#nothing to do with animorphs

[satosugusbowlofcereal]

hey. hey how do i cope when the trope is two characters who were clearly meant to be together and look deeply into each others eyes every chance they get and know each other in ways no one else can and are very obviously shipped together by the writers and are literally WRITTEN FOR EACHOTHER and desperately in love but they cant be because censorship is a cockblocker please send help soon I'm loosing it

#lol guys what if this was about geto and gojo like just what if #luca and alberto too cause me and my friends are going to the theatres to cry about what was meant to be #this has nothing to do with nana and hachi but they are forever on my mind #raiden ei and eimiko like its actually sick good bye #every lesbian ever to breathe #korra and asami cause they were supposed to get an onscreen kiss and then bam a fucking hand hold like that shit still hyped me but omg #GUYS WAIT RARIJACK IN EQUSTRIAGIRLS #loki and mobius WHO SAID THAT #geto suguru #gojo satoru #loki season 2 #loki #loki series #mobius #lokius #also Ax and Marco from animorphs cause i'm currently reading the book and it's very obvious if this wasnt written in the 90's it would be #even gayer #again curse you tumblr tag word count i'm tryna wax poetry here

[drjdorr]

Is it ever explained why dracon beams break things down slowly so it hurts? Like they are specifically modified from andilite shredders which break stuff down more or less instantly and painlessly.

Outside of "they are the evil species" which doesn't fully mesh with later added complexity, I can't think of any reason for them to need to kill something painfully

#animorphs #if you are killing someone anyway them being in pain adds nothing #and having it achieved by doing it slowly just give your opponent the opportunity to shoot you back

[regallibellbright]

It probably does affect my fondness for Henry V a bit that, on top of all other factors (including ‘once more into the breach’ being our first wifi password when the house got wifi, years and years ago,) I was introduced to it as a symbol of one man’s resistance against an alien brain slug controlling his body, because the brain slug couldn’t control his thoughts so he could at least run Henry V’s monologues at the brain slug on loop. This continued until the brain slug was so sick of hearing it that, when he got the ability to travel back in time to make a more Yeerk-friendly present day, one of his stops was the Battle of Agincourt specifically to make Henry V lose the battle so that Shakespeare wouldn’t write a play about it, just to spite his host.

The book ends with the man preventing his parents from meeting so that he will never be born and the alien brain slug that parasitized him can’t time travel. So you know, a typical Animorphs special.

#also the kids witness D-Day! #this is as traumatizing for them as you’d expect from Animorphs #Animorphs #between that and the ‘Jake gets Yeerked’ book that was also one of the handful I read #I got a pretty hefty dose of PSYCHOLOGICAL horror pretty early on from those books #you know moreso than the usual from Animorphs where the back of the blurb is a warning #that maybe people you know are under Yeerk control #cause nothing says fun kids books like wacky covers and paranoia fuel! #(seriously though kids are resilient and though the books are DARK AS FUCK they were not written at an age inappropriate level) #(I handled this fine and would give them to a seven-to-ten-year-old without hesitation) #(the only issue is how thoroughly widespread cell phone use makes the book plot nonfunctional) #(they simply would not be able to go off the grid so thoroughly without it going unnoticed and a kid would struggle to suspend disbelief) #just you know. we joke. and it always surprises me people DON’T know what Animorphs was about because the back blurbs admit it #this is a war story against an unseen enemy controlling people they know #it hides the TRAUMA and the fucked up actions the kids have to take #but it’s very upfront about the war bit and the covers do convey some of the morphing body horror #which we hear about IN DETAIL every time they do it! #thank you ka applegate #(sincere)

[sysig]

More cat!DAX (Patreon)

