#i just think bilbo is an interesting character the more u open him up

[heart-select]

tumblr gets a sneak since i dont want to upload on yt or anywhere else

I've been listening to da capo and since i got into bagginshield recently, when the song came up again, the line "there used to be a storyteller" hit me like a truck and thus this rot was born. It needs a lot of retiming and polishing (to my standards anyway) and maybe ill update separately or reblog or idk. The counting is me trying to time and check how many flashback scenes i can stick in there. i still need an extra set and again, more stuff, particularly some more movement, i was just a bit tired to try n figure it out since i started this at like 1 am fjejkfjs. It's not inherently bagginshield but the motivation is definitely abt bilbo and his dwarves tho the second half of the song is more about LOTR and the people there. Something something abt letting these characters be with the people they cherish at the end of it all.

my friend has called me out abt how i dont make normal endings but i swear this one ends sweet (tho tears taken are not my responsibility)

[lordxgrinnyxboy]

rewatching tgm for the umpteenth time: wifi's not working edition 1/?

ngl i've Never, In My LIFE, done any singing or acting outside of puppet shows when i was in like the 3rd grade but every time i watch TGM i'm more and more like "GOD i wanna be cast as Barkilphedro" and i don't even know why? like why would i want to be the greasy clown nasty? He has No Rights? I Don't Like Him Or Sympathize With Him At All? And Yet???? It must be a calling.

there's like. two barrels on the stage.

uggggggh i love Ensemble!Maskell and Ensemble!Obianyo they're both so pretty

FEEL SO LOW YOUR PULSE NEEDS CHECKING

ngl Barkilphedro has No Rights and he gets No Sympathy from me but i do feel sorry for him when he talks about his mother. also sucks for him that he wasted so much time hoping his loyalty to Clarence would pay off, only to get nothing but mockery in return. also also as 'comical' as the Erotic Breakfast Dance scene is played it's still...really gross and Not Okay. This dude's 100% culpable for his actions and he made his own choices and is absolutely slimy but it's like those bits in LotR when they talk about Bilbo pitying Gollum. idk i just kinda hate that ol' Barky let himself be twisted into such a wretched creature. He crossed the No Rights line the night he decided to carve up a kid's face tho and just kept right on going.

ensemble!maskell is so cute send help

it's the eye makeup and the lighting it's just. a really good look

ms. obianyo pls

just noticed Bark's little pose on "obsessed with the pursuit of beauty"

okay so i've seen some comments around about Clarence's "How do you keep your pecker up" remark and just thought i'd- dude's fingernails. wow they're so shiny. ahem -mention here that i've looked into this expression before and it's actually a term that i guess is mainly used in England or something and it's like nose = beak = 'pecker' as in birds which ‘peck’ things with their beaks. It's basically the same as "keep your chin up". Snufkin says it to Moomin. I mean with Clarence i wouldn't put it past him to mean it another way but also given where the show is set it makes sense he would use such a term.

ngl i want to Know about Angelica tho like. why is she Brutalized. why did Clarence send her awaey. i actually want to know about the whole family. I feel like it's a three separate moms situation but even if it's only two separate moms Where Are The Moms. did Clarence send Them awaey too? Did one or more of them Die? Were they Killed? oh god what if it's like in Light Princess and he actually Had (one of/)Them Executed. I think it's interesting that Clarence Lorded Dirry-Moir. we don't get to know about how he treated Josiana, but none of his kids even turn up to his funeral and the only one who talks about him at all only does so to denounce him.

also thinking about the differences yet similarities between the Green Box Family and the Royal Family but i can't articulate worth anything rn so i'll just *pins for later*

love Ensemble!Brisson

also ngl even if the whole Royal Introduction/Lords on Palace Hill bit isn't 100% literal it still paints a pretty clear picture of the kind of toxic and vapid society that's encouraged under Clarence's reign.

does 'bonnie prince' mean anything specific or

ugh i love Osric

wait i just noticed the stripies on dirry--moir's shirt. nice. i'd wear that.

not as much as i'd wear the heck out of Osric's coat though. actually his whole outfit. add Osric/Lord Trelaw to Roles I Wanna Be Cast For In The Timeline Where I Sing And Act

the face Dirry-Moir makes while Osric's getting started introducing the fair tho. he looks like a kid trying to fit in with a cool new friend group.

the way Mr Maskell sings "we have a huge collection of the crippled and the dabbed" tho it sounds like he's got a cold

i'm gonna need somebody to meet me irl just to do that lil dance that Dirry-Moir and Osric do after "If you've got the money/I've got the misery" it looks fun!

au where Mr. Maskell stays on stage through the end of Laughter is the Beast Medicine. i need to See him do the choreo for this part.

