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words-writ-in-starlight · 6 years

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Prompt 1 ("it's mine now") for Animorphs with a Serious Injury Underreaction? Or any prompt with that really (my poor kiddos reacting to injury with "oh nooo, I liked this outfit, RIP my favorite sweater," while bystanders and/or whoever stabbed them in the first place watch in horror is my Pain Jam)

This is post series and consequently includes spoilers, and is an AU of canon, specifically that Ellimist Ex Machina AU I keep talking about writing, so if characterizations are off from the end of Book 54, that’s why.

1: “No. You buried your knife in my stomach, which means it’s mine now.”

Things Sargeant Vic Santorelli agreed to when he signed up to be part of this groundbreaking military training unity:

Learning how to turn into an animal

Things he did not agree to:

Being handed a knife by a girl younger than his sister and told to stab her in the chest

“Um,” Vic says, looking at the knife she’s handed him. His fellow students are all too well-trained to actually blurt out what they’re thinking, but he sees them stare, flick glances at General Berenson in the corner.

(”You can just call me Jake,” their teacher said the first time they met. “The title’s ridiculous and we all know it.")

(”Yes, sir,” Berenson’s new students chorused obediently, and proceeded to never ever address him as Jake, because the title’s not ridiculous and they all know it.)

Berenson looks almost bored. He certainly doesn’t seem concerned that his cousin might be getting stabbed herself with a Marine’s combat knife. Berenson usually has about the emotive range that you’d expect from a hardened veteran--it’s hard to remember that he’s only eighteen, a full two months younger than the blonde staring Vic down--but he focuses like something predatory when he wants to, and apparently he doesn’t care to right now.

“I’d rather...not?” Vic finally says carefully.

Rachel scoffs, thrusts the hilt of the knife at him again. She’s dressed in a leotard--a plain black one, not the official-issue morphing uniforms they were given at the start of this training. “Don’t be a weenie. Stab me with the knife.”

“Is this...part of the lesson?”

“Yes,” she says, narrowing her eyes. “Come on, Sargeant, free shot. Try and avoid any arteries.”

“Avoid--”

“Soldier,” Berenson says in the corner, his arms crossed, leaning back against the wall, scowling. He looks almost like a sullen teenager, except for the tired look in his eyes. “She’s the boss of you. Stab her, or I’ll do it.”

Vic reluctantly takes the knife and Rachel tosses her hair, mocking.

“Oh, sure,” she drawls. “You’ll listen to the General himself.”

“Come on, Rachel,” Berenson says. He sounds--annoyed? Impatient with her, maybe? That doesn’t seem quite right to Vic, especially since Rachel’s hard, superior expression softens minutely around the eyes.

“Fine,” she sniffs, and rolls her eyes at him. Berenson straightens up a little bit.

Vic is still holding onto the knife hesitantly when Rachel spreads her arms and beckons him forward.

“Come on,” she says. “Take your best shot.”

Vic has to close his eyes, but he does it, and he hears a little huh as her breath is forced out, blood slicking his knuckles as he stumbles back, leaving the knife in place.

“Okay,” Rachel says on a hiss, pressing one hand around the place where the knife juts out of her ribs. There’s blood spilling over her hand, around her fingers, and Vic thinks blankly of the fact that she’s begun to be called Bloody Rachel.

(Vic wasn’t a Controller, but his aunt was, a survivor of the bombed-out Pool, and she had smiled grimly when he told her that he was learning from Jake Berenson, and that his cousin was helping him.)

(“Good,” his tia said. “Bloody Rachel will teach you how to kill anyone who tries to hurt us again.”)

“So,” Rachel says while her hand turns red and glossy and she doesn’t seem to notice. “What did you learn, Santorelli?”

“That you’re fucking terrifying, ma’am,” he blurts before he can think twice, and she grins at him. The knife, sticking out of her side, must have punched through a lung, because she coughs before she speaks again and her teeth and lips fleck red.

“No,” she says. “Who else learned something?”

The room is dead silent, except for the faint rattle of Rachel’s breathing.