#Doodles #SCII #ZEX #DAX #Mostly leftover cat!DAX ideas nothing huge hehe #ZEX with an emotional support animal that doesn't actively try to eat or maim him! Progress! #As soon as he turns back you know he'll be right back on it tho lol #I like to imagine it's something like Animorphs-style instincts - like your mind is still in there but the new body sometimes just acts #I doubt DAX would immediately recognize that he's scent-marking ZEX out of feeling territorial or affectionate - it just feels right #And for ZEX he just got nuzzled so that's exciting haha #Kneading as well - no logic to it it just feels nice #And for ZEX it would be very confusing and alien to have a little creature making dough on him lol #He'd probably very quickly learn that you can't get up when there's a cat on your lap hehe ♪ Those little paws tucking his arm between ah #Why do I enjoy drawing VUX sneezing I just think it's so silly lol their tentacles go all Poof haha ♪ #Just try getting him out of a tiny space once he wedges himself in there #And then finishing it off with DAX actually being himself and experimental - VUX don't have claws much less retractable ones #It'd be some interesting new natural tools for sure

[yalikejazz9]

Dear my animorphs friends and followers, I may be posting a more.. wide variety of things here. So please do be weary of that!

#animorphs #other stuff #this totally has nothing to do with malevolent #totally #malevolent podcast

[magpiesbones]

hey yknow what would be fucked up

if you were in a time loop and conscious of it but not the one the time loop was running on. You’re just trapped in all your previous decisions but you’re in there. Unable to affect the time loop but Conscious of it.

#like. tell me this WOULDNT be INCREDIBLY fuckfull #hm ideally I think this is either a harrow or an olruggio situation if I ever made a fic about it #(harrow obviously is stuck in the Last Day At Canaan House) #(olruggio is stuck in. hmm it would be INCREDIBLE angst hell if he was stuck in ch40 always only remembering the questions bc his mouth #forms the words and then Forgetting rinse and repeat until Qifrey gets his shit together) #I DID read a really good Jake Animorphs time loop where Tom was also In On The Loop hhhhhhrgh #but like. hough man the agency metaphors for Olruggio in that situation. #He wants to help SO GODDAMN BAD and he CANT. there’s nothing he can do. he doesn’t even know what he’d do if he COULD.

[princeseerow]

i cant believe i had to see a reddit post today wherein nadia nascimento was praised for fitting the books depiction of cassie

i havent seen the show so im sure shes a fine actor but, like, appearance wise?

character descriptions within animorphs are never that in depth so im pretty sure cassie is only ever described as "black" "chubby" and "has short hair". nadia nascimento is one of those things lol

#animorphs #chattering #like do we really see nothing wrong with casting a dark skinned character with short kinky hair as a light skinned girl w long loose curls #actually in at least one of her covers it looks like cassie has short microbraids but i havent been able to find an image of it in high def #but still #cassie

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

i loved your post on MBPT and why it is pseudoscientific bullshit, can you do a similar take down of body language analysis used in "criminal psychology"

I don't have the level of expertise on body language that I do on psychometrics, but I can recommend this article by an expert.

To sum up: body language is entirely dependent on context, so much so that it's impossible to know with certainty from a single conversation what any one person's gestures mean. If I ask my sister "How was dinner last night?" and she smiles big while throwing out both arms and exclaiming "it was great!", then I know dinner sucked. I know that because she isn't the type of person to use those behaviors, except occasionally in sarcasm. If I ask my dad "How was dinner last night?" and he smiles big while throwing out both arms and exclaiming "it was great!", then I know dinner was great. I know those because he is the type of person to use those behaviors in everyday life. If I ask a stranger about dinner and get that response, then it's probably safe to assume sincerity rather than sarcasm, but I don't have enough info to know. Celebrities, tiktokers, suspects, and other strangers just aren't informative enough to draw conclusions.

Body language "analysis" also forgets that we humans actively choose how to present ourselves. Many people report making eye contact and holding still during lies, because of the stereotype that liars fidget and look away. I try to smile and nod more often during unpolished presentations, because seeing students smile and nod makes me feel better when I'm presenting badly. But I also nod and smile automatically during insightful and well-made presentations. So if you see me smiling and nodding during your presentation, it's a sign that I think your presentation is good or that it's bad. And I'm the only person who knows for sure which one it is; my body doesn't offer enough info for you to know.

