#{ in my defense...

[sassypantsjaxon]

It’s simple. I get into an anime. I watch the musical adaptation. I see the highly underrated autism×autism rarepair interact. I go a little feral. This may happen again.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

About the ask about the animorphs being defeated, it seems like the end of 5 could have let them fight their way out.

Okay, okay, a way for them to escape at the end of #5...

• The first thing Jake suggests is that Rachel demorph, and remorph to wolf. Which gets everyone staring at him like he's nuts. If Rachel changes morphs, Ax points out, then a controller will almost certainly see her through the window of their cell and conclude they're human.

«Doesn't matter,» Jake says, «because Marco's about to demorph anyway. We need Rachel able to fight.»

That gets everyone to stare at him in confusion some more.

Everyone except Marco. «Jake, buddy. That thing out there... it's not her. She's gone, and Visser One's in charge.»

Jake looks at Marco, waiting for him to remember, two weeks back, Tom's voice shouting for them to stop and Tom's hands firing a gun at their retreating backs. «I know,» he says at last. «But you're still the best diversion we have. It's that, or die here.»

«What?» Tobias asks, but Cassie's looking between them in growing comprehension.

• So Marco demorphs. And when the door swings open, Visser One's forces find a human boy standing on the other side, flanked by a pair of wolves.

"Hi," Marco says. "My name's Marco Alexiou Encarnacion. And I promise, if you tell your boss that, she's going to want to see me."

The hork-bajir-controllers look at each other, say a few things in a language none of the Animorphs know, and then one grabs Marco by the arm.

"Not without my friends!" Marco cries, and — after another exchange of words — one of the controllers gestures for the others to follow.

«Eyes open,» Jake says. «Ax, where are our exits?»

«The main hatch will be on the bridge, Prince Jake. And we may be able to survive a fall from this height, if we morph birds on the way down. There will also be several drop shafts, translucent oblong tubes that function...»

«Like an elevator?»

«It elevates the user, yes. Or produces a controlled fall.»

«Good enough for me.»

• The controllers don't take them by the bridge, and this time they're not led to a drop shaft. Instead, they're taken to a back office in the ship. One of the controllers raises a tentative claw to knock. Marco's grinning, posture casual, but his skin has a greenish tinge and his hands are shaking.

"Visser? Ma'am?"

"What is it? I told you to get rid of the— The..."

"Hi, Mom."

• Eva's face — Visser One's face — freezes like an old TV set. Then, like a set between channels, it warps: mouth twisting, eyes darting, skin tightening. This lasts for an infinite second, before Edriss's haughty indifferent snaps back into place.

Then her hand shoots out, grabs Marco's arm, and yanks him into the room. She shouts a command, and the doors snap shut between him and his fellow Animorphs.

«Ax, door hinges!» Jake shouts. «Tobias find us an exit — Cassie and Rachel, we're covering Ax!»

They get to work instantly, Ax scything his tail down again and again at the seam between the door and the wall. (It isn't a hinge, but even he knows now is not the time to explain that.) Tobias takes off, fighting hard against dead air, brushing walls with feathertips.

There's no time to watch him, because the hork-bajir-controllers are on the other three. Jake takes one by the throat, gets slammed with a knee blade to the gut, worries his teeth into flesh even as he lets out a cat scream of pain. Rachel and Cassie coordinate as only wolves can, cornering controller after controller with one at the ankles and one at the soft underbelly.

Claaaang! The support strut of the door falls to the ground, along with a chipped-bloody piece of Ax's tail.

«Prince Jake!»

He can't help, claws locked into a controller who has claws sunk into him. «Go! Ax, go!»

Rearing back, Ax slams both front hooves into the door. It falls inward with a ship-rattling BOOM.

• Visser One gets yanked back from the door, out of the path of injury, by Marco's hand on her shoulder. He can't help it. He's helpless not to, even if he knows better.

Ax looks at Marco, then at Visser One. There's no discussion between them, but Eva takes a blow to the side of the head and a gorilla lopes out close behind the andalite.

It's the best they can do, under the circumstances.

• «I've got an exit!» Tobias yells, from deeper in the ship. «I've got a hatch, anyway!»

