits, and the island could benefit from an alliance. Oyagi, remembering Aang’s warning, told him to leave again, this time more firmly. The man told him that the consequences of ignoring him would be severe. At this point, Oyagi may have reached for a weapon.

So, the man shot him with a Dracon beam.

While he was stunned, the man forced a Yeerk into the mayor’s ear. The Yeerk read his memories, and determined that the Avatar had recently been there, had taken great interest in a piece of metal that the Yeerk recognized as Andalite in origin, and then suddenly appeared in the company of a Water Tribe youth everyone described as ‘bizarre.’ They would also know that he was now heading to Gaoling.

Within the week, a Yeerk Pool would be set up in a hollowed-out hill. Within the month, every person on Kyoshi Island would be a controller.

Now, I’m not sure about this. I wasn’t there, and by the time the rumor mill told me that Kyoshi had opened its borders to refugees, we had almost reached Ba Sing Se.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

-------------------

“So,” I said. “You were attacked by the Yeerks, in space, and dropped out of space and landed in the ocean? And you’re the only survivor?”

(Yes,) replied Aximili. (The others were in fighters or the main part of the ship.)

“You weren’t with them?”

(I… I am young. Too young for battle, by the laws of our people.)

“We’re young too,” said Aang. “We’re just kids. But we have to fight, however we can. We don’t have a choice.”

(That is brave of you.)

We hadn’t had much chance to just talk to Aximili, after rescuing him. We’d been around people, most of the time, and he had to act like a human. Our cousin Aksi, Katara and I had said. Our… mentally challenged cousin.

We left Kyoshi pretty quick after what he did to our dinner.

--------------

“Rice! Ri-suh! Fish ish ish issssssssshhhh. Nooooooodles!”

--------------

Yeah, that hadn’t been pretty. I’m pretty sure he still thinks soy sauce is a drink.

(This is a fascinating creature,) said Aximili, one stalk eye looking down at Appa from his place in the saddle. I can’t even tell you how weird it was to have him sitting in the saddle like that, as if he was a normal person, only blue and with four legs. (How does it fly without wings?)

“Oh, Appa can airbend,” said Aang cheerfully. “Sky bison were the original source of airbending, you know.”

(I do not understand.)

“Yeah, I don’t get it either,” I confessed. “Nothing about bending makes much sense. I mean, how much does Appa weigh?”

(What is ‘bending?’)

Aang stared. “You don’t know?”

(It is not a phrase I recognize.)

“Oh, well, I’m an airbender…”

“And I’m a waterbender,” spoke up Katara. She uncorked her waterskin and drew out stream of water that hovered in midair. “See?”

Now, all four of Aximili’s eyes were focused on Katara. (Fegul,) he said. (I learned about these things in school, but I did not realize you were capable of it.)

“Does no one in your world bend?” asked Aang. “How do you survive?” He was staring at Aximili like he had no head (well, Aximili already looked pretty strange, but you get the point).

I frowned, insulted. Katara had been the only bender in the South Pole, and we’d been getting along fine (okay, sorta not, but we had lots of problems other than no benders). I mean, it wasn’t like bending was the only thing keeping civilization together! And to be honest, I sometimes felt that bending caused more problems than it was worth.

(Only very primitive sentient species have been known to use fegul,) explained the Andalite. (And even then not always. Andalites may have at one point, but we have long abandoned it.)

I bristled. Again with the ‘primitive’ thing! What was the matter with this guy? Just because we didn’t have ships that traveled in space didn’t mean we were primitive!

“Hey, we’re not-”

“Why would you abandon bending?” interrupted Katara, sounding disturbed.

(The use of feagul allows Ellimists to control you,) explained Aximili, like he was talking to a baby, or someone really slow. (It indebts you to them. It is better to be free from such beings.)

“Ellimists?” wondered Aang.

(Beings of great power.) For once, Aximili’s voice seemed to hold a bit of humility. (The laws of reality, of time and space, are as nothing to them. They often manipulate other species to their own ends.)

“Do you mean spirits?” asked Aang.

(You may call them that.)

Manipulate other species to their own ends. I was reminded, unpleasantly, of the story of Princess Yue’s birth, of how the Moon Spirit saved her life. Only to have her give it back.

The spirit’s gesture didn’t seem so altruistic anymore.

I rubbed my chin and thought. Bending, binding you to spirits? Or spirits to you… Hei Bai, terrorizing a town for something the Fire Nation did… The Ocean Spirit, destroying an entire fleet of ships… Aang’s description of Koh the Face-stealer…

What would life be like, without spirits? Aximili seemed to know.

“But you need spirits to keep the balance!” Aang was insisting. “They’re what keep the world the way it is!”

Aximili looked at him with huge green eyes. (Have you never wanted the world to change?)

Aang and Katara exchanged a glance. “Of course we want the world to change… for the better,” Katara said. “But interfering with spirits only brings pain.”

(A common primitive belief,) said Axmili dismissively.

Aang began to look angry. “Look, there was this admiral, Zhao, who thought that spirits were going to get in his way. So he tried to kill one. But that went really badly. For him and for everyone.”

“Anyway,” said Katara. “There’s Aang, too. He’s the bridge between the mortal and the spirit worlds. He’ll be able to help if the spirits try to control us.”

