Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

Anonymous asked: ok so..... i always ignored the animorphs books as a kid (i think i picked one up and it wasn't the first book and i was confused and annoyed and the covers were ???? tacky??) but you're making me want to get into them as a 21 year old.... i mean. i guess i'm asking: what should i expect. how much of a commitment am i getting myself into.

Right, so, the first thing you should know here is that I know plenty of people who started reading these books as adults and therefore: no judgement.  The covers, also, are terrible, so furthermore no judgement on that front.

THAT BEING SAID.

Animorphs is a best-beloved series and it’s not their fault they lost the cover art lottery, this was such a formative series in my life.  Like, Robin McKinley taught me what you could do with words and stories, but Animorphs taught me what you should do to characters.  RIP all my characters who are still paying for that particular lesson.

So, Animorphs is a middle grade series, yes, it can be cheesy and tropey and absurd (and DATED good lord the 90′s seem like a long time ago).  But also…like, it’s a 54 book series literally RIDDLED with grim moral quandries, grisly murder, gory battles, war crimes, and general trauma, so forgive them their occasional descent into middle grade nonsense.  If you’ve ever looked a kid’s series that you loved to bits and pieces and thought to yourself “Jesus, these kids should be an absolute train wreck, I can’t believe Harry Potter/Percy Jackson/whoever sleeps at all ever,” Animorphs is the answer to that thought.  The first named character–my beloved weird alien prince Elfangor, the Wise Mentor Character™–dies horribly forty pages into the first book, and it pretty much goes downhill from there.  I affectionately call the kids the PTSD Squad and lordy.  LORDY.  Are they fucking ever.  Ongoing Fandomn Discourse includes the eternal question of “What is the first onscreen instance of really serious PTSD” and I generally argue for the suicide attempt in Book 3, but I could also see my way to granting the nightmare in Book 2.  The people who think it takes until Book 5 are just wrong, I love you all, but no.

• If you read these, I invite you to join @lathori in the experience of stopping every couple of chapters to say, in a horrified tone of voice, “Why did your parents let you read these when you were SEVEN”
  

• Reasons, okay.  Also I was a really bullheaded kid.  And it wasn’t like they were going to give me nightmares.  They probably should have.  But they didn’t.  Because Reasons.
  

• I digress.
  

But so, in terms of what you’re committing to…that.  That is what you’d be committing to.  In addition to the main series, there are 4 Megamorphs (of WILDLY variable quality, to be sure, and largely optional, but good brain candy most of the time) and 4 Chronicles.  The Chronicles are Andalite (PHENOMENAL BOOK, COULD BE READ INDEPENDENTLY, ABOUT MY GOOD WEIRD BOY ELFANGOR, DEF A FAVORITE), Hork-Bajir (really interesting characters, good concept, a little shaky on the dismount, so to speak), Visser (I don’t remember a ton of this one but GODDAMN I love Eva), and Ellimist (didn’t read this because honestly I didn’t care about the Ellimist that much as a kid except in terms of his ongoing torment of the Squad and I still don’t).

I feel it’s also my duty to warn you that events conspired against KA Applegate and much of the second half of the series is written by an assortment of ghostwriters, who are ALSO of wildly variable quality.  Example: Book 33, affectionately called The Torture Book by much of the fandom, could probably be used to raise me from the dead so that I could enjoy it one more time.  Books 37 or 39, on the other hand, which I pretend don’t exist, could be used to raise me from the dead so that I could bitch at length about how much I Fucking Hate Them.

• What is that Rachel characterization, Book 37, what are you doing with your life.
  

• Book 39.  What the tap-dancing fuck is the buffahuman.  Why.  Why do I have to live with that in my head.
  

• Anyway.
  

To that end, I recommend letting yourself skim and/or skip books if you reach one you really can’t handle the writing in after, say, the early 30′s.

• But don’t skip 37 or 39 because you have to Understand My Pain.
  

ANYWAY.

ANIMORPHS.

GREAT SERIES.

GET THEM ALL FOR FREE HERE.

KEEP ME POSTED IF YOU CHOOSE TO READ THEM.

Anonymous asked: They gave me feelings about a vice-principal... That's not faaaaaaaaaaaaair

“I was used to being alone” rip me

This????  Is the single greatest thing that Tumblr has ever done for me????  I mean, besides resurrecting my bone-deep adoration for this series upon the discovery of the fandom (did you know it’s actually possible to implode from enthusiasm, because I did that), but like, this is the greatest thing I’ve ever experienced on this blue hellsite.

