#Erek the Chee

[church-of-crayak]

various doodles from the past few weeks, including four marcos, two ereks, and a whole bunch of visser ones. also, a re-sketch of my lineup from a while ago, mainly because i didn't care for ax' pose in the first one

[fanonical]

marco: so if you're a dog erek: dog robot marco: does that mean i can morph you? erek: try it human boy

[ramonahblog]

Who says the credited Erek King is the Chee Erek King?

Although I can see Erek getting involved to annoy the shit out of the Animorphs.

Is it possible that an episode of A-Town could have "Written by Erek King" in the credits?

[For those of you just tuning in: A-Town is the shitty postwar sitcom inspired by the life of Jake Berenson, to the eternal annoyance of Jake Berenson.]

I'm honestly on the fence about whether Erek would be willing to get involved with this project, or would run in the other direction because surely mocking the war counts as "doing harm."

So, to the polls!

[sarifel-corrisafid-ilxhel]

Erek: "Throw the ball, throw the ball, throw the ball!"

Marco: *hurls the ball into the air*

Erek: *leaps 30 feet into the air to catch it*

Marco: "See Jake, we don't need a dog, we've got Erek."

Erek: "fI fheard fhat!"

[kooldewd123]

i know it's stupid but the one animorphs detail that's been nagging me the most since i read it is how erek says that most dogs have the essence of the pemalites inside of them. because like. what's the exception there. why not just say all of them. and now my brain keeps conjuring this scene of erek going yes, we chee have cultivated the wolves of earth into the image of our creators. except for italian greyhounds. we had nothing to do with those freaks. no clue where those things came from.

[tomberensonsghost]

Erek: I can’t help you perform life-saving surgery on your Andalite friend, that’s too close to violence.

Erek: I will electrocute your two Rachels, though. ’Cause that’s messed up.

[thekinglemingle]

Moments like this make me so sad for how things end between the Chee and the Animorphs

“<Erek didn’t believe us when we said we couldn’t find a way to get to his ship,> Jake said. <He said, ‘You will. We have faith in you.’>

<Wow. And I thought the Chee were so smart,> Marco said. <I mean, Erek’s spent time with us. You think he’d know better than to trust us.>”

- Book #27: The Exposed (Rachel), pg. 82 (by K.A. Applegate)

[scribblingmuchlyrexan]

i finished reading Animorphs last night and then, after the last book, i looked up [REDACTED FOR MAJOR SPOILERS] to go "wait a second, did that character really just vanish from the narration?"

aND I REALIZED I SOMEHOW MISSED READING THE ANDALITE CHRONICLES QSKFSKS

SUPER HAPPY TO STILL HAVE MORE TO READ

so many major spoilers under the cut:

Loren. Tobias's mother. i could reread the last book or two to be sure, but i think the last time she was mentioned was just to say basically "yeah she can morph and see now, but she agreed to stay out of the fighting"

so, after the war ended, Tobias went and moped about losing Rachel and entirely forgot his mother even existed, as did all the other Animorphs

(maybe she got mentioned at Rachel's funeral. i'll need to check)

(i realized i missed the Andalite Chronicles because, looking up character background info to try and confirm if i was right about Loren vanishing, i saw more and more things that eventually had me going "wait a minute, it's not just that i don't remember that part. i think i actually didn't read that. or that. or that. ...HOLD ON")

(OKAY ABOUT OTHER CHARACTERS WHO DISAPPEARED FROM THE NARRATION, THIS POST TURNED INTO A MILD RANT BUT WHATEVER I GUESS LOL. I DO STILL OVERALL REALLY LIKE ANIMORPHS)

also i'm not happy with how James and his group were handled in the end. i really thought K.A. Applegate was slowly getting better about ableism through the series, and i suppose they were, but yeah, the narration totally forgot about them after saying something like "most of them were killed by the Pool ship's Dracon beam."

so AT FIRST i was like "oh phew, 'most of them,' not 'all,' and James probably survived," but then i don't think ANY of them were EVER mentioned again. ew @ the narration and plotting

i think the Chee also disappeared from being mentioned after Erek left the Pool ship

just, the whole "one year later" and on sections didn't seem quite right. with how the series up to that point had been going, i'd really figured there'd be more PTSD, trauma, and mental struggle in these kids' everyday lives, even after "succeeding" in turning away the Yeerks and stopping the Andalites from destroying Earth

