#this is ignoring the times andalites

[ramonahblog]

I never got the Animorphs books going “andalites are impossible to sneak up” when they describe the eyes as two where you would expect on a human and two moveable stalk eyes. Unless they conveniently forgot to mention the two human-looking eyes can see in opposite directions at once.  But going by their actual description, there’s at least always one direction the andalite can never see. The only way they could do all four directions if they had eyes like cows or goats or horses or sheep or any herd animal. The face-eyes would see left and right at the same time, one stalk-eye forward and one stalk-eye backward would equal impossible to sneak up on when awake.  But as they have it - two human-positioned eyes (one direction), two moveable stalk-eyes (two positions)...That only equals three positions covered at once. Potentially difficult depending on your sneaking levels but not impossible. 

[kooldewd123]

The parallels in the Hork-Bajir Chronicles are driving me crazy. Oh, a group of peaceful individuals is forced into guerrila warfare? They're forced to grapple with sacrificing their own morality in exchange for the survival of their race? They're just trying to hold out for long enough for the Andalites to come save them, but the Andalites see them as so low priority that by the time they get around to helping, it's too late? The Andalites ignore a species that the Yeerks see as their greatest asset? Dak Hamee names his son after an Andalite, and his grandson, Jara Hamee, names his daughter after a human? Dak, a Hork-Bajir seer, witnesses the rise of the Yeerk empire, and his great-granddaughter, Toby, another Hork-Bajir seer, is instrumental in its downfall? Holy shit I can't take much more of this.

[historygay42069]

more president berenson au!! (Ignore the numbers at the top in the first one)

Image IDs bc my handwriting is atrocious:

Image One: a bunch of marker drawings of Jake Berenson from animorphs. The first he is being asked “why should people vote for you” he responds “they shouldn’t”, they insist “would you care to elaborate?” “No.”. The second he is being asked “Mr. Berenson, what are your opinions on dealing with rampant crime?” He responds “I don’t care.” The other says “excuse me?” And he replies “we’ve all commit crimes who cares? We have bigger issues”. The third he is wearing a brat Charlie xcx shirt, he is asked “Mr Berenson, or should I say Mr President, how does it feel to be in the Oval Office?” He responds, “bad.”. Also on this page is a graph showing the voting results with Jake, third party, winning 70% of the vote, and Biden and Trump, democrat and republican respectively, 15% each. Also there’s a newspaper by ‘Not The New York Times’ with the headline ‘Berenson Wins: 37 year old war vet becomes first third party president ‘ below is a quote saying “I don’t want this -POTUS Jake Berenson.

Image Two: another page of marker drawings. The first, Jake is at a pedestal, answering questions. The first is “Can you really turn into a tiger?” He answers “Yes.”. They continue “can you show us?” “No.”. The second question is “what is your main goal in running?”. He responds “I was dared”. The third question is “are you going to sell the country to the Andalites?” to which he replies, “I wish I could.”. Below that is a drawing of a YouTube video with the thumbnail of Jake as the Devil. It is titled “how President Berenson will destroy America” (his name and destroy America are all caps). There is a fake newspaper called ‘Not The New York Post’. The headline reads, ‘POTUS wears “I’m Just Ken” shirt to inauguration’ there is an apt drawing. Then some marker drawings of the other animorphs. Marco says “Yes, well if you havta (have to) know, I dared Jake to run for president. I thought it would be a good way to get him out of the house. I didn’t think he’d win to be honest”. Cassie says “Jake’s the President?”. Ax says <whats a president?>. Tobias says <…>. Rachel is a grave.

[thegayestandalite]

Humans didn’t have much in natural weapons, the best they could do was throw blunt punches and while it wasn’t exactly pleasant it was ignorable as the human female went wild, trying to disengage him with a ferocity he wouldn’t have guessed was in her.

“Let me go!” She hissed, bringing his wrist to her mouth so she could bite down savagely. He always forgot about the teeth.

He looked at her calmly, and began to morph. His image slowly melting away to melt back into her features. He became furless, eyeless, tailless, just all around helpless. He was second guessing this plan, fighting as this pathetic little thing? Well. Earth was a fierce place, you couldn’t just come to dominate it by accident.

He let go and let the morph take over, devouring the instincts and the fear and the wants and the needs. It was surprisingly peaceful, but so sharp. It was all edges ready to take what was needed and then some.

He stared back at her with her own eyes.

He grinned. A huge toothy grin that might have meant to be a little bit threatening.

“There are controllers here to infest your household,” he informed her with his disarming smile.

She stepped back, clutching her wrist and looking at him in disbelief.

Her face grew hard. “You’re lying.”

He turned to face the window again, watching the controllers begin to advance.

“I’m not,” he spoke. He stopped to run his tongue around his mouth. An interesting array of sounds although not much different than other mouthed morphs.

“In a few minutes they will brief their commander and enter the domicile, that’s all the time you have to secure the household of anyone unable to fight and weapons for those that can - so what I guess I’m saying is to move, NOW.”

She didn’t Move, knitting her brows with confusion she asked, “Why did you morph me? Why not use your andalite form, or some animal morph?”

His eyes searched the room, looking for a suitable weapon while replying, “They’re looking for an andalite, it’s best they don’t find one or they really will stop at nothing to destroy this place. And anyway-,” he paused to glance at her, “I have something to prove. Now, weapons, please?”

She raised a finger, opened her mouth like she was about to say something then closed it again. “We’re going to talk about this later,” she promised.

He strode to an assortment of clothing articles hanging in a closet, something some species used rather than fur.

Well, they seemed complicated. He settled on a few long scarves and did a warrior’s weave to secure his upper torso, and skirt and leg wrap with his lower torso. He hesitated, all considering he was working with A new morph, unpracticed. Anything at all that would be a disadvantage to him could be catastrophic.

But. He did take this dna without permission, and lead an alien invasion to their door step. It would be best if he were respectful of the culture and wear the clothing. And anyway, he was awesome enough to compensate.

He took another cloth article to hold onto, until the right moment.

He quickly got to work his movement. A few million years of evolution wouldn’t leave a two legged critter without balance.

He stretched out, practicing emptying his mind to let the human instincts operate its body properly.

She came back with an assortment of rusted, inferior metaled blades. But they were long. And sharp enough.

She took in his attire, she was largely relieved he had decided to clothe her dna.

He grabbed the blade and settled it between his teeth before hoisting himself onward and out the window.

“Who the hell are you?” She yelled exasperated.

He looked back up as the gravity rushed him back to the earth, courtesy of a rain gutter, a smile curved around the blade.

[I’m Bor’ij and I’m here to win this stupid war.]

——————————————————-

He could feel his markara rising rapidly, wildly. They called it fight or flight. It whipped at him, filled him, made his heart burn from the inside out. It made him angry and rageful and happy and giddy.

He hit the ground, feet first and rolled as if he were an expert in two legged mobility. It was 90 percent attitude. It was all 90 percent attitude, fake that and you’re good. Well. 90 percent good.

He kept his center of gravity low to the ground, keeping himself steadier with his brand new morph.

He felt the rough taped grip. Hand to hand combat wasn’t really his style, or at least his first choice, but it’d do. Quickly whipping the scarf around his face, masking identifying features, he charged - slamming the sharp edge in an upward angle to the closest controller, who barely had time to raise his dracon beam. He assumed the neck was a good place to start.

The only thing the human controller had time to do was let out a startled scream, slashed short. A spray of the deepest red he ever saw splurged from his wound as he crumpled to the ground.

His human morph screamed in his mind. A scream of triumph or horror?

He turned to size up his next opponent. This one DID have the time to pull up his dracon beam.

He barely let the thought touch his mind before he reacted, cutting towards the weapon holding hand. The blade was not sharp enough nor was his one handed attack strong enough to sever, but it was well enough. The weapon dropped and he came back with his other hand to deliver a downward blow to the neck.

PZZR!

Intense pain slammed brutally into his shoulder, he gnawed his teeth but kept his grip.

A dracon beam let loose.

Bor’ij turned Angrily to the source and stared, facing two dracon beams pointed straight at him.

He rolled with Ease, off the black vehicle to it’s other side, with beams chasing after and over him.

That left his second target still at large and ready for vengeance.

The human controller reached over to grip his throat and drag him out, slamming him down onto the vehicle’s metal casing.

He loomed over the andalite, staggering his air flow, crushing his..human…throat..organs.

Bor’ij grabbed the controller’s workin’ arm and rolled his legs upward, forward, and wrapped them correspondingly around his neck. Using the tremendous thigh muscles of his morphs to crush the air out of the enemy with far more efficiency, he found that he could also bring the larger male human controller topping over him head first, landing directly upside, thighs still crushing but now with his full weight.

He glanced at the watching controllers, gave them a sly smile and a wink, picking up the abandoned dracon beam and casually shot the nearest controller with an effortless kill shot to the head in one smooth motion. Guns were his thing.

The controller underneath him had stopped moving. So that left the one remaining controller and he was-

Gone.

Bor’ij looked around with his limited human eyes. He was just there!

Sneaky little slugs.

He carefully untangled his legs from the controller’s neck, readying his dracon beam.

VROOM.

The machine underneath him came to life, rumbling and hot. He whipped around to see the controller’s stolen face contorted in, what his human morph understood to be, rage.

The vehicle screeched forward sliding him against the windshield.

“Offuck,” he cried, his voice muffled by the scarf. The machine suddenly slammed to a stop, throwing him with inertia fueled vengeance.

He thudded to the ground, his shoulder taking the brunt, the shoulder that was already hit and hurt. Luckily the manic energy dulled the pain.

Hardy thinking, he scrambled away to his left as the vehicle revved and charged past him.

He quickly scrambled to his feet, dracon beam in one hand as he placed the blade in a loop of cloth behind him and instantly started calculating. Or to be more precise, absorbing.

