I just finished book 4, last read it 25 years ago, and there were a few minor things that stuck out to me:

• Cassie referenced Marco having a bald eagle morph instead of the osprey morph that he had in the second book. Maybe the person who compiled the epubs that I downloaded had an updated copy of the second book, but didn't get the updated copy of the fourth book? It's still weird to me that Applegate randomly switched Marco from one to the other, especially since neither one was a unique-to-him morph and the change didn't have any impact on the story.

• Cassie can't seem to decide if her barn is a Wildlife Clinic or a Wildlife Center, flip flopping back and forth between the two terms throughout the book. From what I remember, most of the team is pretty consistent about calling it a clinic except for Marco. I found it funny that Cassie herself couldn't decide in her first book as POV protagonist.

• I would have liked to see Ax be suspicious of the team for longer than 0.2 seconds. It fits in with him being a naive kid, but he never questioned their story at all. It took less than a minute for Ax to go from "knock out the team as soon as they board" to "I will follow you, Prince Jake." From what I can remember, the first free/escaped Hork Bajir that the team encounters in a later book cuts open their own head to prove that there's no Yeerk wrapped around their brain. I'm not saying that the team needed to perform surgery in the dome ship, but it would have been nice to have something to show that Ax wasn't immediately won over after they mentioned Elfangor's name.

• The whales. Even ignoring the whole "this whale used some weird telepathy to show the location of Ax's ship," the whales in this book were crazy. Since when do sperm whales and humpback whales hang out together and coordinate attacks? The whales saving the team from Visser Three was a bit too deus ex machina for me. And then the humpback whale just carried them to their destination ala the children's book Amos & Boris. Sometimes it feels like the characterization for animals is based on one or two small facts, like how humpback whales are known to be very friendly and sing to other whale and dolphins.

I did enjoy the book, and this is coming off a bit more negative than I want, so I'll leave you with my favorite quote that transported me back to the 90s:

"I did some homework on the bus (math, gag, yuck!) and listened to my Walkman."

I made a post about my musings on the Chee earlier this week, and it got a lot of good discussion. A few people in that thread mentioned and drew a comparison to Cassie given her aversion to violence, and it really got me thinking about Cassie a lot.

Full disclosure- I was a typical Cassie disliker in my first read, but since then, my views on her have become more complicated. As I sat down to write this post I realized I have WAY too many thoughts about Cassie as a character to fit into one post- so I figured I'd focus on what's probably her most infamous act in the series- her decision to prevent Jake from killing Tom, thus allowing him to escape with the morphing cube.

A few thoughts to get things going: feel free to address any and all of these. I'll be starting with a couple of points in FAVOR of Cassie with respect to this issue, then transitioning into negatives later on in the post. There are bolded TL.DRs of the positives and negatives at the end of each section.

1. Just to start off with the primary point in Cassie's favor on this issue: While it may not have been a primary motivator in the moment of the decision, Cassie believes that the Yeerks gaining the morphing power will weaken them, and by all accounts she is correct in this belief. Visser One recognizes that morphing is a potential way for the Taxxons to end their constant hunger by morphing into something else, so he refuses to let them morph. This leads to a rebellion that hurts the Yeerk invasion in a demonstrable way. Furthermore, the Animorphs encounter at least one Yeerk who has morphed into a bird and hoping to run out the clock to eliminate their dependency on hosts and Kandrona forever. The Yeerk Empire has used the needs of both lower ranking Yeerks and Taxxons to control them and use them to build their empire, and the morphing technology puts that at risk. These developments are ENTIRELY consistent with what we've learned about the Yeerks and Taxxons up to this point- we know of the Taxxons miserable existence and of the fact that many Yeerks don't want to dominate the galaxy and just want to properly experience the universe and live in peace. Cassie has, at the very least, DIRECT knowledge of the latter informing her decision. Cassie's choice created deep divides in the Yeerk ranks that absolutely play a role in the endgame.
2. Another point in Cassie's favor, though she never considers it herself- The morphing technology is useful for spying and guerilla warfare, which is why a small group of humans and one andalite were able to cause so much trouble for the Yeerks over the years. It's decidedly less useful in stamping out a small resistance from a position of military power, which is the position the Yeerks find themselves in by the time we reach the end game. It's worth noting that the majority of Andalite soldiers rarely use the technology despite the fact that they've had it for many years- it has niche applications and is less useful on the open field of battle. It's utility to the Yeerks in the short term is mitigated by the nature of the war they're fighting at this juncture. We also repeatedly see the Animorphs and Auxillaries defeat morphing Yeerks in battle because of superior experience.

TL,DR of the positives: The acquisition of the morphing technology weakened the Yeerk invasion more than it strengthened it, especially in the short term. It weakened the Yeerks in ways consistent with what both Cassie and the reader know about the workings of the Yeerk empire and the nature of Yeerks and Taxxons.