#nothing to do with animorphs #body language #psychology #forensic psychology #social psychology #body language analysis #nonverbal communication #lie detection

[thegayestandalite]

Chapter 3

The Yell Beasts

It hardly seemed any time at all when the sun sunk back into the land and the native wildlife seemed to blaze with it. Or he could simply becoming alert to the danger.

He had refrained from informing his shorm of the fact it was becoming night and he was still as of yet, outside his ship, while being injured.

They both remembered the terrifying times on a wild planet where all the most dangerous animals woke from their sleep.

He glanced forlornly at his ship. It was only a few yards away and offered total protection.

So close, but he couldn’t make himself get up and go. It wasn’t even a pain thing, more of a brain thing. He’d put it off for an hour. Another hour and he’d be stuck with the wounds. He inner sighed at his brain’s stubborness, always a struggle with that guy.

“AAAROOoOOOOoOOO”

A long drawn out howl permeated his surroundings, an icy pricking of fur down his spine. It was followed by another, and another. The forest seemed completely silent to listen.

Oh well. If the field had taught him anything, it was the abject overwhelming silence that consumes the night is when it was time to worry.

The howls stopped.

[Ah.] He thought.

————————————————-

The pack surrounded him. It was pitch dark already. Tiny pricks of cold starlight could be seen through the canopy. But they offered no light.

They were the same animals as Legs, and wouldn’t you know it, they traveled in groups!

[How terrifying], he thought warmly. [It’s as if the forest was engineered to generate horror.]

The long snouted, narrow eyed beasts with teeth and teeth stared at him, as if waiting to close in.

He didn’t bother straining his eyes to keep track of their nervous movements.

An andalite’s primary sense was sight, but there was a time and a place and this was not that.

His extensive experience with predators, and pack predators no less, let him keep his cool as he tucked in all limbs except for his tail. A smart animal grabs the exposed body part.

The leader, or maybe just the bolder of the animals, was staring straight at him, growling.

Growls, he had learned, were noises of aggression, sort of a self pep talk to gear up for an attack.

Bor’ij gently swooshed his tail over the animal’s head, causing her to jump back with her great triangular ears pinning to her head.

True, it was the rare predator that charged in without fear..an injury in the wild could easily lead to death. Or a lot of pain and suffering.

She jumped back, her yellow eyes narrowed, scrutinizing this new, maybe prey.

Maybe if he hadn’t been in one spot for long, and maybe if he wasn’t visibly injured and bleeding they’d have ignored him. But none of that happened so here it is.

Legs, or Bor’ij’s new name for them: “The Spine Chilling Yell Beasts of the Abject Night” leader made a decision and lunged, grabbing his tail blade in her huge teeth.

[I know how to deal with bitey guys,] he informed her as her teeth searched for a grip on his blade.

[Give up,] he said, [you’re only making my blade look more bad ass.] Referring to the rake of Teeth etching grooves into his tail blade.

He gave his tail a tiny tug, and sure enough the animal’s predatory instinct to hold onto it’s prey locked in as strong as her teeth and she was dragged forward.

Too late. Far too late to be worried about being forcibly dragged towards an alien creature.

The injured andalite did a lunge himself, snatching and burying his fingers into the loose furry scruff of the animal and started to acquire her dna.

There was no time to lose.

Thick grey fur, an explosion of it - thicker than his own winter coat, erupted from his face, down his torso, down his back. His eyes narrowed, turned yellow and became fewer.

His tail blade sucked into his tail as it also loss muscularity. His nose elongated into a muzzle, teeth bursting through his gum membranes, lining his new mouth.

Finally, the sensation of the ground rushing towards him.

He closed his eyes, letting all the sensations and his new brain run over him, to be observed by him and nothing else.

He pushed his consciousness back out, opened his eyes and

Never before had he seen anything besides this.

