#anyways im getting kinda off topic augh | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

valleynix · 8 months ago

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I haven’t done one of these in a while and I miss doing them SO HERE IT IS

OKAY starting off strong

Oh how I missed this trauma 🙏 ANYWAYS I think the person here that is hugging reader is mother Miranda herself 👀 maybe it’s an apology for what she’ll to later on 🤯 or maybe to comfort them from that freak

CASSANDRAAAAAAAAA I missed cass/reader moments SM

The fact that cass was the first person reader called out to because they know she’ll protect them (or even worse end their misery)

This might just be the dimitrescus looking out for reader but I think Miranda is the one protect them (their mind) from the freak 👀

OKAY MIGHT BE A REACH BUT what if because reader said this, Miranda put them in the megamycete to train them (at least one of the reasons she put them in there) CUZ A READER TRAINING ARC WITH MIRANDA?!? Reader obviously wanting to go home but also wanting to become stronger (maybe to learn how to get out of there) so they suck it up and train with the person who started their suffering to begin with. and then reader Miranda bonding ensues 🤯🤯🤯

LMAOOOO NOT CROWMIRANDA THROWING A FIT

May be a little off topic but even with the mindfuckery that’s gonna happen in act 3 I still hope we can get crow reader 🙏🙏

I know what you are..

Now say it in English bela 😊😊

😀

OKAY GODDAMN DIDNT KNOW WE GOING AT FOR PROBABLY 5K WORDS

ANYWAYS BELA SCENE IS FINALLY HERE AND THE MEAL YOUVE PUT ON OUR PLATE IS STEAMING

You said you were worried that the pacing/scene would be off but I can assure that THIS ATE. I��m very picky about scenes like these because I actually don’t really like them in general BUT YOUR WRITING STILL COOKS AND IM ENJOYING MY MEAL

Also I’m glad you included the chp 8 moment with bela because I love that reader now trusts her

Someone is gonna read that journal and I’m placing all my money on Alcina

10:

MOTHER MIRANDAAAAA SAVEEE THEMMMM

11:

So we have a new monstrosity out for reader 😋 my theory is maniac is the true form of the freak (FLOATING FETUSSS)

12:

God that ending… I’m so scared for what’s gonna happen to reader but SO EXCITED. And as usual I have no idea what’s gonna happen next 💪💪

I love that you chose Cassandra to be the one who witnessed reader pass out, because ngl it kinda implies cass, the one who was supposed to protect reader, failed at saving them from danger. QUE DEPRESSED CASSANDRA

And WATCHER OH SHIT OMG. Ik they were gonna do something horrendous but…. GODDAMN. At least they’re finally with their Alcina, after like… 300 years or something. Really said double it and give it to the next person

Reader wasn’t able to tell Alcina the truth before they passed out ☹️☹️ my theory is that Alcina will read their journal and find out herself. Which makes for an interesting conversation with her daughters and reader when/if they wake up

Welp I’m glad we’re gonna get more reader lunny moments 😁 as they are the only one reader could possibly talk to.. I MEAN THERE IS ALSO MIRANDA 💪💪

GOD I MISSED DOING THIS AND I MISSED TPTM‼️‼️‼️ can’t wait for act 3 and what you’ll do with it 😋 but please take your time and rest! I’ll be here waiting for my meal tbh I kinda wanna reread 20-21 because I forgot to do an analysis 👀

the EXCITEMENT i felt at getting this AUGH THANK YOU

1. it sure is a mystery… i wonder if you’re correct hehe :)

2. CASS, MY BELOVED. she’s the only one that will do what they ask of her with relatively little pushback, and they know the lengths she’ll go to in order to protect her loved ones. their bond is so >>

3. it might be! (it definitely is)

4. potentially!! hehe there were several reasons why she put them in the megamycete

5. LOOOL I LOVE CROW!MIRANDA. she cracks me up so much and i feel like she’s able to be more genuine as a lil crow

6. 🤨🏳️‍🌈

7. she’s NERVOUS

8. LISTEN I THOUGHT IT WAS SO BAD. i’m not the biggest fan of smut myself so on top of it being incredibly difficult to write, it felt so off 😭 im glad everything came across okay!!