(sO YEAH, overall i still think it's an AMAZING series but yeesh. lots of accidental ableism to the end, not to mention "the only way to solve the Taxxons' and Yeerks' problems is changing their species." yikes)

[andalitean]

an animorphs ask game for all the fanimorphs and fandalites out there!

send some names/emojis to the person who reblogged this! (some of these are for fun and some are more serious, reblog at your own risk ;) happy animorphs phriday!)

🍎Applegate: What is your favorite book in the main series (1-54) and why?

🍏Grant: What is your favorite book not from the main series (anything not 1-54) and why?

🐯Jake: Favorite war crime committed in Animorphs?

🐺Cassie: What would your battle morph be?

🦍Marco: Favorite comedic moment in the books?

🐻Rachel: What do you think the Animorphs would be doing in the 21st century?

🦅Tobias (apologizing to him in advance for the eagle emoji): Is your favorite animal ever used as a morph in the books? If not, come up with a plot where someone might have to acquire it.

🦌Ax: Invent a new creature. How would you describe it to a 10 year old?

🐶Erek: What historical event would be the most fun for the Chee to be responsible for?

👑Edriss: ......Did edriss have girlpower when she wanted to spare humanity instead of launching an outright attack on earth just to save the human children she forced her host to bear?

🐌Esplin: Imagine Esplin has another identical brother (besides the cannibal twin). Make up that guy's backstory.

🚀Elfangor: If you could redo one part of your life, what would it be?

🦋Aftran: Have you ever experienced a paradigm shift? What was it?

☀️Tom: What would it take for you to be convinced to join the Sharing?

🐀David: Most jaw-dropping/horrifying moment in the books?

🏀Michael Jordan: Favorite 90s/early 2000s reference in the books?

✨Ellimist: What is alternate universe you doing right now?

🎮Crayak: Favorite running gag in the books?

❤️Ronnie: (Free space! Ask your own question here)

[theidiotabides]

Further thoughts:

Crayak intentionally deletes memories of defeat for the Howlers because it's the only way to keep their "innocence." Crayak cannot let them experience loss because then they will have a point of reference for understanding what they're doing to others. Even the tiniest seed of empathy will destroy their utility. That's how the Animorphs ultimately beat them; by giving them evidence of the humanity (for lack of a better word) of others.

Meanwhile, we don't know much about Andalite interactions with alien species before Yeerks, but Afran makes some compelling arguments for it having been pretty self-serving and unempathetic:

[Aftran] snorted. “Now I know you’re an Andalite. Typical Andalite arrogance. The only race in the entire galaxy that makes war ‘to help people.’”

“What choice do we have? Back to the Yeerk pools? Back to our home planet, with Andalite Dome ships in orbit above us, waiting for one of us to try and rise from the sludge, then blow us apart? Leave the universe to the almighty Andalites and the species they happen to like?”

The Andalites don't literally delete their memories of defeat, but they do revise their own stories to tell themselves that the species they destroy aren't real people, which has largely the same effect. Like, it's okay to nuke the Hork-Bajir, the Leerans, the humans, because they aren't fully people like Andalites are. And it's doubly okay because they did it to prevent the spread of Yeerks, who are in the Andalite imagination evil non-people that exist only as a reminder that non-Andalites are not to be trusted, at all, ever.

Aftran is right: In the Andalite worldview (universeview?), Andalites are beneficent saviors whose only fault is being too trusting, and they justify their violence against others by refusing to engage with other species as full people. Because if they let themselves understand that humans, Leerans, Hork-Bajir, and yes, even Yeerks, are people, then they'd have to reckon with their own legacy of destruction. They can only live with themselves if non-Andalites are not people, and therefore expendable.