“Tell them the answer,” Berenson says after it becomes clear that she’s not going to get one, and Rachel nods.

“What you learned is that you just buried your knife in my chest,” she says, and pulls the blade out in one swift motion as black hair begins to sprout from her hands. “It’s mine now,” she says before her vocal cords start to warp.

Chimpanzees aren’t especially large--a little taller than waist height on Vic--but Rachel bares all her teeth at them and gives the knife an expert flip in one of the big, dexterous hands.

her voice says in their heads, she adds, using the knife point to gesture to herself.

“Do you understand today’s lesson?” Berenson asks, and Vic isn’t sure when he stepped away from the wall, standing in front of them with his hands in his pockets, Rachel at his side.

“Yes, sir,” the other murmur.

“Good,” Berenson says while Rachel demorphs. “Everyone go get a knife.”

#animorphs #jake berenson #rachel berenson #post war #ellimist ex machina au #starlight writes stuff #yeah idk i kind of made some shit up for santorelli #he doesn't deserve this #i am LONG SINCE over my laryngitis but my brain is not in a great place for alleirat #and thus: prompts #i'm deleting some of them because i got like...six for taz and i just don't have ideas for all of them #but yeah here's some Feelings about animorphs #obviously the difference in the EEM au is that rachel lives and everything is still terrible but differently #but among the changes is that jake and rachel kind of mutually bully each other into getting out more #like for example into agreeing to teach a bunch of tiny baby army fucks how to be animorphs #god can you imagine being a grown-ass adult in the army expected to learn from a TEENAGER #also feat. my opinions on Jake Being The Youngest Berenson #excepting Rachel's sisters obviously #but whatever #i'm done here #anyway here's wonderwall #idiot teenagers with a queue #anonymous #asked and answered

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words-writ-in-starlight · 5 years

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What if, hypothetically, when Crayak saves Rachel as payment for killing Tom ("the life of your cousin"), SHE doesn't even know why she's still alive. One minute, dead, and the next, alive. Like blinking. And it takes her a while to unravel this mystery of how she survived, and when she finally does, there's the Drode: "Have you figured it out yet, Rachel?" Does she tell the others? Does this make her a tool of Crayak? Or is it a simple, single contract, the terms of which have been fulfilled?

Anonymous asked:

Okay but there could be even more angst. What if she's revived after death by Crayak (let's face it Crayak can probably pull something like that) and forced to work for him and then has to try to find a way to regain her freedom?

Anon...I think I’ve found your soulmate.

In all seriousness, I frankly have too many fics on my plate, including the Ellimist Ex Machina AU I’m still hoping to write and wallow in at length (ANGST! HEAVEN! NOW! WATCH ME TAKE THE PERFECT HAPPY ENDING AND TURN IT INTO EVERYONE CRYING!!!), so I am going to release these very excellent concepts of pain and torment into the universe. I may possibly come back to them someday but that day is not today.

#animorphs #ellimist ex machina #you have no idea how much it pains me to admit that i literally just do not have the brain capacity to juggle another au right now #but i super cannot #like #not even as a series of tumblr asks #i'm still hoping to get back to that wonder woman/pjo crossover at some point here #and maybe eventually wade through some of the civil war asks #AND this bitch has to finish her actual fucking novel that is actually mine and i actually want published someday #so. i like these concepts very much and want to save them for later.#but if you (the nebulous internet 'you') wants to take a whack at one #PLEASE DO #alternatively you two should just link up and yell upsetting headcanons at each other indefinitely #have fun #queue deeper than the sea of stars #huge-screwed-up-universe #asked and answered

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words-writ-in-starlight · 6 years

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Rereading Animorphs and thinking about if Rachel had survived, and I'm wondering if after the war Crayak would still occasionally poke at her because Crayak still wants Jake dead and just because the war is over doesn't mean the Game is. No reason to throw away perfectly good game pieces just because you lost a round, after all...

Ooooh, very nice, quality content, you can sit by me.