9. honestly, i feel like Cass would be the type to quickly hide it because she knows of its contents. at least some of them, and she (as well as her sisters) would want Alcina to find out through them; it’s their story to tell, after all

10. SHE’S TRYINGGGG

11. NOT THE FLOATING FETUS LMAO. but you’re correct :3 they’re the same being

12. IT MAKES ME SO HAPPY KNOWING I MADE THE RIGHT CHOICES WHEN WRITING. that ending has been on my mind for MONTHS- i still don’t feel it was satisfactory but we’re getting there

I’M VERY HAPPY YOU ENJOYED IT!! i hope i can get back into a routine here soon but i make no guarantees. it’s hard to find time 🙃🙃

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE ANALYSIS!!!!

#asks #mah hart #i love this #pls

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alwayscraftynight · 1 year ago

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Was gonna put a response to your art concepts in the replies but it didn’t fit so I’ll just put here

1. YESYESYESYESYES. So pumped that you’re planning about making a comic about Jacob’s past. Seeing your interpretation of what he was like before canon, and how he eventually became the person he was in Yesterday’s Lie would be sick. Also I really like his outfit, it’s nice to see him out of the ol’ blue jeans and brown coat

2. I’ve never been one to involve Jacob in romance or romantic interests because the stuff doesn’t really interest me, but this is really fucking funny. I’m just imaging after Camila constrains Jacob in the cage he’s both going “Augh those damn alien bastards, they’ll rue the day they crossed me!” and “why was that hot why was that hot why was that hot”. Also as a side note, very appreciative of how you drew Jacob in a mellowed state. That’s how I often imagine him because it’s how he acts in my fic, and it is very starkly contrasted with how he acts in both the show and fanworks. So it’s nice to see a high quality drawing of him like that that isn’t a shitty sketch I made in the corner of my school notebook.

3. I’m not a subscriber to the belief that Jacob is a descendant from the Whittebanes, but this looks neat. I’m assuming this is gonna play some role in that Jacob and Phillip team up comic, where one or both of them connect the dots and realize that they’re related.

All in all, very cool stuff

Welcome back! I've been planning the Jacob backstory comic for a good while, it feels good to get some of those ideas out onto a screen. It's a topic that especially interests me since there's a lot of room for interpretation, like what even was this guy like before he went off the deep end? Im glad you liked the outfit, it brought me joy since he looks like such a dork DJRKDMMD. In terms of Jacob and Philip being related, I'm not sure if they'll figure it out in the AU yet, I kinda just wanted to give Caleb a wife before he ran away with Evelyn and I thought it'd be a neat opportunity lol. All in all Masha's probably more closely related to the Wittebanes than Jacob is realistically. It could be subject to change, I'm pretty much going off of what's been in my head for this project and stuff has already changed quite a bit. Also I just thought that Jacob having a thing for Camila would be funny lol. I have to put that man in weird predicaments for my own amusement.

Anyway I'm glad you like the stuff👍 See ya.

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radical-sainthood · 2 months ago

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Quite alright, I was busy yesterday myself. And by busy I mean prancing about in ears and a tail because it was Halloween and I could. I probably won't be able to do that until the convention this January so I had to! Also watching all the analog horror content that dropped yesterday. There's... still so much to go through.

Well, anyway! Best I have at the moment to help is reinforcing that I also don't think anything is wrong with his body, no matter what it was made or used for in the past. (Same for yall collectively ofc.) You may relay that message if you wish/are able too. He doesn't need to talk to me if he doesn't want, either. Just. Throwing it out there.

I personally still need to get better at the caring act. I do genuinly want to help others, but irl I can come off as real deadpan and thats... not the most comforting. Thats why I find it easier to type, especially with tone tags, so I can convey what I actually want to. I do experience emotions myself, but it's very hard to convey them outwardly in a phsyical sense at times. With writing, there's so much more to make it more clear. Punctuation, tone tags, emojis, you get it.

And!!!! Augh I'm glad you liked reading it and hearing about all that. Like I said, I've never gone that in depth before so I was nervous. But yea!! Learning and trying to heal together, and mutually being beneficial for each others complexes (I don't think his god complex is undo-able, but thats okay since you can have one and still be happy and functional, so Im not entirely concerned about it staying.) Honestly, its funny in a way. He and I are very different from eachother, and yet here we are. I especially thought he'd permanently hate me, given I'm a mad scientist of sorts, but!!! No!!! And I just fgdksafhcvhdfksagfdhfbcdhfg. Weh. >_<

Anyway, I will now be shifting into somewhat heavier topics. (programming again.) If you're not in a mind to read it: SKIP THE RED TEXT. (No hard feelings if you're not, its less questions this time and more of an update on my discoveries, partially submitted as well for the other anons going through similar.)