But anyway, in order: YEAH MAN LISTEN MY EMOTIONS ABOUT CHAPMAN ARE COMPLICATED™ BUT LIKE HE JUST WANTS TO TAKE CARE OF HIS DAUGHTER?  I’M?  VERY EMOTIONAL ABOUT THAT SCENE WHERE HE REQUESTS CONTROL OF HIS BODY?  ALSO HERE’S AN UNSOLICITED PLUG FOR MY OWN FIC, THIS ONE’S ABOUT MELISSA BEING IN LOVE WITH RACHEL.

AND YEAH, NO, LISTEN, TOBIAS WAS MY FAVORITE CHARACTER AS A KID AND HE’S MY FAVORITE CHARACTER NOW (to be fair, dead tied with Rachel) AND HONESTLY READING ANY OF HIS BOOKS MAKES ME KIND OF NEED TO SCREAM A LOT FOREVER AND ALWAYS.

Anonymous asked: JESUS CHRIST. *Frantically googling if Tobias ever gets turned back into a human* I should've known better than to take books recommendation from strangers on the internet. Now I've got to read all of... this *gestures to 54 (?!) books* I hope you're proud of yourself.

HONESTLY?  PRETTY FUCKING DELIGHTED, YEAH.

WELCOME TO THE TRAGEDY CLUB.

Honestly the Animorphs fandom on Tumblr is like 50% schadenfreude and 50% mutual weeping so please, my friend, my buddy, keep me posted on your progress.

I feel like I’ve achieved something great here my dude, never be afraid to talk to me about Animorphs, and any time you want to hear someone weep AT LENGTH about The Best Sad Bird Boy HIT ME UP BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT I’M ON THE INTERNET FOR.

okay so a) sympathy about the housing nonsense, sounds almost as bad as my school’s, and b) this au sounds FANTASTIC and makes me wish I’d actually read more than the first quarter or so of the animorphs books

A) WHAT ARE COLLEGES DOING WTF GUYS WHY THIS WHY WHY WHY, WE PAY SO MUCH MONEY.  *clears throat* thank you for your support.  I was fortunate enough to be able to consistently bully Security/Housing into putting me with people I knew because I was Not doing that shit and I can be very…um, persuasive?  Commanding?  When I feel like it.

B) you definitely do not need to know anything about this series other than having a vague impression of the characters and a desire to see these kids have a nice time in order to grasp this AU, so if you bailed on the Animorphs because it was unremitting chaos and violence and death this may be the AU for you.  

C) if you actually do want to read more of the Animorphs and join this very small corner of fandom, here is a collection of all of the ebooks entirely for free, keep me posted so we can cry together.  Trigger warning for unremitting chaos and violence and death.  And dismemberment.

aethersea asked: hey so what's the animorphs college au?

Right, so, I actually wrote the first chapter and put it on AO3 (PSA: the first chapter is basically just smut?  like, there will be more other stuff but the story is basically structured around a fuckbuddies-to-dating plotline, so: smut), but here is some of the behind-the-scenes of the Animorphs college AU.

So, I started reading @lathori the Animorphs books because we’re domestic like that and after two books she stared at me and went “There’d better be happy AU fic or I’m gonna kill you.”  And…um, there’s actually not a lot of happy AU fic for these books because we’re all fucking sadists, s/o to my fellow fucking sadists.  So in order to preserve my best friend’s sanity as well as my own life (um…she knows where I sleep, y’all), I agreed on a few happy AU’s to write for her.  The D&D AU and the College AU were the first two, and she wants me to write the Morph Dancer AU as well.

But the actual premise of the college AU is based around the idea that Rachel and her cousin Jake and her recently acquired best friend Cassie and his recently acquired best friend Marco all get assigned to a house living arrangement with two complete strangers.  (If this sounds absurd, let me assure you that this happened in my school, except only two of the people knew each other.)  The night before they move into their new housing assignment, the lot of them go to a party, where Rachel hooks up with the cute quiet guy from her Shakespeare class the previous semester.

Imagine her alarm when he shows up at the house the next morning with his Very Weird friend (Ax makes a weird human in any universe okay) with his one (1) bag of possessions plus a box of books.

The ensuing plot mostly revolves around Rachel and Tobias pretending not to have feelings about sleeping together while they try to leverage Jake and Cassie into so much as holding hands instead of nervously tiptoeing around each other the whole time.  Also, it includes Jake laying down some House Rules, such as #2: All house residents must be wearing AT LEAST pants and/or a shirt at all times in all public areas, as well as all pertinent underwear.  And also #5: No drinking on school nights in the house.  And also #8: Thou shalt not risk getting arrested for illegal purchase of alcohol when Ax’s adult brother is LITERALLY an hour away and willing to buy the stuff legally.