Someday, I will write the Ellimist Ex Machina AU of my dreams where Rachel lives through the final battle and everything is still Awful, just slightly differently Awful, featuring Rachel finally, at the end of everything, admitting to Jake that Crayak offered her everything she could ever have wanted if she killed Jake in cold blood.

MY FAVORITE DYNAMIC, Y’ALL.

#animorphs #rachel berenson #ellimist ex machina #god fuck me running i should write another au where CRAYAK spares rachel at the end of it all #because well...she did fulfill his terms #the blood of her cousin and all that #the Angst #goddamn i love these books #idiot teenagers with a queue #anonymous #asked and answered

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words-writ-in-starlight · 7 years

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The David trilogy.... *Inhales* That was a wild ride. And I have Opinions about this arc, most of them I am currently unable to present in a coherent manner. I feel like this is one of the arcs where we see a much darker side of the Animorphs (speaking in relative terms) 1/?

Like Marco and Rachel straight up bullied the kids, Ax was ruthless when it to the very end with counting down time. Also I'm pretty sure it was the first time Jake used physical violence to keep a team member under control. And CASSIE HOLY SHITE. I'm not sure if Tobias did anything that stood out to me but I was definitely surprised by some of the other Animorphs 2??

Like Rachel, Jake and Ax I understand on some sort of level. But Cassie and Marco? Especially when Marco was in David's position at the very beginning (as in he didn't want to fight the war) and Cassie... like especially after Book 19 I didn't expect this level of ruthlessness from her. And she was so very ruthless.3/?

Also!! Rachel!!! And her emotions!!! About being manipulated by Jake!!! And her realisation of who (or what) she is!!! And her maybe sort of acceptance of her place in the team and what she's turning into!!!! Are very important!!! As is her emotion response about Tobias being hurt. Also it just struck me, how old are these kids now? Like 14? And basically having to make 4/?

this awful choice between compassion and the need for secrecy. Kinda effed up. And thoughts on David.... The whole set up of the Arc was to set him up as a raging douchebag. Which he was. Totally and utterly. But looking back on it, he was a desperate kid who had lost his parents and was suddenly thrust into the awful war and whose only friends were a group of kids who 5/?

were tbh kinda d*cks to him. I understand where he was coming from. And as said before we were meant to be suspicious of (The killing of the crow) but at the end of the day it was a ruthless and cruel thing to do. And from my standpoint something completely necessary. It's still very haunting thinking about Davids fate. On that island hearing the screams of a young boy. 6/7

Anyway great arc loved it. 7/7

This is SUCH a solid breakdown of the David arc, and, listen, honestly the David trilogy--I love it so much you guys, like, I could talk for hours about it.

Like, for example, I generally believe that, entirely disregarding what the Animorphs do to him (which...that’s some dark shit, and honestly I think it represents a certain turning point, a moral event horizon they can never really return from, and I also think some of their actions, especially Cassie’s, later in the series, come from a place of trying and screwing up horribly in the process), David is...

Well. He’s a killer. He’s a sociopath. This kid’s a bad one. Beyond everything he does to the Animorphs, he definitely murdered Saddler, right--Saddler’s body is totally discovered a day or two later in the elevator shaft. Forget anything else: David committed premeditated murder of a severely wounded child who was entirely uninvolved in the little war David was waging against the Animorphs, with the intent of stealing that child’s identity and life. And David is like maybe fourteen.

I’m gonna write a fic about how terrible and nightmarish the knowledge of someone like that being able to steal your face is.

#the david trilogy #animorphs #other people reading animorphs #ALSO HEY WHAT IF THE ELLIMIST EX MACHINA AU INCLUDED A CONVERSATION WITH DAVID'S PARENTS #AND ANOTHER ONE WITH SADDLER'S PARENTS #FOR MAXIMUM TERRIBLENESS #motherfucking david #david you fuck #i love the david trilogy so much y'all if you ever want to listen to someone scream about some minute plot point #I GOT YOU #ASK ME ABOUT IT SOMETIME #idiot teenagers with a queue #anonymous #asked and answered

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