The machine wheeled around, and this time it was Bor’ij that charged. He ran forward, utilizing his long legs and leaped easily onto The hood, his foot sinking slightly into the flimsy metal, giving him balance and traction to leap onto the roof. Slamming himself onto the roof, belly first, and gripping onto the open window to keep him from flying off again. He pulled himself against that awful inertia crap and crawled straight into the window.

Seeing the controller he attempted to seize his collar and pull himself all the way into the moving vehicle.

Th controller panicked, letting go of the wheel that controlled the machine’s direction, now it turned wildly wherever the terrain directed it, slamming Bor’ij against the edge of the window opening, crushing his belly and giving him a sick feeling, and no doubt bursting open blood vessels left and right.

He growled through gritted teeth and refocused himself. He heaved himself into the window opening, instant reprieve from the dragging force of gravity or whatever. Of course, now there was a very scared and murderous controller he was sitting in the lap of.

He reached behind him to grab his blade.

He hesitated.

He unsheathed his weapon.

“Surrender now, and you’ll live.”

The controller looked at him incredulously.

It was absurd. He knew it, but he still had to try, He still had to at least *ask*.

The yeerk made it’s move.

Swiping his arm so that his elbow made direct contact against Bor’ij’s face.

Ignoring the sharp powerful stinging pain, his arm was already moving before he could think about it. It was just an old blade, probably never meant to see combat, but with one swipe it cut through skin, tendons, arteries, blood, life.

The controller could only grasp his gaping neck as bright red blood flooded from it.

Bor’ij could only take a breath before-

“WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?” A familiar voice bellowed.

Bor’ij looked over his shoulder. The mobile he was in was barreling straight towards him and their domicile.

Er. Er.

He turned to grip the wheel with both hands and pull it to the right, causing the whole thing to veer.

Ok, temporary solution, so how did you stop it?

The human male, Cassie’s father, stared at him in astonishment.

“Cassie?” He asked

Oops. Seems he still had enough identifying features to be associated with his daughter.

Well.

Who Knew.

At that moment Cassie came running out the door.

“DAD,” she cried.

“Cassie? Get back inside!”

“YOU get back inside Dad!” She grabbed his hand and hauled him backwards into the house.

Bor’ij wheeled the vehicle around again, kicking the dead controller off the seat into the passenger side.

The car started to gradually slow.

Ok, so somehow a dead controller was controlling the machine…. On the bottom were pedals of some sort. He gave an experimental nudge with his foot and it surged forward. He hit the other pedal, it stopped front wheels first, jerking him and the dead controller forward.

Ah yes. It was all coming together.

He directed the car in the opposite direction and slammed the go pedal, the machine screeched in response, wheels churning up sod before ripping forward and far.

Soon, he left the three grizzly kills behind him as the engine rumbled softly.

No andalite mobile made made quite an exhilarating noise or satisfying rumbling vibrations.

The trees and shrubbery zoomed past.

He slowed down on the accelerator as a precautionary measure.

He was suddenly aware of…fluttering.

[HEY!]

Bor’ij jerked his head in . He looked around suspiciously.

[Cassie?]

[Stop the car!]

He considered.

[STOP THE GOD DAMN CAR.]

He shifted his foot to slowly hit the brake.

A small feathery bird flopped onto the seat when the car stopped.

“Soo..” he started,” ..how ya doin’?”

She opened her beak and half squawked, then seemed to reconsider and started skillfully morphing back to her human form.

“Where do you think you’re going?” She asked evenly, with a definite edge to her voice.

“I’mm, going away…from the murder scene?” He said helpfully.

“Murder scene! MURDER SCENE,” she laughed in a very mirthless way, “Murder scene is right! Three dead bodies, who obviously didn’t just kill themselves. At my house, right in front of my house! How do I explain that? How do I explain ANY of that?!”

“….Don’t?” He suggested

She took a deep breath.

“Bor’ij.”

“Yes, Cassie?”

“What is wrong with you?”

He stared back balefully. “That’s just hurtful Cassie.”

She took another breath.

“Alright. Ok. I’m Sorry. Just. Let me help you.”

He noticed the omitting of the word “we”.

“Sure Cassie, what do you want to help with,” he asked innocently.

“Ok, well, first…what are you doing here?”

He gave her a non-committal look.

“Oook…what is your deal with Ax?”

“Who?”

“Aximili.”

“I’m sorry, who?”

“You know who, your whole demeanor changed as soon as you saw him.”

“I don’t want to talk about that Cassie, my emotional state is vulnerable. I must protect my peace.”

“So..Ax has something to do with your emotions?”

Bor’ij frowned. She as far more emotionally perceptive than what he was used to.

The cloth was still covering his features so she couldn’t see his displeasure , but he was pretty sure she could just sense it.

“Ok.” She answered to the silence of disapproval.

She studied him, in his (or rather, her) blood splattered clothing. The andalite who jumped out of a window and took on four controllers, singly handedly, on an alien world in an alien morph on a dare.

“How did you learn to tie these weaves,” she asked, pointing to the wraps of clothing.

Now he was really irritated, he had a fuckin’ noticer on his hands.

“You tryin’ to start a fight, Cassie?”

She looked at him startled, “Uum, no?”

“Ok then.” He gripped the wheel and stared ahead.

“Look, we really are trying to help.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “How about I take you into town? You haven’t been to earth before, right?”

“I don-“

“It’s just me,” she promised.

He looked ahead. It wasn’t as if he had much to do before the rest of his cell got here.

Anyway, doing recon was a respectable use of time and could be hardly argued against by any critical or grumpy princesses.

“Alright,” he relented.

She nodded her head. “Alright, let’s…get rid of this..uh, body first.”

[holodeckprotocols]

animorphs book 22.5 (the hork-bajir chronicles) #thoughts

here we go!!

it kind of sucks that the andalites are misogynists too. but on the other hand their leaders are bigots with raging egos so i guess it makes sense. but still! why do all of earth's prejudices have to be replicated on other planets?

really really love this one so far. i love inter-species relationships and the joy of discovering something strange and magical. animorphs can be (obviously) very dark at times, and in fact just was in the last book! but i love that aldrea's initial experience with the hork-bajir planet is just... joy. 

and then of course it all goes pear-shaped!

the text-to-speech youtube video i'm watching pronounces "hork-bajir" as "hork-buyer." this is easy enough to ignore in books where the hork-bajir don't feature prominently but is extremely funny in a book called The Hork Bajir Chronicles. not once has this robo voice said the name right!

the hork-bajir planet is so cool and unique. and so are they as a species! ugh! love!

this is all going SO SPECTACULARLY BAD

it's painful to see the same pattern of children being shaped into soldiers across time, cultures, and species :( absolute evil recruits children absolutely. 

the revelation that the morphing technology was new to the andalites as little as a few generations back is really surprising. it seems so integral to their culture.

of course it was fucking visser three the whole time.

is this where visser three got that scary morph from earlier in the series? (vaguest comment ever. I can't remember the name). i love the continuity.

god. this is crushing. 

toby!!! ;_; WAHHH

augh. this was a really good one. probably my favorite supplemental book yet <3

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

How do you think Andalites in human morph deal with the human instinct to pet fluffy creatures that may or may not kill them?

I assume it'd depend on the area. In the U.S. and Europe we've killed off 99.9% of the critters who wouldn't run away and would kill a human who runs at them yelling "fluffy!!!!!" So like, I'm guessing the worst would be minor injuries or rabies from a raccoon or deer who feels cornered by this human. Anything fuzzy and venomous (tarantula, some bats, etc.) couldn't do more than cause moderate pain for a bitten human.

The issue with threatening a bear or buffalo enough that one kills you is that that doesn't happen incidentally. The human has to go into the other critter's territory, and most of the time has to repeatedly walk at the critter while ignoring threat displays in order to get killed. It's entirely possible andalites have no idea what Earth threat displays look like (considering most involve "make loud noise" and andalites don't make noise) and so might interpret a roar or growl as a form of greeting. If the morpher specifically targets the smallest and cutest critters (the babies) for attempted pets, then that'd end in death. It'd just take a lot of doing to get from an urban spaceport to a bear encounter.

If andalites can't interpret threat displays, then I'll vote for domestic dogs as posing the greatest danger. Dogs kill more humans each year than any animal except humans, largely because the two species are so interdependent. Dogs and humans are excellent at reading each other's body language, because we're both pack animals with an affinity for non-species friends, and because we've had tons of exposure to one another. So if a human who acts wrong in a way that tips off the dog's NOPE radar (walking as if used to four legs, looking around as if used to four eyes, etc.) comes at a dog and is unaware that the loud vocalizations and bared teeth mean "heck off"... yeah, that could end in tragedy.

[featherquillpen]

"a world of indescribable beauty": an animorphs meta

In Book #19 The Departure, we finally hear a perspective from a Yeerk, Aftran 942, about why the Yeerks left their planet and began conquering other species as hosts. One of the reasons she gives is Andalite imperialism, which makes a lot of sense: the Andalites began occupying and building military bases on the Yeerk planet before the Yeerks posed any kind of threat to them. This obviously doesn't justify enslaving other species, but it is certainly a reason why the Yeerks won't just go home to their pools: they would be submitting themselves to utter Andalite domination.

But there's another reason Aftran gives that is given a lot more emphasis within the story. It goes like this:

“In our natural state, we have an excellent sense of smell. We have a good sense of touch. We can hear. We can communicate, using a language of ultrasonic squeaks. But we cannot see. We are blind, until we enter a host. Over the millennia we have moved up the evolutionary chain to more and more advanced hosts. Eventually, the Gedds became our basic host bodies.

“They are clumsy, slow creatures. But they have eyes. Oh, you can’t imagine! You can’t imagine the first time you enter a Gedd brain and seize control and suddenly, you are seeing! Seeing! Colors! Shapes! It’s a miracle. To be blind and then to see!”

Suddenly she stooped down and snatched up a caterpillar from a leaf. “Do you see this? This is what I am, without a host body. Helpless! Weak! Blind!” She spun and pointed at the meadow. “Do you see those flowers? Do you see the sunlight? Do you see the birds flying? You hate me for wanting that? You hate me because I won’t spend my life blind? You hate me because I won’t spend my life swimming endlessly in a sea of sludge, while humans like you live in a world of indescribable beauty?”