All I really have worked out for this is some general backstory and people’s majors, I haven’t even gotten through the second chapter, despite my best efforts.

Rachel and Jake intentionally went to the same college Anywhere But Home because Tom just got out of a cult and it was making life a little stressful with their parents hovering anxiously at all times.  Rachel switched from gymnastics to krav maga, jiu jitsu, and kickboxing when she was thirteen and is majoring in kinesiology so that she can open her own self-defense studio.  Jake is a history major and Rachel considers it her sacred duty to make sure he has a life outside of the library and the gym, which is how he meets Cassie, Rachel’s new best friend, and almost swallows his tongue.  Cassie is on the pre-med track so that she can become a vet, and fills all of her additional credit openings with ecology classes because she’s like that.  Marco is kind of idly majoring in comp sci because it’s what his dad does and he doesn’t have a really heavy interest in anything else, but at the end of his sophomore year he declares a poli sci major out of the fucking blue and crams his schedule to finish on time.  Tobias is an English major who wants to be a teacher, and also he has a minor in studio drawing and a fascination with birds.  And of course there’s Ax who, for some perverse reason, really genuinely loves physics and comp sci and manages to major in both at once through sheer enthusiasm.  And Elfangor is alive and kind of thrilled that his baby brother has Real Friends, and he comes over and hangs out at the house sometimes and is much beloved by all of them, not least because he provides them with advance copies of video games sometimes and also bought the house PlayStation.

So… @wildehacked tagged me in this meme, add the first line of a WIP and tag as many people as there are words, and honestly I feel personally called out by this particular writing meme

Because, much like Wilde, I discovered that I write long-ass first sentences.  I found one that was a flat 50 words.  Most easily topped 30, with a handful in the mid 20′s.  This is the shortest opening sentence I found and it’s 16 and I’m sorry but I am definitely going to run out of people to tag before I hit 16, so please consider this an open invitation.

From what Tobias could tell, it got to be a habit after a while, looking up

To the shock of everyone, I am sure, it’s an Animorphs fic.

Right, okay, I’m so sorry, I don’t even know if all of you WRITE fic: @littlestartopaz, @slyrider, @chromatographic, @aethersea, @skymurdock, @sroloc–elbisivni, @flvffs, @c-foley, and…fuck, y’all, that’s eight, if you want to do the thing and feel mildly judged by a meme about opening sentences, go for it.

Anonymous asked: tell me more about the Animorphs DnD Au. I really just need an AU where they don't suffer and just have a good time

My buddy, me too right this second.  For those of you who are not aware, that comment is buried somewhere in this recap of Book 7.

All right, so, like, here’s a basic breakdown of how it all goes down.

It starts with Jake’s big brother Tom, who, like, listen, his parents went “keep an eye on your younger brother after school on Fridays” and Tom went “that’s cruel” and his parents went “don’t be an ass” and Tom huffed like a teenage asshole and rolled his eyes and went “FINE.”  So he decides that if he’s going to be mandatory babysitter for like four hours on Friday afternoons he’s going to do something amusing with his time, and he asks Jake if he knows anything about DnD.  Jake goes “nope!” with good-natured interest because this is his big brother, and Tom’s like “GREAT we’re going to do that recruit your friends”.  And Marco’s in on the spot because he’s a fucking nerd who’s probably done reading on DnD even though he’s never been able to actually play a campaign, and Rachel agrees on behalf of herself and Cassie because she’s exasperated with Jake and Cassie and this is an opportunity to force them to spend multiple hours together.  (Cassie is unexpectedly the major sticking point here, but her parents are like “PLEASE HAVE FRIENDS AND A LIFE OUTSIDE THE BARN” so ultimately she ends up going.)

On the first day, as they’re leaving school, Rachel grabs Jake by the arm and points subtly over his shoulder.  “Hey,” she whispers, “isn’t that Tobias?”  It is, in fact, Tobias.  Actively in the process of maybe fighting a bully for his backpack–if Tobias loses his backpack, no way is his uncle buying him a new one, and he’s also going to be in a hell of a lot of trouble, so yeah he’s gonna fight for it.  Jake and Rachel don’t know this at the time, but listen, Berensons are Berensons in any universe.  Jake ambles over, all cheerfully broad shoulders and stocky build just starting to settle into ‘teen’ rather than ‘kid,’ and silently menaces the bullies into stepping down.  And then he kind of subtly kidnaps Tobias to go with them.

