#lj reads animorphs

[tfw-no-tennis]

animorphssss.....2!

ok one L abt reading the series on my ereader is that the flipbook illustrations arent there ;_; those were my favvvvv

anyways I love animorphs still

I feel like I'll end up repeating myself a lot during these little liveblogs lmao but mannnn it’s so good. its so hardcore. like I know that that’s the whole Thing but I still get shocked by some of the stuff that happens 

like a big theme in the series centers around the morality of killing your enemies - and it’s so all over the place bc in book 6 you have jake boiling a bunch of yeerks alive, which is kinda gnarly if you think abt it, but the alternative would be to leave them there and let them infest people soo...? and that’s basically the point, that there are never any easy choices in war 

also I went on the animorphs wiki to look at trivia bc I love doing that and I cant BELIEVE (some of) the books were reissued in 2011 and they changed/removed some of the references to be more ‘modern’ omfg....talk about erasing 90s culture smh 

likeeee I was born in 97 so I didn't exactly grow up in the 90s and therefore some of the references go over my head but its so charming and fun to have them there! and it makes sense given that the books are SET in the 90s

I don't remember ever being confused by any of the references as a kid (tho for sure a lot of them went over my head), but then again I read the books in like 2008 sooo

also some of the stuff that they change - like changing ‘recorded w/a vcr’ to ‘recorded w/the TV’ or ‘floppy disc’ to ‘flash drive’ may make more sense to modern audiences, but doesn't make sense in the context of the story still being set in the 90s

tho it is funny that the books use the phrase ‘hook up’ to mean ‘meet up’ a lot bc that is a phrase that definitely has a different meaning nowadays

alsooooo as it turns out I'm p sure I only read a couple of the spinoffs - the hork-bajir chronicles and the ellimist chronicles (which was confusing lmao), bc my library didn’t have the others :( 2007/2008 woes....

but now I get to read the spinoffs woooooooo so I read the first megamorphs and the andalite chronicles 

I'm reading them in the chronological order (I think?) which is good bc part of the problem was that I read the ellimist book at a completely weird time and it confused me more lmao

megamorphs 1 basically felt like a regular animorphs book except longer, but the plot didn't feel like it needed all that extra page space tbh? even so it was an entertaining adventure

and rachel having amnesia was great, amnesia is one of my fav tropes lmao. and it was a lot of fun here, though a bit underutilized 

another favorite trope of mine is time travel, so I'm gonna have a really fun time here w/that

as for the andalite chronicles, I really enjoyed that one. I thought it was a well done story about the horrors of war (which is a theme animorphs does excellently), kind of similar to the overarching story of the whole series, but fit into one book without feeling rushed

the way the story starts out with elfangor wanting to be a hero, not understanding what that entails, to the end where he IS going to be a hero, and he knows now that this is a burden rather than a reward 

the horror elements are also really strong, with the taxxon morph being horrifying of course

and mannnn I loved that we got to see more of the taxxons as a species, and see that not all taxxons submitted to the yeerks - which breaks the previous theme of ‘all the taxxons are evil just because’ 

this book also establishes that the taxxons gave themselves over to the yeerks due to their constant hunger being unbearable, so it isn’t just that they’re evil for fun 

animorphs does such an excellent job showing that each ‘side’ of a war will have good and bad (or at least sympathetic and unsympathetic) people 

also loren was awesome, what a cool character. though I didn't realize she was literally like 13 until the very end of the book, holy shit. that's crazy. i thought she was 16 at the youngest....geez. her throwing a rock at visser 3 is even more iconic knowing she's a middle schooler at the time

and chapman was here! I'm assuming this must be the same chapman as the assistant principal controller... I thought it was a little strange to put chapman in that role, bc in this book he was a huge asshole basically the entire time, but in the previous (’future’) book it was revealed that he became a controller willingly only to spare his daughter, which is pretty far from this book where he’s actively trying to sell humanity out to the yeerks...people change I guess? (also he got his memory erased so I guess there's that)

alloran was a really interesting character. horrors of war again - we hear from his old buddy that he used to be a fun, witty guy, but war changed him into somebody who would do horrible things 

and him becoming a controller was horrifying, obviously, but I like that alloran wasn't portrayed as some perfect, holy guy in order to make it all the more tragic when he got infested. its already fucked up enough as it is, and making him flawed was a lot more meaningful 

and him wanting to flush all the yeerks out into space....oooooof the (later) parallels hurt 

plus the fact that elfangor refusing to commit genocide against the helpless yeerks (even though they’re the enemy) directly contributing to alloran becoming a controller.....oof. I love that it shows that even making the morally correct decisions during war can lead to awful things happening, but not in a way that endorses evil actions - the story isn’t saying that elfangor should have killed the yeerks, it’s saying that there are no good choices in war 

arbron being trapped as a taxxon was fucked up. but also really intriguing, especially how he found purpose and led a free taxxon uprising. I don't remember if we hear from him/the free taxxons again but I hope so

also the plot twist of tobias being elfangors SON...bruh. I do remember that despite not having read this book so it must come up in the main story later but my memory of that is vauge so I’m excited to see how that plays out. it’s always gonna be hilarious to me that ax is technically tobias’s uncle 

and then the ellimist drops in and wacks up the time stream even more. classic. I love the crazy time travel stuff in animorphs

omfg and the bits where elfangor is a human tech guy and talked about his friends bill and steve LMAOOOOO

also the scene where elfangor drives the yellow mustang while blasting '(I cant get no) satisfaction’ by the rolling stones was one of the most iconic things I've ever read

basically I loved all the angles of war fucking people up. from loren’s dad, to alloran, to elfangor himself learning about the true horrors of war...v well done imo

ok back to the main series - so my pick for the most fucked up scene SO FAR (in my own personal opinion) - the scene where they're in the jungle and rachel passes out in bear morph and a bunch of rainforest ants start EATING HER ALIVE and like crawling into her ears and mouth and HGGGGGG that was genuinely so fucking disturbing

its a good thing that the time travel made it so rachel couldn't remember that bc that was fuuuuucked

another contender is a scene we don't actually see - erek having his capacity for violence instated and then slaughtering a ton of human and hork-bajir controllers 

like damn, you know its fucked up when its too fucked up for ANIMORPHS to even ‘show.’ this is a series that doesn't pull punches but evidentially that would've been Too Much to actually portray (understandably). also i feel like seeing the aftermath/everyone’s reactions had more of an impact than describing erek killing a bunch of people would have

also I forgot that marco Literally Fucking Dies during that scene and that's why he doesn't get to see the slaughter. wow

and then in the very next book JAKE dies too. jesus

oh it was also so sad and fucked up when marco’s dad told him that he and his wife used to fight sometimes, but then all of a sudden they stopped fighting, and their relationship was basically entirely peaceful and perfect - and this is how marco knows exactly when his mom was made into a controller, bc of course a yeerk wouldn't care enough to get into petty arguments like that....ooooof

Okay and book 15 really got me...that was fucking heavy man. Geeeez. Everything w/Marco and his mom is so fucked uppppp

Like he literally has to deal with so much awful traumatizing shit. The scene where he pretends to be a controller and is face to face w/visser one and THAT HIS MOM but he can’t even do anything, and he just sees the evil in her eyes and thinks about how there’s no way she had been controlled by a yeerk that long before bc he’s never seen her look like that...that was so fucking sad.