Aang looked nervous at that last. “Right,” he said. “Yeah.”

(You are a link?)

“Yeah, I’m the Avatar,” Aang replied. “It means I can learn all four elements, and I need to keep the balance.”

“It also means he has to end the war,” I spoke up.

(The war against the Yeerks?)

I blinked. “Uh, no. The war against the Fire Nation.”

(You humans are at war amongst yourselves?)

“Basically, yeah.”

(Andalites have not fought each other for millennia.)

“Well, whoop de do for you,” I muttered.

“Tell us more about your world, Aximili,” said Katara, leaning forward as she changed the subject. “Are there no humans there?”

(No, none. It is a different planet.)

“What does it look like?” asked Aang.

Aximili closed his front eyes for a moment. (It is beautiful. It is open and full of grass, with miles and miles of space to run. There are three moons and two suns in the sky, which is painted with great works of art.)

“Wow,” said Katara. “You must miss it.”

(The memory reminds me why I fight,) said Aximili. (To protect it from the Yeerks’ desecration.)

I nodded. That made sense. After all, what do we fight for, if not to protect our homes? But something bothered me.

“What do you mean, ‘desecration?’ ”

The Andalite looked over at me. (You don’t know? The Yeerks would destroy our home utterly, if they could. As they destroy other worlds.)

“They destroy worlds?” gasped Aang. “How… how can they destroy worlds?”

(It is the usual Yeerk pattern. They remake the worlds they conquer to be barren like their own. They eliminate most of the species that are unnecessary to the survival of their hosts, and remake the surface of the planet in their own foul image.)

Aang looked aghast, Katara looked disturbed, and I have to admit, the idea of destroying every other species in the world was pretty distasteful.

“That’s horrible,” said Aang. “You mean all the animals…”

(Yes. And most of the plant life as well. You truly did not know this?)

“No…” whispered Aang. “I had no idea.”

I swallowed. They destroy whole worlds… and we’d seen what they did to people. How could we even hope to fight them? How could we defeat the Yeerks, when at the end of summer a comet was coming that would give the Fire Nation victory? Which was worse- enslavement or incineration?

Heh. Maybe, the Yeerks would defeat the Fire Nation for us.

Yeah. As if that would help.

----------------------------

I can’t say exactly what it was about that bag. It was very spacious, and I liked the cloth and- oh screw it. I just plain liked it. It was very well crafted, and had a price to match.

Gaoling, we had been relieved to see, was a normal town, with normal Earth Kingdom people in it. We stopped to spend some of the money we’d gotten in Kyoshi on supplies, and the bag caught my eye.

As I hemmed and hawed over it, I was interrupted by Aximili, or rather, I should say our cousin ‘Aksi.’

“What is that smell? Smell-luh?”

“Oh, they’re street vendors!” said Aang enthusiastically. “They sell food. We could get some, if you’re hungry.”

Now, that was enough to distract me. “No food for Aksi, Aang. Remember what happened last time?”

“No food fuh ood?”

“No. Not for you.” I sighed. “You know, maybe I won’t get the bag. It’s really too expensive.”

“Then don’t,” said Katara, and turned to leave with Aang and ‘Aksi.’

I gave the bag one last look as we left, thinking of its yellow inlay and felt sides. Then, I ran back. These opportunities don’t come twice, after all!

I shouldn’t have left them alone.

“Mmmm! MM! What is this is isssssssss?”

“They’re candied ginkgo nuts, young man.”

“MMMMMM! It is the greatest taste!”

The vendor laughed. “Now, this boy has a healthy appetite!”

I ran up to the food stall, where Aximili was gorging himself on the nuts like it was going out of fashion. “Hey! Hey, uh, Aksi! Aksi, what did I tell you about food?” I grabbed the stupid Andalite’s shoulders and steered him away from the stall, his cheeks and fists full of nuts like he was a squirrel-lizard or something.

“Eh-hem?” said the vendor, holding out his hand.

Groaning in exasperation at the world, I sighed and plunked a few coppers into his palm. Why did I have to be stuck cleaning up after Aximili?

“Aksi, what happened to Aang and Katara?”

“’ey wet o’er ‘o shpee’ wit’ ‘ak ‘wahn,” garbled Aximili with his mouth full. He pointed.

I looked up. Aang and Katara were down at the end of the street, talking with a widely smiling man next to a big sign that said: ‘FIND YOUR PEACE, JOIN THE SHARING TODAY.’

“-teachers?” the man was saying as I walked over with Aximili. “Well, many prominent earthbenders are members. Have you perhaps heard of Master Yu? He is one of our chairmen. I’m sure he can help you with anything you need, bending-wise.”

“That would be great!” said Aang. “How can I speak with him?”

“Come to one of our meetings,” said the man with a wink. “He’s sure to be there. We’ll be meeting tomorrow night at the earthbending school for food and drinks. We might even get some local dizi and guqin players to come play some ballads. It’ll be a lot of fun. What do you say?”

Aang and Katara exchanged an excited look. “Sounds great,” said Aang.

The man handed them a few flyers, and they walked up to me, smiling. “So, what was all that about?” I asked.

“He’s in some kind of social group,” said Katara. “He said they bring people together to try and solve their problems. It’s apparently pretty widespread in this part of the Earth Kingdom.”

