miraculoussparrow asked: For the ship grading, Elfangor and Loren?
Ship Grade: A+ (OTP) | A (I love it) | B (It’s really cute) | C (Not a bad ship) | D (I’m neutral on it) | E (I don’t really like it) | F (NOTP) | N/A (Don’t know it well enough)
Where do I even START with my affection for this ship. Like, despite the unremitting horrors of war, this ship has it all. Alien expressions of affection, Battle Couple shenanigans, Loren and everything she chooses to be in the face of not one but three alien abductions, cute flirting, comedy, tragedy, THE WHOLE NINE YARDS. God, Animorphs can fucking deliver on the ships.
But I think the thing I like the most about Loren and Elfangor is how much they learn from each other? Like, okay, Loren learns about the universe, she learns about how big the galaxy is and how much there is to see, about science she could never have dreamed of and what it means to fight. That’s obvious. But Elfangor learns so much from her, too–the Andalites teach courage with a combination of formal education and shame culture, but Loren is the first person as far as I can tell who teaches Elfangor that feeling emotions isn’t in conflict with being brave.
More than that, though, Loren brings a kind of brutally hard-headed, incredibly human pragmatism to combat that Elfangor seems to gravitate toward almost immediately. Like, this is humanity’s Special Thing in Animorphs (in addition to our mastery of the sense of taste), it’s that we’re very clear-sighted about our goals (be they freedom from a Yeerk or victory over an enemy) and we care much more about achieving them than about anything else. Plenty of people in the series talk about how strange humans are in their absolute willingness to fight against hopeless odds–everyone from Temrash 114 to Edriss, Visser One herself, mention it. The Hork-Bajir bring up how much they agree with it, free or dead. Taxxons, Andalites, the Arn, even the Ellimist.
And Loren teaches Elfangor that brutal human practicality from the very first time they meet. He meets her and she doesn’t know what he is or what’s going on, but she’s already eliminated the immediate threat to her safety and she is more than willing to take out this new potential threat as well. Loren wants to get home, sure she does, but saving the universe takes priority, so okay, sure, she’ll go on a potentially life-threatening mission to make sure that happens. Fighting Pre-Visser Three (actual Visser Three at that point? Not sure) in the Time Matrix world, Loren doesn’t mess around with fancy forms, she throws rocks and beats things with a bat and does whatever works no matter how dishonorable or underhanded it might be.
And then Elfangor, after everything, when he’s returned to the timeline, what does he do to win a battle?
He rams a ship with his fighter, in the most graceless, unadorned, pragmatic battle tactic I’ve ever seen.
I love these kids so much, y’all. Does Loren/Legs art even exist, y’all, where is it.