had a real cursed idea right here but no it's Too cursed

the look on Osric's face when Bark grabs his bad arm tho

this whole "imagine laughing without any cruelty at all" is such a weird bit tbh

have i already said that i love the whole look of the "the poor soul who stands before you" part like idk if it's the pose or what but Gwyn Looks Really Good In This Scene

okay but the way puppet!Gwyn holds out his hand toward his mom and then she goes to- hangon i can’t describe lemme see if separate post separate post

okay

ngl im real curious as to whether this bit on the pirate ship (idk why i’ve always defaulted to ‘pirates’ for these cats) actually happened or if Ursus fully made it up like we really Don’t get to Know how much of this has any basis in what really happened that night do we u-u

kay but the fact that Dea’s mom’s lying there with her eyes open and the way they emphasize her frozen-ness by having her arm stay up like. wow.

wait a minute is that Born Broken playing for lil baby Dea? i think it is.

yeah sing it hazlit

interesting how Ursus has little!Gwyn sing “they put blood in my nightmares” but also vow to find the man who cut him. which i mean singular ‘they’ is obviously a thing but as i doubt the intention was for Gwyn to have decided that whoever cut him must be a they/them man i just think it’s interesting that even the wording in the puppet show points to the fact that there was Someone Else There, even if it does then swerve back to a single perpetrator. But also it’s still accurate because while it was only one man who cut Gwyn’s face, it was both Barkilphedro and Ursus who contributed to putting blood in his nightmares.

honest question why is Mr. Maskell’s voice Like That like who gave him the right

love how puppet!Gwyn and puppeteer!Gwyn and later real!Gwyn all do that same little motion with their head on the word “disgrace”

OH HEY we’re at the part where Lon Don picks up NICE

add Mojo Puppeteer to my list of dream roles

wait ohmygod there’s this thing kind of hanging off the cart and i was squinting at it like “what is that” and then the cart turned around and i realize that’s the body that goes to the head-on-a-shelf ursus what the hell

wait so Dirry-Moir genuinely thinks Dea went blind from looking at Gwyn’s face but he also wants to see it? although granted Ursus said she went blind from “gazing too long” so maybe Dirry-Moir assumes he’ll be safe if it’s only a quick look. still. Concept: Post-Show Dirry-Moir having this tendency to Not Look At Gwyn very much until eventually either he explains why and somebody has to Tell Him, or maybe at some point he’s like “wait a minute. that was made up wasn’t it” and everyone has a bit of a laff

ngl i love the inside of the cart and how there’s like four, maybe five puppets, counting Beauty and Beast, and also some of the shadow puppets...all kinds of vials and bottles and what looks like painting supplies...what looks suspiciously like crimson lethe on the stove...looks like some cabinets and extra storage up very top. im curious about the layout since we only get to see one part of the cart at a time.

wait why’s the song called stars in the sky when does he say th- why isn’t it called “New World” or “dreams” or something why stars in the sky he doesn’t even say- does he say it in the reprise???  *skips ahead* NO?

does the Disney Chorus Say It??

THEY DON’T

WHY IS THE SONG CALLED STARS IN THE SKY? WHY HAVE I BEEN UNQUESTIONINGLY CALLING IT STARS IN THE- WHEN ARE STARS MENTIONED??

IS THE TITLE A REFERENCE TO THE FACT THAT URSUS IS ONE OF THE ONES WHO ASSISTED IN STRIPPING STARS FROM THE SKY? IDK BOSS IT FEELS KINDA WEAK TO ME

ugh i love ms obianyo

“to help them forget themselves” yeah that’s what you want him to do huh Ursus

“not now, Grinpayne”‘s a p curious line to include and only the fact that Gwyn’s still using his puppet!Gwyn voice while complaining is keeping me from being like “lol Gwyn’s lil rant was actually him breaking character and then Ursus just went with it like it was part of the show lol lol”

cutting here for length uwu Dea finishes the word ‘skies’ at exactly 30 minutes in which is nice bc i didn’t even have to interrupt her mid-word in order to pause for post-length.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

What would u say are the best and worst book narrated by each character ?

I sat down to come up with my least favorite book by each narrator and had a pretty easy time of it — there’s an unfortunate dip in quality in the series around #39 - #43 that I can point to as definitely not my faves — and then ended up totally baffled by how to choose JUST ONE favorite book by each narrator, because such a task is almost impossible.  In conclusion, I really love Animorphs, as you probably never would have guessed from reading this blog.  So, with a little cheating, here goes:

Tobias

Least favorite: #43, The Test

The plot of this book pretty much requires that all of the characters, but most notably Rachel and Jake, act in ways that really don’t fit with their behavior for the rest of the series.  My cynical hypothesis about What Was The Ghost Even Thinking rhymes with schmender schtereotyping, but even if I more kindly assume that everyone was just acting strange to jerk Taylor around, I can’t really enjoy this book.