“And we thought it would be a great way to meet some earthbenders!” enthused Aang. “He said an earthbending master would be there.”

I shrugged, adjusting the strap on my new bag. “If you think it would be good, sure.”

“We’d better find an inn, if we’re going to be staying here for a while,” said Katara.

As we wandered around the town, looking for a good deal, we passed a tavern, a bunch of half-drunk young men milling around outside and blocking the road. “The Badgermole is totally gonna win!” one was saying. “I mean, he’s like, underground and stuff. No one can see where he is!”

“Psh, no. The Spider is where it’s at. Guy can climb.”

“Nah! Hippo can take ‘em all.”

We tried to weave our way through the sake-scented throng, which was becoming more boisterous by the second.

“Well, we’ll see tonight!”

“To the Boulder!”

“To Earth Rumble Five!”

“It’s Six.”

“What are they talking about?” wondered Aang.

Aximili sniffed the air. “What is that sme-lluh?”

“I don’t know, and NO, Aksi!”

Aang walked up to a red-faced man. “Excuse me, but what’s the Earth Rumble Six?”

The man blinked. “It’s only the greatest earthbending tournament in the Southern Earth Kingdom!”

Aang and I exchanged a glance. “So, a lot of really good earthbenders will be there?”

“Only the best!”

“Like the Leopard-Monkey! He ROCKS!” spoke up another man.

Aang smiled. “So… where is this Earth Rumble, exactly?”

-------------------

“The way I see it,” Aang had said. “We can look for an earthbending master both at Earth Rumble and at the Sharing meeting.”

“We're really lucky that there's so many earthbenders here,” said Katara, and Aang nodded in agreement.

Me, I was pretty excited about this earthbending tournament. I’d never really seen earthbenders go at it before… or at least not in a not-deadly-to-life-and-limb way. I grinned. This would be so. Cool.

And it was. Really cool. I mean. The Boulder lost, which was seriously disappointing (that guy was awesome!), and I had to drag Aximili away from the vendors, but Aang thought he might have found an earthbending teacher, though she showed no interest in teaching him. And I got a belt to match my bag, which was sweet.

Oh, and we got rich, too. Can’t forget that.

So, overall a good evening.

-----------------------

“How is the cherry crop this year?”

“This pork is delicious.”

“This is so fun! Why didn’t you ever tell me about the Sharing before?”

“-so then I said, ‘Well, don’t go bending over backwards for me!’ Ha ha, get it?”

The chatter of the partygoers surrounded us, as the citizens of Gaoling socialized, danced, and ate dim sum. And that guy was right. The pork was delicious.

“Dim sum! Dim dim dim di-muh summmmmmmmmmm!”

I guess Aximili agreed.

“How do you think they afford all this?” wondered Katara, staring around the courtyard as she sipped some tea.

“I can answer that,” said a voice. We turned to see a man with long, dark hair, a thin mustache, and a narrow goatee. “The Sharing's events are run on funds generously donated by the Bei Fong estate.”

We stared, and the man laughed. “My apologies, I did not mean to interrupt or eavesdrop. But Han told me that some children were here looking for earthbending lessons.”

“Yeah, that’s me!” said Aang, adjusting his hat. “I really need an earthbending teacher.”

The man smiled. “My name is Master Yu. I would be happy to help you. New students are always appreciated in my dojo. And I’ll tell you what.” He leaned in, and I swallowed my food. “If you decide to become full members of the Sharing, I’ll throw in the first few lessons free!”

“Full members?” wondered Katara. “What does that mean?”

“Yeah,” I interjected. “How much does it cost?”

Master Yu winked. “No cost. It’s free! All it requires is becoming a part of our larger purpose, helping people overcome their problems and find inner peace.”

Aang blinked. “Well, actually, I was wondering if you knew where I might find an earthbender called The Blind Bandit?”

Master Yu paused. “I am not familiar with anyone who goes by that title. And in fact… that sounds like a stage name for one of the underground tournament fighters.” Yu’s lip curled slightly. “The underground fights will be abolished soon.”

I stared, horrified. “Abolished? But- but they’re awesome!”

“They are not conductive to a healthy, productive society. You’ll be much better off with us. We can offer community support and structure.”

“Well, maybe,” said Aang. “I’ll think about it.”

“Of course. Please, don’t feel pressured. Enjoy yourselves tonight! Still, my offer stands.”

Master Yu gave another wink, then turned to go greet someone else.

“Well,” I said. “That was weird.”

“Yeah,” agreed Aang. “He was nice, but I don’t think he’s the teacher for me. He sounded like he was selling something.”

“Yeah, well, it feels like everyone here is selling something,” I muttered. “What an idiot! I can’t believe they’re going to shut down the Boulder!”

“You guys are being too harsh,” said Katara. “They’re trying to help people! And we might just not be able to find this Blind Bandit.”

Aang sighed. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should just train with Master Yu.”

Aximili walked up then from the buffet, clutching his stomach. “Prince Sokka, I think that my body has been poisoned.”

Katara quickly withdrew the water from her cup of tea and pressed it to Aximili’s stomach. After a moment, she withdrew it and shook her head. “You just ate too much. You have a stomach ache. Some tea will help.”

“Sto-mach ache,” said Aximili. “I did not know there was a limit to food that can be consumed.”

I slapped my hand to my forehead. I mean, I love eating, but even I knew that!