Aftran says that Yeerks want to infest host bodies because Yeerk pools are disgusting and vision is magical. She takes Cassie on a journey in this book of becoming a caterpillar, nearly blind, and coming to appreciate once more the glory of her vision.

For years I have known that this narrative is contemptibly ableist, positioning a blind life as a terrible life worth enslaving others in order to escape. But after reading the book An Immense World by Ed Yong, a book about how animals perceive the world through a dozen different senses, I think this narrative presented in book 19 and throughout the Animorphs series is not just ableist, but also betrays disdain, ignorance, and contempt for the astonishing and beautiful diversity of animal perception - a very poor move for a book series very much about the beauty of animal diversity.

The sensory world of a Yeerk

Aftran tells us about the senses Yeerks have, and we see them from Cassie's point of view in book 29 and Visser Three's point of view in The Hork Bajir Chronicles as well. They have an excellent sense of smell, a good sense of touch, they can hear, and they can echolocate. They may have other senses that Aftran didn't list, such as heat-sensing (to find Kandrona rays, perhaps) or electroception. But let's stick to the ones we know they have.

Smell, as shown in the books like book 1 and 21 where a point of view character morphs a dog, is a remarkable sense. While our eyes can only detect three colors in various combinations, a sense of smell could differentiate thousands upon thousands of unique scents. In aquatic environments, like where a Yeerk lives, a strong sense of smell can be used for navigation: different areas of water with different dissolved nutrients will smell different, creating a scent-scape. Smell also has a time dimension that vision does not. People and things leave trails of smell behind, which means a keen sense of smell can delve into the past. Approaching beings have a wave-front of smell in front of them, so you can also smell what's coming, sometimes from a very long way away, if the scent molecule is very small and volatile. More than any other sense, smell gives you access to the past, present, and future of a place.

In water especially, a sense of touch can create a fantastically nuanced sense of the world around you. Since Yeerks swim, they likely have touch receptors that give them a sense of flow, like the lateral lines of fish. In the ocean, everything is touching each other at a distance through the medium of water, via the currents created by swimming. The same would be true in a Yeerk pool: a Yeerk would likely be able to feel everything and everyone moving around it, each wriggle of a fellow Yeerk felt on the skin like a caress.

Our closest template for the Yeerks' underwater sonar shown in book 29 is the sonar of dolphins, which is even more remarkable than Applegrant showed in the various books where the Animorphs become dolphins. If Yeerk sonar is like dolphin sonar, then they are living medical scanners: their sonar can penetrate flesh to internal organs, as long as they are underwater. They would be able to perhaps hear the brain of a submerged host, or at least the skull. They would sense the contours of things buried in the sediment below the water. Sonar is very finely tuned because those who use it can adjust the frequency, length, pitch, and volume of their calls depending on what they want to detect. Imagine if you could "tune" your vision to different wavelengths: that's what sonar is like.

From all this, I think we can draw only one conclusion. That "world of indescribable beauty" where Aftran says that humans live? The Yeerks lived in one, too. It was just a different world with different indescribable beauty.

The problem with centering vision

First of all, let me be clear: the worst part about this narrative, in book 19 and throughout the Animorphs series, is that it's ableist. It's incredibly cruel to blind readers to suggest that they live in a world without beauty. This cruelty shows in the way book 49 treats a human blind character, Loren, who is also depicted as having an impoverished life-- not so much because she is literally dirt poor, but because she's longing for sight, which Tobias provides her via the morphing power.

But there is another big problem: this narrative undermines a lot of the key themes that Animorphs is trying to communicate.

Within book 19 itself, the passage I quoted above is trying to make Aftran more sympathetic. She's not just a monster who enjoys controlling and dominating others; she infests hosts for a supposedly good reason: because her sensory world is devoid of beauty and joy and hosts give her access to it. It's a turning point in the story for how we view this character. But if we reject the premise that a Yeerk's life in a pool is dreary and joyless because it is not sighted, Aftran here becomes very unsympathetic. Like a colonizer who already has a countryside manor but also wants a cottage on a tropical beach, Aftran already lives in a world of indescribable beauty, but she wants to exploit other people so she can experience the beauty of their worlds in addition to her own.

One of the core themes of Animorphs is the beauty and wonder of biodiversity. Aftran celebrates the beauty of the meadow in the passage above from book 19. When the Animorphs morph dogs (book 1), their sense of smell is a wonder; when they morph dolphin (book 4), their sonar is a miracle. But when Yeerks rely on those same senses, they’re inherently inferior to vision.

For a long, frozen moment of disbelief, I did not know what was happening. I didn’t understand what my brain was receiving.

How could I? How could any Yeerk who has not had a host?

Sight!

Objects - not felt, not smelled, not reflected on sonar - but seen. It was like a sonar image, but oh, so much more. So much!

(The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, Chapter 5)

Which one is it, Applegrant? Is the diversity of perception a good thing, or is vision the best sense and everything else a distant second? You can’t have it both ways.

The third problem is that this narrative undermines another core theme of Animorphs: anti-imperialism. This deserves its own section for a deep dive.

Anti-imperialism and the diversity of embodiment

Anti-imperialism is a core theme of Animorphs. K.A. Applegate’s father served in Vietnam. Parallels are drawn throughout the series between the Andalite-Yeerk war and proxy wars between the U.S. and the Soviet Union: the Vietnam War (in The Andalite Chronicles) and the first Gulf War (in Visser.) The Andalites and the Yeerks are like the Americans and the Soviets, causing immense suffering on other planets in their proxy wars over species that they consider either slaves or necessary sacrifices.

One of the ways that empire works is that the bodies of imperial subjects are designated inferior and in need of correction. For example, in the U.S., natural Black hair is considered to be inherently “unprofessional,” and in many professions it must be shaved down or chemically straightened to be “professional.” Now, the Yeerks are themselves imperialists, but before they became the Yeerk Empire, they were occupied by an Andalite military force that considered their bodies to be disgusting and inferior before any Yeerk had ever raised a weapon against them:

«Orders are to avoid incidents,» another Andalite said. «Don’t you know these parasites are our brothers?» This was said with a sneer.

The Gedds moved closer.

«Orders or not, these filthy slugs are not touching my ship.»

(The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, chapter 1)

This is exactly how empires work. It’s good writing. But then we run into a problem, which is that every Yeerk we meet in the series agrees with the Andalites that their bodies and their senses are inferior. Aftran speaks disparagingly of “swimming endlessly in a sea of sludge,” which is the Yeerks’ natural state, but humans and Andalites consider disgusting. Aftran, Visser Three, and other Yeerks think vision, an important sense for Andalites and humans, is superior to sonar, an important sense for Yeerks. In the entire series, we never meet a single Yeerk who enjoys being a slug, living in a pool, and perceiving with Yeerk senses. They are all eager to either enslave host bodies or use the morphing power to permanently change their bodies. The series justifies the Andalites’ imperialist beliefs: the Yeerks agree that their bodies are in need of correction.

Celebrating the diversity of embodiment, lifting up all bodies as different and equal, is an anti-imperialist message. What Animorphs gives us by depicting (abled) human and Andalite bodies as enviable and Yeerk and Taxxon bodies as hellish prisons to be escaped at any cost, is an imperialist message.

How to fix it

The series has been done for twenty years now, but we’re all fans here, and we like to transform our favorite works. I’ve done a lot of work in my series Dæmorphing to fix this narrative, and I think there are a lot of opportunities to do so in fic and fanart.

Be realistic about animal perception. Applegrant do a much better job than most authors on researching animals and trying to depict them realistically, but they still tend to overplay the role of vision in the various animals the Animorphs become. For example, when Ax and Marco morph wolf spider, vision is emphasized as an important sense for them, when in fact touch/vibration is much more important to them when they hunt.

Depict aliens (and humans!) who prefer other senses to vision. There’s an opportunity to do this with Loren, a blind human given an ableist narrative in canon, and Elena, a blind girl the Animorphs rescue in book 51. You could also depict a Yeerk who experiences vision via a host and decides they like their own senses better.

Show Yeerks as victims of empire, not victims of their own bodies. I think this interaction that Ax has with a Yeerk in book 52 is very revealing. He’s caught a Yeerk in falcon morph who wants to stay in that morph and become a nothlit.

«I will be free,» the falcon insisted. «I will fly. I will see. No more need for Kandrona. No more orders, no more of this horrible war. I’ll just fly away.»

I understood. This creature was like Tobias, my true shorm. What a human would call my “best friend.”

Tobias was once a human boy. A very unhappy human boy. He stayed in red-tailed hawk morph for longer than two hours. I suspect he did it on purpose. It was his way of escaping the complexities of human life.

Tobias was abused and neglected and lived in poverty and chose a hawk body to escape the miseries of his life. This is exactly what this Yeerk wants. And it’s not just about wanting to see: it’s about wanting to escape the horrors of the Yeerk Empire. This is fertile ground to reframe the Yeerk desperation to escape into a host body or a nothlit form.

The average Yeerk did not ask to become a foot-soldier of empire. Throughout the series we meet Yeerks who do not like the role they were given. If Aftran lives in a world without beauty, then it’s not because of her senses; it’s because she lives under empire. Think of the Yeerk pool on Earth compared to how a pool must be on their own planet. The Yeerk pool on Earth is a giant concrete tub. A pool on their planet may have teemed with other life. It may have had all kinds of differences in sediment, rocks, water composition, sunlight. The Yeerks on Earth are like rats in a barren cage. Their senses didn’t deprive them of “a world of indescribable beauty”: the Yeerk Empire did.

[inklesspen]

today i got to thinking about Animorphs as a two-act musical

(I am very carefully ignoring the question of staging morph effects, aliens, a vast underground complex, and so on. they did spiderman on broadway; they can figure out how to do this.)

first act

the construction yard: Elfangor contrasting the beauty of Earth (in a way that makes it weirdly seem like he's lived among humans for a while) with the Yeerk Empire's plans for the world; the kids are very passive about this news, quite overwhelmed. the Visser devours Elfangor; the kids run.