So, I've discovered that I can use the annoying dizziness as a bit of a geiger counter for answers in some cases. For example: wondering if we're only one part of the system, or maybe a subsystem dedicated to the front = get dizzy, meaning I shouldn't think about that, meaning there likley is or was meant to be and I'm not supposed to be able to think about it, but since nothing was ever completed I can override that failsafe. Or: Thinking about different programs and how they could be used on others = no dizzy, meaning I was potentially meant to be a handler as well as a general servator (current descriptor Im using.) Those are just some examples, but it's been helpful and maybe others can use this method. (PLEASE BE CAREFUL, YOU MAY TRIGGER DANGEROUS FAILSAFES.)

I've also figured out more things about sleep: We stopped taking naps when the body was one year old, which is... not normal for humans. We regained the ability to do so around age twenty, but not without feeling guilty if I haven't "Done Enough" first. So it would seem those are used as some form of reward system.

End of red text.

I also feel like this is writting letters to a friend kinda!!! Your letter did find us well, and I hope mine finds you the same.

-🦌👁

Good evening watching deer anon. Your letter found us quite well, it is always a joyous day when a friend hears word from another!

Now, I cannot speak on what you and Cas have discussed in regards to your partner and your relationship, but I nevertheless assure you that we found it very endearing.

As for Kevin/The Deep. I will pass on the sentiment, it will mean a great deal to him and us.

As for what is in the red text. Let me say that your gieger counter is likely very accurate. I have been a member of this system for nearly 15 years, and I can personally tell you that I have installed similar fail safes into our system. Any time the beloved members of this system get too close to information I prefer left better alone it triggers an intense dizziness, followed by nausea followed by disassociation. And if that isn't enough, a seizure.

I recommend treading carefully in these areas, as you may never know what sort of symptoms your body is capable of triggering.

I'm sure you would have made an astute handler, and I hope, if that is ever your interest you are able to be one. You'd be surprised what it takes to break the human mind.

And absolutely you can be completely functional with many complexes. The ears and tail sounds nice, I'm glad you got a moment of authenticity in a world meant to choke those who are of a unusual breed.

All the best, your friends at the Liminal Churchyard

#🦌👁️ anon #ask box #tw programming #programming

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tfw-no-tennis · 3 years ago

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ani....morphs.....

ok so picking up after the david trilogy, which hit hard as FUCK, we have book 23, which basically was a semi truck that ran over my corpse, jesus christ, they really followed up the david trilogy w/all that....

23 was so so good and also painful. its the culmination of a lot of tobias’s characterization in the series thus far and also we finally get the reveal we’ve been waiting for about elfangor....ooooh man

and there was a lot of painful stuff in this book but the worst imo was tobias wondering if it were possible that somebody wanted him and would take care of him, only to have it all come crashing down in the worst way when it turned out aria was visser three in morph, ouch.

that was so brutal augh. and when he figured it out and just crash landed and kept thinking about how he wanted to die and how he was stupid to think he could have a home...bro get these kids some THERAPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so yeah that book was absolutely brutal but also so good...and it further fleshed out the animorphs working as a near-flawless team, w/the whole setup of tobias meeting w/the lawyer being so airtight and well-planned

also more free hork bajir!! its cool that there's stuff happening w/them offscreen, I like that

I literally had to take a break from reading the books bc the david triology + 23 was like so much, and also bc the olympics were on and all my time got dedicated to watching those, but then I opened 24, not sure what to expect, and BAM it was the helmacrons lmaoooo

I don't even remember the helmacrons but ig a lot of people hate them? lmao so that whole reputation preceded the book and I was like oh wow time for a change in tone

which wasn't wrong but also I liked that book?? I was never bored, even tho the whole thing was patently ridiculous and also had very little bearing on the overarching story

but I think it would be a standout if it were a TV episode w/a good budget - the visuals were amazing even in text, and I can imagine all the cool shrinking/growing/cellular stuff would be WICKED cool visually (ideally 2d animation but an ant man-esque live action adaptation wouldn't be terrible if they had the budget for it)

whatever let me dream. so yeah I didn't hate the helmacron book even tho the helmacrons themselves were...sure something. lmao I think they come back? that should be interesting

next book is the arctic one, we have yet another alien of the week style adventure - I liked this one too, it felt like more plot-y stuff happened since they destroyed the base, and marco’s POV is always fun

I do find it funny/interesting how sometimes when the animorphs do something - like in this book, destroying that base in the arctic - it doesn't really seem to impact the yeerks much/it doesn't get brought up much after that. and then other things like them destroying the ground-based kandrona get mentioned a lot (that example is understandable tho bc that WAS a big deal). its just hilarious to me how blowing up entire building complexes has become so routine that it isn’t even worth mentioning at this point

