#i think mostly it's the fact that animorphs will present to you some very shallow stuff and then ask you to engage with it like its real

[yellowocaballero]

hi! i know that i'm fated to read your every work despite not knowing the media half the time. this time i would like to finally be one step ahead. so uhh. where do i read orv? do i go for the webtoon or the novel? to clarify, i did try to search, but got confused by reddit. also i am going to watch trigun. i've been eyeing animorphs too but the 54 (?) books are making me go hmm. thank you for existing you're pretty great. you're like the spiderman of writing but instead you got asbestos rat'd.

THIS ASK IS INSANE. WE'RE REFERENCING MY LORE NOW?

But thank you, you're insane. People ask why I have stupid high standards for the fics i post on AO3 and it is because there are people like you who will just read whatever regardless of whether or not it's good. I have a responsibility.

This ask also made me wonder if I have good taste. Because every time somebody says this my first reaction is "oh god and the source materials aren't even good". I read a lot of trashy stuff (but, like, define trashy), and I consume too many bad things to be able to say I have discerning taste. If I enjoy something I almost never call it bad, because things were made to be enjoyed and I enjoyed them then they had value in at least one aspect. If you were to ask me if my favorite TV show of all time the Incredible Hulk 1974 was actually, unironically, good, then I'd break into a cold sweat. Is somebody bad because it's camp? Is something bad only if it's unintentional camp?

Regardless, I never write fic for something that isn't only like 80% good - there's a sweet spot of 'good enough for me to obsess over' and 'bad enough that I'm rewriting it in my head'. It's rare I write for anything I find completely good. Which is why I feel bad when people say that they're reading this thing I'm writing fic for jalksdf there's better things out there I SWEAR.

ORV is in the sweet spot of "this isn't high literature" and "this has given me brain worms". Definitely for sure start with the webtoon - the webnovel is clunkily translated, you don't read it for the writing at all, and it is also a literal million words. Don't read the webnovel unless you're like "I'm going insane and I need more of this". It starts off kind of slow ("This is a well executed very banal isekai") and you're like a frog in the pot of it slowly going more insane until you're a ways in and you are in a tangle of ridiculously complicated gambits and convoluted storytelling. There is literally no other way to describe it than the Homestuck of webnovels. If you're completely unfamiliar with isekai that's fine, but as a warning - ORV being your first webtoon/webnovel isekai is like your first shoujo manga being Ouran High Schol Host Club, or your first magical girl show being Madoka, or your first mecha anime to be Neon Genesis Evangelion. It's one of the best works in its genre but it's supposed to be viewed in context of the genre. Or maybe it's more like if Homura starred in Evangelion, which was Ouran. I'm just saying words.

Animorphs is kind of like Mother 3 in which everybody who has ever read/played it said that it changed them as a person, it changed their relationship with media and storytelling forever, if you read/play it you will be born again from the world's egg, etc. Works that genuinely become part of your personality. I also never recommend it to people because it is incredibly hit or miss. I remember using a spreadsheet of just "what books are skippable or not" because some of them are incredibly weird and some of them are incredibly weird in the bad way. The only Animorphs fic I've ever written is from 2019 so it's also not that great. Each book only takes an hour to read and the pdfs are free online, so it's incredibly accessible in terms of the reading experience, but it's kinda the Animorphs gestalt that changes you forever and not the individual books. I try not to recommend stuff that's like 25% bad.

Watch Trigun if you like what Trigun is - it's not going to deliver on something it's not. Also watch 98 first. Watch Stampede/read Trimax if you want more Trigun. The Trigun fic is based off Stampede but refer to my "I only write fic for smth that's 80% good and not 100% good" statement.

Also I think being bit by an asbestos rat just means that I probably have mold and drywall in my lungs, which would explain a lot about this blog. Thanks for the ask I love it.

#you have to feel kind of guilty saying “this is the homestuck of webnovels” and reccomending it with a straight face #and like i wouldn't outright reccomend it #it has plenty of problems. but also you dont care about the problems much ya know. #my asks #my writing #it is genuinely so funny that Animorphs and M3 girlies are Like That #sir this is a children's novel where a teenager vomits crocodiles #and it's not as good when you just hear people describe it like “oh read animorphs its sooo fucked up and edgy and people die” #like. yes its good because its fucked up. but also #the humor and levity and silliness is important and makes the fuckery meaningful #i think mostly it's the fact that animorphs will present to you some very shallow stuff and then ask you to engage with it like its real #its not realism or grittiness or edge #it just presents you with Very Basic Children's SciFi and goes #these are real children. all life is real sentient life. #yes the CIA really did do that. #when the enemy is killed the enemy is dead. do you understand. #thats what makes it a rly good childrens novel but also what makes it so disturbing as an adult #whose been asked to fictionalize suffering countless times in scifi #and on the tv. and in the news. and from each other. #and when we're presented with normal fictional suffering and the narrative is like No - Look At This #it changes how you engage with scifi and media in general #there's a lot of 'Jake' characters out there. but you can't look at them the same way. #did not expect the tag essay to be about animorphs this time.