Then, I saw Aang, who was staring open-mouthed at the cup Katara held. I followed his gaze, and saw that the porcelain was imprinted with green curlicues, surrounding the shape of a winged boar.

“That symbol…” Aang said. “It looks exactly like my swamp vision.”

Katara looked up from getting Aximili some tea. “It does?”

I frowned and stroked my chin. The teacup, and all the food, had come from the Bei Fong estate. What if there was a connection?

Aang was thinking along the same lines. “We’ll check out the Bei Fongs. Maybe they know something.”

Katara nodded. “And if worst comes to worst, we can always take lessons from Master Yu.”

Aximili took a giant gulp of tea. “Ah! Ah ah hot hot!”

I sighed.

--------------------

The next evening, we knocked on the door to the Bei Fong estate. A servant opened it, and smiled widely. “Welcome to the Bei Fong manor, Avatar Aang and companions. It is an honor to have you here, though it is on short notice.”

“Yes, well, I’m happy to be here.”

“The Lady and Master are going to dine soon. Would you care to join them?”

“Sure!” I spoke up. “That would be great.”

I had to admit, this was a much nicer welcome than our foray onto the estate that morning had been, when the Blind Bandit, or rather Toph, had earthbended us onto our faces, then called the guards on us. Yes, a fancy dinner was much better.

It was delicious, and as Aang made small talk with the Bei Fongs, I took full advantage of the spread. I mean, on the road it’s hard to get such nice meals! Who wouldn’t go to town? Not me, and I guess not Aximili either.

The food was so good. Incredibly good. Why, I was already feeling sleepy and full, even though I had barely begun to eat. So very, very sleepy and full…

As my limbs began to go slack, I realized something was wrong, but before I could yell out a warning, the world faded to black and I was gone.

#my fic #wip fic #aximili #aang #katara #sokka #gaoling #Avatar The Last Airbender #animorphs #crossover #fanfiction #fanfic extra #mixing sci fi and fantasy LIKE A BOSS

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sharkfish · 7 years

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It's near the end of the war. They aren't kids anymore and the dickbag Andalites have finally shown up to give humanity a much-needed assist. They nearly lost Sam to the scheming snake Yeerk Ruby. John's dead and Mary's Yeerk took her off to space as it quickly rose through the Visser rankings. They did lose Ash, and then Charlie, and Dean, Cas, and Jimmy all moved in to her old place, the seat of the resistance. Dean drinks too much. Cas and Jimmy join him more often than not. They are a sad threesome, but all they really have is each other. Dean talks it out of them that Cas and Jimmy are still virgins. (Well, Cas insists this is a meaningless human concept but concedes he has never been intimate with another being, not physically, though he thinks the bonds that have grown between him and his human comrades are about as intimate as two -- well, three -- beings can be with each other.) Dean is desperately broken and sad and knows he's already a casualty of this war even if his body survives, and he tells Cas and Jimmy he can fix their little virginity problem. Dean was mostly out before the alien landing that fucked his life all up, but he hadn't been with that many guys and his love life kind of took a backseat to the whole Yeerk invasion thing the last handful of years, so he hardly remembers what he's doing when he kisses Cas first and then Jimmy, then watches -- intent, if not a little drunkenly -- as they kiss each other.

#animorphs au #dude the mcd in the original series fucking destroyed me #I am 100% NOT over it

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rjalker · 6 years

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Anyways like I said before. Yeerks are on war rationing when it comes to Kandrona rays. They can go three days without visiting the pool? No you mean that is their absolute limit. Just like humans can survive three days without water. That’s our absolute limit.

The yeerks are driving themselves to the brink of what would be human dehydration before they go and get another sip of fucking water.

They’re not at War they’re probably visiting the pool multiple times a day. Just like humans drink water all day long.

Now it’s normal lyrics are driving themselves to the verge of starvation every single day during the occupation of Earth and supposedly on their other planets…

I think we can understand why the Taxxons act the way they do.

Because of the yeerks themselves are going to their very limit of starvation…….

Imagine what they do to their hosts.

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rjalker · 6 years

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The Yeerks feeding every three days is the most desperate war-time rationing I have ever heard of.

If they don’t feed on that third day, they die. Within hours.

Humans can go three days without water before we die.

It doesn’t mean we only drink water every three days.

Yeerks when not-at-war would probably visit the Pool MUCH more often. Like, multiple-times-a-day often. They can build supertrains that go way faster than anything humans have invented. They have spaceships.

Getting around the planet could take minutes.

It’s the center of their entire society. It’s everything they value. In times of peace, they visit more than once every three days. In times of peace, they don’t bring themselves to the verge of starvation.

In times of peace, they wouldn’t need to bring themselves to the verge of starvation.

#Rjalker reads The Animorphs #The Animorphs #Yeerks

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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 7 years

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Hi, I just recently found your blog and it's amazing! I'm so happy there are still people there are as invested as I am in the Animorphs series! I especially love your Adult AU and your analysis of the books. In fact I was reading one of your posts where you said that Cassandra Clare's book glorify violence - if I'm remembering correctly - and I was curious if you could expand on that. If you prefer you can message me privately since this is strictly an Animorphs blog. I hope I'm not bothering u

No bother at all. I sometimes feel like I spend half my blog space whining about how every other book on the planet is inferior to Animorphs, which isn’t actually the kind of vibe I’m going for. I SWEAR I LOVE YA SF. Just… Not Mortal Instruments. I’ve tried. I tried so hard to like that series. It is objectively well-written and creative. I just… I can’t with Cassandra Clare’s work. I can’t.