Never before had he been anything other than fierce, cunning, powerful and loyal.

He had always belonged to the forest. His nose had always been so powerful. It could smell The very night itself.

His ears, had always been so keen And ready, catching every tiny noise.

His long legs and great paws that clutched the earth, ready to run and run and run.

A great lolling grin broke out across the muzzle he’s always had and showed the teeth he was born with the tongue hanging out that had forever existed.

The wounds that never existed, healed.

He drew his head to the stars and howled for his pack.

A blast of cool night air distracted him from his animal instincts.

[Better,] he thought to himself, enjoying the pain free walking and breathing.

He wasn’t feeling quick to go back to his ship, no doubt they were waiting to get into it and he had some personal items he’d rather not have to explain.

He turned in the direction the aliens had came and departed from.

While they waited to get into his domain, he’d find theirs first.

The new morph was called by the night. All the new sounds and smells. Oh.

He blinked at The Spine Chilling Yell Beasts of the Night and Wind that now seemed completely unsure of what to do. Where they had one leader, now they had two.

Bor’ij grinned a canine grin and scatted off to let them reconnect with their defeated leader.

————————————-

Run, run, run, faster and faster.

He threw his front paws out with complete abandon.

This was joy! Whenever he thought he might reach his limit, he thought, why not a little more and faster he went.

He bounded off logs and trees, splashed through ice cold streams, the soft dirt padded his furious paws.

It was 1.19 hours before he finally slowed. He’d forgotten to search for scents the whole way, he was too enthralled in the morph.

He took deep sharp breaths of cold air that filled his barrel chest. He took one long breath and howled again.

He wasn’t expecting a response, but still, it was lonely when there was none.

He trotted forward and found himself on the edge of the forest. In the distance, a building full of animal smells and dusty dried grass.

Probably nice and warm.

Probably great for naps.

He made his way onward, happy to explore.

The wooden building was actually great for napping. Ignoring all the interesting earth animals for now, he had leapt into the loft and snuggled into the straw, remembering to de morph and remorph, his internal clock making it a nearly subconscious effort.

#and what if I am nothing? #the only thing left to do is be it #animorphs #writing #fanfic #uprising chapter 3 #uprising

[ganymedesclock]

Tell me more about parasites and their hosts. Do you think the dynamic works if neither is aware of the other?

Before all else, any simplified dynamic has nigh infinite potential and how you explore it depends entirely on what you personally are looking for.

In my own case, a lot of my relationship with the idea of parasitism comes from my own mental health being strongly dependent on where I live- being able to return to home like a save point in a horror game. This sense of constantly being dependent on comfort, not merely as a normal person is but to the extent that I've felt like I'll be unable to cope if I can't get home in time or haven't built adequate mini 'safe rooms' (e.g. my car or a hotel room) to recharge, has formed a lot of my relationship with the idea of parasitism and the idea of haunted houses.

Both, to me, centrally focus on the idea of dependency on equilibrium. A house can't really chase you down- while there's certainly haunted house stories that give it the power to trap or pursue, to me, the most compelling angle is often one of necessity. Someone weighing the ghosts, the violence, the blood on the walls, and having to ask themselves if this is really worse than being homeless, or losing some advantage or shelter that you have here that can't be found elsewhere.

In the case of parasitism, the host is the haunted house. It may be simply indifferent to the parasite's survival; it may be actively hostile to and trying to rid itself of the 'guest'. But both parties have to weigh the odds- is it worth tearing into your own walls just to get at the interloper, is it worth staying in a place that unknowingly tolerates your existence at best and hates you at worst if the alternative is being laid barren in the world?

As a child, I remember reading the Animorphs books and one thing that always struck me as an unexpected source of pathos was how bleak and miserable the yeerks' default existence was. While we mostly experienced them from the horror of their would-be victims, people terrified and paranoid that those around them were being controlled, made prisoners in their own minds... the book where Cassie is briefly host to a yeerk and the first thing said yeerk does is, rather than focus on their agreement or advantages, start running around wildly and making use of Cassie's morphing power for the sheer wild euphoria of being able to.