What's more, the books give us several examples of Andalites who do take the time to get to know a species on its own level and develop empathy for them, and every single one of them ends up siding with the non-Andalites. Elfangor falls in love with Loren and becomes a human. Aldrea becomes a Hork-Bajir and builds a family with Dak. Arbron spends his whole life fighting for Taxxon liberation, even after the Yeerk war is over. Ax's entire arc is about separating himself from Andalite propaganda (which has him actively suicidal in pursuit of avenging Elfangor, jfc), and he ultimately sides with the Animorphs and chooses human sovereignty over his Andalite alliegances.

Ultimately, the problem is not inherent Andalite optimism in & of itself. The problem is that Andalites are culturally divorced from empathy for non-Andalites, and so their optimism becomes a way to justify atrocities ("can't blame us for what happened to [x]; we did the best we could") rather than a driver toward hope ("we're not giving up on [x] that easy").

Positivity uncoupled from empathy makes you a Howler.

On this re-read it really sunk in just how utterly wretched and deranged the Andalites are. Scumbag species through and through.

Every time they take a loss their first step in problem-solving is always "...uh idk, should we just genocide the entire species? Yeah, let's just genocide the entire species. If we can't save them, then nobody can! 😈"

(except for that one time on the amphibian planet, where their "solution" instead was to nuke the planet's only continent completely out of existence)

Andalites in a nutshell:

For a species that is supposed to be inherently optimistic—like, unfailing boundless optimism is baked into their very genetics—they fucking suuuuuuuuck at actually BEHAVING optimistically. They're the most pessimistic, gloomy, whiny, emo, sulkingest sore-loser sons of bitches in the entire damn galaxy.

This ONE TIME an andalite was intentionally nice to an alien species it backfired, and so they instantly backflip into being snooty xenophobic cunts to everyone they meet, and that one guy who was nice was ostracized so hard that they marooned his entire family on a distant planet and his name practically became a slur.

Loser behaviour!

Premium tier dunning-kruger dropkicks. Too gobshittingly stupid to even be aware of how stupid they are.

Rolled an 18 for INT and a 5 for WIS.

About as thoughtful as the earth deer they resemble.

[fanonical]

animorphs has some really interesting things to say about absolute pacifism

the character of erek is a chee, a species of robot dog people who believe in and are programmed for pacifism above all - to the point where he is unable to restrain someone because it would violate that anti-violence maxim

but animorphs challenges that idea. that pacifism leads to inaction - and while the violence in the series can be brutal, the main team see it as a grim necessity more than anything else. they don’t enjoy killing, but they will do it if they have to

there are so many moments where erek could have helped our heroes and doesn’t because it would require a measure of violence and each time it makes the situation worse. and i think that is interesting for a series whose ultimate message is that war is hell and will traumatise you

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

You know, in the whole thing with Aftran, I find it funny that Cassie stresses about how getting her Kadrona is impossible...when the Chee have shown THEY have Kadrona technology to keep THEIR Yeerks alive.

Yeeaaah, but Marco mentions that the chee's system is basically solitary confinement — the kind with 0 sensory input — to the point where he mentally calls bullshit on their whole "do no harm" idea just from looking at the poor yeerk Erek has trapped inside. And this is Marco. Looking at a yeerk.

Seems to me that it's the equivalent of going "you can have food, but only if you spend the rest of eternity in this iron lung in a dark silent room with a tube down your throat." I guess if the alternative is that Aftran starves to death then she should maybe be offered that option, but it's hardly a good solution.

[sarifel-corrisafid-ilxhel]

Currently picturing Erek King playing human sports like Watergun Tag or Laser Tag and trying to downplay his inerring accuracy as just being really good at it when really he's got a built-in aimbot. Heck, he IS an aimbot. But he can't tell people that. He can't play paintball though. Recreational infliction of welts is still against his programming.