First of all: a confession. I’ve only ever read City of Bones, City of Ashes, and about half of City of Glass, and then several different issues (the glorification of violence, the glorification of “slender” or “skinny” bodies, the way Jace’s Freudian Excuse gets used to let him get away with all kinds of bad behavior, the borderline-pathological worship of True Love in City of Ashes) conspired to drive me away from the series as a whole. So I don’t actually know if Clare improves in the last 80% of the series. Thus everything I say has that big honking grain of salt.

However, I do take issue with the way that, from what I’ve seen, the Mortal Instruments series portrays violence. Individuals are portrayed as all good or all bad (literally, they’re on the side of the angels or else they support demons) and—from what I’ve seen—there are literally no good demons, nor are there angels worse than “morally grey.” This Manichaeisan worldview (which I think is no accident given the overtly Christian overtones of the series) basically justifies pretty much any acts of violence on the grounds of “they are bad and we are good and therefore pretty much anything we do to them is good, regardless of the means we use to get to that end.” One extension of this principle which pops up again and again and again with regards to the Shadowhunters is that Might Makes Right. Clary is the best at coming up with new runes to kill demons, which is a sign she is the best good; Izzy is the best at stabbing demons very dead, which is a sign that she is good too. Morality comes about by way of violence in that series.

It’s troubling because it glorifies war as “we are the good guys wiping out the bad guys” and utterly dehumanizes the bad guys in the process. Given that we live in a world where pretty much any group can be potentially cast as “the bad guys,” and that we as humans have an implicit bias toward casting ourselves as “the good guys” no matter what group we belong to… It can reinforce bad behavior. To say the least.

Case in point, the first scene in the series is one of Clary witnessing a major fight between (apparently) several children her own age, who are using deadly weapons to launch all-out attacks against each other and (again, apparently) succeed in killing at least two individuals at the end. The narration doesn’t focus on her shock or horror or utter terror; it spends a long time dwelling on how cute Izzy’s dress is and how nice Jace’s cheekbones are and how cool they all look swirling around with their magical weapons. (And slender bodies. Can’t ever, ever forget to mention that every single one of them has a slender body. I confess that’s the #1 pet peeve in the writing that drove me away from the series.) I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that Clare has probably never witnessed a real fight, or even a video of a real fight, because this is not only unrealistic (real fights are short, chaotic, hard to interpret, and incredibly disturbing—kind of like how they’re described in Animorphs) but it also suggests that violence is cool.

Meanwhile, I don’t want to suggest that Clare is by any means the only author with this problem. There was a great article (which I have since lost—I’ll have to send a link if I find it) which pointed out that American Clinton supporters and American Trump supporters and American independent voters all cast themselves as the Rebel Alliance in Star Wars and cast their political nemeses as the Galactic Empire. Because it’s easy to do: the narrative of Star Wars dehumanizes the stormtrooper enemy (although I could have cried with happiness when Finn took his helmet off in the latest film) while glorifying the individuated, special, blessed-with-magic heroes. It literally says that there is “light” and “dark,” and that the light is justified in (for instance) blowing up a space station with dozens of prisoners of war and possibly hundreds of innocent sanitation workers on board, just as long as doing so advances the cause of the Light. Avengers, Doctor Who, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, and a simple majority of sci-fi/fantasy suffers from this problem.

I also specifically said that Clare doesn’t so much glorify violence and other troubling content as much as she fetishizes violence, which I do view as a problem specific to Mortal Instruments. It leads to this attitude of “people did bad things to me, therefore I can do bad things to [totally unrelated individuals].” Clary nearly forces Alec to out himself to his parents (which, I admit, hit all of my own personal “NOPE” buttons when I was reading the series as a closeted queer kid) because she idly experiments on him without fully informing him of what he’s getting into, but she’s special and this is how they discover she has the best angel powers of them all and that means that it gets brushed over. Jace and Clary are jealous and possessive jerks toward each other while also pushing each other away throughout City of Ashes and City of Glass, but this is portrayed as excused because They’re Doing It For (unhealthy, selfish, possessive) True Love.

The one that drives me furthest up the wall is the scene where Jace stalks into a bar, orders a Scotch (because Scotch is a Man’s Drink, never mind that the Man in question is a bratty 16-year-old), throws the Scotch at the wall because he’s Overcome By Emotion, shouts at the people in the bar, and then demands a replacement from the bartender. This whole sequence gets portrayed as “look how much Jace is suffering” but I couldn’t get away from thinking about how much the bartender, the random patrons, and everyone else who has to deal with his temper tantrum must be suffering. Seriously, that’s the kind of behavior that I would punish in a six-year-old, because I’d expect a six-year-old to know better, whether or not the six-year-old thinks that he’s in love with his sister and that their father is an evil demagogue (Luke Skywalker called and he wants his plot back, by the way) and whether or not the six-year-old has a Sad Hawk Backstory™.

Anywhoo, I find Clare’s work… frustrating. Obviously. I have ambivalent feelings about most of the other sci-fi/fantasy for which Animorphs has ruined me forever, but Clare’s work is high on my personal “nah” list.