Plus Marcos mom now thinking that Marco is a controller...aughh...and then later Marco knows he can’t even think-speak to her bc he’ll just talk about everything he’s wanted to talk about to his mom this whole time... ;_;

And the parts where Marcos humor slips and the utter rage he feels towards the situation comes through...man

Plus everything about him being understandably afraid of sharks after being nearly torn in half by one back during their first dolphin adventure

Augh oh and jake telling Marco that everyone can tell something is up bc Marco isn’t joking around and talking about how insane their plan is like usual, so Marco fakes it sand does all that even tho he’s terrified and conflicted...aughhhh

Ok and the last scene where Marco is thinking about a future where he and his parents can talk plainly about how awful and traumatizing everything is, and then eventually they’ll feel okay enough to joke about it, bc Marcos mom is the one who taught him to look at the funny side of life...Oh The Pain

There were a lot of great fucked up individual lines in this book too. I’m just so sad about these poor middle schoolers jfc

Also I do distinctly remember the scene where they collapse the shark tank at Ocean World or w/e, it was weird af reading it bc I remembered none of the rest of the book but got weird deja vu reading that scene and remembering having read it like 13+ years ago

if it’s not clear by now I have a pretty terrible memory for media which is honestly good bc then I can reread things and it’s like new

Also jake...man...I said it previously but I was kinda eh about jake when I first read these bc he’s kinda the ‘basic’ character, but now I find his story much more interesting

His conflict over being leader is really good. KAA does a fantastic job capturing the pressure he’s under bc he was chosen by his friends to be the leader, so he REALLY can’t back out, and he doesn’t necessarily feel up to it, but feels he has no choice in the matter...

And constantly having to make really difficult decisions that could get his friends killed...geez. It’s so much pressure. And he talks about wanting to go back to being a normal kid when this is all over, and it kinda strikes me as him being in denial - like, there’s no way things can ever be ‘normal’ again, but that’s his way of coping.

Especially with Tom and all that. That conflict is so compelling...jake having to play all these different roles - as leader, as a son/student, as a regular brother to Tom - he’s constantly having to act a certain way and rarely gets to be Himself

It’s actually kinda relatable in a way - that feeling of being In Charge, but in a somewhat abstract and informal way, so you feel like regular old you, but you have to carefully regulate how you act bc the people around you expect a certain standard of behavior from you...

And all the morally grey situations they’re put in are fucked up, but especially for jake who has the final say on what they do, even when knowing it could lead to his friends being killed or made into controllers

Like in the book with the cannibal yeerk guy - there’s basically no good choices there. Jake lets the cannibal live, and (at first) implies that it’s for the best that he’s cannibalizing other yeerks and therefore helping get rid of some yeerks - except that he kills their hosts too

but the alternative would be to directly kill another human being who isn't actively fighting/resisting you, which is a fucked up thing for a middle schooler to have to do 

And the conflict between jake and Cassie is really excellent bc jake has to make these awful decisions, and Cassie is the type of person who can’t stand that sort of thing, so it gets left up to jake a lot, but then she’s upset with jake for doing something awful, even while knowing that there were no better options

like, her asking jake to kill the cannibal guy for her was really fucked up, but also entirely understandable for cassie as a character to ask. it was an emotionally charged situation, and cassie is an emotional person. she’s also somebody who like to Act, to do concrete good, and getting rid of an Evil Bad Guy in front of her would be a definite action

But Cassie is a great source of morality to the group - most of them are pretty jaded, but Cassie is able to hope in a way none of the rest are. It creates a really compelling dynamic between jake and Cassie that I kinda dismissed when I was like 10 or w/e

Also the scene where jake as a fly gets crushed and starts dying? Seriously fucked. And then after when he’s nearly breaking down in the airport and Cassie comforts him...that was a really good scene. Cassie is so good  

And the continuity is so excellent - I love how in book 17, Cassie (and jake to an extent) doesn’t really weigh in on the moral debate abt the oatmeal bc she’s still shaken up by asking jake to murder a guy for her, and then (presumably) going ahead and lighting his house on fire when jake doesn’t kill him

And augh jake and Marco have such a good and interesting dynamic - the entire group kinda pushes each other into their respective ‘roles’ in the group, but for a few books that’s really true for jake and marco

I don't remember what book it was but at some point marco (I think) mentions that jake understands what marco is dealing with w/his mom being a controller bc of tom, but that they don’t talk about it bc they ‘don't talk about stuff like that’ or something and I'm just like noooo talk to each other :( 

but at this point jake feels like he can’t really express doubt and fear and stuff like that bc he’s the Leader and they look to him to be strong (which is ironically very similar to how rachel feels), and marco feels like he can’t be serious bc he’s the funny guy. 

Basically I love all the different dynamics in the group. How Cassie and Rachel are such opposites but are best friends and get along well, while Marco and Cassie are more directly opposed - as jake says, Marco is ruthless, and Cassie definitely isn’t. Rachel and Marco are also pretty different which is interesting, bc they have a lot in common, and actually agree on a lot (even if they disagree out loud) but their commonalities combined with their circumstances make them react very differently to the same situations

I also love seeing the differences between characters from each other’s POV - like, p much all the characters think that Rachel is completely fearless, but when the book is from her POV, we get to see that that isn’t true at all - she feels plenty of fear, but she recognizes that her role in the group is to be the fearless one, so she pushes aside her fear to fit into that role (which inadvertently pushes her more and more into that ‘fearless warrior’ box - something that happens to all the characters more and more as the story goes on, like jake as ‘the leader’ and Marco as ‘the jokester’).

Also I loooove the grey morality of literally everything. Like the book where ax discovers an andalite traitor - not a controller, just an andalite who betrayed them to the yeerks. This leads to the deaths of like a hundred other andalites, and that whole scene you really just feel for ax, bc he feels so awful about everyone else dying while he escapes, yet he’s also so grateful to be alive, which he in turn feels bad about...

And ax’s conflict about being torn between his home w/his fellow andalites and his new home on earth w/his friends is great

And oh man I fucking love book 19. Any of the books where it goes more into the yeerks and their side of things are so good, just like the book where jake was made into a controller.

And book 19, where we meet a sympathetic yeerk, comes right after 18, where we meet an andalite traitor - again, I love how we clearly see that no one side is completely good or completely bad

So yeah book 19 fucking slapped. That shit was so compelling. I love how Cassie made a bunch of foolish decisions based on naïve hope, but it worked out!! Things aren’t always bleak and awful!

Except there were plenty bleak and awful parts of this book. It had a great balance of moods tbh, even though a lot of the situations were extremely contrived lmao. I love the stuff that aftran says, which is basically what I was thinking when I started my reread - being a yeerk fucking sucks, you’re literally a blind slug but also completely and fully sentient, on the same level as humans and andalites - and as afran pointed out this book, the yeerks are born as parasites, just as humans are born as predators - why is it okay for the humans to kill countless animals to eat, but not for the yeerks to enslave races to act as hosts? Well, the situation isn’t totally comparable, which Cassie and Marco both point out when aftran makes that comparison - the yeerks are enslaving sentient species, and cows and chickens are not the same as the humans and hork-bajir (though the story understandably doesn’t fall too deeply into the ‘who deserves what right/animal sentience’ rabbit hole).

And I like that aftran points out that the yeerks basically have 2 options currently - stay helpless and blind in a yeerk pool, or enslave a host. It’s interesting to hear that a lot of yeerks don’t like doing this but see it as the only options, as opposed to complete sensory deprivation. It makes me wonder if there are yeerks who are so staunchly against it that they elect to stay as pool-bound slugs forever

Also maybe it’s the shounen anime fan in me but I don’t even care that much that Cassie’s entire plan was completely off the rails and hinged on only the slightest chance of success - with failure being much more likely and completely catastrophic, with the animorphs and their loved ones all being wiped out, vs success being unlikely and also achieving...a moral victory? Peace between two enemy combatants in a huge war? nothing all that concrete...anyways it was a bunch of good-faith horrible decisions on Cassie’s part, but I don’t even care? I love stories where hope and love save the day against all odds, especially when they’re wielded like weapons by a character and make everything end nicely

This is especially true here bc animorphs is generally a series that leans very far away from that type of thing, so when it does happen, it feels like a victory. Plus the David trilogy is next so we kinda need a happy ending while we can

also bc I compared animorphs to hxh last time, I now have to compare it to the other series I've (partially) liveblogged, transformers mtmte.

this is gonna be more abstract and brief but basically. mtmte is all about after the war, and everyone has so much trauma and everything just sucks, so they all go on a space cruise and work on themselves. basically.

but the series does a lot of exploration of how war fucks people up - same as animorphs, tho animorphs spans the beginning of the war (for the main characters at least) until the end, whereas mtmte starts when the war ends.

but the point is. both series do an excellent job showcasing the wide range of reactions people have to being put in unthinkable situations during wartime. all the major characters in mtmte go through arcs where they heal/change from the war, some more subtle than others

basically the animorphs needs to go on a wacky space cruise adventure with a bunch of other fucked up people and figure their shit out, mtmte style

ok this is wicked long already so I’m gonna end it here. also I feel like I should start the next liveblog w/the david triology bc I’m for sure gonna have a lot to say abt that

[suzukiblu]

Fic Writer Meme

Tagged by my dear @dancinbutterfly, and like, obviously I will take any excuse to talk about writing.