Also I adore when they meet other random people/kids and are chill w/them, like w/that kid they met in the rain forest earlier on w/the time travel

the descriptions of the brutally cold weather were great. I hate the cold so I was like oof this is a nightmare lmao

also ig that was the first ghostwritten book and I did kinda notice it was slightly different than usual? maybe? I could be imagining it tho

okay but book 26 tho...BOOK 26. bruh

that was SO good and I really didn’t know what to expect - but when we finally revisited Jake’s dream w/crayak I knew it was gonna be good (but I didn’t expect it to be a chess game war epic..!)

basically I loved it. SUCH a good Jake book - I really appreciate his character now as opposed to when I was 10 and often overlooked him (sorry jake).

similarly, when I was a kid and read these I sympathized a lot w/the chee and felt bad for them towards the end of the series when they had to get more involved in the war (genuinely don’t remember what they even do but ik I felt bad)

but now I've basically 180′d and I'm like damn those chee sure are hypocrites huh.

like they could solve So many of the animorphs problems but their stringent adherence to nonviolence leads to them actively getting in the animorphs way sometimes? and obviously pacifism is a complicated topic, but in this case it also intersect w/the whole ‘child soldier’ thing, and as beings who are insanely old and wise, the chee probably shouldn't just leave all the dirty work to a bunch of literal middle schoolers

aaaaanyways. there’s so much I love about this book. the iskoort! they were sure something. and the ‘plot twist’ that they are actually 2 beings, the Isk and the Yoort - and the Yoort are essentially Yeerks - that slapped. the symbiosis of it all!

I loved the part where they all realize what this means, that this is why Crayak wants the iskoort destoryed - because someday the yeerks might come across them and realize parasitism is not the only way. I love it!

alas I don’t recall the iskoort returning in the story (but also my memory is terrible so who knows?) but still that would be cool

basically I feel like this is the book where Jake Truly comes into his own as a leader, in every sense. he outmaneuvers Crayak, and even the ellimist, who’s yanking them around in his own way

the scene where jake shoves the howler off the cliff and jumps off and morphs and acquires the howler...that was fantastic and tense.

also the murder is definitely becoming more overt. I mean, it has been for a while, but it isn’t really pointed out as much anymore. oof

more on the chee - as Jake points out in this book, and other characters point out in other books - the chee could have saved the pemalites, but instead just stood by while their creators were slaughtered. on the other hand, jake says, what do the chee do AFTER they’ve killed the howlers - where to point them next? when is the end of their violence?

buuuuut also standing by while atrocities occur is pretty damning, as is frequently mentioned in this series - from the very beginning, when marco initially doesn’t want to get involved in the war at all, and the other animorphs basically tell him that turning his back on the war and acting like he doesn’t even know it’s happening would be immoral and cowardly (which imo this reaction helps to push marco in the direction he ends up going, but I digress) - this topic comes up again in 19 when cassie quits the team and rachel is upset bc she sees it as cassie elevating her own feelings above the greater good (as in, as long as cassie feels good about how she acts, it doesn’t matter how much preventable evil the yeerks are committing while she turns away). etc etc. but that’s essentially what’s happening w/the chee - even tho they help w/intel, the lack of any sort of Action on their part means that they’re essentially allowing awful things to happen when they could prevent them. this is rambly but basically...animorphs deals so much in grey areas, and the chee are noticeably black and white in their actions, despite falling, in a meta sense, in an extremely grey area. its such good, thought provoking writing!

anywayssss I keep talking about the chee lmao what else was there. oh YEAH jake and cassie kissed for the first time awww that was super cute

and ofc immediately marco teases them as asks jake if he’s gonna kiss him next, and all I can say is...marco is a bicon

also I love the background worldbuilding w/the iskoort, how they have all these groups and guilds and stuff - its not dwelled on much, which actually works really well to give the world/species a sense of lived-in realness

okay oh man and the reveal at the end that the howlers were just like...children who thought the whole thing was a game...AUGHH man that’s sooo fucked

like, when jake morphs the howler and has rachel ready to knock him down in grizzly morph if he gets out of control due to the howler’s murderous instincts, and he morphs to find that the howler is...playful, like a dolphin morph. SUCH a good fucked up sense of dawning horror there

and the fact that as far as I can tell the chee KNEW this, but wanted revenge anyways, so they let the animorphs assume that the howlers were Evil On Purpose

