#YOU ARE ALL YEERKS

[lizord-lord]

haha i should really catch up on the muppet joker lore-

why are there yeerks now.

[sasukeisawake]

when marco animorphs said “People don’t understand the word ruthless. They think it means ‘mean.’ It’s not about being mean. It’s about seeing the bright, clear line that leads from A to B. The line that goes from motive to means. Beginning to end. It’s about seeing that bright, clear line and not caring about anything but the beautiful fact that you can see the solution. Not caring about anything else but the perfection of it.”

[transingthoseformers]

Out of curiosity, besides the planet from Subnautica, which other planets from other media/games do you think would be good for Cybertronians?

I typically think about Subnautica because I love it dearly

But

I've only watched a tidge of Star Trek (okay I watched Star Trek: Lower Decks and the other shows are on my list okay) and I think a lot about if humans first met cybertronians by the time humans were already space travel capable

I LOVE INTEGRATING ANIMORPHS AND TRANSFORMERS INTO EACH OTHER. Even if it's just mentioning the various planets and alien species in it and not focusing on any of the plot details (usually what I do, I think more about the worldbuilding in animorphs than I should)

Especially since in Animorphs there's an agreed upon "universal language" of Galard at least I think it's Galard and thinking about how the various races in Animorphs would regard the cybertronians

If IDW was any indication... Most of them probably hate the cybertronians like hell. The andalites definitely would. The yeerks would deem them an objective threat as they can't be infested, their technology might be slightly less advanced but it's Goddamn Enough considering how big cybertronians are, cybertronians are relatively a far older race, and they tend to cause a mess of the planets they arrive on. I'm torn between the Hork Bajir immediately comparing them to the monsters of old on their homeworld or the two getting along pretty good because a Hork Bajir can scale a taller transformer with little harm to either party. I've been thinking a lot about the Skrit Na interacting with cybertronians too because I get the vibe they'd deal with neutrals and some cybertronian technology a lot.

Yes, in my opinion based on what I can see the Andalites and Yeerks have relatively more "advanced" technology, considering Z-space technology being relatively common in their ships and how the andalite shredders / whatever the yeerks called theirs (dracon beams? I forget.), but I can see transforming and morphing being compared so so much (it'd be an interesting discussion considering how transforming and the T-cog is legitimately an integral part of Cybertronian anatomy, while morphing and the Escafil Device / morphing cube is still relatively revent technology)

Like. In universe, the Yeerks have only been at this space faring conqueror race for a handful of decades now, and their war with the andalites is the same. Compare, say, forty years of war (which is still a fucking lot) to the four million (give or take a few) of the autobots and decepticons. Y e a h. There's a significant chance that the cybertronians star in a lot of nightmare inducing bedtime stories.

PLUS REMEMBER ALL THE LONG EXTINCT SPECIES, CIVILIZATIONS IN THE WORLD OF ANIMORPHS. How many of those could the cybertronians have met? If so, how did that go?

[i-assign-you-animorphs]

trick or treat from @princeseerow !

(its a sideblog so i cant send asks from it lol)

You get…

Escargot!

[petrichorca]

I'm frothing at the mouth for tomorrow but while we wait, maybe catch up with our Animorphs OFMD alien Stede/human Ed fic? 👉👈 there are four extra fingers and two extra hearts in play. No Animorphs knowledge needed, just a little belief in that we've got you (we do). AO3 link right here!

Cc @ghostalservice

[lilacnothlit]

Most dedicated Larpers ever written.