High school, end of the next schoolday: They had a special assembly about the merits of community service; Vice-Principal Chapman delivers a very "how do you do fellow kids" quality "rap" about how the Sharing helps everyone in the community and the Sharing can help you too! The bell rings, Marco and Jake are heading to Jake's house, and Tom intercepts them on the steps outside the school. He interrogates them about the construction yard, briefly and blatently pushes them to join The Sharing, and then rushes off to "hang with some of his friends" from that group. Tobias in hawk morph approaches Jake and Marco as they walk home, only to give them the bad news: he's located the yeerk pool that Elfangor told them about, and it's hella tied in with the Sharing.

Meanwhile, Cassie and Rachel are checking up on Rachel's friend Melissa, who's having a tough time. Rachel, in cat morph, gets to hear Melissa sing about how lonely she feels; unfortunately, by the time Rachel gets away, Cassie has been caught poking around by Iniss 226, and is taken off to be infested. Rachel gets the others, they infilitrate the pool, and fight their way back out with Cassie. Unfortunately, Visser Three takes these events as a sign to increase security and speed up "recruitment"; they've saved themselves, but the very next day, Melissa tries to tell Rachel about this great new group she's joined, called The Sharing.

Erek and Ax join up at the same time, as mirrors of each other. Ax is the alien who knows next to nothing of Earth culture but loves it; Erek is the ancient robot who knows everything about humanity but really only cares about his own continued survival. Ax is the military cadet; Erek is the "plaything" with hardcoded pacifism. Jake gets infested by Temrash around this point, and the Animorphs see how far Erek is able to subvert his pacifism by helping them keep Jake contained. Temrash has a song about how he's going to totally get out of this, turn them in, achieve eternal glory in the Empire, and torment Jake forever. He manipulates Marco and Rachel into doubting that Jake's actually infested, and takes off, only to get caught by Cassie. Once Jake is freed, he welcomes Ax and Erek both to the team, and they start to plan something big.

I'm not sure of the exact structure here, but the act ends with the fight to destroy the ground-based kandrona, the first big victory the Animorphs have. They're feeling more confident in their chances. Winning the war, freeing their friends and family; it's something they can imagine now. Group song, obviously.

second act

Open with Ax having made contact with Andalite High Command, delivering a report to Lirem-Arrepath-Terrouss. This includes as recap things like the free Hork-Bajir, Aftran and the Peace Movement, the discovery that Marco's mother is Visser One's host, and saving the governor from infestation. (Also, a recipe for cinnamon buns.) Lirem warns Ax that it would be an unforgivable crime if any of the morph-capable humans were to be taken by the yeerks; he must be ready to kill them before letting such a thing happen.

And just in time, because David is here! He thinks he's hot stuff, has a song about how he's going to save his parents, win the war, get the girl. But Aftran is also in danger, and that's a problem, because she knows who the Animorphs are. The Animorphs stage a rescue op, and get away with Aftran, but David took the opportunity to pull a little side op of his own, except that he's not as clever as he thought and Visser Three absolutely knows that the humans he's trying to free are his parents, which means this andalite bandit isn't an andalite at all. Luckily Tobias overhears David's conversation and the rest of the Animorphs get to have a discussion about what to do about him. Cassie and Aftran have a duet abut saying what honesty demands — the Empire says "host bodies", but Aftran knows the truth is "slaves"; Cassie might say "deal with" or "remove", but they both know the truth is really "kill". Cassie takes the lead on the op to kill David; she tricks him into morphing into an animal form (to prove to the "Visser" he has the ability to morph) and then uses Jara Hamee's blades to kill him without leaving a human body behind. Aftran decides to die as a yeerk instead of become a nothlit; the two of them watch a sunrise and then Cassie gives Aftran a quick death. The other Animorphs (minus Erek, who has to leave the team when they start to plot David's murder) congratulate her on saving the day; Cassie just feels sick.

Unit 0 arrives to wipe out the yeerk infestation through biological warfare, heedless of the risks. At the Animorphs' urging, Unit 0 performs a safety trial of the virus, and 4 of the 5 hosts survive it, which they consider good enough to work with. The Animorphs bury Melissa's body before setting out to stop Unit 0 from their grim work. I think they probably ally with Arbat and other taxxons for this? In the process, the Animorphs' civilian identities are exposed and they have to rescue their families and flee to the wilderness, with mixed success. Somewhere around here, Jake has a song with Rachel about acceptable losses. He's becoming the sort of person who will be able to order a suicide mission.

Having learned that "her" son is an Animorph, Visser One returns to Earth. Marco constructs a plan to play the two Vissers against each other and eliminate them both; which works, and Eva and Alloran spend the rest of the war sedated and under Hork-Bajir guard. Marco takes Visser One's shuttle and bluffs their way onto the Pool ship. Cassie gets them in contact with the leaders of the Yeerk Peace Movement, who are able to smuggle them (in bug morph) over to the Blade ship. The Animorphs seize the Blade ship's bridge while Rachel stays on the Pool ship to keep Tom (host to the only remaining Yeerk who has command override codes) from interfering.

Jake takes the Pool ship (and therefore the pool) hostage and gets the surrender of all remaining Yeerk forces on Earth. At which point the Andalite fleet emerges from behind the Moon and blows up the defenseless Pool ship, while Jake looks on in satisfaction. Reprise the song about acceptable losses.

In the aftermath, nobody is all right. After the war, Cassie devotes herself to helping the Hork-Bajir, Marco craves recognition and pursues fame, Tobias retreats from the world, and Jake tries to find another cause to fight for, which is why when Menderash comes to him with the news that Ax needs help, Jake gives a huge grin, and says "Finally!"

[lorenfangor]

A large part of the reason I’m such an Andalite stan is because I do want to talk about the fucked up shit the Andalite military does. I want to discuss how they scapegoated and failed Alloran, I want to vent about how Estrid was a pawn in a game she didn’t even know she was playing, I want to criticize and condemn for their approach to the Earth war and how their first response was “well you kids are lying to make yourselves a higher priority” and then it was “oh shit oh fuck time to burn everything down”. I want to talk about how unfair it is that Lirem laid the burden of Elfangor’s crimes on his brother’s shoulders, I want to dissect and pick apart how my headcanons for Andalite herd structure and how they’re accustomed to being led by a single individual led to a military that serves its own interests and ignores all instructions that don’t come from higher up in the artificial herd hierarchy that is the command structure.

But I don’t want to do that from the backdrop of “the whole species is bad”, I don’t want to have to engage with “the society spawned this military because the society itself and its fundamental principles are rotted and decayed and toxic” to have a conversation about the military being fucked, I don’t think those two go hand in hand? I genuinely love these blue alien scorpion deer, I think they’re worth loving even as they’re often terrible. I don’t think that there’s textual evidence that the civilian population and the core fundamental philosophies of Andalite society are the kind of fucked up that would support and engender even more bullshit in the military. Bad people can come from good backgrounds, and no ideology is immune from corruption and being used for bad purposes, and that to me is where the interesting parts are.

[singinghands]

@ourendlessrebirth (from here):

As Seth's fingers graced the soft fur of his cheek, Alixeth froze. He'd been watching the television that he'd hooked up in his scoop, the two of them sitting together. So very close together. Which was fine, entirely wonderfully fine. Only Alixeth kept wanting to run. Being with Seth made him want to chase and give chase which was... confusing. He wanted to talk to Marenbuer (mother would've been his first choice but that just wasn't an option currently) but the thought of asking his brother about it seemed... too embarrassing to bare.

So this was fine.

Then Seth touched his face.

All of Alixeth's eyes locked onto the human, his face turning slightly into Seth's palm. Frozen. Waiting to see what his strange, human friend was doing. Alix felt like his hearts were competing to trying to beat out of his ribs. What could Seth possibly be intending with such a... he couldn't be... it had to be a misunderstanding...

It was a rare moment when any of them were able to relax now; there was so much to be done with only a handful of people facing off against an entire alien species in a war the rest of humanity was completely unaware of.

So Seth cherished every chance he got to just be a teenager, even if that chance involved spending time with someone he hadn't even believed could exist not that long ago, that he now wouldn't trade for a happy ignorance of the shadows of the world.

Almost leaning against Alixeth's flank, the only reason Seth is still a hairsbreadth from actually touching the Andalite was that he had been leaning in closer to the TV in order to see the show they were watching better. One of his favorite moments of the episode was coming up, and in his enthusiasm to make sure Alix was seeing it too Seth turns just enough to see both him and the screen, reaches back to turn his face toward it.

Repeatedly signing 'look!', he misses the reason behind Alix freezing up and looking at his hand like that. But Seth still (thinks he) recognizes the look when it registers and he stops speaking mid-sign and quickly drops his other hand away from where it had been on Alix's cheek.

Red-faced, his assumption was that he'd revealed too much of the him he had to be careful about showing. Even here, with someone he trusted. 'I, sorry, that was weird right?'

He would laugh it off of course, as he usually did.

[semper-legens]

125. Visser, by K A Applegate

Owned: Yes Page count: 192 My summary: Visser One is on trial for her life. Called a traitor to the Yeerks, she must explain herself and her actions in front of the Council - but with Visser Three as inquisitor, she’s in for a rough time. Can her connection to her host’s son save her life? Or will she be condemned, and Marco’s mother with her? My rating: 5/5   My commentary:

I gotta admit, I really enjoyed this one. Is it because it’s one of the darker Animorphs stories? Probably. I make no secret of the fact that I am an inveterate angstmonster. Still, I’m really glad that Applegate doesn’t shy away from this actual grey morality in her stories. By the framing, we’re made to root for Visser One, who is an objectively terrible person but is vastly preferable to Visser Three. We’re on her side against him, and kind of also with the Council of Thirteen, embodied by the sympathetic Garoff.

