#the ellimist chronicles

[aniquotes]

"'Okay, then answer this, Ellimist: Did I... did I make a difference? My life, and my... my death... was I worth it? Did my life really matter?'

'Yes. You were brave. You were strong. You were good. You mattered.'

'Yeah. Okay, then. Okay, then.'

A small strand of space-time went dark and coiled into nothingness."

- The Ellimist Chronicles (Ellimist), pg. 200 (by K.A. Applegate)

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Animorphs audiobooks — how did they choose the Chronicles narrators?

Look. I LOVE how Scott Brick reads The Ellimist Chronicles — he might be my favorite narrator yet. He comes off as super condescending but with a hint of melancholy. Like he really is this infinite cosmic gamerboy wearily explaining the universe to a stupid little human.

But why the hell is MacLeod Andrews (who normally voices Jake) narrating The Andalite Chronicles? Like, I can appreciate not wanting to cast an entirely new voice for Elfangor, but Adam Verner (who voices Ax) is RIGHT THERE! Or you use Michael Crouch (who voices Tobias) if there's a schedule conflict. Why would you recast the guy who does Jake as Elfangor? Why would you then NOT do that for the other Chronicles?

Because I could see an interesting argument for having Jake's voice narrate Elfangor's story, IF we then got Tobias's voice narrating Dak and Aldrea's story, then Rachel's voice narrating Toomin's story, then Marco's voice narrating Edriss's story. This still begs the question of why Jake and not Ax, but at least that way it'd be consistent.

[jesperr-fahey]

been on a bit of a lull in my animorphs reading journey because i'm on the ellimist chronicles right now and i just don't.. like him? like the book is fine, there's some interesting scifi world building with his species and their home planet and all that, but i simply do not vibe with him as a character and i don't really care about his backstory.. i already didn't really like him in the main series, but i honestly think he was more interesting as a mysterious seemingly all powerful figure!! i think explaining him as a Guy takes away from all that

idk, just curious if other animorphs fans have different opinions- does anyone actually like the ellimist? what are your thoughts on this book?

[ellimisms]

LISTENNNNNNNNNN I just think Father is a cool villain and one of the few villains from Animorphs that Actually Scared Me. Like we all know why visser three is a ridiculous over-the-top saturday-morning-cartoon villain; he wasn't *allowed* to be too scary and still have it be a kids book. Crayak is supposed to be terrifying, but honestly, he's just... meh. I didn't really care about him for a while, and then I just disliked him because he's annoying. but FATHER??? HOO BOY. Just the idea of a planet-spanning intelligence, stealing people's brains and intelligence and thoughts and memories and also attatching them to tendrils underwater like a fucked up graveyard???? the mental imagery of that planet????? GOD. i love father if you couldnt tell

[guavajaws]

I just finished reading the Ellimist Chronicles and honestly this book is absolutely bonkers

You mean to tell me that the narrator is ACTUALLY an alien gamer bird who had to watch his entire species get wiped out then play video games with a sentient water moon for all of eternity only to finally beat him because he plays shit music- THEN ABSORB EVERY MIND HE’S CAPTURED AND??? Somehow get integrated into the fabric of space and time itself and become god??

What even IS this book

[i-assign-you-animorphs]

Species: Pemalites

This is a meteorite that has fallen from a clearly superior part of the galaxy.

[pickapok]

All these Animorphs posts across my dash just got me thinking about how the whole conflict across the series is essentially the result of two artifical elder god gamers playing a 4X strategy game on a cosmic scale with real lives and civilizations at stake.

And that's kind of fucked up.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

What are some instances of retconning in animorphs that you have noticed? (aside from the first book)

Honestly, Animorphs is not bad. Compared to Sherlock Holmes or Percy Jackson, there's hardly any retconning at all. Compared to series like Dune or X-Men that built in-story retcon mechanisms because of the infinite overlapping retcons, Animorphs is practically airtight. Not Harry Potter or Mistborn airtight, sure, but better than any other multi-authored 20+ book series I know.