As much as they are the Bad Guys in the story- invaders, body snatchers, sometimes sadists- there's something to be said about the torture of a fully sapient and intelligent being living as a nearly senseless, barely mobile creature by default. A tapeworm is perhaps lucky it cannot evaluate its existence in comparison to other life forms.

And, yeah, sure, parasites trip a particular contrarian reflex in me that I always want to root around and play with things that are seen as too icky or evil to be 'worth exploring', whether or not there's even any actual morality attached to things. Parasites do nothing on a basis of sadism- 'parasitism' is how they survive just as much as herbivory is how a rabbit survives.

It's instead on a basis of need.

And the point where we need others- especially imperfectly, reluctantly, warily, always hesitating on these dynamics of exploitation- and especially when it comes to the body which we often see as the most private bastion of the self- is where some really juicy dynamics can spring from.

#writing ruminations #long post #do I need you; do you need me; can I not live without you; is this not a form of devotion; is this not a form of love; #I am not the same as I was before I met you before you touched me; there is 'Us' now and it is beautiful and horrid; #we dread 'Us' as much as we dread the solitary 'I'- the true proof that we are alone

[exigencelost]

Animorphs 5 gave us so much. They fit so much into that tiny little book. Two kids getting almost boiled alive for dinner in a regular human kitchen in a scene that had sort of nothing to do with the plot. Ax going completely insane at radio shack and almost dooming the Earth by virtue of total inability to behave normally in public for ten seconds. A disillusioned teenager making a desperate attempt to abnegate his duty for what would turn out to be the last time in his fucking life, then realizing twenty minutes later that he's incapable of that. A gaggle of teens experiencing ego death and getting ripped to pieces by completely normal ants before blindly bursting out of the suffocating earth and running home in leotards, only for one of them to find an ant pincer in his hip in the shower later and have a brief but thorough nervous breakdown in his bathroom. The same gaggle of teens catching a glimpse of their home planet from the window of a spaceship sent to consume that planet, struck by its beauty and by the weight of the duty of care for it that's been placed on their shoulders, moments before they are brought to believe they have failed that duty irrevocably and will die before they reach their home again. And all of that was before Eva came back from the dead.

#animorphs #animorphs 5 #marco animorphs

[emptyjunior]

Can we talk about the absolute A24 film level Nightmare that Elody experienced though. Yeah it’s a horror season, well how about the horror the main party are inflicting on Other characters. Elody is literally in a salvador dali fever dream.

Imagine, you find the slumped and mangled body of your husband. As far as you’re aware, your only purpose in this world was this man and now he is dead. Like the implications of that, the fear of what if you are nothing now and that everything meaningful you’ve worked for was taken so quickly and comically.

But then you recover and grow, try and put all that behind you. Meet sisters who explain that obviously you are more then your husband and you have a much greater purpose then that, which you’ve always suspected but it’s Nice, it’s the smallest bit of comfort to know there are others like you.

Then your Husband comes back from the dead.

And not just your husband, his limbs are twisted, his skin is wet and spotted, all his features are deformed and bloated. But you’re not shallow! So it’s fine, it’s fine, this animorphic beast like creature is your husband who’s alive and it’s fine.

And then he tells you he would be Nothing without you. And that’s great. Like you know it should be sweet but god it triggers something SO specific in you, like just the way he says it really spikes something uncomfortable for you. How you lived your life constantly having to make sure Other people do the right thing cause they wouldn’t without you. Are maybe you’re just spiteful and he’s just a sweet broken man? You don’t know, you’re tired and confused and retire for the night.

And then he comes knocking at your door. And he tries to redo the past with a weird little gift? But he can’t just act like nothing happened cause So much has happened!!? Then he tells you that the sisterhood that saved you are actually Genocidal Murderers. and you Need to believe him and you Can’t talk to them. And then he sings a strange hair themed nursery rhyme and leaves and you hear him throw up outside your room.