also I love smaller moments, like jake seeing that ax is ashamed for briefly running away during one battle w/the howlers, and then entrusts him w/an important task bc he knows that ax will see that as redemption - and when everyone thought jake was dead and were so happy when he wasn't (they all love each other so much im gonna cry about these child soldiers augh)

basically that book was so good

man one thing I absolutely love is that the longer the series goes on the more obvious it is that andalites, despite inventing morphing technology, barely use it themselves

like, most of the andalite characters we see barely morph. its kind of a last resort to them, as they’re already plenty dangerous in their regular forms

meanwhile for the animorphs, that’s all they have to fight with. that’s their only weapons against the yeerks, and its so fun to see them use the power in so many varied ways, and so creatively, while the andalites have barely scratched the surface of their own technology

its also interesting to contrast against the yeerks who start out w/absolutely no technology, and the andalites share some but not all of their technology w/them...its too bad that morphing technology was just starting out cause that would’ve been interesting

like imo a lot of the conflict w/the yeerks could’ve been avoided if they could just nothlit into better forms - of course, there’d still be plenty of yeerks who want to go start wars or w/e, just like pretty much any species in the series, but a lot of yeerks would probably be like ‘yeah I'm good’ and just chill out as nothlits

also people online love to talk about how humans are alienfuckers and would definitely have sex w/sentient aliens and whatnot, and while I'm not saying that's untrue, its just funny bc in animorphs the truest alienfuckers are definitely the andalites

as of the hork-bajir chronicles, we now have a second instance of an andalite morphing another species to be in an inter-species alien romance (and eventually have kids)

speaking of, I don’t think I’ve talked abt the hork bajir chronicles yet??? even tho I read it a while ago lmao

HBC was great...I honestly haven’t really run into an animorphs book I’ve actually disliked at this point, I’m sure it’ll come w/all the ghostwriting and whatnot, but I’ve liked at least some aspects of every book

anyways HBC was great, and it’s funny bc I remember that I read this book as a kid, and yet rereading it now I didn’t remember a single bit of it lmaooo

I really liked the framing device of the free hork bajir telling this story to tobias. I also liked how we know from the beginning that this story wont have a happy ending - we know all the hork bajir end up enslaved by the yeerks, but it’s still somehow hopeful at the end? I think this is largely due to the framing device tbh.

also I love toby, and I love that the First free hork bajir named their kid after tobias ;_;

and oooh mannn I LOVED the different POVs from this book. all the characters were so interesting! aldrea was fascinating - I really like the increasingly negative view of the andalites that the readers are getting, all while maintaining the sense that they aren’t like, actively evil, just that they have their issues - like aldrea’s arrogance, and the general andalite arrogance which lead to the loss of the hork bajir. also, who knew andalites had their own brand of sexism? Ls

I did like getting a female andalite tho, that was cool. and dak was really cool, he was such a good, compassionate character who was able to maintain his morals in an interesting way throughout the story

and VISSER THREE...or should I say esplin 9466, because he’s not visser 3 yet...getting his ‘origin story’ was excellent - I really like how we’re learning about visser 3 backwards - we start off the series w/him as the main villain, and he’s campy and menacing, and then we see him in the andalite chronicles as a power-hungry sub-visser trying to climb the ranks and eventually getting alloran as a host, and then back even further here, w/the start of his focus on the andalites and the beginning of his ambition. its been very cool and interesting to see

plus, the beginning of the yeerks as we know them! seerow! alloran! it’s a party and nobody is having a good time, except for some of the yeerks.

I like how it’s pretty obvious that the andalites are well-meaning with their interactions w/the yeerks, but go about it the wrong way - they give them enough technology that the yeerks realize there’s a whole world out there to experience, and then they blockade the yeerks on their planet and tell them they can’t leave. nnnnot the best approach imo

again, as I said above, I’m interested in how things could’ve gone if the andalites had given the yeerks morphing technology early on - could a lot of the conflict have been avoided, or would it have been worse? the yeerks seem pretty evil in this book, immediately jumping to enslave anyone they can. otoh we hear from esplin that not all yeerks like having host bodies, and find it overwhelming, preferring to swim around in the yeerk pool as a slug - I assume as host bodies became more available this type of thinking was probably stamped out in yeerk society or w/e, but there are a lot of interesting what-ifs in the situation

I loved the scene where esplin first experiences having a host, and immediately knows he can’t go back. there are a bunch of great sensory descriptions, and it’s a nice scene to pinpoint as a foundational moment for the visser three in the current story, who spent a lot of time and energy getting what he sees as the best possible host body, an andalite