However, there are some. Ax's mention in #8 of occasional hork-bajir wars doesn't fit with Hork-Bajir Chronicles showing they have no concept of violence before andalites arrive. Cassie's line about "my niece" in #37 is not in line with her saying her parents are her only family in #49. Rachel suspects at times that Jordan's a controller (#12, #22) but in #49 Jordan's dismissed as even a potential threat.

And then there's the absolute clusterfuck of Tobias's parentage.

In #3, he says "my parents died." In #13, it's "both my folks left a long time ago." In Andalite Chronicles, when Elfangor asks about Loren: "She disappeared. When I was just little... I guess she died." In #23, he says "both my parents are dead." But also DeGroot says "Your father... who died? That may not have been your real father" implying a stepfather we never meet. After Elfangor's will it kinda falls into place, but even then...

Elfangor says he and Loren were ~14 mentally, ~18 physically, when they got to Earth, and that "when she was ready by human standards, I married her." He mentions getting multiple college degrees, but that it's only "three years later" that the Ellimist abducts him back to space. No one apparently notices he was gone — Ax has no idea Elfangor lived on Earth, and didn't notice him missing (#8), so... he time-traveled back and lived those three years twice? And no one noticed him being seven years older because... Ellimist fuckery? There's mention of Loren dating someone else after Al's "death", so at least the random step-dad is consistent. But Loren doesn't mention him in #49, so I guess she got remarried and rewidowed between Tobias's birth and his third birthday, and then she forgot him.

Anywhoo, it kind of lines up sorta if you squint, but I'm 99.9% sure that there was some degree of retcon somewhere in there.

[brothermouse-skeleton]

"God's a gamer, but he's kinda trash at it." K. A. Applegate, The Ellimist Chronicles, circa 2000 A.D.

[i-assign-you-animorphs]

Crayak

The Beauty of the Helix Nebula, also known as the Eye of the Universe.

[roach-works]

hi there! you post a lot about animorphs and i personally did not have the opportunity to get into it all as a kid. do you perhaps have a recommended reading order? a favourite book? a beloved, accessible fanwork? i would like to be able to see what it's all about, and you seem to be the most accessible-to-me online authority on the subject :)

i'd suggest you just read the first 21 books straight through, then check your brain to see how fucked up you are. after that, freestyle based on Vibes.

but also you should read the ellimist chronicles and the hork-bajir chronicles right away because they're really fun* semi-standalone stories about aliens doing alien things and getting in alien trouble.

*they will hurt you :)

[cluelessrebel1988]

If I Ran The Zoo (or how I would plot out an Animorphs TV/streaming series if I had the time/ability/resources)

So this is something I've been kicking around in my head on-again, off-again for a couple years now, and I thought I'd put it out there, just for the lols (do people still say that?)

My thought process is for a 5 season arc, with each season being somewhere in the neighborhood of 13-15 episodes long, give or take. There would be a few changes with the order of things, and a few minor characters would play a bigger role. I'm not going to go episode by episode, but just sort of outline the big arcs for each season. I'm not in any way suggesting that this is the best way to do it, just that this is how I would do it.

Season 1

This season obviously would start the events of The Invasion and would primarily incorporate events/plot points from the first 10 books, including finding Ax in his crashed ship (though I would move that to either take place in the first episode, or in the second half of the two-part premiere), Tobais getting stuck in his hawk form (and getting an episode or two dedicated to him coming to terms with that), and introducing Erik and the Chee (Erik would be introduced as a friend of Marco's early in the season, with his identity as a Chee being revealed in the second half of the season).

The only major plot point from that run of the series I wouldn't put into play just yet is the reveal of Marco's mother as Visser One (although I would be very much establishing her through flashbacks, dreams, etc., so people will recognize her when Visser One does show up).