And then the last time you ever see him he is bolting through the snow on a white horse, your knight in shining armour, your prince, fleeing from a castle once again.

And also him and his collection of strange and twisted creature friends have wrapped themselves in white sheets as they disappear over the horizon. And you may now be a prisoner or a hostage.

Elody is in a non-narrative avante garde cult film, she’s in one of those scandanavian folktales where there’s not meant to be a moral, it’s just scaring kids from going outside in the winter months. Prince Gerard has her in the grips of a psychological horror where she loves the thing that by it’s very nature imprisons her

#idk maybe they'll still work it out tho uwu <<<3333 #dimension 20 #d20 #dropout #princess elody #prince gerard of greenleigh #brian murphy #brennan lee Mulligan

[corvidcall]

whenever someone is describing any piece of media and they say "it didnt need to to this hard" it does drive me a little batty. what do you MEAN they didnt have to to this hard. the reason you make art is to go as hard as you possibly can in that moment.

"oh wow they COULD have just given me slop that wasnt even good! but instead they decided to put effort in!!!" yeah bud. why would they have bothered otherwise. especially funny because i most recently saw someone saying it about Animorphs of all things. the fuck you mean KA Applegate didnt have to go that hard for Animorphs. that was the whole POINT of Animorphs. why would she bother writing Animorphs if it didn't go as hard as it did?

idk its a little weird to me! a little silly. why would i make art at all if i wasnt gonna put my whole pussy into it? i would have instead just done nothing.

#anime life #i get it a little bit for like. commercial art. like why does the music for this corporate training video go so hard #but the answer is. because the person who made it was a composer. who probably liked making music. and wanted the music they made to be good

[britcision]

Alright the time has come DunMeshi fans tag yourselves as the Canaries

Fear not anime-onlies there are no spoilers here you’ll get to see these assholes around ep 23

Now for your assignments no peeking first

1) Cithis

Absolute goddess. Kabru if he was a girlboss and didn’t suck at illusion magic. There is nothing in the world Kabru would hate more than this fact

2) Fleki

Doing her level fucking best to become the birb at all times. Loves shrooms. Will eat the walking magic mushrooms

3) Lycion

Moon Moon ass motherfucker I love him he’s perfect in every way

4) Otta

Lesbian icon, the only one who thinks short lived people can be adults, believe it or not. Dates halffoot women but breaks up when they hit 30 (50 in human years)

5) Pattadol

Completely sure she’s the adult in this situation. She’s wrong and 100 years younger than everyone else. Still somehow the most responsible

6) Mithrun

My little fucking guy. Absolute disaster of a man. Will not eat, sleep, or shit without outside interference. Will get lost on his way out of a room with one door

#delicious in dungeon #dungeon meshi #canaries dungeon meshi #they’re just perfect okay #dungeon meshi canaries #captain mithrun #cithis #lycion #fleki #pattadol #otta #canary poll

[lakesbian]

OH have you finished all of animorphs then? Any general wrap-up thought on the characters n their arcs if so?

oh boy okay that's a big ask because the lack of specificity means i'm inclined to be comprehensive. i'm gonna force myself to be brief

jakey: very coherent arc from "i'm not the leader why are you guys saying i'm the leader stop saying i'm the leader" to "Subhuman. Flush 'em." it's good. i also like the chain where he's like. initially invested for saving his brother > tells marco he can't make calls about his mother because he's too close to the situation and is frankly an ass about it while hypocritically insisting he can handle the yeerk controlling his brother trying to murder his father, relieved when the animorphs take the difficulty of having to make the choice away from him but still views it as an indictment of his leadership capabilities > during the evacuation of the families he almost like...overcompensates w/ under-prioritizing himself and his loved ones, irrationally prioritizes everyone else's families being moved out first despite the fact that it would have made more tactical sense to do his first > he loses his family over this and it breaks him