[theidiotabides]

#1 The Invasion:

<Run!> I yelled to the others. <Up the stairs!> Cassie nudged two of the humans from the cages and tossed back her head. They figured out what she wanted and climbed on her back. Then she galloped toward the stairs. <Yes, run,> Visser Three crowed. <It makes a more challenging target.> Then, Visser Three struck.  From one of the heads a round, spinning ball of flame erupted. A ball of flame that flew like a missile.  It skimmed through the air and splatted against the back of one of the women riding Cassie. "Ahhhh!" She fell off, screaming and rolling around to put out the flames. Cassie kept going with only one rider. She reached the base of the stairs. <Target practice!> Visser Three laughed. He fired fireball after fireball, one head after another. One singed my shoulder and flew past. One hit Rachel in the ear and made her scream in my head and trumpet in terror. The air was full of fire. <We have to get out of here!> Marco yelled. <Yes, run! Run for the stairs!> I repeated. <Rachel! Get moving! Clear a path!>

#53 The Answer

Then, in a much different tone, almost wistful, [Visser One said,] <How long I have waited for this moment. The bandits out in the open, targeted, on-screen, unable to escape ...> “Permission to fire Dracon cannon?” <No, no, cancel wide dispersion,> the visser ordered. <I want to see them burn, one by one. Move us in. Use narrow beam. Forget the human soldiers, they’re irrelevant. Rid me of these Animorphs, one by one. Close-up! Maximum magnification. Let me see them die!> I couldn’t be patient any longer. <Ax? Marco? What is keeping you?> I cried. <Had a fight,> Marco answered. I could hear the pain in his thought-speak voice. At that same moment a new report reached the bridge. “Visser! Casualties in engineering!” a Hork-Bajir voice said. <What is it? Another plasma explosion?> Visser One asked. “No, Visser, all engines are nominal. All systems are nominal.” <Well, find out what’s happened down there then,> Visser One said, sounding petulant rather than concerned. <Now target the morphs. Begin firing.> “Firing,” the neutral voice reported. The shot caught the hindquarters of the rhinoceros. For a horrifying moment the front legs kept running. The creature - a girl named Tricia - toppled forward, dug its horn into the dirt, rolled over, and was dead. <Hah hah! Good shot! They burn well, these Animorphs!> I felt sick inside. I should do something. I should stop this. That was the auxiliary Animorphs down there on the ground dying. Burning. <No, no, you have to lead them a bit. Look! You can get two at ... good shot!> <Marco,> I pleaded. <Marco, they’re killing James’s people.> <Erek’s doing his best, so is Ax,> Marco answered. <How long?> A moment’s pause while Marco queried the Chee and the Andalite. <Three minutes,> he said at last. It was a death sentence. Three minutes. More than enough time for the sharpshooters on the bridge. Too much time. They fired.

First & last fights with Visser Three/One & both of them involve the Visser gleefully shooting fireballs at Animorphs

[lilliankillthisman]

I do think Erek - our pro-violence Chee android - is being influenced by the Yeerk whose brain he's been skimming this whole time. But it would be cooler if he wasn't.

[holodeckprotocols]

animorphs book 29 (the sickness) #thoughts

“every time we try to do something nice and normal, it ends up turning out nasty and weird.” thesis of the books, tbh. very buffy.

it’s so sweet that tobias got to come to the dance with them :’) but i just realized something… if he acquired a morph of himself at age 12, will he ever get older? if he lives 50 years as a hawk, will his morph only ever be himself as a tween? oof. 

this book has like 3 different extremely stressful plots happening at once.

i know the ax fever subplot is a little contrived but tbh, i love it. it reminds me of the atla episode where aang has to find the frozen toads for sokka and katara. and i love ax whump, which is like half this entire book. 

cassie and the NEVERENDING STRESSFUL DAY!! jesus christ!! can someone please help this child!!

ok. if you’ll indulge a nitpicky complaint: i just can’t believe that erek is useless here when it comes to surgery. he’s like sorry none of the robo dogs in my family are doctors. guess i’ll just project a hologram for the whole book. you’re telling me you’ve been alive for thousands of years and you don’t even have a rudimentary knowledge of surgery? enough to stand over cassie’s shoulder to guide her, if you can’t actually make the cut? i know the chee can do no harm or whatever but surely something like this wouldn’t count? 

that being said – ugh <3 what a book. i really, really loved this one. it’s always good to see cassie shine and have to make hard choices. she was so brave!! the return of aftran was a very welcome surprise. i got sniffly and choked up over that last scene with her in whale morph. really beautiful and touching. adding this one to the favorites list!