Stephenie Meyer's sci-fi novel The Host is like. it's almost so much. the alien bodysnatchers at the center of the plot are like Animorph's yeerks if they got really into cottagecore. no, they don't want intergalactic war and domination! they want intergalactic peace and domination! they make every planet they visit a peaceful socialist utopia and like, okay, yes, they have to violently take over the bodies of a planet's native inhabitants to do it. yes, they have to suppress the unwilling minds of their host bodies. yes they are for all intents and purposes committing a genocide of their chosen planets' initial inhabitants and then puppeting their husks around playing at homogeneous, sanitized versions of the cultures they destroyed. the alien main character mentions that even episodes of the Brady Bunch were scrubbed because they were deemed too violent. and they call themselves souls, which is so loaded on so many levels. impossible not to read into the spiritual connotations, especially when written by an author coming from the mormon church which so highly values mission trips. just by sympathizing with humans who don't want to be possessed, by helping them hide out and stay free, our protagonist becomes a pariah, an outlaw from her own society. peace is valued above all else but not peace for the colonized, who are meat to be processed. it's better this way. they had so much potential but squandered it with foolish violence so now we have the right to overtake them and make them live correctly. isn't it beautiful now? isn't everything perfect? there's like almost so much happening in this story except Stephenie's a fucking mormon so she never draws any meaningful connections to anything and the happy ending is that the alien brain parasite protag is gifted the body of a beautiful coma patient that she can "ethically" puppet around, easy peasy problem solved. also there's a fucking love triangle.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

"How dare you, now we're on a slippery slope to acknowledging that Tom is also not really an Animorphs character, he's a 98% hypothetical brother that Jake used to have before the series started" BUT ACTUALLY

I've had this thought in my head for months and never spat it out anywhere: tumblr girlies love to freak out over the whole "haunting the narrative" trope and that's what Tom is. Elfangor too in the more classic sense, but Tom is the fun new twist in the sense that we basically never get to interact with him in canon. He's at least mentioned in almost every if not every book and his body's there plenty, sure, but not him.

That is such a good point. Like, part of what I find so fascinating about Tom is that he witnesses huge chunks of the story, but does almost nothing because he has 0 agency. He's the only non-Animorph regularly present for battles and for the downtime in between, the only person period who has his level of insight into the Animorphs themselves (Jake especially, but also Rachel and Marco) while also having his level of insight into Yeerk Empire leadership.

He sees almost everything. He's there for the Animorphs' first mission and their last. He's there when the yeerks get the morphing power, when David kills Saddler, when Jara and Ket escape, when the taxxons go rogue. He's there, but he isn't.

Jake tells Ax in their first conversation: "I've lost a brother too" (#4). He says it to the reader: "I don't have a brother anymore" (#47). And then he doesn't, not anymore. Crayak said it all along: "Have you killed your brother yet?" (#27). Tom haunts the narrative, well before his death.

[myhyperfixationisiforgot]

animorphs was like yeah what if you (child soldier) promised your best friend (also a child soldier) that you would save him, and that you would kill him before letting the body-snatching parasites take him. what if you realized that you can't ever do both. you can't save him without the yeerks. you can't kill him because if he dies everyone you've ever known dies.

what if you literally have to cut him open while he screams and pleads for you to stop and kill him. he hates you for saving him. he hates himself for hating you. you hate yourself for doing it, and you hate him for making you choose. all you can do is wash the blood off and go eat dinner with your family. you will wonder if what you did was worth it for the rest of your life.

[sage-nebula]

Something I've been thinking about over the past week is that Rachel's expectation over whose death would fuck Jake up the hardest vs. whose death actually fucked Jake up the hardest wasn't right, and how that says so much about their characters and how it also hurts really badly.

Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that Jake wasn't affected by losing Tom, because he very obviously was. Tom was his entire reason for joining the war in the first place and part of him held onto hope until the end that Tom could still be saved. And I'm also not saying that Rachel didn't think Jake didn't care about her at all, because that's not true either. She knows Jake does, but that he's doing what he has to do.

But when you think back to the conversation they have when Jake gives her the assignment, and he tells her that he won't have a way out for her, Rachel's concern for him isn't how her death would affect him, but Tom's. "It won't just be the yeerk. It'll be Tom." And while she acknowledges that of course Jake doesn't want her to die in her opening narration in book #54 and is making this call because he has to, at the same time there isn't a sense that Rachel thinks her death is going to be the one to hit him hardest here. It's Tom's, she's sure of it. Emotionally, Jake could afford to lose her, but Tom? That one gives her pause.