rachel: problem w/ rachel is that, unbeknownst to me when i started reading, multiple of the books for her just had no idea what the hell or fuck they were doing, and were wildly out of character. ignoring the books that were fake and didn't happen, her arc is good. the thing is that "we might have to do something terrible, too. get rachel" is the crux of her Issues and the ghostwriters didn't need to do any of that other shit. the fake and true rachel books would've been served better by exploring the fundamental divide btwn her and cassie as people i'm sure you know what i mean

marco: probably the most consistent/strong arc? it's good. reading the end part was like

marco: i haven't seen jake in a few months. i still worry about him of course, just...from my hot tub me: that seems not true marco: okay so he hasn't seen ME in a few months but i have been continuously accidentally-on-purpose spying on him, and also sometimes i turn into a lobster in my fountain to cope me: okay yeah that's true

i like his fundamental internal conflict of. Being a person who is very capable of seeing, as per his iconic monologue, the bright line from a to z, and also continuously kicking the part of him that's horrified & upset by how that line impacts himself/the things personal to him under a rug. and despising when people pity him or acknowledge that he's upset/hurt because it reminds him he's got all that shit under the rug and distracts him from the bright clear line. really really good character writing how he's completely okay with constantly yelling and crying about how he's the most scared and afraid boy ever because fear over physical things is pragmatic, but he can't tolerate having it acknowledged when he's upset by something he knows to be necessary, because that's Not pragmatic. it adds flavor

cassie: i think it's funny how some of the other roles on the team are "the leader" "the lieutenant" "the axe-man" (<- not to be confused with the ax-man) etc and she's The One With A Continuously Functioning Moral Compass, Nerd #2, and The Emergency Lisa*. i've been told that the cassie books are either some of the strongest in the series or absolutely nothing but the thing is that i like the absolute nothing ones because i think the shenanigans are fun. so overall she's got great books. the struggle of a character who finds the moral compromises she's forced to make while participating in a war genuinely psychologically intolerable but still keeps being sucked in further is good & a nice sort of foil 2 some of the other morphs. i do have. And this has to be said despite being somewhat tangential. i do have the firm opinion that. rachel and cassie v much come off like they should be the classic "people who were bffs as kids and start becoming distant/incompatible as teens but are ignoring it and will be insisting on hanging out/calling each other bffs for several more years until something causes a bigger schism" dynamic & it would add a lot more if the text was aware of this fact and did something about it. but that's a longer post for a later time

tobias: his stomach flipping over while he tries to deny that the hawk-boy form of himself ellimist is showing him is him is perhaps one of the most stark scenes in the entire series and i think we should all be drawing it more. it's nice they put an abused autistic kid who doesn't feel like a human person in animorphs so that various children reading could have their brains rewired. i like how he's got a very heavy internal life. he's always Pondering. the torture plotline is a bit weakly written i think, his strongest moments are when he's doing an identity crisis thing. his dynamic with rachel is really good and the end of his arc does feel fitting. i think with how aximili is always going on abt how tobias is his shorm aka soulmate it would've been good if we saw more of the convos they were having or they had a more clearly Besties bond going on. although i DO like that aximili almost never shouts, someone (jake?) explicitly notes that when ax Does yell it means you'd better fucking listen, and to my memory the only call-caps moment aximili has is yelling "TOBIAS!" when he thinks tobias is critically wounded. more of that shit please. i would've also liked more tobias books in general bc he has one of the strongest narrative voices out of the gang

aximili: I was so mad about his very last book in the series being a shit ghostwriting moment. So mad you do not even want to know. entire plot of, like, book 8 all over again, except this time he's casually considering endorsing genocide for some reason. anyway i think there's a lot of interesting things going on in his head but his arc doesn't really wrap up well & there are a few ghostwritten books where he feels poorly done w/o having a rachel-type Really Iconic book that makes up for it. he works better early and mid series. he's also just a fundamentally hilarious character concept which is great. i'm sad that people lied to me about him being autistic compared to other andalites (he's not) but i like when he has axtism moments anyway. i would like to see 100 drawings of axmini get cinnamon roll now please

#ask #animorphs lb

[kaftan]

Some Notes on Arcs 18-20

(Long post! Here there be ramblings! Sorry)

- I forgot this was an arc 18 moment till I checked — Taylor feeling seduced (her words) by Dinah’s power, longing to hold on to her despite her mission being to free her… goosebumps. I love how the villains she hates rub off on her, worm (ha) into her.