I find it interesting how much visser three clearly respects the andalites, even while constantly deriding them. and you can see the origins of that here as he immediately focuses in on the andalites, working to become an expert on them in order to make himself useful enough to move thru the ranks

another thing I like is how esplin seems a lot more crafty and ambitious than the visser three from modern times - I would guess that reaching his goal (andalite host body) and being given all that power was detrimental, playing on his weaknesses instead of his strengths. basically, I don’t think it’s ooc or anything, I can see how HBC-esplin became animorphs-esplin, especially w/TAC in between

as for seerow...poor dude. you really do have to feel for him, because you get the sense he really did just want to be kind to the yeerks, but it was borne from a place of pity, and he (and the other andalites) consistently held too much power over the yeerks for the species relations to ever be truly equal and functional

AUGH I have so many thoughts about alien space politics. omg. I need to talk about the actual story lmao

so yeah I also feel for aldrea, she had a rough time, watching her entire family die and being thrown into a hopeless war

and then the andalite council or w/e not listening to her bc she's a girl AND seerow’s daughter...oof

also, I really really liked the running theme of the andalites - specifically aldrea - looking down on the hork bajir as ‘simple’ and constantly underestimating them, especially dak

and I like how this is portrayed as a bad attitude for aldrea to have, and she still remains and interesting and sympathetic character even while having obvious flaws. it’s about being 3-dimensional baby!

and oh man I love that dak realizes that aldrea looks down on him, and his entire species, but he can see that that’s how the andalites are, and it all connects back to the beginning of the story w/the yeerks, bc the andalites looked down on the yeerks and treated them with pity and kept them pinned under their proverbial thumb ‘for their own good’ and look how that turned out

but dak is wise and kind enough to not hate aldrea for this, even acknowledging when she’s using him, but not pushing her away because he recognizes good in her too - and she ends up changing, partially because of his faith in her

and I feel like it can all be compared to that scenario of like - a hypothetical creature that lives in a 2D world suddenly being thrust into a 3D world, and comprehending what its seeing, and understanding that there’s so much more out there outside of the flat lines of its world - and then its dropped back into 2D-land with the knowledge of all the stuff its missing out on, and no way to get back to it or explain it to anybody else

I loooove that ‘trope’ or w/e you wanna call it, and it’s done beautifully here w/the yeerks - whos the say they wouldn't have been fine in their pool swimming around; as esplin said, a lot of the yeerks were terrified of having a host, it was only from the andalites’ perspective that their lives were sad and pitiful, and the andalites showed them what the world could be like, and then said ‘no, you can’t travel the stars like we do, you have to stay here on your planet and do what we say.’

and then again, w/the hork bajir - dak talks about how, even though he drinks up the knowledge that aldrea gives him, in the end it might have been better to just have lived peacefully, not knowing what was in the sky or the Deep - as aldrea says: “It was too late for Dak: he knew that the stars were not flowers.”

plus the hork bajir having to go from a completely peaceful species who don’t even understand the concept of violence, to a bunch of soldiers fighting a war...oof

basically everyone in this story uses the hork bajir. the yeerks use them as hosts, the andalites use their planet as a convenient place to dump seerow and then take their sweet time coming to help, and the arn created them as means to stabilize the planet, but block them off from their society and refuse to help when the yeerks come

like, the arn modifying themselves to be un-infestable by the yeerks and then being enslaved for physical labor instead? oof guys. if they had teamed up w/the hork bajir resistance things might have gone better, but probably not

more on aldrea - throughout the story I was always thinking ‘how am I supposed to see her? as a good person, or as a bad person?’

as a POV character, especially a ‘good guy’ andalite, you just start off automatically thinking of her as a good person, but as the story goes on, she starts getting lost in revenge and begins using dak and the hork bajir, and you’re left wondering if this is a story about her slide into darkness, and then towards the end of the story her character development culminates in her making the decision to stay w/the hork bajir, and the be with dak, and that’s about when I went ‘ohhh right this is animorphs so every character is pretty much gonna be grey’

I feel like that moral grey-ness was on full display w/aldrea, and I really enjoyed that. I love so much when characters who are good do bad things, for good or bad reasons, especially in media like animorphs that’s aimed at kids. it’s so compelling.