Favorite: #49, The Diversion

Tobias’s point of view works so well for this book, because its plot draws attention to his status as a partial outsider not only for human society as a whole but also for his team.  He’s literally trapped in a liminal space that here actually gives him a lot of perspective on his friends’ families — and the importance of sticking close to his own.  (And by that I mean 93% Ax, 7% Loren.)

Other favorite: #23, The Pretender

Speaking of Tobias being sort of stuck between roles, this book is so good because it shows the strength of his position as both able to access and able to escape being human.  He moves flexibly between a ton of different roles in this book — a leader to the hork-bajir, a supporter to Jake, a parent to himself, a son to Elfangor, a quasi-hawk, a quasi-human, a quasi-andalite — and does so with astounding grace and aplomb.  Resting bitchface has never seemed like a cooler accidental superpower.

Another favorite: #33, The Illusion

This book is the brutal shadow-self to #23, instead shutting Tobias out of a whole bunch of different roles over the course of the plot.  It does however contain one of the series’s best villains (Taylor is terrifyingly sympathetic) and some of its best moments of heartwarming body horror in the final battle.

Ax

Least favorite: #8, The Alien

Honestly, there’s nothing really wrong with this book, but there’s nothing amazingly right about it either.  It has a few great moments (Jake’s naïve optimism at the kandron’s destruction giving way to fear for Tom, Ax having dinner with Cassie’s family, Tobias definitely not tattling on Ax) but overall the plot is just kind of inane and doesn’t do much to move the series forward.

Favorite: #38, The Arrival

Estrid et al. act as such a cool check-in for not only how much Ax has grown as a person through spending too much time around humans, but also how much the team as a whole has grown until they are actually more effective warriors than a group of battle-trained andalite assassins.  Every time I reread this book I end up making noises of triumph and fist-pumping the air, no matter how public my location is at the time.

Favorite favorite: #46, The Deception

This plot hinges on the stark contrast between Ax’s terrible and unavoidable awareness about the horror of open war and the Animorphs’ lack of standard of comparison beyond “hey, remember D-Day?”  MM3 and #28 both do important work to condemn humanity from the outside, but this book actually uses Ax’s perspective primarily for celebrating the whole human species from an outsider’s point of view.

Marco

Least favorite: #40, The Other

As I’ve mentioned here, at this book’s core is an interesting concept that very emphatically does not age well.  On top of the cringe-inducing attempt at an After School Special treatment of the idea that (*gasp*) queer men with AIDS are human too, it also has a largely nonsensical plot that strains both credulity and logic.

Favorite: #25, The Extreme

It’s a brilliant use of Marco’s perspective to comment on the constraints and terrifying outer reaches of Jake’s leadership, one that also contains a highly enjoyable mix of humor and horror.  Because Marco.  I could reread this one a thousand times and still find new aspects of the narration to delight in.

Also favorite: #15, The Escape

This book makes amazing use of Marco’s unreliable narration and lack of self-insight to contrast his willingness to imagine himself confronting sharks with his willingness to run from them upon a real encounter, along with his determination to kill his mom and his inability to stop himself from saving her.  Marco is at his most human in this book, and also his most lovable.

Also also favorite: #51, The Absolute

The governor of probably-California is one of my favorite minor characters in the series, and I absolutely love the dynamic between Marco-Tobias-Ax any time it occurs (this book, #46, #30, #49), meaning that this surprisingly fun aside acts as a much-needed breath of fresh air and comic relief in between the Animorphs losing the morphing cube (#50) and blowing up the Yeerk Pool (#52).  Plus, Marco + tank  = OTP.

Cassie

Least favorite: #39, The Hidden

I’ve said most of this before, but this book is just… nonsensical.  And it’s not delightfully nonsensical like parts of #26 or #14, it’s mostly cringe-inducingly nonsensical.

Favorite: #29, The Sickness

Arguably this is the best Animorphs book, both IMHO and by fan consensus.  It’s got a simple but devlishly difficult plot, a ton of great characterization moments for all six kids, a handful of brilliant devices and settings that meld beautifully to Cassie’s overall character arc, and a wide-reaching perspective on the importance of overcoming difference that is a huge part of what makes these books so good.  It’s also funny, horrifying, edge-of-your-seat engaging, and tear-inducingly beautiful at the very end.

Also my favorite: #4, The Message

Whereas #29 is probably just hands-down the best book ever written, #4 holds a special place in my heart because it’s the first Animorphs book I ever read and the one that convinced me to go find the rest of the series.  This one is sweet and mystical, bleak with the dawning realization that these poor defenseless cinnamon rolls are in this war alone but also hopeful with the realization that these precious cinnamon rolls are in this war together.