(Ax moves into town a month later.  He’s living with his much-older brother who used to be a soldier and now he’s done with that and working as a computer…person.  Full disclosure, I don’t know that much about Comp Sci, but Elfangor Shamtul is a programmer and he’s the rising star.  Ax is living with him because *waves hand* better schools maybe?  IDK.  That’s how Ax shows up, and they kind of adopt him because he’s new and he joins their campaign.)

Tom, because he’s kind of a dick, declares that he won’t tell them anything about the plot, except that they all have to dual-class as modified Druids.  

(I have added a cut because this got kind of long.)

Keep reading

readera asked: For the ask meme. I am surprised no one has said any animorphs yet. cassie. or any of the animorphs really. I'm not picky, lol.

I raise you: a handful of mid-war Cassie/Jake headcanons because that’s what I have feelings about right now.  For this meme.

A: what I think realistically

Cassie isn’t oblivious to the toll the war is taking on Jake—far from it.  He shows up to her barn sometimes when he can’t sleep, sits in the hayloft or quietly organizes cabinets, and Cassie starts making sure to be the first one into the barn in case Jake’s fallen asleep there.  (One time she is unsuccessful about this and her dad wanders in to find Jake asleep in the hayloft—he scrambles and blurts out a blatant lie about having gotten in a fight with Tom the night before and Cassie tries really hard not to cover her face because.  It’s a mess. Jake is a passable liar by virtue of necessity, but he gets jumpy whenever he’s confronted by coming up with legitimate reasons to be at Cassie’s other than wanting to see Cassie.)  Sometimes, when Cassie can’t sleep either, she wanders out to the barn herself—if Jake happens to be there, conveniently available for company and quiet conversation about dreams and nightmares, that’s nothing more than a coincidence.

B: what I think is fucking hilarious

Cassie is largely unaware of the fact that she’s viewed with a high degree of bitter, bitter jealousy by a lot of the other girls at her school and not a few of the boys.  Jake is a good-looking, level-headed, friendly person, who is widely known at the school as a Catch.  This is somehow made more of a thing due to the fact that he just.  Doesn’t notice.  (This is canon, don’t even fight me on this, three girls ask him to that dance in book 29.)  Jake smiles at Cassie and talks with her in the halls and doesn’t even pick up on other people hitting on him, and therefore several of those people are deeply frustrated.  It’s made worse because what are they going to do about it. Cassie is an angel, it’s not like they can even really hate her for it, and even if they did, God help the person who decides to fuck with Rachel’s best friend.

Incidentally, no one is more frustrated with Cassie and Jake than Rachel. Guys!  Go on a date!  Watch a movie!  Hell, just get together at someone’s house and cuddle!  G O D.  She literally cannot believe how unsmooth Jake is, it causes her physical pain, and Cassie, sweetie, hold his hand, do it for Rachel, she is dating a bird and she is having more success than these idiots.

She despairs of them, she really does.

C: what is heart-crushing and awful but fun to inflict on friends

Cassie and her mother used to be really close—like, they told each other everything. It kills Cassie to lie to her, constantly, incessantly, unavoidably, for three years.  Cassie screams in her sleep, and she tells her mother nothing.  Cassie cries for three days, and she tells her mother nothing. Cassie develops an overwhelming phobia of termites, and she tells her mother nothing.

She wants so much to be able to tell her mother the truth about just one thing, and so when her mother asks if she can ask about Jake—hesitantly, because Cassie is so withdrawn these days—Cassie barley even pauses to feel embarrassed.

“Of course!” Cassie blurts, and her mother smiles a little, almost shy.

“Well,” she says, sitting down beside Cassie, “are you two dating?”

“Um…sort of,” Cassie says uncertainly.  What does one even call her relationship with Jake these days?  On the one hand, no, they don’t exactly go on dates that much, despite Rachel’s best efforts, and there’s still that level of mild discomfort with, like, the concept of being a couple, but on the other hand…they’re so far past dating it’s not even funny.  

“Sort of?” her mother laughs, amused.  “Well, have you kissed him?”

Cassie feels herself blush and opens her mouth to say yes—but stops.  If she says yes, her mother will want to know when and how and…and Cassie can’t tell her. Can’t say yes, we kissed on another world.  Can’t say yes, and I cried into his shoulder because I thought he was dead.  Can’t say yes, I kissed him because we were facing death and I was afraid I’d never get the chance again.

Honestly, she can’t say yes at all.

So she looks away and says, “No.”

D:  what would never work with canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway

Right so it’s technically post war but THIS FIC.  Canon ending can suck a dick.

Also, give me an AU where everything is fine and Cassie is a morph dancer who performs on street corners like a busker (she’s the equivalent of a Julliard-trained violinist whose day job pays well and who plays in subways for fun) and Jake sees her transforming into an osprey and falls in love on the spot.