(Sidebar, that cover, depicting an Andalite who is presumably Visser Three, is really misleading. This is Visser One’s time to shine, baby.)

Visser One is a compelling character. We see through her eyes the journey that took her to being Visser One; she was the first to infest a human host, create the Sharing, and start spreading Yeerks throughout Earth. She did this without the knowledge of the Yeerk Council, but once she came to them with a perfect host in the humans, they couldn’t not promote her up the ranks, ignoring her past crimes. Here, she’s frantically playing games for her life against the machinations of the Council and Visser Three, trying to spin her actions as being worthwhile for the Yeerk Empire and cover some of her true motivations - her more altruistic motivations. We also see her talking to Eva, Marco’s mother. Eva for a long time was a damsel in distress figure, not really allowed any characterisation as a casualty of the role she plays in the narrative. But here, we see that she’s still fighting back against Visser One, she’s still staying strong and trying to help her son and giving Visser One grief - yet, towards the end, there are moments where they work together, recognising a common goal.

Visser Three is a smug bastard here, as usual. His attempts to get Visser One killed are brash and sometimes incompetent, but it’s obvious that he holds the upper hand at the start. Loosing some zoo animals into the Council chamber to pretend he got rid of the ‘Andalite bandits’ was a clever move - sure, we and Visser One see through it, but the Council don’t know anything about Earth animals or the way the Animorphs usually operate. This book is really a struggle of power between himself and Visser One, and he’s often on top...until the real Animorphs show up, that is.

One of the most interesting things about Visser One’s narrative is that she was once in love. Edriss, as is her true name, and Essam, her co-invader, were married and even had human children, who Edriss still cares for. We never really see Yeerks having relationships - they seem to be a very individualistic culture. Yet Edriss and Essam had this. And...I’m of two minds. In general, the trope of humanising female characters by their relationships with children or hetero romantic partners is a troubling one, and it is notable that we don’t see many other female Yeerks. However, the parallel that is being drawn is between Eva, Marco’s mother, and Edriss and her human children is an interesting one, and I don’t regret that the book explores this. I don’t think this would have necessarily played out differently if it had been Marco’s father who was infested. Yes, it is that kind of sexist trope, but it’s a good use of it.

Still, there’s a wider point that’s being made about humanity and empathy in this book. Edriss’ fault, to the Yeerks, is her empathy. While she was trying to understand the humans, and still wants to conquer them for her own ambitions, she still fell in love with humanity and being human, and still feels a sense of protectiveness for her children. She doesn’t shoot her son when Visser Three brings him in, despite all the other humans she’s sacrificed to her ambitions. Does that make her a good person? Hell no, but it makes her better than Visser Three.

Finally, Marco. Ah, Marco. Edriss contacts him midway through her trial by stealing a phone to get him to attack the Yeerk pool and help her. Which he does, but not without getting leverage over her and talking to his mother without her interference first. Seeing Marco from this outsider perspective is chilling, he’s turned into a ruthless young man. He was totally willing to let his mother die - even kill her directly - if he had to. And yet, he didn’t. And Edriss lives, to be sent away to another planet. Hopefully this isn’t the end of her story.

Next up, taking a break from Animorphs, to revisit an unusual library.

[rays-animorphs]

Book 8 Part 3: Secrets

I love it when chapters have flavor text at the beginning.

It is weird that Ax can’t both thought-speak and human-speak in human morph. I guess that implies the ability to thought-speak is due to some sort of organ Andalites have that humans and other species don’t? But thought-listening does not require special equipment. Odd.

“Actually, it’s a Kandrona Wave/Particle Generator.” Thanks, Ax. No really. That makes a lot of sense. I mean, ignoring the lack of any explanation of what the heck a Kandrona wave/particle is.

Actually if we know anything about how the Yeerks work, they’ll probably just kill human Controllers on the verge of being de-Yeerk-ified. They seem pretty comfortable with that. (Edit: called it, unfortunately.)

OK, technically, Ax is the best narrator because he’s the one in the best position for dropping hints about the greater backstory. This is driving me up the wall. I want answers and I want them now.

Only a few dozen more books to go, the answers must be somewhere in them…

I wonder how fast I can get through the series if I just binge it. The books are short. I could probably get through a few per day.

I think my head would literally explode. They’re short, but concentrated.

Ugh, everybody in the group sometimes keeps secrets from the rest of the group. Kinda disappointed in Ax though.

Oof. Far from home. Doesn’t have anyone to ask for guidance. Not about this. And…sounds like he’s not supposed to tell them. He’s trying to do the right thing in his way. I guess. I don’t think this is coming from a place of personally wanting to avoid accountability, it’s more, his entire people have decided this isn’t for outsiders to know. Urgh.

Sorry for selling you short, Ax, I guess you do have impulse control. At the most inconvenient time.

Sounds like he’s feeling really guilty though.

[tfw-no-tennis]

the animorphs continues, david trilogy style

here we are...we finally arrived....the david triology

I did remember a good amount of these books from when I read these when I was like 11. but I also forgot a lot an hooooly shit 

WHERE TF DO I EVEN START. so that shit slapped obvs. it really felt like the series has been leading up to this - all the characters have had to make really difficult no-correct-answers decisions, and it leads up to this - the ultimate shitty situation with absolutely no good, clear solutions, and everyone gets to contribute to the awful conclusion! 

one thing that really stood out to me is that with David's inclusion as this kind of ‘outsider’ within the group, even though none of it was from his POV, we still get a huge sense of the animorphs being an extremely well-oiled team, who all know and trust each other very well - especially w/Jake as the leader - Jake has to make a lot of decisions in these books but the other animorphs always listen to him 

this all probably didn’t help David, who was already thrown into a completely crazy situation, and who now has to deal w/this group of kid superheroes who work very well together. it also doesn't help that David doesn't really try to find his place on the team 

anyways I love how much wild shit happens in animorphs always. like they try to steal the blue box as birds and then David chases them off w/a bb gun? and then they end up in this huge alien showdown with visser 3 and his troops in David's house? batshit

also the hilariously 90s part w/the email...lmao. like its the 90s so there's no way to shut off the automatic email remotely, they HAVE to go to David's computer, and they also can just unplug it...lmao they should've just taken out the phone lines tbh

also I completely forgot about the whole plot w/the world leaders meeting and the yeerks and stuff. that really served to ramp up the tension and also make it obvious that David was an outsider as he consistently fucked things up then played it off

also KAA did a masterful job of making David juuuust a little sympathetic in book 20, but still Off enough that you're like ehhhh I don't know about this guy...then he goes full awful creep and it becomes obvious that there’s no way they’ll be able to let him stick around in any capacity 

the bit where David kills the crow for no reason is the first Real indication that this is gonna go seriously wrong. but even before all that, his conversations w/Marco gave me like, school shooter vibes 

these books are full of some REALLY good tension. the whole end of book 21 was so tense - they've been gearing up for this mission for days now, and they’ve had to do some crazy stuff to get where they are, so the realization that it’s all a trap is completely chilling 

and then when David tried to betray them to visser three...the gravity of that decision is unmistakable, because then the yeerks would find out that the animorphs are (mostly) human children, and they’d even know who they are, and that would be the end

I loved the part where David tries to act like he was just setting up an ambush w/his betrayal to the visser, and Jake immediately has everyone play along - and they do. earlier in the series someone - probably Rachel or Marco - likely would have ignored Jake bc of how slimy David was acting, but they've basically become a highly efficient military squad at this point, and it was a perfect slow slide into that over the last 20 books, and now is the time when the reader kinda realizes this (at least for me)

even if they don’t agree w/Jake and think they should just address the David problem right then and there, they all trust Jake as their leader to make that decision 

also the fact that these are the first books to do the ‘to be continued’ thing rather than wrapping the plot up...it really made it feel all the more tense 

in other books I normally look at the page count and go ‘ok so this conflict will be solved in this scene cause there are only 15 pages left’ (which is st I do a lot I now realize lmaooo I can pretty much gauge what’ll happen based on how many pages are left - and I do this when I read fanfic too, by looking at where the scroll bar is...anyways)

BUT w/these books its totally up in the air cause they can end anytime and just get continued next book, which makes it so much more tense imo

also I fucking loooove the part in book 21 where they’re hiding out with that little pool of yeerks - and I actually bookmarked some pages for these liveblogs, so I have quotes, this one from Jake - 

‘There was something wrong about killing defenseless slugs. I was pretty sure about that.’

Oh, Jake, that opinion is gonna change someday....

it is a little ironic considering he jacuzzi’d those yeerks in like book 7 or w/e. but alas its still a fantastic line that serves to show in the end how much things have changed 

also I love that the decision not to kill those defenseless yeerks end up helping them later - the yeerks check the pool bc they’re so certain that if the andalite bandits HAD snuck in, they surely would have killed the helpless yeerks. but they didn’t, so that means the andalite bandits didn't sneak in....

I like when the characters do a morally good thing and are then rewarded by the narrative for it - it’s pretty rare in this series, where there are usually NO morally correct choices (such is life) or they’re actively punished for making a ‘good’ decision (one could argue that the decision to make David an animorph instead of letting him become a controller was a morally good decision, but it had dire consequences). 