Quick inevitable aside to How Animorphs Did It Better: the kids view avoiding violence as the ultimate end for which they are fighting this war. Any time the protagonists have to choose between a violent means and a nonviolent one, they struggle to find a nonviolent one. There are good yeerks (Aftran, Illim, Niss), bad andalites (Estrid, Alloran, Samilin), and even bad Animorphs (mostly David, but to a lesser extent Marco and Rachel). Even then, the good-bad dichotomy gets complicated and continuously questioned, such that the “good” guys do a lot of things that everyone can agree are “bad” and get condemned for it. Marco acts like a jerk toward Tobias early on in the series, and the fact that he’s doing it partially because he’s (reasonably) terrified of dying thanks to what Visser One did to both his parents and partially because he’s whistling in the dark very clearly doesn’t excuse his behavior. Visser One spends AN ENTIRE BOOK trying to argue that her bad behavior is the product of her having had a rough life, and at the end of it Applegate succeeds in getting us to hate her more, not less. Predominantly “good” characters do “bad” things (Ax killing Hessian soldiers, Cassie letting Tom’s yeerk have the morphing cube, Jake flushing the yeerk pool), just as predominantly “bad” characters do “good” things (Visser Three helping defeat the nartec and helmacrons, Visser One protecting Darwin and Madra, Chapman’s yeerk agreeing to help Melissa), and the series doesn’t offer a moral dichotomy any more absolute than “try not to harm people, I guess. Oh, and do your best to prevent other people from getting harmed, if they can’t protect themselves.” The series shows that Tobias’s sad human backstory doesn’t make it okay for him to annihilate the mercora or even to snap at Rachel when he’s hangry.

I just… really love Animorphs. And it ruined me for every single other book series on the planet.

#awaytothink #answers #asks #violence #morality #aggression #freudian excuse #jace wayland negativity #cassandra clare negativity #mortal instruments negativity #nothing to do with animorphs #albert bandura #body negativity #ya sf

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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 8 years

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i'm curious: do you think the animorphs could have won if they were adults? marco starts out as the only one with the maturity to understand death; it's sort of because the others don't have that understanding that they're so eager to fight. jake NEEDS to idealize past soldiers/leaders in order to keep himself, well, 'good', acting like he thinks they did, as much as he can. what do you think??

Interesting premise. Let’s suppose the Animorphs are five adults—thirty-three, let’s say,instead of thirteen—who encounter Elfangor as they walk home from where theywere getting a few drinks at the local bar.

Suppose Marco is a smart-mouthed lawyer with more secrets and lies thangenuine wins in his resume. Suppose Rachelworks as a graphic designer for a fashion magazine by day, but she lives forthe nights when she goes surfing in the moonlight swells off the Californiacoast or skiing at breakneck speeds in the Canada Rockies. Suppose Tobias has been an adjunct professorat the local college for five years now and suspects he’s headed nowheredespite his Ph.D., whereas Jake is a high school dropout rocketing up throughthe ranks of his contracting firm thanks to his canny leadership skills. Suppose Cassie’s in night school so that shecan continue as a vet tech, always exhausted and always telling herself it’sall worth it. Suppose they’re joined twoweeks after the war begins by War-Prince Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill, who gothis own self out from under the ocean without calling for help.

The firstthing the Animorphs do is fly north and tell the governor about theinvasion. She calls the National Guard,the president, and the United Nations. Withina month, the yeerks have doubled their force on Earth and the two species arein open total war.

The U.N. appoints a military commander tooversee the Animorphs, a five-star general with thirty years of combatexperience. Jake and Ax both salute himand call him “sir,” but they’re the only ones. Cassie calls him by his first name when she asks about his family. Rachel and Marco hold side conversations inwhispered thought-speak throughout his briefings. Tobias sits in the back of the room, eitherpreening feathers or doodling on his intel packet depending on what form he’sin. Every time he gives them an order theythank him, leave the room, and then look at Jake to find out whether or notthey should obey it.

The war wears on for months, then years, and thehumans lose steadily.

Here’s the thing that it takes the U.S. and theU.N. a dangerously long time to adapt to: every time they lose a soldier, they loseevery single scrap of intelligence contained within that soldier’s brain. Every single time they’re forced to leave aman behind, they lose every base that person has ever visited, every file thatperson has ever seen, every scrap of knowledge once kept secret in that brain. The humans start equipping their soldierswith cyanide capsules; the yeerks start gagging hosts the instant they’recaptured.

Here’s the other thing they don’t figure outuntil it’s too late: even hardened soldiers balk at shooting their own friendsand neighbors and siblings. Even theones with years of training will hesitate to shoot a child. The yeerks know this, and they takeadvantage.

David is the son of the deputy director of theNSA, placed with the team in a blatant act of nepotism after he finds the morphingcube. Rachel gets dishonorably dischargedin the aftermath of the “accident” that causes his death.

Dissent starts to grow large within the ranks ofthe humans. Several believe that theyeerks come in peace; several more believe that the humans should stop fightingand negotiate a truce. There are stillpockets of people who insist that there are no such thing as aliens, and thewhole thing is made up to target certain types of people as “controllers.”