The main arc of the season would involve the Kandrona Ray and the events of The Stranger, with the team meeting the Ellimist and learning about the ray and its significance and plotting to take it down to try to end/expose the invasion. Erik and Ax tagteam providing info about the ray and its use, but it's the vision from the Ellimist that gives Rachel the final clue, again, as in the book, with that occuring at the end of the penultimate episode. The season finale is solely focused on devising and executing the plan to destroy the ray. The plan would succeed, which would prompt Visser One's return, revealing her host to be Marco's mother as the cliffhanger for the season.

Obviously, we would be exploring the kid's home lives more, with the relationship with their families and friends and the whole 'work-life balance' thing that comes with fighting a guerilla war against an alien invasion. Not to the point where they're having to fake illnesses to skip school every episode, but enough to show that it's putting a strain on their relationships. I would also explore Rachel's relationship with Melissa Chapman more and have Melissa be a bigger supporting character in the show. We'd also introduce Karen and Aftran in this season, revealing her to be a controller early on, but something that Cassie doesn't find out until the end of the season

Season 2

Season 2 would pick up a few weeks after season 1, as The Alien did with The Stranger. The kids learn that their hope that the invasion would reveal itself with the Kandrona ray destroyed were in vain and that Ax knew that. The premiere would largely follow the plot of that book, with the Animorphs attempting to integrate Ax into society and attempting to take the fight to Visser Three with the help of a Yeerk traitor, and Ax telling the others about the Law of Seerow's Kindness. Ax would get a lot of development this season, with the events of The Deception coming into play.

Tobias would help free the Hork-Bajir as in The Change and get his human form back as a morph, and the reveal that he is Elfangor's son would be included in this season as well (Obviously we're tapping into the Andalite Chronicles for flashbacks in at least one episode this season to help set that up).

Marco's main character arc would revolve around learning that his mother is Visser One, keeping it a secret, only to have the others find out later, thus incorporating The Predator and The Escape. Also Visser One is the big bad for the season, delving more into her conflict with Visser Three. The season would end with her supposed death following the Animorphs' thwarting of her plans

For Cassie, we cover the utilize adapted versions of The Departure and set up for The Sickness, with Karen/Aftran and Cassie perhaps getting trapped somewhere and forced to work together to get out of it, laying the groundwork for Aftran to be captured by Visser Three. The season finale would also center around the efforts to rescue Aftran.

Jake and Rachel will have arcs and roles to play in each of these stories as they each start to fall into their respective roles as leader and fighter, respectively. If they get their own arc, it would be around trying to save Tom specifically.

Additionally, Melissa is still around in her expanded role, but with a new friend: David, who would be introduced fairly early in the season in a recurring role (Melissa is also recurring at this point). She and David will have a B-plot where they become friends and are together when David finds the morphing cube, the discovery of which also occurs in the finale.

Season 3

Obviously, the primary source for the main arc of season 3 is the David Trilogy, with The Discovery in particular serving as the source for the season premiere. It plays out mostly the same, with the Animorphs learning that David and Melissa have the cube and plans to sell it online. They try to retrieve the cube before the two of them can attract the attention of the Yeerks, but ultimately fail, leading to the battle at David's house. They manage to get Melissa and David out of the house before they can be captured, and are forced to reveal themselves and tell them what's happening, essentially recruiting them into the Animorphs.

The events of the rest of the trilogy, with the threat to the UN summit or some similar event involving world leaders as a target that they have to keep the Yeerks from taking advantage of -- as well as with David and Melissa's reactions to being Animorphs -- would take up the majority of the plot this season. Obviously Melissa becoming an Animorph opens up some new potential for her arc, especially around her relationship with her dad and trying to come to terms with him being a controller (and the fact that Rachel has been keeping this a secret all along). She and David would have similar arcs around their parents being controllers, but while David ultimately turns against the Animorphs, Melissa does not (although David tries to convince her to). The season ends with the gang trapping David in a rat morph, as the books do.