Ok and the part I have to talk about w/these books of course - everything w/Rachel. bc damn Rachel really goes through it in this trilogy. I absolutely LOVE the character development she gets, and I especially enjoyed the way her and Jake's relationship was developed

anyways, one of the best and most fucked up quotes of the series, from Jake’s POV in book 21  - 

<Ax? I think Tobias is dead,> I said. <I think David killed him.> <That would be a most terrible thing,> Ax said.  <Yeah. Get Rachel. If David’s killed Tobias, we may have to do a terrible thing, too. Get Rachel.>

AUGHHHHH fucking chills I swear. also eternal love for them saying dead/killed/etc and never shying away from it. it really wouldn't have the same impact if they used the normal kid-safe PG words 

but yeah Jake asking for Rachel when he thinks that they may have to hunt down and kill David? phewwww. 

and the significance of this is never downplayed. this essentially confirms that Jake sees Rachel as the one who is willing and able to do the dirty work - and specifically in this case, it’s also likely bc it was Tobias who was ‘killed’ and he knows how Rachel feels about Tobias

but like, that’s so fucked up, I love it. they give this situation the exact amount of weight it requires - ch1 of book 22 has this part from Rachel - 

‘If David had hurt Tobias, I would... But what was the point in making threats? I didn't need to make threats. I knew what I would do. So did Jake. That’s why he’d sent Ax for me.’

at first, it seems like Rachel is on the same page as Jake, but when it becomes clearer later that Jake sent Ax specifically to get Rachel bc she could do the terrible thing that had to be done - instead of just bc they needed reinforcements and she was closest - then things change 

but even when Rachel gets rightfully upset later over this, you get the sense she still never really sees any option other than to kill David. it’s not even the ‘killing David’ part that upsets her, it’s that Jake, her cousin, immediately thinks of her as the person to do the deed 

so, another fantastic quote from Rachel - 

‘Tobias was dead. Jake might still die. And I was going to have to go after David. I was going to have to hunt him down.  I was going to hunt him down and destroy him.  No, not destroy. That was a weasel word. It was vague, meaningless. I was going to kill him.’

fucking WOW. like really. that bit right there is just perfect quintessential dark animorphs. it just subverts the classic kid-friendly phrasing, using words like ‘hunt down’ and ‘destroy’ instead of kill. But Rachel says it like it is. she’s not going to destroy David, she’s going to kill him. 

But then a few pages later, after Ax tells her the quote where Jake asks for her specifically - 

‘It definitely made me feel strange. Jake had called for me specifically. Because he wanted someone who would do precisely what I was planning to do.  Like I say, I’m not big on feelings, but something about that felt wrong.’

I say it a lot but wow do these kids need So Much Therapy. these are like...8th graders. jesus christ. when I was in 8th grade I was busy planning sims-playing get-togethers w/my fellow 13 year old friends. christ animorphs 

and fuck, the part where Rachel threatens David’s family, and shoves a fork in his ear? jesus. and the fact that Jake knew that Rachel was going to threaten David and let her go do it...

and then afterwards, Rachel says - 

‘I felt...not exactly ashamed. But I knew I never wanted to talk to Cassie about what I’d just told David. Or Tobias. Or even Marco.’

I'm gonna make some leaps here but I think it’s really interesting that Rachel even mentions Marco here, and says ‘or even Marco.’ like, the ‘even’ seems to imply that Marco would otherwise be somebody she WOULD talk to about something like this.

which...kinda tracks, tbh. Marco is Mr Ruthless, he’s a cold, pragmatic strategist when he isn’t cracking jokes as a coping mechanism. it makes sense that Rachel would talk to him about things like this - he would make jokes, but he’d also understand 

I'm just so interested in all the highly varying dynamics that exist within the group okay 

and then right after Rachel says - 

‘But I swear at that moment I hated Jake far more than I did David.  I should have told them all what had happened. But Jake already knew, didn’t he? Jake, the smart, determined leader, already knew all about me.’

that's fucking daaark okay. It paints this picture of Jake having become this master manipulator who knows all about Rachel’s violent tendencies and is using them to his full strategic advantage

Oh my god okay and then all the stuff w/Saddler, christ. I had completely forgotten about that plotline but there was so much fucked up stuff there, too

and the scene where Rachel gives some good life advice to her little sister, and it’s a good bit to remind the reader and characters of the world outside of animorphs conflict...and then David speaks up. 

that was such brutal mood whiplash, when you realize that David is morphed and hidden in Rachels room somewhere...fucking chilling 

that whole scene just oozes disgusting creepiness. David’s fixation on Rachel specifically, and his rage at being ‘bested’ by her, really feels like misogyny to me. while David butted heads w/Marco, you never got the same sense of anger and disgust that he displays towards Rachel.

and the line where he says ‘hey, enjoy your shower’ made me shudder in disgust. christ. there are a lot of revolting, dark implications there.

also, book 22 obviously does a ton of fantastic character work for Rachel, but it does the same for Jake, too. and Cassie, but ill get to that later

we get to see so much of Jake as a leader and a strategist here, and pitting him and Rachel against each other (so to speak) makes for some excellent characterization, like when Rachel starts questioning why he asked for her - 

“I thought David had killed Tobias. I thought he might kill me. I wanted...firepower.”  “I see. You wanted me for my morphs.” It was a good answer. It could have almost been true. 

and then we get a brief pit stop at the children's hospital where the fucked up parade continues - David morphed Saddler, Rachel and Jake’s injured/dying young cousin, and is pretending to be him, miraculously recovered from his accident

and meanwhile he DUMPED THE REAL SADDLER’S BODY DOWN AN ELEVATOR SHAFT. I literally cant, what the FUCK. 

and they never really follow up on it but the whole family and all the Drs think its this miraculous recovery against all odds, but then obviously David disappears and therefore so does Saddler - do they ever find his real body? how completely fucked up that must have been - so much worse than if saddler had just died from his injuries - the miraculous recovery completely overturned by a bunch of stuff that doesn’t even make sense to anybody except Jake and Rachel....

anyways, after all that completely fucked up bullshit, we have the Jake and Rachel confrontation, Jake’s whole speech about Rachel is amazing, but here are my highlights - 

“I think you’re the bravest member of the group. I think in a bad fight I’d rather have you with me than anyone else. But yeah, Rachel, I think there’s something pretty dark down inside you. I think you’re the only one of us who would be disappointed if all this ended tomorrow.”

I mean, christ. imagine your fellow 13 year old cousin saying this to you. oh MAN. and I love so much that Jake isn’t wrong, but he also is? he understands what Rachel will do, but not why she’s doing it. and I talked abt it before but Rachel has found herself in this box of ‘the brave/reckless blood knight,’ and feels pressure to live up to that reputation. 

so how much of it is a façade that she puts on bc she’s expected to, and how much of it is how she really feels? well, she got that reputation initially for a reason, but she gets pushed more and more in that direction as the series progresses, both bc of the unintentional pressure to live up to her role as the Xena of the group, and bc it’s really, really useful to have somebody like Rachel on your side

Then Rachel says -

‘I tried to look at myself the way Jake saw me. Was it true? Did I love this war?’

I'm gonna lose it, these poor fucking middle schoolers. Rachel, listen, you’re 13, you’re a child soldier, of course you don't love the war you’re fighting...I need every child therapist on the block to come here right now

like jesus being 13 is hard enough without all this nonsense. it’s such a tenuous time in development, and add something like this - someone like Rachel, who is somewhat pigeonholed by society as ‘vapid, pretty blonde who loves to shop’ would of course flourish in an environment where she gets to show how much of a 3-dimensional Person she is - she can love shopping and also kick ass! nice! but also, like, trauma. 

So then Rachel says this about Jake - 

“Jake, you’re a leader now. You make life-and-death decisions. All the time. You’ve learned to do that. And,” I added bitterly, “you’ve learned to use people. You use them for their strengths and their weaknesses.” 

Fucking read, wow. I feel like Rachel is absolutely correct here, if not simplifying things a lot. like, yes, Jake does make these unfathomable decisions on the regular, but he’s got tons of conflict over every single thing he does, and there was a lot of uncertainty and trial-and-error leading up to this. but she is correct that he’s learned, and is clearly a lot more comfortable in his role as a military leader now. 

I just love the contrast these two have. Rachel, with the burden she carries as the bravest - the fighter of the team, who must be relied on in battle and to do the things that nobody else will do - and Jake, the leader, who has to make decisions knowing that he could get his friends killed at any time, and still trust that they’ll listen. 

And then Jake says - 

“But everyone draws their own line[...] For example, see, I used to think my line was drawn at using my friend, my cousin, to do my dirty work. Guess that turned out not to be true. Sorry, Rachel.” 

And then they hug and vow to murder David together, as a team. Heartwarming cousin bonding! Again, so much therapy. 

So yeah I love that scene. especially when you take into consideration Rachel’s ultimate fate, and Jake’s part in it. excuse me while I go weep. 

Anyways, to the end. THE ENDING....it gets me every time. I’ll never be over it. I don’t remember much about animorphs from when I read it at age 11 but I really really remember the ending to book 22. The way they masterfully set David up, the rat morph, the pipes, THE LEGO, the reveal that they planned the entire thing, the moment when David realizes what’s going to happen to him....oof. It’s not something I could forget, even w/my notoriously horrible memory when it comes to media 

Also I feel like there was more subtle misogyny when David insists on humiliating/subjugating Rachel, just because she proved earlier that she was stronger and smarter and better than him...eugh David is just such a disgusting creep that you don’t even end up feeling bad for him even though he’s a middle schooler being handed a fate worse than death. I mean, he tossed a dead/dying kid’s body down an elevator shaft in a children's hospital. I’m pretty sure he deserves this. 

And here’s the part where I talk about Cassie. because even though she didn’t get a POV book in the David trilogy, she still got some brutally fantastic character development. here we see David starting to realize what’s happening - 

‘Cassie was crying.  David hadn't asked who the mastermind of the plan was. Who it was who had so accurately appraised his emotions, his need to build his ego, the fact that he would choose me to be his “companion.” Cassie, of course. Cassie had worked it out, step by step, after Jake and I had failed to come up with anything.  For Cassie, it was an improvement over the alternatives. See, no one was going to have to die.  But David’s life would end, just the same.’

CASSIE. The dark horse, except not really, bc this is perfectly in line with what we know about her, especially coming off book 19, her last POV book before this. in that book she makes some absolutely awful decisions, all to avoid having to kill somebody. 

After all of Jake and Rachel’s badass vows to take David down, it’s Cassie who finds the solution. 

To a lot of people, David’s fate could be considered worse than death. To Cassie, it’s a better alternative. That speaks volumes about her, and I love it. 