But one year after the war . . . again, Jake does still mourn Tom, obviously. He carries the guilt and grief of everything. But one of the strongest images of #54 that has always stuck with me is Jake sitting at Rachel's grave for several hours at a time, after hours, with regularity. It sticks out to me because you know Tom must have had a grave or memorial as well, I'm sure Jake's parents would've had one set up, but in all of Marco's stalking he doesn't see Jake sit and visit with it. Jake doesn't visit Tom. He visits Rachel.

And it just, to me, speaks to a complete subversion of Rachel's expectations, which were predicated on her own perception of how the rest of the team saw her. They "loved [her] in their way" but she was also a monster, blood thirsty, the garbage disposal, the one to do the dirty work. And she was as fine with that as she wasn't. (It was the biggest point of inner conflict for her—the war between her fear and her need to appear brave, her need to protect her friends from the gruesome vs her revulsion at what her actions said and made her out to be, etc.) Jake cared, sure, but also he saw her as a blood knight who might as well die in battle because that was her role, that was what SHE did, better her than anyone else on the team. Jake knew that, it would help him recover from his correct choice, far more than he could ever recover from losing Tom, who—unlike Rachel—was wholly innocent.

But Jake didn't recover. Because yes, he loved Tom and Tom was a wholly innocent victim from day one. And Rachel was overtly aggressive, and reckless, and part of her scared him, as much for her as anything else. But also, he talked to and fought and bled beside her for three traumatizing, agonizing years. They saw the best and worst of each other. Jake left her in charge when he had to leave on that trip. They talked about leadership after, about hard choices, understood each other on a level that would lead to that final choice in the last battle. Rachel couldn't see it because she couldn't see her value in the team as anything other than the brute and garbage disposal, but she WAS more than that, to Jake. She meant so much more to him than that, and it hurts so bad that she didn't realize it.

[awkward-teabag]

The body horror and violence also works in large part because it doesn't forget it's a kid's series. It's there but it's not voyeuristic and doesn't dwell on it except when the intention is to be horrifying. It's not disturbing because it exists in the first place but at the implications of it in that moment and what it means to the characters.

It doesn't pretend things are fine but it doesn't relish the bad parts, either.

"This is the reality of war".

It doesn't sugarcoat things but also doesn't fixate on the bad and isn't written where it's clear the author is intentionally trying to shock the reader.

And when you finish the series or learn the finale was explicitly to show that war has no winners and doesn't tie things up in a neat little bow, that people involved still have to live with what they went through and did, it puts a different perspective on things.

A lot of it went over kids' heads, mine included, because fuck yeah turning into animals, aliens, and waging a secret war, but as an adult? The implications are disturbing.

Which makes me appreciate and applaud Applegate and the ghostwriters for walking a line that a lot of writers fail at, especially with that many books over multiple years.

people ask me "how the hell is [scene from animorphs] in a kid's series" and i cannot emphasize to them enough that animorphs does not forget for a single moment that it is a kid's series

[kooldewd123]

The juxtaposition of horror and comedy is obviously a pretty essential part of Animorphs but I really wanna give a special shout-out to the sequence of books that goes

19: Cassie is lost in the woods with a Yeerk she refuses to kill and risks everything they've worked for in the naive hope of forming a peace.

20-22: The Animorphs bring in a new recruit, only to trap him in the body of a rat and leave him on an uninhabited island after realizing he's too much of a liability to keep around.

Hork-Bajir Chronicles: The tragic story of how the peaceful and innocent Hork-Bajir were lost to the Yeerks due to the Andalites' arrogant indifference.

23: Tobias is finally offered the promise of a real family but has it yanked away when they discover it's all a ruse.

24: YEEEAHH, IT'S THE FUCCKIN HELMACRONS, BABIY!!! YOU WANT MORE SOUL-WRENCHING CHARACYER DEVELOPMENT? NAH, WE DOING "HONEY, WHO SHEUNK THE ANIMORPHS" IN THIS BIYCH!

[tomberensonsghost]

My name is Rachel. I can't tell you about the bitchin' sale at Ralph Lauren because of Scholastic. And I can't tell you my last name or where I live because of the Yeerks. But it's all true. Tops were 80% off, pants 75% off.