One of Melissa's major character traits is her interest in technology, something she used to bond with her father over (working together to take things apart and then put them back together before be became a Controller to try to keep her safe) and I imagine her and Ax developing something of an awkward friendship as she tries to ask him about the morphing technology and other Andalite technology, with him being reluctant to share due to the Law of Seerow's Kindness. But, as he's grown closer with the Animorphs, he would eventually acquiesce and they would begin to bond. The two big relationships (Rachel and Tobias, and Cassie and Jake) also take major steps this season

The other major arc for the season involves other Andalites, incorporating The Arrival and The Other, with the reveal that other Andalites are on earth and some are there to help...or are they? The season would also end with Tobias getting captured by the Yeerks to begin the laying of the groundwork for the discovery that the Animorphs are not, in fact, Andalite bandits.

Season 4

The events of The Illusion and The Test would be adapted for the season premiere, including the introduction of the Yeerk resistance (led in this series by Karen/Aftran) and Tobias's capture and torture, with the main difference being that it is Tom (who has largely been a secondary or tertiary villain thus far) being the one who conducts the torture. During the interrogation, Tobias lets something slip that most of the controllers in the room don't pick up on, but Tom does, leading him to investigate and setting up for the finale, which would be largely and adaptation of The Diversion, with the race against time to save their families taking up the majority of the episode. Melissa is able to save her parents, her father proving to be an asset in the final season with his knowledge of how Yeerk technology works.

This season as a whole would focus on escalating the war between the Animorphs and the Yeerks. The stakes become higher, as are tensions following David's betrayal. Visser One returns, learning that Marco is one of the Animorphs and we incorporate the events of Visser, seeing the Animorphs rescue her.

Following Tobias's capture and torture, Rachel becomes more angry and vengeful, setting up for her arc over the final season (we've seen hints of her violent streak over the series up to this point, but it gets more intense this season).

Season 5

With their secret out, the Animorphs regroup in the Hork-Bajir valley and try to figure out their next move. The final arc of the series would play out largely how it does over the course of the final books, with the team recruiting more Animorphs to help them with their mission, and even trying to recruit government and military officials to aid in the fight. Tom gets the morphing cube, adding controllers with the ability to morph (other than the newly appointed Visser One) to the threat against the Animorphs. The final battle would be a multi-pronged attack, with the bombing of the Yeerk Pool being part of the final assault and not a separate battle.

Rachel gets aboard the blade ship and kills Tom before being killed herself. In an effort to make up for the harm he caused, Hedrick Chapman sacrifices himself to both ensure the Yeerk Pool bomb goes off and to save Melissa one final time (the pair of them were in charge of building/detonating it, along with Ax), and Jake orders the flushing of the Yeerk Pool on the the Pool ship, alienating Erek and the rest of the Chee going forward. All of this is in the penultimate episode.

The series finale follows the aftermath of the war in The Beginning, and, as the books did, the series would end with Jake, Tobias, and Marco (and probably Melissa) being recruited to help save Ax from an as-yet unknown threat.

And there you have it, my outline for how an Animorphs series could/should play out. As I said at the start, this is just my idea and others might have different thoughts about what order the arcs should go in and what significant changes (if any) would be made. Please be kind with any criticisms, and if you'd like to share your thoughts with me, my inbox is open. I also did a fancast for the series a few years ago if anyone's curious about who would play who

[jodjuya]

Finished my binge of the Animorphs series yesterday.

Did literally nothing all day but read Animorphs. Read from like book 41 through to 54, including the Ellimist Chronicles in the middle, in a single sitting.

A few stinkers in there, but boy howdy the series has runaway momentum once they hit the endgame of the war and I just couldn't stop reading!

Being Australian myself, I'm perturbed by how bogus the Australian book was though.

How the fuck did Cassie's LAX-SYD flight take her out over the middle of the damn country when Sydney is coastal???