.

1) how many works do you have on ao3?

168, although a few of those are podfics that the podficcer credited me as a co-author on. Actually less than I would’ve expected, tbh.

2) what is your total ao3 word count?

1,431,989. Honestly also kinda less than I would’ve expected at this point. I will blame all those old fics I never brought over from LJ and ff.net for this expectation.

3) how many fandoms have you written for, and what are they?

I literally cannot tell you, the ancient ways have been lost to me. I can give you my Ao3 fandoms, though!

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Overwatch

The Witcher (Netflix)

Young Justice (Cartoon)

Animorphs

Star Wars

Good Omens

Venom

Fantastic Four

Leverage

League of Legends

Daredevil

Supernatural

Care Bears

World of Warcraft

Spider-Man

X-Men

Slender Man Mythos

Additionally, long ago: Naruto, Gundam Wing, Digimon, Ranma ½, Bleach, Inu-Yasha, and many scattered other fandoms of my youth. So, so many others. So I’ve written for 25+ fandoms, at least.

4) what are your top 5 fics by Kudos.

a mark, a mission, a brand, a scar (13004)

I once started out to walk around the world but ended up in Brooklyn (8450)

it’s a long way forward (so trust in me) (6965)

oh don’t you dare look back, just keep your eyes on me (6818)

if the bad times are coming let ‘em come (5362)

5) do you respond to comments?

Not really these days, though I hoard and treasure them like a freaking DRAGON. I used to respond to all of them but sometimes I’m just not around and then it becomes awkwardly late to reply and also they kinda . . . pile up a bit. I do try to answer all the comments with questions in them, at least, as long as the questions aren’t literally spoilers or anything like that.

6) what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I don’t usually write super-angsty endings, I think? I don’t FEEL like I usually write super-angsty endings, anyway, at least not these days. I think I did it more often when I was more into, like, drabbles and shortfic. Now I just spend way too long on stuff to give it a downer ending.

The most recent angsty ending I can think of is wanna hold him, maybe I’ll just sing about it, though eventually I did write a sequel to that to soften the blow a bit. And also torment people a bit. Both, technically. Technically both.

7) What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

blondes really do have more fun, definitely. It’s very . . . giddy, I guess? What with the gender euphoria and all. There’s angst and heavy emotions in the actual plot but the highs of the happy parts/ending are probably the highest/happiest ones I’ve written, and Supergirl gets everything she wants without having to compromise or give up anything else.

8) do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve ever written?

I write fusion fic more than crossovers, really, but I have written a LOT of fusion fic. Some of it has been weirder than others, tbh, but probably the Avatar: The Last Airbender/Animorphs fusion that I have been lovingly slaving over deserves to be this answer if only for how much extremely sincere effort I have put into it over the years.

9) have you ever received hate on a fic?

Mild hate, but occasionally. I don’t really tend to remember negative comments, tbh, though it does sometimes make me not want to reread the comment section I know they’re in. But a lot of the hate I’ve gotten in the end just seemed like socially-awkward people being unnecessarily blunt instead of just hitting the back button, so I try not to take it personally. Can’t please everyone. Don’t WANT to please everyone, frankly.

10) Do you write smut? What kind?

Yes, and the kind is “a lot”. Sometimes I don’t really feel like it but definitely I have done a lot of it. I try for Feelings and also to be safe, sane, and consensual as much as I can.

11) have you ever had a fic stolen?

I . . . am not sure? Though probably, after being at this for all this time. Someone once told me that someone picked up a fic I’d (at the time) abandoned and just started writing/posting more of it without asking or telling me about it, but I never actually found said fic and I don’t know if that technically counts as “stealing” anyway.

12) have you ever had a fic translated?

A few times, yup, it’s pretty gratifying! I also like to run them back through Google Translate and see what they say, haha.

13) have you ever co-written a fic before?

yoooo @dancinbutterfly, @rainnecassidy! Also done it with a few other people long, LONG ago, but that was back in the LJ era. Don’t think I’ve technically collabed with anyone else lately, although sometimes people will give me ideas for stuff I’m writing or offer suggestions when I’m stuck on a thing, which is very helpful.

14) what’s your favourite ship?

Like . . . per fandom? ‘Cuz we could be here a while. Most recently it’s Jaskier/Geralt, for a while it was Aziraphale/Crowley, DEFINITELY for a while it was Steve/Bucky . . .

You know, I guess technically my all-time favorite ship is actually Naruto/Sasuke, because I made a LOT of friends in Naruto fandom and it actually hugely influenced the end of my teenage years and beginning of my adult life and so, SO much of my writing. So like, if nothing else it wins on influentialness.

15) what’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Let ‘Em Come. @rainnecassidy and I wrote that AU a long-ass time ago now and I never did my half of the sequel fic because I got too distracted with another longfic I was working on at the time and then took a real long fandom break. I always felt kind of bad about it because people seemed to bother her for said sequel more than they bothered ME for it, since her fic was the last posted part. Unfortunately I just don’t have the spoons or the MCU-focus for the research and effort it’d take anymore. Also, like . . . it’d probably be pretty long, so unless I was REAL obsessive about it it’d take a good long while.

Basically I think its time has just passed at this point, alas.

16) what are your writing strengths?

Sex, action, snark, and weird fusion fics. Also making people love things they usually hate, that’s one I get told a lot.

17) what are your writing weaknesses?

Fitting physical descriptions of . . . literally ANYTHING into the story. Just, anything. Physical descriptions are hard.

18) what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in fic?

I try not to do it, personally, because I know soooooo very little about other languages. Sometimes I’ll sprinkle in a little bit of it, but usually I feel like it’s better to avoid it, personally.

19) what was the first fandom you wrote for?

I literally could not even tell you. The first fandom I REMEMBER writing proper “fic” for was . . . Ranma ½, I think. I thiiiiink. But that was a long-ass time ago and I never even posted it anywhere because those were the days when I despised typing things up beyond all measure, hah. And before that I remember writing Animorphs . . . comics? Storyboards? Something like that. Kind of a cross between the two.

20) what’s your favourite fic you’ve ever written?

I do not know! There’s really just too many, tbh. Some top options are you found me when no one else was looking, best friends means you get what you deserve, clay kids, Avamorphs, handmaiden!Anakin, oh don’t you dare look back, just keep your eyes on me, and . . . and I could go on for a dang MINUTE, honestly, haha, I’m just gonna stop myself here before I get too carried away.

.

I tag whoever happens to be reading this that wants to be tagged; have fun with it!

[dastardly-lemondrops]

I read so many books and there is something seriously wrong with me that makes me almost completely unable to enjoy any fiction book I read. I feel dead to it tbh, apart from animorphs and harry potter fanfiction. Like that's probably the reason I've read almost exclusively nonfiction since I was in my mid 20s but I've been sticking with this one fiction series that my mom read and recommended to me and I kind of hate it but in a way that I've come to think about it endearingly as "that book series I hate but am continuing to read"

Not to get too personal but a lot of this is because my guardians and teachers made me feel like some kind of obsessed freak for enjoying animorphs to like, a neurodivergent degree when I was in elementary school. HP was kind of my second attempt at enjoying fiction. I read it at 19 with the specific intention of being able to read fanfiction but my otp was so "problematic" that that became something I felt like I needed to hide and be ashamed of too. This was in the era of the great purges of FF and LJ to give context on what I mean. I actually stopped working on my comic and all HP fanart for a few years because of that, and coming back to it was incredibly cathartic, like I was done punishing myself for liking the "wrong" things. I also started re-reading animorphs because I had stopped reading them out of fear and shame as a kid and never finished the series. All this time, I'd been getting more courage to be kinder to myself and my wants and started making some original characters and stories. Tbh they're nothing like the fics/comics I write now, and I have no idea if the people who follow my work now will go on to follow my original stuff when I'm ready to start making it, but even if no one does, this fandom has been a safe, healing place for me to accept myself and allow myself to enjoy creating the kinds of things I like to create. I'm not going anywhere or anything, I just felt like talking about this because I saw someone else sort of talk about something similar, and I wanted to say how much this fandom means for me in my life. It's literally the thing that has gotten me to the point of being able to make comics and illustrations and tell stories.

[demenior]

For the Fanfic Questions: 3, 5, 9, 13,34, 54!

3. What is your most popular fanfic?

There's a few names in the ring depending on how you look at popular, but overall I think Royally Screwed is most popular!

5. What fanfic of yours should everyone have read?

I'm gonna say Little Monster because I think it's my magnum opus and I think is very well executed tragedy with an (arguably) triumphant ending. Or maybe the Switch the Beat series as a whole.

Or the The Love It Takes series. I think I did a really good job on crafting a magic system with limitations, on aligning the supernatural elements of Spn in a way that flows with some semblance of logic and consistency, made the non-human characters very non-human AND did my best to showcase how the Winchesters are products of their upbringing, and all the ways they've grown along their adventures.

9. What are your favorite fanfics?

My biggest fandom secret is that I don't read fic these days. That being said, here are my all time favs that I have read more than once over the years:

1. The Pushing Boundaries Series (Jurassic World, it's delightfully soft and grounded despite the premise being 'man forms psychic bond with dinosaurs') Hilariously I do NOT like the JW movies, and so I could not tell you how I ended up reading this series but I'm so glad I did.

2. Nine Eleven Ten. Xmfc and Beauty and the Beast mashup. Also a 'history of earth au where the cold war devolved into nuclear war' story. Absolutely insane worldbuilding and a masterclass of storytelling.

3. Named. Spn fic that had THEE most creative twist and delightful character voice I'd read at the time, and I still come back to it for the fun and drama of a good story.

4. Thursday's Child. Another Spn fic that was one of thee OG endverse stories. I originally read it on lj haha.

13. What is your planning process?

Get idea (usually cool Story Climax scenario)

Think about the idea a lot

Vibe on the cool idea even more

Finally think about where you would have to start the story to get the big emotional whammy of the Cool Story Climax Scenario

Decide not to write it

Start free-writing it

Now that I've started writing a scene, get a better feel for where the story needs to start

Make bullet point list of ideas to fit into fic

Organize list into a semblance of plot

Make sure there's character beats for main characters

Final scan to make sure ideas and concepts aren't falling into negative tropes or traits

Realize this can be finished in about 10k

????

I've written 40k and it's still not done

34. How did you find the magical world of fanfics?

I started writing self-insert animorphs fic, and self-insert stories about my and my friends into all of our fav media (notably my fav trope at this age was that I, me, Dem, kept having a limb eaten off because I thought it was cool). At some point in this time I was introduced to the concept of fanfic where other people would write the stories I wanted to read, and that I could post??? And get instant gratification??? I was hooked.

44. Does fanart of your fanfic exist?

I have been hashtag BLESSED to get so much fanart for a variety of works. I need to actually make a fanart tag to put it all under, but my Prince Rahjim tag is full of art, I got amazing art for To Exist Again (all from Rowingviolahere) and some beautiful art of Haggar/Malch for Little Monster from Ariasune. Not to mention all of Gitwrecked's incredible art and character designs for Lay to Waste AND the visualization of Shiro's combo druid/warrior armor. ALSO Kickingshoe's beautiful art for Alignment to Cry!!

[fishmech]

so as i was mentioning earlier today about my first fanfic experience being animorphs stuff from before even ff.net or lj existed... the earliest revisions of these pages preserved do slightly postdate ff.net’s founding, but that’s probably just an artifact of how difficult it is to pull up stuff surviving on archive from that time.

these were from a site directly linked to by the yahoo directory for animorphs/ka applegate and the stories do seem vaguely familiar so i may well have read them all that time ago!

for simplicity of getting to the stories - since some browsers don’t like how broken the page is, here’s the links and summaries from the page in normal tumblr format after a read more

  THE UNTOLD STORIES

"Read and learn what you must know"---Cassie

These are the stories that have not been told. They are the missing link to a new future. An end to come. A new rebirth that we must face. It is important you know these stories. You must prepare yourself. Prepare for a new life. For a new understanding. For a new beginning . . .

THE TWINS These stories are created by Alyxandria AKA MoonlightWolf. Very well done I would say.

PROLOUGE

Read. Understand who Loki trully is...

THE COMING

Ax and Tobias keep having odd dreams about a Female Andalite searching for her brother. What is the connection to Tobias and Ax's dreams and that Andalite? Could there be some sort of relation? Will the ANIMORPHS reach this Andalite in time before Visser Three gets to her?

THE UNITED

Some strange things have been happening since Loki came into the ANIMORPHS' paths. Ketate is more aggressive, Tobias keeps having these dreams and odd psychic messages from Loki still, Ax has become more suspicious, and Loki has been acting more human like then Andalite. What is wrong?

E-mail Alyxandria at: alyxandriaj@hotmail.com

LEXIA'S DREAM These stories are created by OceanAngel. Nice and detailed! Original plot also.

PROLOUGE

You must read this first. If not you will be lost...

MORE TO COME!

E-mail OceanAngel at: ocean_of_angels@hotmail.com

This place is for Fan-Fiction. Yep. This is the place where you e-mail me your stories. BUT there is one rule. Try to be original. Like THE TWINS for instence. It was originaly created by Alyxandria AKA SilverFalcon, SilverWolf. If you want a new character in it try to make sense about it. I like original stories. They surprise you! Make you jump! Like K. A. Applegate work jump!

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page

[i-wakeupstrange]

can’t sleep, start reading the fanlore article on animorphs

realize i... kind of completely forgot that, uh, i created one of the major fic sites and helped mod the lj fic community back in the ancient days of the early aughts

[honorarycassowary]

4, 6, 17, 25?

what’s a fic that changed the way you write?

I don’t know if it’s had an effect, but I absolutely WANT to write like urbanAnchorite wrote The Serendipity Gospels. It’s so vivid and emotional and darkly hilarious, and the narration is colored by the viewpoint characters so well. I’ve read her professionally published stories too, and she’s one of my favorite authors. I aspire to write like her.

fic you’d recommend to someone new in the fandom?

my blog is multifandom chaos so I’m not sure if you had a fandom in mind, so I’m gonna give this my all:

If you’re new to Tolkien & Silmarillion fanfic, I’d definitely recommend And What Happened After. It’s post-LOTR fic set in Valinor, and it captures the characters’ voices incredibly well.

For TAZ, I’d recommend Lunar Interlude: Something New. It’s a fake episode written script-style, complete with made-up crosstalk between the McElroys. Which I guess makes this the only piece of RPF I’ve ever enjoyed. Hmm.

For Animorphs, is my stereo on is a good choice. Marco and Ax’s voices are great, and it mixes the horror/sadness of their PTSD with their goofy, extremely 90s alien/teen shenanigans well.

I recommend Heroic for Homestuck. It’s an AU that’s rooted in the canon doomed timeline where Vriska fought Jack Noir, explores the Aradia/Vriska and Vriska/Terezi relationships in an interesting way, and has a cool take on how god tiers work.

I recommend She Got Both Feet on the Ground for RvB. This was the first RvB fic I ever read! Like Heroic, it’s got an immediately accessible AU premise (Carolina keeps Sigma), good characterization, and expansion on canonical relationships.

My Transformers rec is a little more unusual. It’s Poetics: The Cybertronian Tradition, and I’m recommending it because goddamn it, it’s one of my favorite fics and nobody will ever rec this but me. Plus it’s on LJ so it’s harder to find. It’s very unusual in form, tone, and content for a Transformers fic (and really for fanfic in general), and I want it to get wider recognition.

That covers the fandoms I’ve blogged about in the past week! 

any crazy first-time fanfiction experiences?

The very first story I wrote in Transformers fandom was about the scene in TFP where the dark energon zombies rise up. Someone posted the following comment: Not what I was expecting. Good. bit short. Half expected a horror short story of over-sexed zombies reanimated by dark energon craving some smexy action after theyre long time going without any action at all (due to being dead of course- but hey got to wonder if they wouldn't have the itch after reanimating- be it the 7 yr itch or the 7 million yr itch). Maybe you could do a lusting zombies go after their reanimator Megatron story in the future? Hope so. This was good but not what I expected from the description. 

For reference here, my age was clearly stated in my bio as 14, and they asked me to write robot zombie rape porn. 

name three fics you just discovered

the greater craftsman (The Silmarillion), Watch the Roots (Homestuck), If I Speak for the Dead (RvB)

[tfw-no-tennis]

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....

[tfw-no-tennis]

animorphs!!!

ok I read animorphs when I was 10 or 11 I think? and I only read it once, along w/the spinoffs and stuff, and I've always meant to revisit it...SO HERE I AM....

and oh MAN I forgot how good this series is. like I knew it was good but some things from your childhood don't hold up yknow? especially books aimed at younger audiences

but oh boy does animorphs hold up. they're easy to read and perfectly balance the line between dark/adult topics and more kid-friendly lessons. excellent 

so yeah I'm loving it so far. I forgot how fast some stuff happens lmao, like I forgot that tobias gets trapped as a bird in the FIRST BOOK 

also I just adore how realistically disorganized/confused the animorphs are. like, they got the elevator pitch version of the conflict from elfangor before my mans got eaten, and also they're middle schoolers. of course they’re always just like ‘wtf do we even do’ 

so like...their plans mostly don't work. and even when planning they run into tons of logistical issues w/morphing, traveling, communicating etc. 

and I love how they clearly need to maintain their normal lives as well in order not to raise any suspicion 

and I like the little details like them not spending all their time together at school because they didn’t before so that would be suspicious

oh man and I love the different family dynamics in the series. you have jake, whose family seems pretty normal until we find out that tom is a controller, and rachel, whose parents are divorced, and who has to deal w/the complications of that. and then cassie, who is an only child (I like that we have a mix, with rachel and jake having siblings), and of course marco...

iirc marco was one of my favs (if not my fav, but its hard to choose) back in the day, and I forgot how reluctant he was to participate in the animorphs thing...and the fact that he was about to quit the team and then runs into visser 1.....

another fucked up little moment I liked - when they morphed dolphin and marco had to morph back to human bc he gets injured and he was like ‘I cant swim, and my mom drowned, I don't want to die like she did’ I was like oooof

also on that topic I adore how little the animorphs know about how anything works. like they once wondered if there's a limit to how many morphs they can acquire and they were basically like ‘idk guess we’ll find out’ 

and then when marco got injured as a dolphin and they were like ‘morph back I guess and hopefully you'll be okay?’ like damn luckily that worked 

basically these books do The Most Excellent Job showing that these are just kids. like they're literally in jr high which is 90s speak for middle school....they're like 13???? at most???

and the narrative reflects that perfectly!! all of them, even rachel who is pretty much the most gung-ho about fighting and stuff, have nightmares and all these terrible experiences bc they don't have basically any guidance 

and even with ax, it’s immediately obvious that he’s also just a kid, even though he’s this deadly alien....

also oh mannnn I love so much how we’re introduced to the andalites as this heroic race and how that slowly changes over the course of the story 

like, when elfangor introduces himself as ‘prince’ you assume he’s part of the andalite monarchy - but later we find out that ‘prince’ is a military rank, and the andalites are a lot more militaristic than we would assume at the beginning 

its so fantastic how it starts off as a fairly black and white conflict of andalites = good guy aliens and yeerks = bad guy aliens

and you even have some background stuff going on w/the taxxons being controllers by choice, and the hork-bajir being enslaved 

but as the story goes on, all of those lines get blurred in different ways...

also ooof the poor hork-bajir. I always felt so bad for them. it’s crazy that even in the first book, the animorphs are killing their enemies - at least I inferred that in book 1, but it becomes way more overt later on...the tough situation of them knowing that the hork-bajir are unwilling hosts but that they’re so dangerous that not killing them could be fatal to the good guys

and ngl this time around I have a lot more sympathy for the yeerks, even tho they don't really deserve it (at least in the early parts of the story where I am rn)

like...they're just these blind helpless slug creatures, but they're also fully sentient and intelligent? like, that's so fucked up. imagine yourself as you are now, but you're just a sensory deprived slug swimming in a pool. that's pretty fucked. and then the fact that the yeerks are biologically made to be parasites...its kinda no wonder that they ended up the way they are (and it also makes stuff like the yeerk peace movement really compelling)

also wow I kinda forgot about all the body horror w/the morphing. like ik that's one of the things that animorphs is known for but like. I forgot how much it happens and how creative the horrifying descriptions are. I love it

and omfg so when I first read this series the ellimist stuff confused me a lot bc I didn't read the books That closely (I mostly wanted to see what would happen next) but I loooove time travel bullshit so I’m really enjoying it so far

even tho tbh I think even if I had paid more attention as a 10 yr old I still would've been confused bc the ellimist stuff is kinda just inherently confusing lmao 

ok and I just love the characters,,,I love that the books switch perspectives, and KAA did such a masterful job of portraying differing and realistic reactions to their situation....like, all the animorphs react so differently to their circumstances, but their reactions are all so grounded in realism and also their personalities 

like man I love rachel. she was one of my favs as a kid too bc I always loved female characters and she was just so cool. and she still is, and so excellently written too 

liiiike the fact that even though she’s so tough and brave, she’s still a kid and has plenty of moments when she’s scared or uncertain...

and I just really like the fact that she out of all of them is the one who’s tough and loves to fight...and the fact that she also unapologetically loves shopping and stuff like that...its about the multifaced characters

just like how marco is the ‘funny guy’ but they make it very clear from the beginning that this is his way of coping w/shit like his family falling apart, and then alien BS 

and also marco is really smart? I kinda forgot abt that (sorry marco) but I like that bc that's uncommon to see with ‘funny’ characters

oh mannnn and ax. I love ax. I forgot a whole bunch about the early stuff w/him and how conflicted he was w/keeping secrets from the other animorphs

KAA did such a fantastic job w/ax - he really comes across as the perfect mix of ‘fish out of water alien’ and ‘young teen/tween’ and ‘alien from a strict militaristic society who is in training to become a soldier like his famous older brother’ 

n that was so sad n fucked up when he called the andalite home world and had to tell everyone (including his parents) that elfangor died, and then the elders or w/e forced ax to take blame for elfangor breaking their laws in order to preserve elfangor’s postmortem reputation, even at the cost of ax’s career/life :( 

and man I loved the part where ax is like ‘well, we didn't help the hork-bajir even tho we could have and now they're all enslaved. I'm not letting that happen to the humans’ and the council or w/e is like ‘well you should let it happen, don't interfere’ and ax basically realizes oh shit sometimes adults are wrong 

basically I love the conflict there, where the andalites are the ones who gave the yeerks the technology that led to them spreading across the galaxy like a disease, and now fight to stop them due to their guilt, but also refuse to directly help the less advanced species who are being invaded by the yeerks for fear of making a similar mistake like w/the yeerks....

ooooof and the part where ax is like ‘guess I have to go fight visser 3 and die’ :( he’s just a babyyyy

and augh when alloran asks them to kill him....geeeez there’s so much fucked up stuff already and I'm not even in the double digits yet 

oh my god and the brutally awful fact that any freed controller will just get tracked down by the yeerks and murdered so the secret invasion stays secret...and the animorphs think that by destroying the kandrona they've freed a bunch of controllers but really they just signed their death warrants - what a catch 22

oh and I love how even early on the yeerks aren't a completely unified force - we have the obvious rivalry w/visser 1 and visser 3, with visser 1 even arranging the animorphs release from visser 3′s prison bc of this, and that yeerk who told ax where to find visser 3 because he was pissed that his yeerk gf got killed by visser 3 - even though the reason she was killed was due to kandrona rationing, which was caused by the animorphs...i love the layers 

ok what else. oh yeah I love tobias sm, he was one of my favs as a kid too, his whole story is so deeply tragic but also interesting and we haven't even gotten into all the stuff w/his parents yet

the part where he’s freaking out as a hawk and he’s gonna fly into the windows even tho he knows it’ll probably kill him...christttt

also tobias and rachel are so romance aughhhh

ok also jake - he was never my favorite when I was younger bc I felt like he had Basic Protag Man Syndrome but now I can appreciate his character a lot more. like, he basically got elected the leader and he’s kinda like ‘guess I have to do this now.’ and that of course ends up fucking him up majorly in the long run bc even tho he’s more serious and responsible, he’s still just a kid too

and I loooove the horror of finding out that tom is a controller, and jake having to contend w/the fact that it’s very likely that he’ll have to fight and/or kill his brother someday 

also the book where jake gets infested w/a yeerk was one of my favs and still is. so fucked up and interesting. the fact that that yeerk was previously tom’s made it even more fucked, w/the yeerk taunting jake the whole time

and then the yeerk dying in jakes head...so messed up

omg and cassie too. I love cassie. I didn't appreciate her as much when I was younger bc I was a straightforward kid who liked action, and cassie is all about pacifism when possible and compassion, which I love a lot now that I Get it more. 

cassie being such a gentle person but still fighting in this fucked up war bc doing nothing would be worse is super compelling. plus the conflicts with her having to figure out where she and humanity fit in the circle of life and whatnot is great

I loved the contrast of her being very aware of how nature works bc of working w/her parents and all these injured animals, but also being so compassionate that it still bothers her to see death and especially participate in it 

like her feeling awful about killing the termite queen even tho its ‘just a bug’ and stuff

basically what makes the series great isn't that it’s got all these fucked up moments and horror elements and is overall quite dark - it’s that all of it comes together to make the point that war is hell, and child soldiers are gonna end up traumatized pretty much no matter what happens

it’s a very strong message, and the story never feels like it’s being dark just for the sake of being dark, but rather never letting the reader forget how awful things are

TL;DR: anirmorphs is to the YA genre what hunter x hunter is to the shounen genre

in animorphs, the heroes of the story are kids who get cool powers and get to fight aliens - in any other YA story they would have a bunch of fun adventures and come out on top most/all the time - things might get darker towards the end, but good would prevail. the evil yeerks would be stopped, and the main couples would get married and have kids and live happily ever after. 

however, war isn't like that, especially when the soldiers are kids. so instead we get animorphs, and it’s brutally realistic. they barely ever get to enjoy their powers - on the rare occasion that they get to, something usually goes horribly wrong

compare to hxh - it seems like a regular shounen story about kids participating in a fantastical mostly-adult world and being able to match the adults bc they're Special - but as the story wears on it becomes clear that the kids are just very traumatized. this all leads to gon’s berserker collapse in the chimera ant arc, which is led up to masterfully w/a bunch of adults treating gon as an adult even though he’s a child.

essentially the same thing happens in animorphs - with jake being shoved into the leader role and becoming a military general as a kid, which leads to him committing horrific war crimes because he’s been put in a position no child should ever have to be in

similarly, kurapika has what would be a very straightforward revenge plotline in any other story - but this is hxh, so the bad guys aren't just 2-dimensional evil caricatures, and the road to revenge just leads kurapika to ruin. we root for kurapika to win bc they’re a character we like, but it becomes clearer and clearer as the story goes on that getting revenge is not the path kurapika should be taking

nothing is ever as straightforward as we want it to be, basically. and the same applies to animorphs. so many times they're faced with conflicts that seem to have an obvious answer, only for it to be revealed later that the choices they made led to other unforeseen awful consequences

ok i need to stop rambling this is already super long. basically: animorphs good. I’ll probably do another post like this semi-soon as I continue reading (I'm partway thru book 10 now)

[tfw-no-tennis]

the animorphs continues, david trilogy style

here we are...we finally arrived....the david triology

I did remember a good amount of these books from when I read these when I was like 11. but I also forgot a lot an hooooly shit 

WHERE TF DO I EVEN START. so that shit slapped obvs. it really felt like the series has been leading up to this - all the characters have had to make really difficult no-correct-answers decisions, and it leads up to this - the ultimate shitty situation with absolutely no good, clear solutions, and everyone gets to contribute to the awful conclusion! 

one thing that really stood out to me is that with David's inclusion as this kind of ‘outsider’ within the group, even though none of it was from his POV, we still get a huge sense of the animorphs being an extremely well-oiled team, who all know and trust each other very well - especially w/Jake as the leader - Jake has to make a lot of decisions in these books but the other animorphs always listen to him 

this all probably didn’t help David, who was already thrown into a completely crazy situation, and who now has to deal w/this group of kid superheroes who work very well together. it also doesn't help that David doesn't really try to find his place on the team 

anyways I love how much wild shit happens in animorphs always. like they try to steal the blue box as birds and then David chases them off w/a bb gun? and then they end up in this huge alien showdown with visser 3 and his troops in David's house? batshit

also the hilariously 90s part w/the email...lmao. like its the 90s so there's no way to shut off the automatic email remotely, they HAVE to go to David's computer, and they also can just unplug it...lmao they should've just taken out the phone lines tbh

also I completely forgot about the whole plot w/the world leaders meeting and the yeerks and stuff. that really served to ramp up the tension and also make it obvious that David was an outsider as he consistently fucked things up then played it off

also KAA did a masterful job of making David juuuust a little sympathetic in book 20, but still Off enough that you're like ehhhh I don't know about this guy...then he goes full awful creep and it becomes obvious that there’s no way they’ll be able to let him stick around in any capacity 

the bit where David kills the crow for no reason is the first Real indication that this is gonna go seriously wrong. but even before all that, his conversations w/Marco gave me like, school shooter vibes 

these books are full of some REALLY good tension. the whole end of book 21 was so tense - they've been gearing up for this mission for days now, and they’ve had to do some crazy stuff to get where they are, so the realization that it’s all a trap is completely chilling 

and then when David tried to betray them to visser three...the gravity of that decision is unmistakable, because then the yeerks would find out that the animorphs are (mostly) human children, and they’d even know who they are, and that would be the end

I loved the part where David tries to act like he was just setting up an ambush w/his betrayal to the visser, and Jake immediately has everyone play along - and they do. earlier in the series someone - probably Rachel or Marco - likely would have ignored Jake bc of how slimy David was acting, but they've basically become a highly efficient military squad at this point, and it was a perfect slow slide into that over the last 20 books, and now is the time when the reader kinda realizes this (at least for me)

even if they don’t agree w/Jake and think they should just address the David problem right then and there, they all trust Jake as their leader to make that decision 

also the fact that these are the first books to do the ‘to be continued’ thing rather than wrapping the plot up...it really made it feel all the more tense 

in other books I normally look at the page count and go ‘ok so this conflict will be solved in this scene cause there are only 15 pages left’ (which is st I do a lot I now realize lmaooo I can pretty much gauge what’ll happen based on how many pages are left - and I do this when I read fanfic too, by looking at where the scroll bar is...anyways)

BUT w/these books its totally up in the air cause they can end anytime and just get continued next book, which makes it so much more tense imo

also I fucking loooove the part in book 21 where they’re hiding out with that little pool of yeerks - and I actually bookmarked some pages for these liveblogs, so I have quotes, this one from Jake - 

‘There was something wrong about killing defenseless slugs. I was pretty sure about that.’

Oh, Jake, that opinion is gonna change someday....

it is a little ironic considering he jacuzzi’d those yeerks in like book 7 or w/e. but alas its still a fantastic line that serves to show in the end how much things have changed 

also I love that the decision not to kill those defenseless yeerks end up helping them later - the yeerks check the pool bc they’re so certain that if the andalite bandits HAD snuck in, they surely would have killed the helpless yeerks. but they didn’t, so that means the andalite bandits didn't sneak in....

I like when the characters do a morally good thing and are then rewarded by the narrative for it - it’s pretty rare in this series, where there are usually NO morally correct choices (such is life) or they’re actively punished for making a ‘good’ decision (one could argue that the decision to make David an animorph instead of letting him become a controller was a morally good decision, but it had dire consequences). 

Ok and the part I have to talk about w/these books of course - everything w/Rachel. bc damn Rachel really goes through it in this trilogy. I absolutely LOVE the character development she gets, and I especially enjoyed the way her and Jake's relationship was developed

anyways, one of the best and most fucked up quotes of the series, from Jake’s POV in book 21  - 

<Ax? I think Tobias is dead,> I said. <I think David killed him.> <That would be a most terrible thing,> Ax said.  <Yeah. Get Rachel. If David’s killed Tobias, we may have to do a terrible thing, too. Get Rachel.>

AUGHHHHH fucking chills I swear. also eternal love for them saying dead/killed/etc and never shying away from it. it really wouldn't have the same impact if they used the normal kid-safe PG words 

but yeah Jake asking for Rachel when he thinks that they may have to hunt down and kill David? phewwww. 

and the significance of this is never downplayed. this essentially confirms that Jake sees Rachel as the one who is willing and able to do the dirty work - and specifically in this case, it’s also likely bc it was Tobias who was ‘killed’ and he knows how Rachel feels about Tobias

but like, that’s so fucked up, I love it. they give this situation the exact amount of weight it requires - ch1 of book 22 has this part from Rachel - 

‘If David had hurt Tobias, I would... But what was the point in making threats? I didn't need to make threats. I knew what I would do. So did Jake. That’s why he’d sent Ax for me.’

at first, it seems like Rachel is on the same page as Jake, but when it becomes clearer later that Jake sent Ax specifically to get Rachel bc she could do the terrible thing that had to be done - instead of just bc they needed reinforcements and she was closest - then things change 

but even when Rachel gets rightfully upset later over this, you get the sense she still never really sees any option other than to kill David. it’s not even the ‘killing David’ part that upsets her, it’s that Jake, her cousin, immediately thinks of her as the person to do the deed 

so, another fantastic quote from Rachel - 

‘Tobias was dead. Jake might still die. And I was going to have to go after David. I was going to have to hunt him down.  I was going to hunt him down and destroy him.  No, not destroy. That was a weasel word. It was vague, meaningless. I was going to kill him.’

fucking WOW. like really. that bit right there is just perfect quintessential dark animorphs. it just subverts the classic kid-friendly phrasing, using words like ‘hunt down’ and ‘destroy’ instead of kill. But Rachel says it like it is. she’s not going to destroy David, she’s going to kill him. 

But then a few pages later, after Ax tells her the quote where Jake asks for her specifically - 

‘It definitely made me feel strange. Jake had called for me specifically. Because he wanted someone who would do precisely what I was planning to do.  Like I say, I’m not big on feelings, but something about that felt wrong.’

I say it a lot but wow do these kids need So Much Therapy. these are like...8th graders. jesus christ. when I was in 8th grade I was busy planning sims-playing get-togethers w/my fellow 13 year old friends. christ animorphs 

and fuck, the part where Rachel threatens David’s family, and shoves a fork in his ear? jesus. and the fact that Jake knew that Rachel was going to threaten David and let her go do it...

and then afterwards, Rachel says - 

‘I felt...not exactly ashamed. But I knew I never wanted to talk to Cassie about what I’d just told David. Or Tobias. Or even Marco.’

I'm gonna make some leaps here but I think it’s really interesting that Rachel even mentions Marco here, and says ‘or even Marco.’ like, the ‘even’ seems to imply that Marco would otherwise be somebody she WOULD talk to about something like this.

which...kinda tracks, tbh. Marco is Mr Ruthless, he’s a cold, pragmatic strategist when he isn’t cracking jokes as a coping mechanism. it makes sense that Rachel would talk to him about things like this - he would make jokes, but he’d also understand 

I'm just so interested in all the highly varying dynamics that exist within the group okay 

and then right after Rachel says - 

‘But I swear at that moment I hated Jake far more than I did David.  I should have told them all what had happened. But Jake already knew, didn’t he? Jake, the smart, determined leader, already knew all about me.’

that's fucking daaark okay. It paints this picture of Jake having become this master manipulator who knows all about Rachel’s violent tendencies and is using them to his full strategic advantage

Oh my god okay and then all the stuff w/Saddler, christ. I had completely forgotten about that plotline but there was so much fucked up stuff there, too

and the scene where Rachel gives some good life advice to her little sister, and it’s a good bit to remind the reader and characters of the world outside of animorphs conflict...and then David speaks up. 

that was such brutal mood whiplash, when you realize that David is morphed and hidden in Rachels room somewhere...fucking chilling 

that whole scene just oozes disgusting creepiness. David’s fixation on Rachel specifically, and his rage at being ‘bested’ by her, really feels like misogyny to me. while David butted heads w/Marco, you never got the same sense of anger and disgust that he displays towards Rachel.

and the line where he says ‘hey, enjoy your shower’ made me shudder in disgust. christ. there are a lot of revolting, dark implications there.

also, book 22 obviously does a ton of fantastic character work for Rachel, but it does the same for Jake, too. and Cassie, but ill get to that later

we get to see so much of Jake as a leader and a strategist here, and pitting him and Rachel against each other (so to speak) makes for some excellent characterization, like when Rachel starts questioning why he asked for her - 

“I thought David had killed Tobias. I thought he might kill me. I wanted...firepower.”  “I see. You wanted me for my morphs.” It was a good answer. It could have almost been true. 

and then we get a brief pit stop at the children's hospital where the fucked up parade continues - David morphed Saddler, Rachel and Jake’s injured/dying young cousin, and is pretending to be him, miraculously recovered from his accident

and meanwhile he DUMPED THE REAL SADDLER’S BODY DOWN AN ELEVATOR SHAFT. I literally cant, what the FUCK. 

and they never really follow up on it but the whole family and all the Drs think its this miraculous recovery against all odds, but then obviously David disappears and therefore so does Saddler - do they ever find his real body? how completely fucked up that must have been - so much worse than if saddler had just died from his injuries - the miraculous recovery completely overturned by a bunch of stuff that doesn’t even make sense to anybody except Jake and Rachel....

anyways, after all that completely fucked up bullshit, we have the Jake and Rachel confrontation, Jake’s whole speech about Rachel is amazing, but here are my highlights - 

“I think you’re the bravest member of the group. I think in a bad fight I’d rather have you with me than anyone else. But yeah, Rachel, I think there’s something pretty dark down inside you. I think you’re the only one of us who would be disappointed if all this ended tomorrow.”

I mean, christ. imagine your fellow 13 year old cousin saying this to you. oh MAN. and I love so much that Jake isn’t wrong, but he also is? he understands what Rachel will do, but not why she’s doing it. and I talked abt it before but Rachel has found herself in this box of ‘the brave/reckless blood knight,’ and feels pressure to live up to that reputation. 

so how much of it is a façade that she puts on bc she’s expected to, and how much of it is how she really feels? well, she got that reputation initially for a reason, but she gets pushed more and more in that direction as the series progresses, both bc of the unintentional pressure to live up to her role as the Xena of the group, and bc it’s really, really useful to have somebody like Rachel on your side

Then Rachel says -

‘I tried to look at myself the way Jake saw me. Was it true? Did I love this war?’

I'm gonna lose it, these poor fucking middle schoolers. Rachel, listen, you’re 13, you’re a child soldier, of course you don't love the war you’re fighting...I need every child therapist on the block to come here right now

like jesus being 13 is hard enough without all this nonsense. it’s such a tenuous time in development, and add something like this - someone like Rachel, who is somewhat pigeonholed by society as ‘vapid, pretty blonde who loves to shop’ would of course flourish in an environment where she gets to show how much of a 3-dimensional Person she is - she can love shopping and also kick ass! nice! but also, like, trauma. 

So then Rachel says this about Jake - 

“Jake, you’re a leader now. You make life-and-death decisions. All the time. You’ve learned to do that. And,” I added bitterly, “you’ve learned to use people. You use them for their strengths and their weaknesses.” 

Fucking read, wow. I feel like Rachel is absolutely correct here, if not simplifying things a lot. like, yes, Jake does make these unfathomable decisions on the regular, but he’s got tons of conflict over every single thing he does, and there was a lot of uncertainty and trial-and-error leading up to this. but she is correct that he’s learned, and is clearly a lot more comfortable in his role as a military leader now. 

I just love the contrast these two have. Rachel, with the burden she carries as the bravest - the fighter of the team, who must be relied on in battle and to do the things that nobody else will do - and Jake, the leader, who has to make decisions knowing that he could get his friends killed at any time, and still trust that they’ll listen. 

And then Jake says - 

“But everyone draws their own line[...] For example, see, I used to think my line was drawn at using my friend, my cousin, to do my dirty work. Guess that turned out not to be true. Sorry, Rachel.” 

And then they hug and vow to murder David together, as a team. Heartwarming cousin bonding! Again, so much therapy. 

So yeah I love that scene. especially when you take into consideration Rachel’s ultimate fate, and Jake’s part in it. excuse me while I go weep. 

Anyways, to the end. THE ENDING....it gets me every time. I’ll never be over it. I don’t remember much about animorphs from when I read it at age 11 but I really really remember the ending to book 22. The way they masterfully set David up, the rat morph, the pipes, THE LEGO, the reveal that they planned the entire thing, the moment when David realizes what’s going to happen to him....oof. It’s not something I could forget, even w/my notoriously horrible memory when it comes to media 

Also I feel like there was more subtle misogyny when David insists on humiliating/subjugating Rachel, just because she proved earlier that she was stronger and smarter and better than him...eugh David is just such a disgusting creep that you don’t even end up feeling bad for him even though he’s a middle schooler being handed a fate worse than death. I mean, he tossed a dead/dying kid’s body down an elevator shaft in a children's hospital. I’m pretty sure he deserves this. 

And here’s the part where I talk about Cassie. because even though she didn’t get a POV book in the David trilogy, she still got some brutally fantastic character development. here we see David starting to realize what’s happening - 

‘Cassie was crying.  David hadn't asked who the mastermind of the plan was. Who it was who had so accurately appraised his emotions, his need to build his ego, the fact that he would choose me to be his “companion.” Cassie, of course. Cassie had worked it out, step by step, after Jake and I had failed to come up with anything.  For Cassie, it was an improvement over the alternatives. See, no one was going to have to die.  But David’s life would end, just the same.’

CASSIE. The dark horse, except not really, bc this is perfectly in line with what we know about her, especially coming off book 19, her last POV book before this. in that book she makes some absolutely awful decisions, all to avoid having to kill somebody. 

After all of Jake and Rachel’s badass vows to take David down, it’s Cassie who finds the solution. 

To a lot of people, David’s fate could be considered worse than death. To Cassie, it’s a better alternative. That speaks volumes about her, and I love it. 

Also, the MANIPULATION. Cassie in the David trilogy really gets to flex her interpersonal manipulation skills, which I love to see. It’s such a fascinating aspect of her character; a really interesting use of empathy

Like the scene in book 20 where David freaks out as a roach and she manipulates him into not giving them away by pitting him against Marco, someone who David doesn’t get along with, by saying ‘if Marco can do it, can’t you?’ because she knows he’ll fall for it. And he DOES. 

And then the part in the cafeteria where she basically plays the ‘good cop’ to everyone else in the group’s ‘bad cop.’ Not ONLY does she manage to get David to shut up and listen to her, she also posits her theory that he wants to blue box to trade it for his parents - which his reactions to her questions confirms as true. and nobody else in the group suspected this. 

She lures him into a sense of security by talking kindly and quietly about how she understands how he feels, then hits him with what she knows and gets him to confirm it, which then allows Rachel to accurately threaten him. 

And then Cassie, offscreen, comes up with the entire plan on how to trap David as a rat, because from the beginning she had him figured out. David didn’t pay much attention to Cassie - more misogyny tbh, as Cassie is the girl on the team who isn’t an aggressive, feminine blonde - and that ended up being a huge reason for his downfall. 

David also didn’t pay much attention to Tobias, and clearly didn’t see him as human at all, and that made Tobias very valuable after David assumed he had killed Tobias. 

Ok, back to the ending - the fact that it was Rachel and Ax who stayed there to wait the two hours for David to become a nothlit....

Rachel says - 

‘Jake’s a good leader. He knows when to use us. He knows when to protect us. He knew he had to protect as many of his people as he could from what was going to happen.’ 

fucking brutal. TWO HOURS of listening to this awful kid beg and threaten and barter. I can’t even imagine. 

And Ax too! He gets overlooked a lot as an alien, and it’s probably true that all of this impacts him differently than the other human animorphs, it can’t be in any way pleasant to have to sit there for two hours and act as a living timer to count down this kid’s life. Ax is a kid, too, and an isolated one at that, being the only Andalite on the team. 

So yeah that scene is awful. Rachel even says - 

‘Two hours. But that two hours of horror will last forever in my mind. If I live a hundred years, I will still hear his cries, his threats, his pleading, each night before sleep takes me. And beyond sleep, in my dreams.’

I know I’m beating a dead horse here, but jesus christ, THEY NEED SO MUCH THERAPY. The fact that one of the constants in all of the POVs is the nightmares that all the animorphs consistently have....geez

Okay so I know in my last two liveblogs I ended them by comparing animorphs to another series - hxh and mtmte - but I honestly am drawing a blank for this...

I guess the only thing I can think of is to compare it to mob psycho 100, which is another very good, very subtly subversive series 

In mp100, the entire Point is that the very powerful psychic middle schoolers DON’T end up using their powers to fight life-or-death battles against adult enemies in order to save the world and whatnot. the Point is that that’s fucked up, and these kids shouldn’t be responsible for something like that, no matter how powerful they are 

and basically the character who says all that is Reigen, an adult who actively prevents the middle schoolers from joining what would be some very traumatizing fights 

basically my point here is less to compare the two shows and more to say - the poor animorphs could really use a Reigen huh. like, they seriously need an adult who’ll step in and say ‘wait a second, these kids are doing WHAT? hold the fucking phone, no way, get some actual adults in here to solve this shit. not today!’

the closest they could've come to an adult figure in their lives is Elfangor and he dies like 5 minutes after giving them superpowers, soooo....

man mp100 slaps I should rewatch it. anyways yeah the theme of this post is ‘the animorphs need therapy and also a stable adult figure in their lives to help them not get traumatized all the time’ thank you for coming to my ted talk