- And then describing the act of returning her to her home as throwing away a resource… something that felt dumb to do… being proven right, in a sense, in arc 20, when it comes back to bite her… I’m reminded of some dialogue from animorphs that I’ll have to paraphrase, something about how what matters isn’t what’s right or wrong, it’s what’s expedient. Taylor isn’t all the way there yet, but feels like a matter of time.

- More on Taylor and morality: it’s fascinating to see her go through the same rough trajectory for every major battle — she starts from her baseline, being disturbed at the notion of seriously hurting or killing anyone, slowly numbs that sentiment with plenty of half-hearted strands of reasoning, eventually escalates to the point of cold-blooded violence or the enablement of such… and feels nothing. “Dissociation as an integral aspect of being” moment!

- I love Jessica Yamada. Not enough to read Ward, I have my limits. Getting a better perspective on the “all Amy’s horses and all Amy’s men couldn’t put Victoria back together again” situation was a treat. I love the horror elements in Worm. I love the horror of having the face of your trauma etched into the folds of your brain.

- Met Sveta! People on tumblr namedrop her a lot, to the point where I wondered if she’d been introduced before and I forgot. She’s a darling.

- Lily’s meltdown about Skitter… you can’t even look straight at her without feeling your skin crawl ❤️ but she sounds idealistic and naive even with cockroaches and bees crawling over her face ❤️ she starts making sense ❤️

- [Trickster voice] my beautiful gamer princess with a disorder… talk to me…

- This quote here:

“I mentioned it in passing to Miss Militia,” I said, “Better that you tell the truth and say we pushed hard for it. Blame me.”

“No,” Regent said, “Blame me.”

I shot him a look, and he shrugged. “Just wanted to get in on the fun,” he said.

says so much about Alec, lmao. It flagged in my brain because it’s the second time I’ve consciously noted it: his jokes about wanting to be included speak volumes. The truth he does not dare to know, etc etc

- Taylor “we cannot rule out human sacrifice” Hebert

- Marissa: She’s my friend. / Taylor: Was. It’s a big difference. Fast forward: Emma interlude, crossing paths at Arcadia. I love storytelling.

- Speaking of the Emma interlude: reading about Taylor’s bullying always makes me feel queasy; this was bone nausea on a deep level. What happened to Taylor is like if your worst fears about other people came true. You know, the nagging worry that you’re a burden, that a late text means I don’t want to be your friend. The worry that any reasonable person will tell you to ignore. How the fuck do you come back from living that nightmare?

Reminds me of Amy, how what happened to her is like if your worst fears about yourself came true.

- Everyone always talks about Taylor’s repressed rage but holy shit her repressed rage. What a character. What a character. I love her fantasies of violence. I love how much she basks in that meager catharsis.

- There’s something beautiful about how effortless the supervillain persona is for Taylor. (Every you is the real you, you are the mask and the wearer, etc.) Her standoff against Dragon and Defiant might be one of my favorite scenes yet. The perfectly affected nonchalance, the hanging threats toward hostages (becoming a theme), the mile-a-minute plotting, the grandiose gestures, the leveraging of fear… she’s a wonder and a terror.

- When she smiles and Clockbocker says “Fuck me, it just sunk in. It’s really her.” :-)))

- “and so that Defiant could make something resembling an apology as part of his twelve step assholes anonymous process” I fucking love you Taylor I love you forever

#wormblogging #LONG POST #sorry. #I am so excited for the story progression from here on out.