Jake

Least favorite: #47, The Resistance

Although I’m of the opinion that #41 is more poorly-plotted, this book manages to be both poorly plotted and glaringly racist.  Its plot doesn’t make sense on several different levels, not the least that Visser Three knows how to find the hork-bajir valley in this book and then apparently forgets how to get there for the entire rest of the series.  And don’t get me started on Jake’s reprehensible behavior from the moment he casually declares Tom “as good as dead,” through to him trying to boss Toby about what’s best for Toby herself, all the way on to him being a jerk to Rachel and Marco. Blah.

Favorite: #31, The Conspiracy

Unlike #47, this book actually makes really good use of Jake’s character flaws to drive the plot forward — he’s bad at being vulnerable, and that ends up being a huge problem for his team.  It also leans hard on the irony of Jake being the only one with a “textbook” family (i.e. upper-middle class, heteronormative and monogamous, European-American, traditionally gendered, outwardly happy) and also being the only one under constant threat for his life any time he’s at home, thereby accomplishing one of the series’s better comments on the fact that children’s lives aren’t as simple as we’d like to think.

Favoriter: #53, The Answer

There are definitely flaws with RL implications in this book, but the plot is so freaking brilliant that I can still regard it as a Problematic Fave.  The final battle is so well-engineered and the Moral Event Horizon is so terrifying as it swings by that I assign this book to myself for rereading any time I’m struggling to write action or battle.  It’s a scary, awful book, but also a very fitting capstone to the series.

Favoritest: #26, The Attack

This setting is so cool.  This plot is so cosmic and yet so personal.  This use of the chee is so bitingly brilliant in its commentary on pacifism as a luxury not everyone can afford.  This story has so many moments that are either heartbreaking callbacks (the opening scene with Tom’s memories from #6) or bloodcurdling foreshadowing (Jake and Rachel’s casually absolute trust that each will be willing and able to kill the other if necessary).  This narration feels like a middle-aged and yet middle-school protagonist struggling to figure out who he wants to be — and defeating a cosmic power at its own game with the power of love.  I could gush forever.

Rachel

Least favorite: #48, The Return

Again, there’s nothing truly wrong with this book; it’s just a silly and inconsequential aside into the main character’s maybe-dreams at a time when the plot outside her head is heating up to the boiling point.  It makes this whole thing come off kind of like Bilbo sleeping through the Battle of Five Armies.

Favorite: #27, The Exposed

I’m not normally a big one for romance, but this book makes me ship Rachel and Tobias so hard that my tiny bitter walnut of a heart grows two sizes every time I read it.  Rachel has such great self-awareness that she doesn’t like any situation she cannot control or at least do violent battle against, and yet she dives into the bottom of the ocean with both eyes open and her chin up because that’s what she has to do to protect the rest of her team.  Crayak has no idea what he’s talking about when it comes to asking her to turn on her loved ones.

Additional favorite: #32, The Separation

As I’ve said, I didn’t really get this book until I realized that it’s not so much about Rachel herself as it is about how the rest of her team views her, and how she defies their simple categorizations, both well-meaning (Cassie) and not (Jake), through simply being herself.  Rachel is both masculine and feminine, both tough and vulnerable, and she makes no apologies for any of it.

And another favorite: #37, The Weakness

This book has an important role for the rest of the series in that it shows how the Animorphs’ guerilla tactics can easily be taken too far, and also how Jake’s discernment of his teammates’ strengths and weaknesses keeps them all alive.  Rachel makes a fair number of logical-seeming decisions in this book that prove short-sighted, and of course it all leads to her and Jake’s brutal Checkovian epiphany at the end.

Added additional also favorite: #22, The Solution

A brutal but powerful read, this book focuses on the ugliest parts of Rachel’s personality (her sadism toward David) but also the most powerful ones (her compassion for Saddler and protectiveness toward both Jake and Jordan).  It also shows that her reckless taste for violence and her boundless desire to protect her families both biological and found are actually two sides of the same part of her personality.

Okay I have a lot of favorite Rachel books: #17, The Underground

It’s oat-freaking-meal.  Only it’s not just oat-freaking-meal, and I’m not talking about the extra-tasty maple and ginger flavoring.  It’s a biological weapon.  It’s a way to harm the enemy, but only through harming prisoners of war.  It’s a social dilemma the like of which we rarely see in children’s books.  It’s a lesson in decision making under uncertainty.  It’s a moral imperative, but no one is quite sure what that imperative is saying.  It’s a deconstruction of the implied assumption that it’s possible to write adventure stories in which no one gets hurt.  It’s awesome.  It’s hilarious.  It’s disturbing as fuck.  Welcome to Animorphs.