The yeerks take the entire Eastern seaboard ofthe U.S. and Canada. There are simplytoo many people, too densely packed; the human military cannot protect thoseareas. The humans retreat to the Midwestand Mexico.

Visser One gets put in charge of the invasionforce, quietly moving Madra and Darwin offworld in the process. Marco and Rachel, acting against orders,infiltrate her base and kill her and nearly sixty other high-rankingcontrollers before they are themselves gunned down. The U.N. erects a statue in their honor,makes fifty other morph-capable soldiers to take their place, and keepsfighting.

Jake and Cassie marry. She gets pregnant twice during the war, and knowsthat she can’t afford to keep either pregnancy. She never tells Jake about this. Later,they will divorce in the last weeks of the war.

Visser Three once again takes over the invasionof Earth; he thrives at open war. Hebargains and threatens and calmly assures the human forces that they will lose, and that there is only oneway to avoid death. All they have to dois walk to the nearest yeerk compound, surrender, and let one of his warriorstake away all their worry and pain.

The human race is dwindling. There is no other way around it. The yeerks kill humans because they alreadyhave more hosts than they need, and the humans kill humans every time they succeedin bombing a yeerk base or shooting a controller. The species has already been decimated;everyone fears that within a decade it will be annihilated.

The humans destroy a Blade ship. Forty humans and eighteen hork-bajirdie.

Visser Three gets revenge by turning his draconcanon on China’s east coast. Two hundredmillion humans die.

The humans blow up a yeerk pool. Two hundred thirty-eight humans die.

The yeerks blow up Rio de Janeiro. Twelve million humans die.

So it goes.

The human armies take refuge in Brazil andArgentina, in Tanzania and Angola and the DRC. The yeerks have control over the entire northern hemisphere. Communications between the two continents areconstantly intercepted. Jake and Cassieand Ax go on mission after mission after mission, no one bothering to tell themwhat to do anymore. Tobias comessometimes; more and more since Rachel’s death he’s nowhere to be found.

Food runs short. Electricity runs out. In the heatof the summers and the cold of the winters, in the times when a few handfuls ofdried sorghum are all that can go around, dozens of humans quietly slipaway. The controllers are well-fed,well-equipped, well taken care of. Allit takes to earn safety and comfort is to give up your soul.

Three years pass this way, and the andalitesfinally arrive.

They are merciful: they rescue the few hundred freehumans who remain before they blow up the planet.

#asks #answers #animorphs #long post #pestilos #animorphs au #adult au #genocide tw #violence tw #abortion tw

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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 8 years

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What don't you like about #47? Not hating. just curious.

Short opinion: I’m just gonna leave this here.

Long opinion:

Seriously, though, Isaiah Fitzhenry’s journal cuts off mid-sentence. Because we know he died in the act of writing it. Oh, and by the way, he’s lying in the middle of a battlefield, bleeding to death, while writing those words. This book clearly didn’t think things through nearly well enough, or perhaps assumed that its child readers wouldn’t notice. Trust me, I noticed. When I was eight years old* I had this ridiculous mental image of this dude lying there in the middle of a freakin’ Civil War battle writing in his notebook with his pen. Now that I know a little history I have this EVEN MORE RIDICULOUS mental image of this dude lying there in the middle of a freakin’ battle with a quill pen, an ink pot, a sheet of non-waterproof wood-pulp, a pen knife, an ink blotter, and some kind of writing surface AS HE BLEEDS TO DEATH IN THE MUD.

There are several other utterly ridiculous leaps of logic that this story is forced to make in order to achieve the journal at all. Why the heck even bother adding in a character named Jacob? Given that he died before meeting anyone from the Fitzhenry family who actually survived long enough to procreate, one can only assume that Jean Berenson has read her grandfather’s great-aunt’s dead brother’s journal enough to go want to name a kid after this dude, and yet she has never once mentioned that fact to Jake. Otherwise it’s just a weird coincidence, one which violates the One Steve Limit.

On the subject of dead brothers and Berensons (too soon?) it’s interesting to note that this book continues the motif of eldest siblings kicking the bucket that runs throughout the series. Rachel and Tom are the obvious ones, as I’ve noted, but there’s also Elfangor, Saddler, Arbat, Aldrea, and now Isaiah Fitzhenry. If I had to guess the fact that Isaiah has a younger sister and then dies tragically is no accident. (Although that all could have been avoided if he’d just gotten to a friggin’ medical tent instead of whipping out his complete set of writing supplies in the middle of a battlefield to continue his vaguely-racist memoirs…) It’s also a nice connection to that chilling moment at the beginning of the book where Jake dumps a box of Tom’s things in the trash because he has pretty much given up on the idea of saving his brother at this point in the war.

However, even the way that Jake ends up with the journal is kind of weird and logic-defying. His Grandpa G tried to leave it for him as a gift (which makes sense, given how obsessed that kid is with military history) but somehow or other it got lost in the mail because Jake is only now finding it mis-labeled in some box in the basement. Which makes sense how? Why the heck didn’t it come up during that whole sequence where Tom and Jake were looting all their great-grandpa’s stuff looking for medals and daggers? For that matter, why didn’t Jake’s grandmother just give it to him after the funeral, given that #31 specifically mentions she made sure to pass along everything that her father wanted Jake to have? Assuming it did get lost amidst the chaos of the funeral and the Attack of Moby Cassie and Tom ending up in the hospital and all, how on earth did it end up in a box in the basement among a bunch of Tom’s old school papers?