Also, the MANIPULATION. Cassie in the David trilogy really gets to flex her interpersonal manipulation skills, which I love to see. It’s such a fascinating aspect of her character; a really interesting use of empathy

Like the scene in book 20 where David freaks out as a roach and she manipulates him into not giving them away by pitting him against Marco, someone who David doesn’t get along with, by saying ‘if Marco can do it, can’t you?’ because she knows he’ll fall for it. And he DOES. 

And then the part in the cafeteria where she basically plays the ‘good cop’ to everyone else in the group’s ‘bad cop.’ Not ONLY does she manage to get David to shut up and listen to her, she also posits her theory that he wants to blue box to trade it for his parents - which his reactions to her questions confirms as true. and nobody else in the group suspected this. 

She lures him into a sense of security by talking kindly and quietly about how she understands how he feels, then hits him with what she knows and gets him to confirm it, which then allows Rachel to accurately threaten him. 

And then Cassie, offscreen, comes up with the entire plan on how to trap David as a rat, because from the beginning she had him figured out. David didn’t pay much attention to Cassie - more misogyny tbh, as Cassie is the girl on the team who isn’t an aggressive, feminine blonde - and that ended up being a huge reason for his downfall. 

David also didn’t pay much attention to Tobias, and clearly didn’t see him as human at all, and that made Tobias very valuable after David assumed he had killed Tobias. 

Ok, back to the ending - the fact that it was Rachel and Ax who stayed there to wait the two hours for David to become a nothlit....

Rachel says - 

‘Jake’s a good leader. He knows when to use us. He knows when to protect us. He knew he had to protect as many of his people as he could from what was going to happen.’ 

fucking brutal. TWO HOURS of listening to this awful kid beg and threaten and barter. I can’t even imagine. 

And Ax too! He gets overlooked a lot as an alien, and it’s probably true that all of this impacts him differently than the other human animorphs, it can’t be in any way pleasant to have to sit there for two hours and act as a living timer to count down this kid’s life. Ax is a kid, too, and an isolated one at that, being the only Andalite on the team. 

So yeah that scene is awful. Rachel even says - 

‘Two hours. But that two hours of horror will last forever in my mind. If I live a hundred years, I will still hear his cries, his threats, his pleading, each night before sleep takes me. And beyond sleep, in my dreams.’

I know I’m beating a dead horse here, but jesus christ, THEY NEED SO MUCH THERAPY. The fact that one of the constants in all of the POVs is the nightmares that all the animorphs consistently have....geez

Okay so I know in my last two liveblogs I ended them by comparing animorphs to another series - hxh and mtmte - but I honestly am drawing a blank for this...

I guess the only thing I can think of is to compare it to mob psycho 100, which is another very good, very subtly subversive series 

In mp100, the entire Point is that the very powerful psychic middle schoolers DON’T end up using their powers to fight life-or-death battles against adult enemies in order to save the world and whatnot. the Point is that that’s fucked up, and these kids shouldn’t be responsible for something like that, no matter how powerful they are 

and basically the character who says all that is Reigen, an adult who actively prevents the middle schoolers from joining what would be some very traumatizing fights 

basically my point here is less to compare the two shows and more to say - the poor animorphs could really use a Reigen huh. like, they seriously need an adult who’ll step in and say ‘wait a second, these kids are doing WHAT? hold the fucking phone, no way, get some actual adults in here to solve this shit. not today!’

the closest they could've come to an adult figure in their lives is Elfangor and he dies like 5 minutes after giving them superpowers, soooo....

man mp100 slaps I should rewatch it. anyways yeah the theme of this post is ‘the animorphs need therapy and also a stable adult figure in their lives to help them not get traumatized all the time’ thank you for coming to my ted talk

[thegayestandalite]

Chapter 3

The Yell Beasts

It hardly seemed any time at all when the sun sunk back into the land and the native wildlife seemed to blaze with it. Or he could simply becoming alert to the danger.

He had refrained from informing his shorm of the fact it was becoming night and he was still as of yet, outside his ship, while being injured.

They both remembered the terrifying times on a wild planet where all the most dangerous animals woke from their sleep.

He glanced forlornly at his ship. It was only a few yards away and offered total protection.

So close, but he couldn’t make himself get up and go. It wasn’t even a pain thing, more of a brain thing. He’d put it off for an hour. Another hour and he’d be stuck with the wounds. He inner sighed at his brain’s stubborness, always a struggle with that guy.

“AAAROOoOOOOoOOO”

A long drawn out howl permeated his surroundings, an icy pricking of fur down his spine. It was followed by another, and another. The forest seemed completely silent to listen.

Oh well. If the field had taught him anything, it was the abject overwhelming silence that consumes the night is when it was time to worry.

The howls stopped.

[Ah.] He thought.

————————————————-

The pack surrounded him. It was pitch dark already. Tiny pricks of cold starlight could be seen through the canopy. But they offered no light.

They were the same animals as Legs, and wouldn’t you know it, they traveled in groups!

[How terrifying], he thought warmly. [It’s as if the forest was engineered to generate horror.]

The long snouted, narrow eyed beasts with teeth and teeth stared at him, as if waiting to close in.

He didn’t bother straining his eyes to keep track of their nervous movements.

An andalite’s primary sense was sight, but there was a time and a place and this was not that.

His extensive experience with predators, and pack predators no less, let him keep his cool as he tucked in all limbs except for his tail. A smart animal grabs the exposed body part.

The leader, or maybe just the bolder of the animals, was staring straight at him, growling.

Growls, he had learned, were noises of aggression, sort of a self pep talk to gear up for an attack.

Bor’ij gently swooshed his tail over the animal’s head, causing her to jump back with her great triangular ears pinning to her head.

True, it was the rare predator that charged in without fear..an injury in the wild could easily lead to death. Or a lot of pain and suffering.

She jumped back, her yellow eyes narrowed, scrutinizing this new, maybe prey.

Maybe if he hadn’t been in one spot for long, and maybe if he wasn’t visibly injured and bleeding they’d have ignored him. But none of that happened so here it is.

Legs, or Bor’ij’s new name for them: “The Spine Chilling Yell Beasts of the Abject Night” leader made a decision and lunged, grabbing his tail blade in her huge teeth.

[I know how to deal with bitey guys,] he informed her as her teeth searched for a grip on his blade.

[Give up,] he said, [you’re only making my blade look more bad ass.] Referring to the rake of Teeth etching grooves into his tail blade.

He gave his tail a tiny tug, and sure enough the animal’s predatory instinct to hold onto it’s prey locked in as strong as her teeth and she was dragged forward.

Too late. Far too late to be worried about being forcibly dragged towards an alien creature.

The injured andalite did a lunge himself, snatching and burying his fingers into the loose furry scruff of the animal and started to acquire her dna.

There was no time to lose.

Thick grey fur, an explosion of it - thicker than his own winter coat, erupted from his face, down his torso, down his back. His eyes narrowed, turned yellow and became fewer.

His tail blade sucked into his tail as it also loss muscularity. His nose elongated into a muzzle, teeth bursting through his gum membranes, lining his new mouth.

Finally, the sensation of the ground rushing towards him.

He closed his eyes, letting all the sensations and his new brain run over him, to be observed by him and nothing else.

He pushed his consciousness back out, opened his eyes and

Never before had he seen anything besides this.

Never before had he been anything other than fierce, cunning, powerful and loyal.

He had always belonged to the forest. His nose had always been so powerful. It could smell The very night itself.

His ears, had always been so keen And ready, catching every tiny noise.

His long legs and great paws that clutched the earth, ready to run and run and run.

A great lolling grin broke out across the muzzle he’s always had and showed the teeth he was born with the tongue hanging out that had forever existed.

The wounds that never existed, healed.

He drew his head to the stars and howled for his pack.

A blast of cool night air distracted him from his animal instincts.

[Better,] he thought to himself, enjoying the pain free walking and breathing.

He wasn’t feeling quick to go back to his ship, no doubt they were waiting to get into it and he had some personal items he’d rather not have to explain.

He turned in the direction the aliens had came and departed from.

While they waited to get into his domain, he’d find theirs first.

The new morph was called by the night. All the new sounds and smells. Oh.

He blinked at The Spine Chilling Yell Beasts of the Night and Wind that now seemed completely unsure of what to do. Where they had one leader, now they had two.

Bor’ij grinned a canine grin and scatted off to let them reconnect with their defeated leader.

————————————-

Run, run, run, faster and faster.

He threw his front paws out with complete abandon.

This was joy! Whenever he thought he might reach his limit, he thought, why not a little more and faster he went.

He bounded off logs and trees, splashed through ice cold streams, the soft dirt padded his furious paws.

It was 1.19 hours before he finally slowed. He’d forgotten to search for scents the whole way, he was too enthralled in the morph.

He took deep sharp breaths of cold air that filled his barrel chest. He took one long breath and howled again.

He wasn’t expecting a response, but still, it was lonely when there was none.

He trotted forward and found himself on the edge of the forest. In the distance, a building full of animal smells and dusty dried grass.

Probably nice and warm.

Probably great for naps.

He made his way onward, happy to explore.

The wooden building was actually great for napping. Ignoring all the interesting earth animals for now, he had leapt into the loft and snuggled into the straw, remembering to de morph and remorph, his internal clock making it a nearly subconscious effort.

[chaoticspacefam]

2020 In Review: Wordcount Tag

I was tagged for this by @actualanxiousswampwitch​ , thank you! I’m not sure who’s already done or been tagged for this cause I am, once again, late to the party LOL but I shall (no pressure and sorry if you’ve already done it!) tag: @rainofaugustsith​ , @darth-bagel​ , @thatmmolesbian​ , @thelastenvoyyy​ and anybody else who wants to do this. Yes, I promise I mean you!