Nice smooth curve shows your typical California-to-Australia route, and 'X' marks the spot where Cassie ended up after falling out of the plane:

This would be like if she was on a direct flight from Los Angeles to New York, bailed out of the aircraft when it was like 90% of the way through its flight, and then when she hits the ground she's suddenly actually in Miami.

Book #41 was damn weird too. The one where Jake wakes up as a 25 year old in a future where the yeerks won the war.

That one really feels like its ghostwriter watched "The Matrix", came out of the cinema, and immediately sat down to write their own Animorphs version of that. 😂

I'm currently existing in that post-story haze, where something was consuming my life for weeks and then it's just suddenly over.

I think that haze is especially bad because the Animorphs series doesn't have a 'satisfying' ending. The war was won, but at huge cost and none of our heroes survive intact. Which is a fine enough ending for a war story. War stories don't get to have happy endings.

But then it has that "ram the blade ship!" cliffhanger ending. That's so unsatisfying. Dangit, I just really dislike cliffhanger endings.

[i-assign-you-animorphs]

The Ellimist Chronicles

I like cosmic horror a normal amount. 😊

[thebuteojamaicensis]

starting the andalite chronicles rn & then i'll read the ellimist chronicles (if there are any other books i need to read before i start 53 let me know because the only like extra book i've read was mm4)

[mysterious-corpse]

📚

📚 favorite book

how could you do this to me /lh

I could never choose so I’m just gonna list some that come to mind

Animorphs (special mention of the Ellimist Chronicles) by KA Applegate

I talk about this one a bunch on my fandom blog @dr-reids-fidget-toy . The author was inspired by Star Trek. Kids book. Child soldiers, war horror, body horror, existential horror, age-appropriate jokes, aliens. Set in the 90s. Series of 50+ books. Many were ghostwritten. POC characters.

All of Us Villains / All of Our Demise by Amanda Foody & Christine Lynn Herman

In this world, magick is real. However, all of the high magick was depleted long ago, except for a stash of it that only 7 families know about. Each generation, a teen from each family has to fight for their life in a Hunger Games-style tournament to determine which family gets control of the high magick for the next 20 years. An anonymous author has recently published a book about this barbaric practice, and this year is the first time the outside world will know about the tournament (media coverage galore!). LGBT+ characters (Queer romance). 2 books. POC characters.

Vicious by VE Schwab (the second book is also very good but the first is my personal fave)

Two college students decide to conduct an experiment after learning of mysterious abilities developed after near-death experiences. The participants? Themselves, of course. Shit goes down. They come back wrong. Has a sequel. LGBT+ character (ace rep!!).

The Mirror Season by Anna-Marie McLemore

TW Sexual Assualt

A girl is sexually assaulted at a party, and returns home to find that her peculiar cooking abilities have vanished. Things around her start turning into mirror shards and breaking into dust. She meets a boy, and they realize they were assaulted at the same party. Buried memories threaten to surface as they become friends, and romance forms. A story about healing from trauma, with a touch of magical realism. (At least, I think it’s magical realism). Queer character. POC characters.

We Were Liars by E Lockhart

Great story with a huge twist. A rich family spends every summer on their private island. The main character is part of this family. After a terrible incident last summer, she cannot remember the event or anything her family has told her about it. She is also plagued by terrible migraines. Now, it’s summer again and her cousins are right where she expected, despite them not contacting her since the accident. POC character.

Foul is Fair by Hannah Capin

TW Sexual Assault

A girl goes to a party and is sexually assaulted by a group of boys. She plots with her 3 best friends and her parents to kill everyone involved. Short summary but trust me, read it. POC characters. LGBT+ characters.

The Gilded Wolves series by Roshani Chokshi

A group of thieves/found family are tricked into agreeing to a dangerous heist. Set in Paris, 1889. Magic is real in the form of Forging - the ability to create and imbue objects with special powers. I can’t say much without giving away the plot. POC characters. Queer characters (including a romance plot). Autistic character. 3 books.

I need to add one for Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao. Don’t let me forget