#animorphs read through

[rays-animorphs]

The implicit decision at the end. "Rachel took initiative while I was gone. She nearly caused the death of my girlfriend and might have lost the cause entirely. On the other hand...do I want my crew to be too afraid to do anything when I'm out? That could lose us everything too. And she's already feeling pretty bad. What do I tell her?"

And he chooses to tell her that she did good, that she did what she had to do.

It's a war. We do what we have to do because we're forced to do it.

[rabbitsonthemoon]

You've got me reading the Animorph books, Tumblr. I hope you're satisfied. I hope you're happy. I hope you're moisturized and hydrated. You lil' shits. (affectionate)

[inkmaze]

animorphs will just drop a passage in a volume that will rotate in your thoughts for decades to come

[calyssmarviss]

So tired to hear about Animorphs and never about Everworld. Has anyone on here even read Everworld? Well you should, it’s the vastly superior Applegate series because that’s the one i read.

[vv-ispy]

My #[media] talk tag was originally for when I have extremely unserious two lined thoughts about a media but then a certain murder mystery visual novel happened

[itstimeforstarwars]

I have not managed to get into any of these highly recommended Discworld books yet but every once in a while I pick a new one to abandon 30% of the way in just in the hopes that this will be the one that clicks with me.

[swan2swan]

I haven’t read animorphs in over 20 years, since I was 8. So genuinely don’t remember anything about it. What do you like about it?

My absolute favorite element of it is that it's a Time Capsule.

It's contemporarily-set sci fi adventure on a domestic scale set in the end of the nineties and the last years before 9/11 and the subsequent warmongering, xenophobia, mass surveillance, and economic collapse crushed everything. It's a book series, so corporations and studios can do a lot less watering-down than they would if it were someting like a cartoon, movie, comic book, or television series.

It's not just fiction, it's an actual window of history.

[rxttenfish]

its so so so so cool but a bit scary ironic wise that you’re reblogging animorphs fanart right after i got super into it and been telling everyone around me about it, cosmic animorphs sign LOL

COSMIC ANIMORPHS SIGN!!!!! this is an omen that everyone should Read/Re-Read Animorphs Now, Literally Now, This Is A Direct Order, Make 2024 The Year Of Animorphs

[chiropteracupola]

[sneaking back to animorphs to read another of the auxiliary books now]

WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE ANIMORPHS WENT TO THE BATTLE OF AGINCOURT, WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME THAT THE ANIMORPHS WENT TO THE BATTLE OF AGINCOURT

[lumi-lyn]

i think the moment the people in my life should have realized there was something desperately wrong and I needed help was when I wrote a 20 page term paper on the brutality of war as it was presented in Animorphs in senior year.

[rays-animorphs]

Cassie hid the morphing cube *in the barn*. Surely this can't be the first time some bug has walked across it.

Oh well. Suspension of disbelief.

[hiimcanadia]

When I first changed my name to Tobias my mom was like "oh like the character from animorphs who got stuck as a hawk" which at the time led me (who hasn't read any of the animorphs) to believe that she had read the entirety of the animorphs. However I'm currently reading this amazing fic (which I highly recommend and which you do not actually need to know/ research animorphs lore for) and I was talking to my mom about all of the animorphs lore I had researched because of it and at some point she stopped me and went "apparently I did not read enough of the animorphs to get to the important parts"

[tamber-tales]

bunzzzzzzzzz

Bun-zah.

[itstimeforstarwars]

I have no idea where you're supposed to start with Terry Pratchett books but I'm halfway through Going Postal which is the only book that's managed to keep me reading so I guess I'm starting there.

[swan2swan]

“Somebody grab me a Laa-Laa doll when we’re inside, okay?” Marco said. “I really like that little yellow one.”

.....the...the Teletubby?

[scribeofmorpheus]

The quote above is so good, and so poignant for Solas and the concept of ruthlessness, but omg I did not expect to see FUCKING ANIMORPHS!? on my dash in the morning.

This is like that weird effect of remembering that "Do you think God stays in heaven because he too lives in fear of what he's created" is a quote from SPY KIDS 2!

Woobification of Solas.

This is a fandom critical post. Proceed at your own risk.

Let me start this piece off by saying that this post is not meant to target a specific demographic of the fandom. If you feel targeted, that’s on you. 

In this essay, I want to talk about the infantilization, woobification, or just good plain headcanoning the bad out of Solas. Mostly it comes down to a few of the most regurgitated lines of thinking: he is a spirit of wisdom despite everything he does or has done and he is just confused and perverted from his natural state, Solas is his true self while Fen’Harel or The Dread Wolf are just select masks he wears. The sentiment is so strong that at points it comes down to disregarding or ‘uncanoning’ the entire storyline of The Veilguard because in the minds of individuals that follow this school of thought it does injustice to the character of Solas they have created in their minds. In their minds, it is bad writing to show Solas being a prideful, treacherous liar. 

Because the man, who led rebellion for centuries using dubious means, using creatures he claims to respect as if they are expandable, killing his closest confidant because he dared to oppose him outright somehow is a paragon of virtue that is just bent out of shape by his misguided loyalty. All the atrocities he has committed through thousands of years he had a physical form comes down to him being manipulated and emotionally abused by his former closest friend Mythal and later by grief and anger of losing her. Slapping the label of emotional distress and trauma on a perpetrator of … well, quite literally, war crimes, does make them more palatable, but it does not mean it should be seen as a normal practice. The acts Solas commits during the war with Titans, his rebellion against the Evanuris, and later on in current day Thedas are being construed as desperate actions of a broken man, wisdom twisted from his purpose and left to fend for himself, despite his self-induced isolation. So let me ask you this: how many acts of desperation does it take to realize that they are becoming choices? 