Words: 45,314

Published: 0 (I’m not counting the couple of Six Sentence tags I’ve gotten, they’re snippets of an unfinished piece & are included below instead :), or roleplay replies, cause that feels like cheating lol.) I actually wrote a lot more than I thought I had, this is a rough guesstimate as well, as my oneshot WIPs tend to be all over the place across something like 6 different documents, some of which have existed since 2018, so I had to guess at how far up to count from the end for some of them, but I think it’s a fair guesstimate XD I also have included lore/worldbuilding docs in this because that was a 3-month long Lockdown 1.0 Boredom/”Canon is a trash fire so I’m ignoring that and making up my own lore” passion project and I’m goddamn proud of how much I wrote for that. It’s the most I’ve written in one stretch (think I finished it over a span of 3 nights or so, once I’d done all the research and made all the notes ofc ^^)

Not Published: 45,314

The Breakdown:

swtor - 45,314

for creeping shadows (my main longfic/part one of the subterfugeverse series) - 1,553  - Aria, stop being difficult! *shakes fists* XD

oneshots - 16,223

lore/worldbuilding (for subterfugeverse naturally) - 23,001 (is this ALL tomato alien lore? pretty much, yes, yes it is :’D ~400 words is “the WIP reworked timeline to correlate my worldbuilding with the canon timeline that was released”, but 98% is just...me thinking way too much about Purebloods and how they deserved way better goddamn lore. I blame @fluffynexu ‘s amazing tomato worldbuilding posts,  reading them when I went looking for “canon” lore one day for the rp is what got me started down that rabbithole (it’s awesome and if you haven’t already you should totally go check hers out too :DD), I had a “fuck you then canon I’ll do it myself too >:L” moment and once I started I couldn’t stop until I’d crapped out literally over 20k words on the subject *whispering* thank you LOL)

zephyrverse au bonus oneshots - 4,537 (stuff I wrote to fill in time gaps or “just cause I had a plot bunny”, relating to mine and k-christine’s zephyrverse au rp. None of these will likely be posted publicly, but they still deserve to be counted as words I wrote this year :’D

As you can see, most of my “muse” this year came from sporadic oneshots :’D The Ahaszaai twins also properly plot-bunnied their way into my brain in late 2019 and haven’t stopped making a nuisance of themselves the whole fucking year. Every time I tried to carry on with a chapter, one of the two of them would pop up like “Nooo write about ME! pay attention to ME!” - Yes, Ni’kasi, I will get to you this year, I promise XD

New Things I Tried:

Just Writing. Not worrying about whether “it wasn’t part of the next chapter” or “it comes from a part in the story that I’m nowhere near close to posting yet”. If I felt like writing something, or for a specific pairing/feeling/scene, whatever. I wrote until I ran outta muse juice. Yeah, it meant I didn’t technically “finish” anything this year BUT - the important thing is I wrote stuff. and that’s all that really matters, eh? :’D

Polyam ships! May not seem like a big deal but I spent a long time talking myself out of them because of internalised toxic monogamy and finally saying “you know what, fuck it! I can ship three or more people together and it can still be a perfectly wholesome, healthy and loving relationship and that’s okay” was a BIG thing for me this year.

Dialogue Scripts: which I didn’t count as wordcount because really it’s just word vomit of general tone/inflection and dialogue that I came up with right before falling asleep which I didn’t want to lose. Basically, if an exchange or a particularly punchy or moving line of dialogue popped into my brain but I wasn’t ready to write the whole scene that it fit into out, but didn’t want to forget the line(s). I wrote it out in movie script/script-style roleplay fashion e.g. Character’s Name: (emotion, hand gestures etc.) [Dialogue here] and so on. I know this is probably a well known trick of the trade, but I never took it seriously until this year. Seriously, do it. It’s great.

Favorite Thing I Wrote:

Hmmm, a snippet for Andronikos/Ni’kasi that I started this week which isn’t posted yet (saving it for this week’s Six Sentence Sunday so look out for it! :D) was pretty fun to work on, I love their dynamic and Kas is suprisingly fun to write for.

Also the Aria/Vano proposal scene that I posted a snippet for the week before last. I’m having great fun with that scene, and I really enjoy putting a non-serious spin on the classic “proposal scene” tropes. Can’t wait to finish it, though it may be a while before the full one goes up on AO3, as it depends whether it ends up fitting in as part of the mainfic or as an additional oneshot

And I have a D’leah/Kissai oneshot that I need to give another once-over before I finally yeet it onto AO3 and Tumblr for you guys to see :’D

Favorite Fic I Read:

@sleepswithvillains Eleanora/Quinn fic, Helplessly Hoping. I’m horribly behind on chapters and I gotta catch up and read the finale this week, but it’s been a helluva great ride and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the story! <3

Also The Invitation collab with @tishinada featuring Zas and Fiona had me squealing, I can’t wait to catch up on HH and see more of these two, they’re adorable ;-; @a-muirehen​ ‘s Relu/Merkara series of course! I’m a complete sucker for (friends to lovers to in Ariano’s case but yea pfpfpf) enemies to lovers ships and these two are just so good, I am on the edge of my seat every time we get a new snippet for them, ngl (grimace emoji) @darth-bagel ‘s Sylvas/Graz’zt and Sylvas/Liz/Rilfaen snippets which they’ve been spoiling me with on Discord @mercurypilgrim ‘s Ven’fir/Quinn AU oneshots, Cloudbank (Western was a particular favourite, but all are very good!) and of course @rainofaugustsith ‘s Lana/Viri updates are always fantastic, some personal favourites from this year were Almost There & Memory of Healing :3 (I totally still go back to read Commander & Advisor too sometimes, getting to see Viri be a little diabolical and messing with “MiNiSTeR LoRMaN!” was and still is my favourite thing XD)

If I’ve left you out I’m sorry!! These were the ones that stuck out in my memory, but I’ve loved everyone’s writing this year, it’s been great :3

Writing Goals:

to actually finish and post chapter 8 & 9 of Creeping Shadows. Then we’ll get to the meat and potatoes of the story and maybe Aria will stop being a brat and fighting me every time I try to stick to a semi-regular update schedule Get off my butt, finalise the name and get started on Ni’kasi’s part of the Subterfugeverse story. Maybe run the updates in-tandem with Creeping Shadows but idk if I want to wait till after CS is done before I start posting Kas’s side, or do them side-by-side yet, we’ll see ;) Keep writing! I know better than to pressure myself by setting a specific word count goal, that’s never worked well in the past

At least 2 chapters of each of the works mentioned above would be great though, more would be better! We’ll see how I go

Words of Thanks:

honestly, to everybody in the fandom I’ve met this year. Anybody that I follow, thank you for being there and engaging with me and/or posting amazing content for me to look at! I came over from deviantART where the SWTOR fandom is incredibly small and generally quite inactive and the contrast since moving over here has been incredibly uplifting. I very nearly cancelled Creeping Shadows and stopped posting fic for my SWTORverse altogether because I got next to no engagement on dA and it was very disheartening to the point where I felt I could enjoy the game and the rp partners I had, but the solo projects I’d put so much thought, time and love into already weren’t worth continuing. You guys took that spark and kept it going and I really don’t have enough words to say how grateful I am for that. Even if I haven’t published much this year, making posts on this tumblr, interacting with everyone and working on lore, plot points and so on for Subterfugeverse has kept me going through the Hellish Year of Nightmares that was 2020 <3

to the amazing new friends I’ve made in this past year, who have listened to me ramble about headcanons, character backstories, writing snippets (and rambled/sent some back), keep being awesome: @walk-ng-d-saster , @darth-bagel , @kyber-heart , @deepseacritter , @thedinalixlegacy to further friends and meme tag buddies, I get so excited every time I see a mention for a new meme or ask game in my inbox, so thank you!! : @mimabeann , @palepinkycat , @a-master-procrastinator , @raven-of-domain-kwaad , @actualanxiousswampwitch , @thatmmolesbian , @a-muirehen to my regular commentors/rebloggers/likers/askbox lurkers, I see every one of you and every time your users pop up I grin like a kid in a toy shop: @starlightjedi , @sparkles-and-rust , @wilvarin-chan , @sunsetofdoom , @ask-an-andalite , @thelastenvoyyy . @lyrishadow and more because Tumblr only goes so far back and I have the memory of Swiss Cheese. If you regularly comment, like, reblog, or anything, from me, know that I see you, and I love and appreciate you for it! <3

I couldn’t possibly remember to tag everyone and I promise if I missed you out it’s not because I hate you! Anxiety just sometimes be a bitch and I don’t wanna look like a clown calling someone a “friend” if I’m not explicitly sure we are, in fact, friends. I think you’re all awesome and I’m so glad to have moved over here and met you all <3

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

i just want to say i'm rereasing the series and i LOVE how there are basically zero authority figures the kids can trust. Like the Andalites have their whole Blue Man's Burden, the Chee are pacifists but manipulative and disinterested in humanity, GOD HIMSELF descends upon them and offers help and they're like "whats your angle asshole?"

I agree that that's a huge part of what makes the series so good (and so original): the complete lack of mentors.

Like, I know of very few other children's series that have no one a group of middle schoolers can ask for guidance. Even series that kill the mentors early on (Pendragon, Eragon) don't kill them after a single freaking conversation the way we get with Elfangor. Even series that have the kids obtain mentors late in the game (A Wrinkle in Time, Homecoming) still present said mentors as basically effective, not paralyzed and worse-than-useless like Michelle and Naomi. Even series where none of the adults are trustworthy (Percy Jackson, Maze Runner) will have child mentors with at least some more knowledge of the magic system than the protagonists, not a comparable level of near-total ignorance like Cassie has about morphing or a desperation to be mentored themselves like Ax shows.

Anyway, I love how much Animorphs throws the poor protaognists in on the deep end. And I love how much time they spend losing battle after battle as a result. It's not until about #6 that they're even minimally competent, not until #7 that they actually win a battle, and arguably not until #52 that they do more than harass and inconvenience the yeerks. Because it takes them that freaking long to become their own experts. And by the end of the series they're the ones parenting their parents, the ones acting as authorities over the government, the ones who have the hard hard won knowledge of how this war works that allows them to earn a satisfying if pyrrhic victory.

And even after having read the series (several times), I still can't tell how Applegate pulled it off. Because having to have the characters learn everything all on their own is dang hard to write, and dang cool to read.