#The Invasion

[reality-detective]

"The Invasion" and it's NOT just in America 🤔

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Animorphs #1: The Invasion thoughts:

I love the voice. The hesitations, the repeats, the "Tobias was... I mean I guess he still is kind of a strange guy" (p. 3). I get why AniTV opened on Jake turning on a video camera and rambling into it. Doesn't work in context, but. That is what this opening narration feels like: a scared kid grabbing you by the arm and talking to you peer-to-peer.

Jake telling us like 8 times in a row that him getting cut from the basketball team is "no big deal"... Aw. Kid. Sure you don't really care, and that's why you keep bringing it up.

A+ for the exchange like Elfangor: I'm dying. Jake: Don't worry, Cassie will solve this!

Interesting that Elfangor tells the kids not to fight the yeerks, but to warn the human authorities. So to give the dude credit, he does try to avoid involving children in the war.

Again I love the hints of characterization starting right away — Cassie's the first one to volunteer to morph, Marco's the last, and Jake's the one insisting they all decide together.

Animorphs books can be read here | Book Club schedule is here

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

William Adolphe Bouguereau (French, 1825-1905) Le Guêpier, 1892

[syntax-forest]

Reading Animorphs like:

[maggothaven]

not sure why anyone would bother making complicated plans to kill/kidnap two and jamie when these are two guys who will enter a room, see a plate of unattended sandwiches, think “ooo a a treat for me, mayhap” and take a bite. Do you have any idea how easy it would be to just poison them?

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

I really felt Tobias’ story was a trans allegory from the start but this panel in the graphic novel hit hard, especially after knowing what happens later with the Elemist.

[trashbagcommunist]

”It’s a member of the iguana family actually – like you care” Jake, if I didn’t care, I probably wouldn’t be the kind of person to read animorphs

[marv-el-spot]

FILMS WATCHED IN 2024 The invasion (2007) Dir.  Oliver Hirschbiegel, James McTeigue

[thekinglemingle]

Book 1, part 2/?

There is no way Im keeping up with the proposed schedule with 2 small kids in my house. Damn.

Where did the name come from though? It will later be established that biodiversity in the Animorphs universe is incredibly low (I have strong thoughts on why), so what world have the Yeerks encountered with bugs to model their ships on?

<The Taxxons are evil>

I get that he's trying to simplify a complex political situation to 13 year olds in a hurry, but this is Hella judgy for someone who owes their life to a Living Hive

30 pages in and we're already getting some trademark Animorphs realness

34 pages to the first Salad Shooter reference. I still don't really know what they are. Someone tried to explain it to me on the previous post (thank you), but I'm 35 and too old to learn

Cannot believe they had us read this in school aged 7

Where's that post (I think by @thejakeformerlyknownasprince ?) about how similar the Berenson cousins are before the War forces them into roles?

Rachel angsts for ages about that old man she inadvertently kills in book 37, but Jake never seems to stress about this homeless guy.

Tom in youth pastor voice: let's rap about the Sharing. You know who's real rad? Mr Visser.

[bluefox4]

Thermal Count

So, having knowledge about Animorphs without reading it before, I know that the word thermal is a thing in the fandom. I figured that I'd track every time the word is said.

In The Invasion, the word thermal is said a total of 4 times. Three times in chapter 12 on page 87; and one time in chapter 13 on page 95.

[emeraldmew]

I think this was the first book I ever read in my life where the heroes ended the book with the best thing going for them being that they managed to live.

They were super under-prepared for the fight and they didn't manage to pull off a surprise victory or anything. One human freed. Tom still a Controller. Tobias stuck in hawk form. Who knows how many humans and hork-bajir burned up by Visser 3 rather than recaptured alive. Everyone exhausted and traumatized with the only the fact that they're not dead to keep them going.

It startled me as a kid. It made me want to read more, because how could it be over yet if the heroes lost? It was something I'd never experienced in a story before when I was young and, like the end of the final book, that difference stuck with me:

The battle might be lost but a sort of dark optimism remains. It's not over yet. Even when things go wrong, it's not over yet.

[junkyardbluebox]

Taking a break from my usual screencaps posts to post this... I don't have a video of the scene handy so caps will have to do. This scene gives me such an instant dopamine hit so I decided to share for anyone else who may be in need of one. :)

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Animorphs #1: The Invasion thoughts (pt. 4):

Obviously this is before the popularization of the term "lovebombing," but you can tell KAA has done all the research on cult tactics during that first Sharing meeting. Marco concludes he was wrong and these people are too nice to be controllers. Jake gushes about how much fun it is, and how he's finally spending time with Tom again. Cassie's the only one creeped out by "the full members... all being so perfectly nice. So perfectly helpful" (p. 99).

Cassie telling Jake it's fine for him to go spy on the full members' meeting alone, and then sneaking in to watch out for him anyway! Be still my heart.

Marco's mantra, over and over, of "this is real," breaks my dang heart (p. 74, 86, 111). He's right, that the others are treating the war like "some video game" or "comic book" or "grand adventure." They'll learn, by the end of their first mission, but he's the only one to know in advance just how fast this is all going to go to hell.

Love Jake and Marco's exchange after they run into the tiger enclosure, where Jake's like "thank goodness the guards didn't follow us in here" and Marco's looking around at the 30' concrete walls going "why didn't the guards follow us in here?" Again, Marco already understands so much more than Jake about how much danger they're in.

Animorphs books can be read here | Book Club schedule is here

[doctorooh]

[partiallithopseffect]

from Isobel’s perspective the Invasion is so funny. You think a girl is cute so you invite her to do a photoshoot while her weird friends visit your uncle for some reason. Then when they take ages you go to visit the Shadowy Corporation your uncle works for, blow up a computer, and immediately get kidnapped by said Shadowy Corporation. THEN you’re rescued by the cute girl’s weird friends in a helicopter and suddenly you’re working for a clandestine military group trying to stop metal men from blowing up the world. All of this happens in 1 day.