Yes, he was manipulated through their shared emotional bonds by Mythal. Yes, he was coerced to leave his spirit form in favor of a physical body. Then Mythal used his wisdom as a weapon, warping him against his own beliefs, making him participate in the war in ways he did not wish to. Yes, he was pushed by Evanuris’ cruelty to rebel and then lost what he perceived as his only friend to their arrogant ways and later had to live through her death by their hands. He was broken to the point he could not see a way out and doomed the entire way of Elven existence just to win the fight against the cruel and the unjust. Yes, he is a man who lost his people and his version of the world due to his own actions. He is a traumatized, sad, lonely man, who has predetermined himself to the path from which he cannot see a way back. And yet, many of the steps he took along the way cannot be downplayed as acts of a spirit of Wisdom that was bent out of shape by grief and desperation. Destroying the Titans and leaving their children orphaned is seen as an act of devotion and unconditional love towards his manipulator, Mythal. But as the world’s best detective, Jake Peralta has once said: “Cool motive. Still a murder.”

And now we arrive at the most beloved sentiment. Solas is his true self. Fen’Harel is just a mask. Oh, boy.

Everyone says that they hate one-dimensional characters until they are served a multifaceted one on the platter. Then they get to declawing and defanging them, ripping their personality apart into this and that, robbing them of parts of them that make them whole, and when that is not enough, they take on dulling off any edges they might find too abrasive. Assassination of the character is just the beginning; the remains have to be sanitized and scrubbed off any wrongdoing whatsoever, so supporting them doesn’t seem like a moral failing on fandom’s part. 

Cutting Solas and Fen’Harel apart as if they are some conjoined twins, where Fen’Harel is the evil one, is stripping Solas of things that are inherent parts of his character for the sake of feeling more comfortable with his actions. Solas is kind, caring, and wise. Fen’Harel is prideful, scheming, and treacherous. These two sides of him are now separated by their representation in the Inquisition and Veilguard. In Inquisition, he is Solas - a thoughtful mage obsessed with dreams, a soft-spoken man keen on sharing his knowledge. Except for the part where he doesn’t see current Thedosians as real people. Where everyone is tranquil in his eyes and thus, lesser. People, who he is willing to sacrifice to achieve his goals. The thoughtful things he said by the end of the road to the Inquisitor he supposedly cared for:

“I will do what I must, but there is no benefit in allowing harm to come to innocents before it's necessary.”

“I will save the Elven people, even if it means this world must die.”

“As this world burned in the raw chaos, I would have restored the world of my time... the world of the elves.”

And then he mutilated them. Yes, he did it to save their life. But the Inquisitor had no choice in the matter. What if my Inquisitor would have rather died than lost their arm? Doesn’t matter, because our thoughtful, kind apostate knows better. A kind apostate who sacrificed his world to avenge Mythal, but then by the time of the Inquisition killed her all over again. For power, of all things. And then he stripped the dignity of the one who carried what remained of Mythal through ages by depicting her as an elf, proving once again that he does not see current Thedosians, humans, as real. 

The most egregious crime of Solas’ portrayal in Veilguard seems to be painting him as a liar. Because in the Inquisition he didn’t lie. He just avoided telling the truth. He shaded it in a comfortable tale that no one would question. He spun the narrative. Solas made himself appear as an apostate mage who has gained all his knowledge from the Fade. He crumbled just enough truth without revealing his hand. Or simply said he was lying by omission. Luckily to him, no one would ever ask a random mage if, by chance, they are the infamous Fen’Harel, so he doesn’t need to lie outright. 

And what did he do in Veilguard while not being his true self and wearing that mask of Fen’Harel, that degree of separation from his true, kind self and the trickster god? He spun the narrative. He said just enough truth to be believed. He was deceitful. Solas can be caught saying one outright lie—“I abhor blood magic.” Oh, wait. He can be caught lying exactly one time in Inquisition too—if you confront him about missing court intrigue. So much for a completely different man in Veilguard. 

Fen’Harel as a mask is such a beloved statement that it disregards thousands of years of his life. “I was Solas first. Fen'harel came later, an insult I took as a badge of pride.” A badge of pride Felassan used to flock followers to his side. Badge of pride he wore all through his rebellion. The one he tried to reclaim once meeting Dalish of the current day Thedas. One he used to amass following during the events of Trespasser. How many millennia can a person willingly wear a mask and not have it be a part of who they are?

And then we end up here, where somehow the portrayal of Solas in certain parts of fandom becomes an eerily similar story to that of Portrait of Dorian Grey. We have this beautiful, virtuous man, who’s telling you the most fascinating stories of the Fade, lulling you with his kind voice and beautiful eyes. One who was manipulated, traumatized, desperate, and pushed to act against his good nature. One who would tear down the Veil to restore what was lost and make the world right again. An idealist, working towards his goal. Damned be the sacrifices it requires. Because being hurt in some minds absolves people of guilt. Some agree with his goals and damn his ugly side to the attic. The one who manipulated, one who deceived and killed. One who has the blood of countless lives on his hands. One has to exist for the other to reach that goal. One who is just as much part of his true self as the other. 

Solas is Fen’Harel. Fen’Harel is Solas. One could not exist without the other. And to love someone truly, we must accept the good, the bad, and the ugly. Because to be loved is to be seen fully. Loving a villain is not a moral failing. And yes, he is a villain. Doing something horrible for the sake of something good is still, at the core, doing something horrible. 

Love him because of the awful things he did and in spite of them.