oof, and the ending when aldrea convinces dak to mobilize the hork bajir and teach them violence...and dak asks her if she’s ever killed another andalite, and she’s horrified, and says of course she hasn’t, and he says that that’s what she’s asking him, and all the hork bajir, to do - to kill their own people, even if they are being controlled by the yeerks. biiiig oof. I love that dak can keep up w/aldrea and her andalite supremacy attitude - it seems that the non-andalite characters who get along best w/the andalites are the ones who wont take their bs

what else happened....oh my god how could I forget about alloran, and his quantum virus. oooof. I like how we find out about alloran in parallel to visser three, in the same backwards way - in animorphs he’s the tragic host of visser three, in TAC he’s the disgraced but still semi-respected war-prince who becomes the first ever andalite controller, and here he’s the guy who decides to commit some war crimes because, hey, we haven’t tried that yet

but yeah that was fucked up, I love it. I’ve said it before I think but I like that alloran isn’t some perfect martyr tragically taken by the yeerks - it’s a lot more compelling that he’s a very flawed person who was taken as a controller partially due to his own bloodthirstiness.

but yeah, the part where aldrea morphs alloran and ‘sneaks’ into that room was great. aldrea’s dedication to disposing of the virus is a great indicator of her character development - it really feels like the straw that broke the camels back w/re: to the andalites not being what she thought they were, w/their tardiness coming to help the hork bajir planet and the way her father was treated being the precursors to this realization. it all culminates nicely in aldrea saying ‘fuck this actually’ and nothlit-ing into a hork bajir.

and it’s really tragic but realistic that even though aldrea and dak end up seeing eye to eye at the end and getting together, the virus ends up being released anyways (and fails in its objective to stop the yeerks from using the hork bajir - the whole thing was p much a lose-lose situation oof), and aldrea and dak still die fighting a hopeless war

but then we have the free hork bajir on earth, including toby, who, like tobias, has andalite ancestry, but no DNA to show for it - I like that they have that connection as well as tobias being her namesake

so yeah I enjoyed that one and its many-layered themes

WOW this got long uuuuuhhh ok I think i’ll leave this one off here. at the time I’m actually finishing the writing and editing, I’m on book 35 lol so I have some backlogging to do. never fear, I have a lot to say....

#lj reads animorphs #animorphs

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tfw-no-tennis · 4 years ago

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mtmte liveblog issue 11

and here we have to conclusion to the shadowplay arc...

clearly prowl hasn't seen national treasure smh

prowl, what exactly is confusing you about ‘secret government-sanctioned brainwashing facility’

the fact that prowl was willing to go so strongly against his morals to protect chromedome...oof bro

so the senator is basically professor x and all the outliers are mutants. got it

senator shockwave was just a sexy thot who wanted justice....poor guy

so there ARE gloves on cybertron...am I to just assume that the doctors don't like using them for some reason????? I mean tbf I've known a few medical professionals who don't wear gloves during certain procedures, like giving shots which, imo, yikes I would never, even simple vaccines can cause bleeding, but to each their own...are ppe rules not strict on cybertron, or is there a low risk of infection transfer due to the nature of cybertronian diseases? ah, the real questions

anyways. I should stop going on extremely off-topic medical rants

I relate to tailgate in his tendency to misspell. these liveblogs would be unreadable if it weren't for spellcheck

ouch, the fact that cd ‘never really forgave’ prowl for leaving the heist party w/out a word, even tho it turns out prowl stormed off w/a final request to keep cd safe and out of it all....cd and prowl are just a big tragic trainwreck huh

its interesting that skids used to be religious, when it seems like he isn't now. Wonder What Could Have Caused That Shift In Ideology! Hm!

oh my god I love how ironfist’s fanboy ranting about the primal vanguard is cut short just as he’s saying ‘a bomb disposal kit once used by-’ bc its like Oh I bet he was about to mention tailgate, yknow, the guy who (claims he) was the primal vanguard’s bomb disposal guy...that's such a great little detail

the stuff we hear from roller about senator shockwave is super interesting - it sounds like he’s been pretty aware of the state of society for a while, and has been trying to combat it from the inside...which isn't going so great, it seems, considering the state of society at the time.

also the whole ‘modifying people to hold the matrix (sometimes without their consent?)’ thing he’s got going on is. interesting. again, is there any sort of ethics laws on cybertron, seriously guys,

oof, op cares so much abt senator sw :( they were in love okay

red alert :(

rodimus is such an interesting character AUGH the fact that he takes red alert’s potential suicide to be a personal failing on his part as a captain...which, yknow, that idea has merit considering rodimus’s part in the whole overlord thing, as well as rodimus having told red alert that ‘everyone thought he was losing it.’ yeahhhhh, that's not quite the approach to take w/someone clearly suffering from a paranoid breakdown

poor magnus has no idea about all the overlord stuff, which is what triggered red alert’s breakdown

tho, magnus, idk that putting red alert in a cryofreeze chamber or w/e is the solution here. although maybe they’re all just at a loss bc cybertron’s only mental health specialist is current hanging out comatose in a bar

are we supposed to (retrospectively) read into rodimus and drift’s agreement to put red alert in storage as a way of covering up the overlord stuff? did they deduce that he figured out about overlord and that's what caused his breakdown? rodimus seems genuinely distressed about the whole cold storage situation, but is there more to it than ‘I failed as a captain bc this guy had a breakdown under my command’? I genuinely do not remember a lot about the overlord plot bc I was so confused the first time I read it and the second time I was too busy being extremely sad, so.