[lonepower]

ok you know what i need more bodysharing/brain roommates. malevolent got me feeling some kind of way and I need MORE. tvtropes has like 15 different categories that are all sort-of-but-not-really under the umbrella of what I'm looking for, and sorting through all of that is a little too unwieldy, so I'm turning to you guys. 

key factors of the specific flavor of "multiple consciousnesses stuck in the same meat suit" that I'm looking for are:

any variation of, a human (or this universe's equivalent [so like, an elf where elves are commonplace would count]) has another, nonhuman consciousness attached to them and only them in such a way that the two can communicate, and subsequently

they Banter Constantly

^that^ is probably the most important qualifier here tbh

second most important qualifier is that they are not separated at the end (this obv. doesn't apply if the thing is still ongoing). it's okay if the passenger gets a new body (cf. subnautica) or is freed from their binding (cf. baldur's gate), as long as the partnership isn't broken.

Related: they don't actually have to SHARE a body (so enchanted objects, an AI implant, a Mysterious Disembodied Voice, an imaginary friend, etc., also count). they just have to be tethered to each other such that the passenger cannot move around or function on their own without a host. (I think this is part of why it's hard to narrow down on tvtropes: it's more about the dynamic than about the specific mechanism of "possession".)

Third most important qualifier is that only the current host can hear/communicate with the passenger, even if other people around them are aware of the passenger's existence.

two humans stuck in the same body is okay as long as the other criteria are met, but I would prefer it if the host is human(/equivalent) and the passenger is not (or vice versa if the passenger/possessor is the one with control of the body, as with things like the yeerks, most demonic possession, etc).

it doesn't have to be romantic. they don't even have to like each other. conversely, it absolutely can be romantic too.

They DO have to be the POV character/s for a significant majority (like, at least 60-75%) of the work, because the internal back-and-forth is the entire point.

Bonus points if: they do actually share a body; they are either never physically separated either, or are rejoined at the end (voluntarily or otherwise); passenger has lots of setting-relevant knowledge/an alien or fantastical perspective, while host shows passenger what it's like to be Alive™; despite constantly butting heads, host and passenger work patently better as a team; super extra bonus points for all of the above 

My favorite examples of what I am looking for:

Malevolent podcast (super extra bonus points x10000000000000000)

Venom movies (this is probably the codifier for most people here tbh) (super extra bonus points)

Subnautica: Below Zero (AL-AN gets their own body but stays with Robin, and it hits all of the others)

Forspoken (super extra bonus points)

the "a bagel. two bagels." vine

(I know there's a couple others that I'm just blanking on. If I remember them, I'll add them.)

other things that have moments or flavors of this, but aren't focused on it/don't quite hit all of them:

the Bartimaeus trilogy had it at the end a little, but, well. it didn't last very long. (i STILL haven't recovered from that ending and i was, what? 15 or something? g o d)

the emperor in bg3 kiiiinda counts since they're magically bound to the player/party and can't exist outside their prison, but they do have their own body and are not nearly as chatty as I'm  looking for. also, while only the holders of the prism can hear them, All of the holders of the prism can hear them and I'd really prefer one-on-one.

I think Death Note would also count? I read it in like 6th grade and never finished it so my memory is patchy At Best, but since nobody else can interact with Ryuk, he's bound to whoever holds the notebook, and he's the supplier of the holder's powers, it's close enough that I would accept something similar.

Slay the Princess has the bickering in spades and fulfills the "do not separate" criterion depending on your ending, although the jury's out on whether the voices are Actually their own entities or just symptoms of you losing it. Also, nobody in it is human. The bickering is definitely good enough to make up for it though. (The fact that it's Jonny Sims clearly having a grand old time might have something to do with it...)

with the caveat that I have not watched any of it, i think jadzia (and?) dax from ds9 miiight count, but they're part of an ensemble cast and thus fail the "pov characters for a majority of the work" and "we get to hear their constant internal banter" criteria.

things I tried that fit at least some criteria, but didn't like for various reasons:

the good demon by jimmy cajoleas. promising concept, but 1) the protagonist smokes, which is an instant and unnegotiable dealbreaker (seriously, who makes their protagonist do that in The Year Of Our Lord Anything Later Than 1950?? and to a child? DEATH. ONE MILLION YEARS DUNGEON.), and 2) I looked it up and they separate at the end anyways, so there's even LESS of a point. 