They run, a juggernaut of muscle and teeth. They don't stop to fight the controllers that get in their way, and they don't stop for the ones that try to surrender either. The halls are narrow, and there's no time for murder or mercy.

«There, right?» Tobias points a talon, when they reach him.

«There,» Ax confirms, and then, «Brace!»

He presses a hand to the pad. The ship screeches a warning, as the hatch slides open.

Six Animorphs, and eight or nine controllers, get sucked into the Earth's outer atmosphere. Those that can morph do so. Those that cannot...

Six birds land safely on the ground, a few minutes later.

• "We have to evacuate our families." Rachel's pacing in the middle of Cassie's barn, a few minutes later. "They're not going to be safe. Connecting Marco to Jake won't take a huge leap, and from Jake..." She chops a hand at the air. "Me. Cassie. Tobias."

Marco pushes to his feet. "I need a minute."

Jake opens his mouth, glances at Cassie for confirmation. "Don't go far," he says at last.

«Ax and I are fine,» Tobias says. «So maybe we start with Cassie's family?»

Cassie looks around the barn. They can all read the expression on her face, much as none of them want to. Even with a phone call to the nearest similar facility, kidnapping her parents will doom every animal in here: the injured deer, the litter of fox kits, the lizards and geese.

There's a sputter of a ripcord being pulled, and the roar of an engine starting up. They all startle, glancing around.

"Sorry," Marco calls, "Just me." He steps out of one of the unused stalls, looking grim. "You think your dad would mind me borrowing his chainsaw?"

"For what?" Rachel says flatly. "We morph, remember?"

"Yeah." Marco shrugs. "Maybe I'm feeling a little vengeful, right about now. Like I want to look that slug in the eye when I..." He flattens his mouth, looking away.

"We have to get our families out." Jake speaks as gently as he can, pulling them back on subject. He's tired, suddenly so tired. It's really hitting him now, headache building between his eyes.

"Then I'm going to borrow your phone, if that's okay." Marco looks at Cassie, who looks as exhausted as Jake. She nods.

Rachel sits down next to Cassie, burying her face in her hands. "My mom and sisters..."

"I know," Cassie says. "I know."

• Marco shuts the door to the barn, walking into Cassie's kitchen. The phone is there in its cradle on the table. There's plenty of time to pick it up, his eyebrows drawing together in concentration as he dials the thirty-digit number from memory.

"Please hold," the automated voice on the other end says, and there's a click.

While waiting, Marco sandwiches the phone between his ear and his shoulder and trails the cord back to the door that leads to the barn. When it eases open a crack, a smile breaks over his face at the sight on the other side.

The gas generator he started a minute ago is still running, and all five free Animorphs are lying on the floor. Good. He'd worried that the barn might be too ventilated for the fumes to build up properly, but it looks like even Ax is now down for the count. Jake gasps weakly, still half-conscious, but it looks like Tobias is already dead.

The phone clicks again.

"Odret One-Seven-Seven," the thing inside Marco says into the phone. "Requesting pickup from Visser One, at the north Carmel Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic."

[teecupangel]

Based on my conversation with @thedragonqueen1998

Me right now:

[gay-jewish-bucky]

[kibbits]

Project day project day going back to finish magma art from like,,

The start of november Oop

[nihidea-art]

Peter One 💕

might be the first of three, as you might have guessed....

[a-tired-bass]

i borrowed a dvd from the uni library last semester and didnt return it before they closed for the year, so it became overdue

one of the librarians has just 'reborrowed' it in my name so thats its not due until uni starts up again

i suspect its so they stop getting notifications about it

[plantenjoyer]

ok ty to the people who sent their little dudes, it might be a juicy minute until i get to them. i forgot it was finals week

[sylvanfreckles]

ladies, your 4th, 10th, and last most recent emojis describe your character's only personality traits in a movie written by a man

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

the curse of summer is buying and eating an inadvisable amount of fruit in single sittings.

[bookwyrminspiration]

I can behave normally around books

[chilpilled]

his smile and optimism…….gone………

[trek-tracks]

She just sat contented in the comfy chair as I built this up around her

I call this installation “The Cat of Amontillado.”

[bedupolker]

girls when they get new shoes:

fairy shrimp & tadpole shrimp

[sophie-baybey]

[lauraneedstochill]

[every action has consequences]

🔪 inspired by this tweet: