#richard's animorphs forum

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

In case they haven’t been mentioned on this blog, I’d like to give a shoutout to Animorphs Aloud! It’s a currently still updating fan production reading through Animorphs, and they release a new chapter every few days. The narrator of it is so good at doing distinct and emotional performances for each of the cast, and I’d def recommend it for anyone that wants to reexperience Animorphs!!!

Thank you for the rec — I hadn't heard of this one! I love the fan production of the Megamorphs 1 audiobook, so I have high hopes for Animorphs Aloud being just as good.

[tigger8900]

This is actually a problem, but not for those sites anymore(though absolutely the blatant way people talked about libgen was a factor in them getting shut down, that went so mainstream that honestly I'm surprised it stayed up as long as it did) and not the FBI. It's the small sites, the obscure ones, that you need to keep quiet or else you will lose them to a content takedown. The best example I have is the Animorphs fan scans, which were a collection of PDF scans of the entire Animorphs series, hosted on Richard's Animorphs Forum. I don't know when exactly they went online, but I believe I came across them around '10 or so, long after the physical books were out of print(and there were no ebooks). K.A. Applegate even gave them her blessing.

But then Scholastic decided to update/reprint the series and turn them into ebooks while they were at it, and so asked RAF to take the fan scans down. Which they did. Until the re-release was cancelled after just a handful of books, leaving most of the series still inaccessible. After a few years, when it seemed like Scholastic wasn't doing anything with the IP beyond their abandoned attempt at nostalgia, RAF quietly put the scans back online.

And then the internet fucked it up. People would not keep quiet about it, absolutely no sense of discretion whatsoever, blabbing about how "you can read Animorphs for free!" like it's not illegal. I even saw it hit a minor news blog, I forget which one but it was a name I recognized. And, of course, this backed Scholastic into a corner, and they were forced to submit another cease and desist. Now not only are the Animorphs scans gone(though Scholastic has since released the full series in ebook form, so at least it's readable...if you've got $200+ to drop 😬), but also the Everworld scans(though I heard they might see a re-release?) as well as the Remnants, which was a particularly trippy sci-fi fever dream that will never, in a million years, see re-release. So that one's gone, unless you can find an individual with the tapes who can transfer them to you.

But this is why you don't get to have nice things if you can't stop running your damn mouth. Do not do illegal things and then talk about it. Spread the word with discretion, individual to individual, rather than posting it publicly for everyone to see. If you don't, not only will you lose your toys, but everyone else will as well. This is very much a real effect that I have personally witnessed.

The way people have decided if you mention libgen or the pirate bay or wherever on your blog the FBI will find out and shut them down is so funny

[acavatica]

Listen here kids...

crowles — Today at 9:42 AM man I forgot how excellently 90's chapter 1 of the new B&E opens [9:42 AM] I love Marco bragging about the internet to the audience like "you can read SUMMARIES of SEINFELD EPISODES!"

Cavatica — Today at 9:45 AM True fact about me: In the late 90s, Sailor Moon and DBZ hadn't aired all their seasons in America and had a lot of reruns, so I looked up individual episode summaries of the Japanese releases, translated by the most blessed and exalted bilingual people (thank you personally Hitoshi Doi, you weird creep) and I experienced those shows in brief text format first [9:46 AM] It's like if you learned about Animorphs through just the flip books [9:47 AM] Being a Sailor Moon fan especially WAS A TIME [9:48 AM] I've been a fan of Sailor Moon since I was 8 or 9, lol like the same time as animorphs, I was a very cool kid. [9:49 AM] Me with #16 in my lap reading DBZ summaries with an AOL star trek chat open in the corner

crowles — Today at 9:49 AM oh man I remember like... god, finding a website with the SCRIPTS for episodes of Ruroni Kenshin because I couldn't find it to rent [9:49 AM] i would print out episode scripts, cav. I had a binder

crowles — Today at 9:49 AM god you were such a cool kid

Cavatica — Today at 9:54 AM Sometimes I literally HAVE DREAMS about the animorphs chatrooms I was in as a kid, like when I was 11. I have physical dreams of being in this chatroom AS A SPACE because it was a personal website based, hand coded chatroom, pre-AOL style honestly kind of like the chatrooms in #16 were portrayed, but not QUITE that weird (but like, it's more realistic and less boomer than most people think). You had to refresh constantly to see if there were new messages. It was called Kimmeree's AniChat and it was run by the two of the OG Animorphs BNFs (as far as I can tell from my 10 year old self's memory and understanding of how fandom worked). It was an RP chat with like a dozen different rooms for different settings the characters could be in. But I wasn't old enough for the RP chats and I didn't know what they were doing really, so I only hung out in the OOC chat, and that was called The Space Bar, and there was usually only very loose RP in it and I mostly lurked because I was a small child and everyone else was like 15 to 21-ish, but SOMETIMES I would try to participate and I was very cringe and annoying because all I wanted to do was talk about anime [9:55 AM] So the dreams I have are in a literal bar that my child brain had the imagination to process as a real place and it's just a dream setting in my rotation

crowles — Today at 9:55 AM oh my goddddd I remember you talking about this, it sounds amazing, what an absolutely iconic 90's internet community experience [9:55 AM] I love how it's a dream setting [9:56 AM] they really felt like a real space though!! I remember having that same kind of imagination experience

Cavatica — Today at 9:56 AM Honestly, I might be... one of like, very few people in fandom who remember this. I know there were still some of them kicking around in Richard's Animorphs Forum

crowles — Today at 9:56 AM omg..... you're one of the old guard [9:56 AM] "do not cite the Deep Magic to me, witch. I was there when it was written" [9:57 AM] you're the Javik of Animorphs fandom [9:57 AM] oh my god i remember his name, I've been reading too much fanfiction

@c-rowlesblogs and I are, and have always been, extremely cool kids.

Also, I hope to god, if you were in Kimmeree's AniChat that you don't remember me. And if you do, I really hope the content I've created has made up for what an absolute annoying shit I was as a kid.

This has been the first, of perhaps many, confessions of a fandom senior citizen. Circa 1998.

[eternal-dannation]

richard’s animorph forum had to close the ebook side of the website, likely because of the increased profile that sudden spate of articles about it brought, which means scholastic is definitely going to come for my ass one of these days lmao

[writerystuff]

FREE! And did I mention, all 50-something volumes, FREE!

[comicreliefmorlock]

I am ecstatic. I’ve been devouring them since shortly after I woke up and I’m not disappointed in the slightest. Nostalgia didn’t lead me wrong this time!

[orpheus-type-beat]

Animorphs

I’ll probably get in trouble for distributing what is, I’ve unfortunately discovered, dangerous material, but here we go: all of the Animoprh books are available to read for free online here: https://animorphsforum.com/ebooks/. Idk if it’s legal (I’m not sure how it could be but I remember reading maybe it was semi sanctioned?) but it’s there! I can’t recommend clicking on that link of course, but if your finger accidentally slips... well, it’s not technically my fault.

For those of you that don’t know, the Animorphs is an epic science fiction story about the visceral horror and fundamentally destructive nature of war (with subplots about conservation and interacting/empathizing with the other, and more!). It’s also super fun, pretty funny (at least to my younger self), and incredibly cool. It’s like rationalist superpower fiction, where all the rules make sense and are exploited creatively, way before that was even a concept. Its one of my favorite series ever, I definitely recommend, and it’s a great example of the fact that children’s lit is best when it engages with the same themes and ideas that grown up stories.

And at the end of the day, teenagers turn into animals and fight aliens! What’s not to love.

PS: here’s an article from the Paris Review, of all places, talking about how good it is: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/01/23/what-was-it-about-animorphs/. The writer described what’s so great about the series better than I did. Plus it means my opinion on books is valid since the French agree with me.

[middleclassfashion]

Ok let’s do this

[birdthany]

Hey, does anyone have a better PDF/ebook of Animorphs #18 (The Decision) than the one on Richard’s Animorphs Forum? It’s especially glitchy and weird- something about the carats causes literally everything thought-spoken in the entire ebook to be screwed up. 

[heyguyswhatthefuck]

Here’s the link: http://animorphsforum.com/ebooks/

Guys, guys, let’s get back into Animorphs!!!

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Hey I just saw a post you made a while ago about how lots of other authors have written about Tom and Jake's phone call really well, so I was wondering if you had any recommendations? :)

Maaan, I've just tried to find like six different stories and they're all deleted. Link rot sucks, Fanfiction.Net sucks, if you like a fic DOWNLOAD IT. "They Were Kids I Once Knew," "The Ending," "Jacob's Ladder," that awesome one that was set during MM3 but you only realized it in the last paragraph... all gone.

The Tocsin by tptigger is excellent, and available on AO3. Read it, comment it, download it.

[tubaterry]

Available for free, apparently with the author’s blessing

[dunsbar]

hey friends if you want to read them, here you go! please do. they’re so good

did anyone ever actually read animorphs or did we all just glance at the covers and assume it needed no explanation on the way to the goosebumps section in our elementary school library

[ani-initiative-blog]

In case it’s gotten lost--here is where you can read all of the Animorphs series for free.

[snakefashion]

yo when did richard’s animorphs forum go back up? maybe ill finally finish those books

[hapalopus]

Here ya go!

Can someone hmu with that place where you can read animorphs for free my phone is being rly crappy