the venom comics. honestly I just... really dislike superhero comics, there's always way too many of them to keep track of + I'm very shallow and they're usually unbearably ugly to me (and also having started with the movies I just found comics!eddie really unpleasant tbh) 

parasyte manga. perfect concept, great dynamic, but its particular brand of body horror was... not great for me and I had to put it down. (horror in and of itself isn't a dealbreaker, though, so if you've got something similar that doesn't involve lots of hands bent at nauseating angles, I'll gladly take it.)

Cyberpunk 77 has the two-humans flavor of this and hits almost all of the other criteria, but i viscerally hated literally everything about j*hnny s*lverhand with every fiber of my being and the rest of the game was so mediocre already that i just gave up

....I know it's a highly specific/potentially niche dynamic, but if anyone has any recs, PUHLEEASE hmu!!! I'm looking for original work rather than fanfiction, but apart from that, format doesn't matter at all (although if it's some like super difficult indie game or something, I probably won't get very far lol). the MAIN points are 1) bickering and 2) host-and-passenger, so if you have something that hits those but not the others, feel free to share it anyway!

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Hi just finished this again last night, and hooo boy does it hold up!! Arguably even better on the reread, because you can See Shit Coming--lines that did not necessarily induce Dread on my first read absofuckenlutely do on subsequent passes (like, hello, "No matter what he loses, he'll always secure a replacement"?? OOF). Very Gothic, very trauma, very cold and dark and fucked up book, but WOW it was well done!!

I also super enjoyed the worldbuilding, here. Telling stories around the edges of various cataclysms and apocalypses, only to have those stories coalesce into something familiar with context revealed later was a supremely neat way to establish the state of the world (dog noses falling from the sky?? woah). And it was a neat way to weave in personal and town histories, too--the sheer volume of Integral Storytelling didn't register for me on the first read, but I appreciated it a lot more on the second.

This also remains one of THE most fascinating stories I've read with regard to POV, too, which. Unfortunately. Is ~Spoilers~, so I'm putting it under a cut here.

I know this isn't really billed as a "haunted house" story, but I put it on my reread list for NaNo prep (during which I shall be writing a haunted house story), and I do actually think this counts, still? Because my Parasite in Medicine, absolutely you're haunted, and the call is coming from inside the house host. In Simone's body, the Institute is haunted by the life, the brain, the personality it commandeered, and it was SO fascinating to watch the Institute's hold deteriorate over the course of the story. Much like in HARROW THE NINTH, rereading knowing who the secondary POV is makes you step back and go OH!!!!! The threads and hints are There, and watching them come together from In The Know is a hugely different experience, 10/10 recommend.

I also, on my reread, really enjoyed how there WASN'T a hard turning point, on the POV front? The threads started earlier than I recalled (I did read this two years ago, and I have the attention span of a goldfish, for context), and they kept snowballing, but it was still fuzzy to point to the moment of no return, which I really enjoyed, too. And the Emile stuff, and the second person Emile stuff, remained just as heartbreaking and gutwrenching and So Much Worse, Actually, to see all the hints that the Institute missed but were very clearly there. Just. Gah. What a BOOK!!

So, yeah, I'm definitely leaving this as 5 stars, I love it, I'll be rereading it periodically for the rest of my life, I think. If you can stomach it, I HIGHLY recommend it, but it's chock full of traumas (like. pretty much every one you can think of, actually), and it does NOT flinch away from the brutal stuff. Deeply, horrifyingly fucked up book, I love it with my whole heart.

Books of 2024: LEECH by Hiron Ennes.

This is a reread for me! I first read it when it came out in 2022, and it absolutely rewired my brain. It does so many fascinating POV things that I adore, and I'm excited to revisit it with ~Vague Recollections~ of plot reveals to see how many of them I spot ahead of time this go-round.

[ganymedesclock]

Tell me more about parasites and their hosts. Do you think the dynamic works if neither is aware of the other?