It also has to have traveled a heck of a ways to make it into Grandpa G’s possession in the first place. Someone has to have found it on the battlefield, presumably delivered it to Isaiah’s sister, who then passed it down to her children’s children, who then thought it would be a good thing to hoard and only pass on to the one great-grandchild who happened to prove himself worthy. For that matter, did Jake read the whole thing sitting there in the basement? If so, why does he only react to the first chapter? If he didn’t read the whole thing in one go, does that mean he’s carrying it around in bird morph until he reaches the hork-bajir valley? Again where it defies logic, and all to achieve a plot device that could have been conveyed so much more easily with good old-fashioned flashbacks.

And, well, as Cates has pointed out, no discussion of this book would be complete without commenting on the GLARING RACISM in the parallels between the past and present day. The idea of escaped slaves fighting back against the people who once disenfranchised them in both the 1860s and the 1990s would be interesting and all… But in the process this book compares hork-bajir, who Marco says have “the intelligence of your average second grader” (#51) to African American individuals. Not only does it draw a parallel between white individuals and humans while also drawing a parallel between black individuals and non-human characters, but it does so in a way that suggests that the black individuals are comparable to simple tree-dwelling primitive aliens with no written language or ability to comprehend complex ideas. If I think too much about this accidentally horrific metaphor (which I try not to) then it could arguably even re-cast the hork-bajir, with their simple but intuitive reliance on “head voices” (#13) and “Mother Sky’s flowers” (Hork-Bajir Chronicles), as Magical Negro stereotypes.

The racism is far and away the biggest problem with this book, because RACISM, but there are also a ton of flaws in the characterization and plotting that just bug me. Jake’s personality is all over the place in this book, most especially when he acts like a total jerk to Toby when Toby (very logically) points out that sixty-odd walking Salad Shooters can’t just duck and run every time the going gets tough the way that six morph-capable kids can. One of Jake’s great strengths as a leader is his decisiveness, and he spends huge chunks of this book quibbling about the right course of action in an utterly unJakeish way. Oh, and don’t get me started on the fact that during the final battle HE FORGETS THAT TIGERS KNOW HOW TO SWIM. Exactly how hard did you get hit over the head by Visser Three’s tentacle-morph, man?

Toby herself has a couple of downright bizarre lines in this book, including “The trees whispered something about new friends who would take up our cause. Human friends who would join our fight… I see things, Jake. Many things” (#47). Say what? I thought it was Aldrea who was secretly an andalite, not Toby. The hork-bajir like their trees, sure, but they also view the trees as a natural resource that needs to be carefully cultivated, not as sentient whisperers sent by the gods to warn about impending Trekkies. Also, no offense to the assorted Carpenters (Did Richard Carpenter have a younger sibling? I bet he did.) but why the hell do the trees consider their arrival important enough to bother telling anyone about it? It’s not like three civilians with no natural weapons are exactly going to turn the tide of a battle that is otherwise being fought by battle-hardened shapeshifters and walking razor blades. In fact, I’m kind of disappointed in Jake and Cassie for not simply morphing polar bear and herding the dumbasses back to civilization by force before someone could get killed. I’m 99% sure they contributed nothing to the battle outside of distracting the poor schmucks who had to worry about saving their sorry butts from the aliens.

Frankly this book feels like it accomplishes with a sledgehammer what #31 already did with a scalpel. It’s about how Jake is descended from this long line of badass warriors. It’s about how war is never pretty and the reality has no room for glory amidst the unspeakable horror. It’s about realizing that you have no control over who lives, who dies, and who tells your story (X). It’s about struggling to be a good person amidst cosmic events where there are no real clear answers. It’s a story about families and countries tearing themselves apart over the fight for freedom. All of which were already covered thoroughly in #31, in a book that actually advances plot, character, and narrative arc.

Part of what’s so frustrating is that, unlike #48, this book actually has several moments of decent writing. I love the image of Jake starting to write “Tom” on that box of his brother’s things only to cross it out and write “trash” instead. The sense of impending catastrophe is huge in this book, because even before the yeerks find the kids’ identities there’s building suspense around the idea that war, children, is just a shot away (X). The scene with Raines firing four shots in the length of time it takes Samson to reload is freaking powerful. The parallels between the American Civil War and the Yeerk-Human War are right there when you look for them. There’s some great social commentary on the fact that in reality the Union was almost as racist as the Confederacy because that was the poison everyone was drinking back then. There’s the most epic open battle in the whole series, one that is decided through the Animorphs’ home team advantage rather than the yeerks’ shock and awe tactics.

If only the author had decided to leave out the Logic-Defying Journal of Racism, this might have the makings of a really good Animorphs book.

*Side note: when I was eight years old and reading this book for the first time, I had no clue what a “Trekkie” was and could only assume at the time that it was some type of specialized camper, since the book never actually specifies what the term refers to and never even mentions Star Trek by name. Reading it as an adult, I cringe at this condescending portrayal of sci-fi fans in a novel written for sci-fi fans.

#asks #answers #anonymous #animorphs #animorphs reviews #the resistance #47 #animorphs negativity #racial slurs #freezing gif for people on mobile #racism #jake berenson

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