genuinely shocked that cybertron even has ‘health and safety inspections.’ it just figures that the one ratchet conducted wasn't an actual inspection, but an excuse to prepare for some good ole fashioned heisting

man I love a good heist/break-in

ok so skids rlly is just here for his grappling hook hvbhksddfjbjkdf my man

UH OH SENATE GOONS. never good

whoa, cybertronians have glenohumeral joints?? tho, ratchet says ‘glenohumeral socket,’ which doesn't exist in humans - we have a glenoid cavity/fossa/socket that articulates w/the head of the humerus to form the glenohumeral joint, so, close enough

anyways, that sure was a nonsequiter. ratchet busting out his lock picking skills is dope. do they teach that sorta stuff in cybertronian medical school? maybe its in place of the patient confidentiality lesson

seriously, ratchet sure knows a lot about bombs for a doctor. maybe they also cut out the courses on ppe and patient consent to make room for the cool stuff like BOMB CLASSES

op really DOES like jumping off stuff, doesn't he

oh no senator :(

JK HERES OP BUSTIN THRU A DUDES CHEST

oh no roller :(

‘remember me how I was’ NOOOO IM GONNA FUCKING CRY. SW AND OP MAKE ME SO SAD. GOD

op yeeted that matrix bomb like he was trying to make a touchdown or...something. not sure why I chose football, the only sport I dislike, as my metaphor here

lol it blew up a police station, nice

god, that reveal that the institute that we saw last issue was just one of many....and the one we saw was strikingly awful enough, so the fact that there's a ton more like that....oof

also, again, super interested in the fact that cd was involved in this arc where they see how scary and evil the institute is and then ended up working for the institute - well, the ‘new institute’ - later on

I'm weeping at the ‘big reveal’ for tailgate being that orion pax is optimus prime....its so funny that he didn't know that so it was a huge twist for him and absolutely nobody else hvbakdjhfbksjdf I love tailgate

also. is that the picture somebody drew of op for tg lmao

:D and then skids manages to wake rung up!!! all by getting his name wrong lmao. tho, maybe all the storytelling helped!

oh shit its zeta (prime?), here to talk to op, presumably about becoming the next space pope

HHHHHHHHHHHHHH GOD THAT REVEAL!!!!!!!!!!!!! BROOOOO the senator shockwave reveal slapped me right in the FACE the first time I read this, and that's saying something bc I seriously only understood like 40% of the shadowplay story my first readthru. but the shockwave reveal still had me SHOOK like oh god that was so fucking brutal. jesus

like the fact that the emotionless decpeticon shockwave used to have a completely different look and personality is already crazy enough, but then the tie-ins of empurata and shadowplay? brutal and amazing

like, this is the kinda retrospective backstory stuff that I love. it gives a lot of cool depth to both the characters and the world. I feel like it really helped cement concepts like empurata and shadowplay in the world

and just, AUGH The Reveal still gets me...im pretty sure in my first readhtru I only picked up the fact that the senator PURPOSELY hasn't been named during this issue, and I was kinda ready for some sort of reveal but also figured it could be someone I didn't know bc of my limited tf lore knowledge, but even I knew who shockwave was and phew that blew me away

that full-page art spread is fuckin banging also

anyways, shadowplay arc! I really enjoy this arc and all its genre-hopping goodness, and the framing device of the characters telling a story is a lot of fun. plus we get to see a lot of cool backstory for many characters, and got tons of great worldbuilding for jro’s pre-war cybertron.

I understood a lot more of the story upon my second (and now third) readthru of the series, which was super rewarding bc the first time I wasn't able to follow a lot of stuff (1st readthru I tended to assume that me being confused about something was due to my lack of previous knowledge of lore/story, so I didn't often analyze stuff seriously, or even employ critical thinking skills lmao).

also some gnarly stuff went on w/the red alert b-plot, which we’ll pick up with later....

#lj rereads mtmte

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