Before all else, any simplified dynamic has nigh infinite potential and how you explore it depends entirely on what you personally are looking for.

In my own case, a lot of my relationship with the idea of parasitism comes from my own mental health being strongly dependent on where I live- being able to return to home like a save point in a horror game. This sense of constantly being dependent on comfort, not merely as a normal person is but to the extent that I've felt like I'll be unable to cope if I can't get home in time or haven't built adequate mini 'safe rooms' (e.g. my car or a hotel room) to recharge, has formed a lot of my relationship with the idea of parasitism and the idea of haunted houses.

Both, to me, centrally focus on the idea of dependency on equilibrium. A house can't really chase you down- while there's certainly haunted house stories that give it the power to trap or pursue, to me, the most compelling angle is often one of necessity. Someone weighing the ghosts, the violence, the blood on the walls, and having to ask themselves if this is really worse than being homeless, or losing some advantage or shelter that you have here that can't be found elsewhere.

In the case of parasitism, the host is the haunted house. It may be simply indifferent to the parasite's survival; it may be actively hostile to and trying to rid itself of the 'guest'. But both parties have to weigh the odds- is it worth tearing into your own walls just to get at the interloper, is it worth staying in a place that unknowingly tolerates your existence at best and hates you at worst if the alternative is being laid barren in the world?

As a child, I remember reading the Animorphs books and one thing that always struck me as an unexpected source of pathos was how bleak and miserable the yeerks' default existence was. While we mostly experienced them from the horror of their would-be victims, people terrified and paranoid that those around them were being controlled, made prisoners in their own minds... the book where Cassie is briefly host to a yeerk and the first thing said yeerk does is, rather than focus on their agreement or advantages, start running around wildly and making use of Cassie's morphing power for the sheer wild euphoria of being able to.

As much as they are the Bad Guys in the story- invaders, body snatchers, sometimes sadists- there's something to be said about the torture of a fully sapient and intelligent being living as a nearly senseless, barely mobile creature by default. A tapeworm is perhaps lucky it cannot evaluate its existence in comparison to other life forms.

And, yeah, sure, parasites trip a particular contrarian reflex in me that I always want to root around and play with things that are seen as too icky or evil to be 'worth exploring', whether or not there's even any actual morality attached to things. Parasites do nothing on a basis of sadism- 'parasitism' is how they survive just as much as herbivory is how a rabbit survives.

It's instead on a basis of need.

And the point where we need others- especially imperfectly, reluctantly, warily, always hesitating on these dynamics of exploitation- and especially when it comes to the body which we often see as the most private bastion of the self- is where some really juicy dynamics can spring from.

[sarifel-corrisafid-ilxhel]

I am playing with an idea where the Yeerk Peace Movement, or portions of it, have a new mission after the Yeerk War is over. The Yeerk Empire scattered aliens from their homeworlds to the furthest reaches of the Yeerk Empire's territory, and getting everybody back to their homeworlds should be a large part of cleanup operations.

However, we get zero indication the Andalites have any interest in doing stuff like that. They happily leave most of the aliens on Earth on Earth to become Nothlits or citizens of Wyoming, so getting people back home is clearly not a priority. The only mentioned Andalite ops post-war are dealing with Yeerk imperial remnants (which have been rebranded as Pirates to rob them of legitimacy) and downsizing the combat fleet now that the war is over. So I'm thinking maybe the YPM get the job instead.

My guess is Earth governments come up with the idea first - after all, the Yeerks undoubtedly relocated a bunch of Humans to other planets, and it'd be very out of character for any Earth government to say "This is fine, you can leave our citizens stranded light-years from home."

Plus, the YPM have experience with Yeerk tech and spacefaring, more than anyone else on Earth does. Hmmm... But then there's the issue that the Andalites absolutely hate the idea of Humans getting Yeerk ships, so which ship or ships will get used for this? What's the ultimate crew makeup like? Are there armed Andalite guards on the ship with orders to eliminate the crew if they act funny? What deep space hazards do they encounter? Which planets do they visit? Does Prince Aximili get to make a cameo in his big important space captain role? So many possibilities.

I'm gonna keep playing with this idea.