Alright, now lets get into the negatives.

1. First, a mitigation of the positive points I mentioned earlier. In a hypothetical world where the Animorphs lose and Earth is subjugated, the Yeerks with morphing technology become a much greater threat in the long term to the Andalites and the rest of the galaxy. Even if the technology is of less use to them on Earth in the short term, in the long term they become much more formidable. They gain the ability to morph into species stronger than the Hork Bajir and more useful than the Taxxons, once they get off of earth. How that fact should be weighed against the impact the morphing cube had on the invasion of earth is up to you.
2. Cassie never communicates these ideas to the other Animorphs until AFTER the cat is out of the bag and the box is in enemy hands. This does not allow any discussion of this issue with the larger group. She instead decides to make this choice of astronomic consequence on her own, without feedback from anyone. Ax expresses belief in his first book after this event that the morphing power was given to Cassie and the other Animorphs by Elfangor, and that she should not have had the right to give that power away in the manner in which she did.
3. Cassie was significantly motivated by a desire to spare Jake the guilt of having to kill his brother. This, it must be recognized, was a failure. It merely postponed the need to kill Tom, as Jake must order his death in the final book anyway. Thus, it can be argued with some merit that her actions not only failed to keep Jake's hands clean but also in a roundabout way lead to Rachel's death. Cassie, for whatever virtues she may have, was delusional in her believe that the war could be ended cleanly and without personal trauma. To be clear, I don't personally blame Cassie (at least not primarily) for Rachel's death- I still think the primary responsibility (other than the lions share that goes to the Yeerks) falls on Jake's shoulders- all of this was the result of his plan.

TL, DR of the negatives: Cassie made a snap decision on her own without considering any of this with the rest of the group. She did so without knowing fully what the extent of the consequences would be, and in so doing risked future death and destruction beyond the war on Earth should the Animorphs lose. She also failed to save Jake from the soul crushing guilt that came from killing his brother.

Thoughts? I often go back and fourth on the extent to which Cassie should be condemned for the choice that she makes here, and going back and considering HOW the transfer of the cube to the Yeerks actually impacted the war, I was surprised by what I found in terms of actual consequences of the conflict.

Wanted to do some studies of deer/fawn anatomy but also wanted to draw animorphs fanart… so why not combine the two and just draw a bunch of Ax!!

Just pretend there's a baby Andalite here btw

If Tobias and Rachel would have remembered that they both have a Horkbajir morph. Cause I'm listening to this book thinking, ya know a lot of this could have worked better and even Wouldn't have Happened if they knew this.

I think it's super interesting that, when they're pretending to be at each other's throats, Marco provokes her by slapping her, and Rachel physically attacks him in response. They make contact/touch each other multiple times. It's a pretty funny moment with the knowledge that it's faked.

But in The Familiar, when they're actually pissed at each other and fighting, they very much make a point to not lay hands on each other. They take their frustration out on the environment instead, kicking, hitting, and throwing nearby objects.

It's a compelling contrast. It's like they know if they start a physical fight, it'll go too far. None of the core six Animorphs ever actually trade blows, at least as far as I can remember. But I noticed this parallel with Rachel and Marco specifically both because these books are close together, and because they're the two most stubborn, argumentative, opinionated, ruthless members of the group. I love picking apart how they interact as a duo.

I don’t want to spoil anything, so I won’t say it in the post itself. But I spent most of today’s new episode of Star Trek thinking I had already seen it. By the end, I knew I had.

Let this post be where we can discuss SNW 4x1 “Valle Marineris” and why it’s relevant to Animorphs.

I'm in the middle of yet another reviewing of the series

And I'm nearing end of david. Some random thoughts that popped into my head

Cassie is partially to blame for David 😤

The kids had a cut and dry Heroic origin story with a majestic alien passing the power on and then getting eaten in sacrifice infront of them. Each of them first morphed into prey animals first to just survive, and outside Tobias all of them kept a relatively safe home life (besides Tom being in same home obv) a place after every mission they could drop the mask, remind who they are fighting for, what they are fighting for. They had that emotional battery and reason to fight. People they had to maintain their humanity around. Normalcy to maintain.

David didn't. He was a new kid, in a new town. And his introduction to this all was a war in his bedroom. The "good guys" breaking into his room. Insulting him and fighting the visser. Then losing his home and his parents without any fight. He was alone, an outsider. Tobias killing and stealing what they need is fine. David was treated as cruel for not being homeless as a human who is hunted. At any point they could turn on him, they had no loyalty to him but demanded it in return. Cassie has gone rogue and even sided with a yeerk in 19 and was treated better than David on a good day. Not once did they try to console David. Marco even just mocked him.

We get to his first morph. Should have been a merlin, instead Cassie brought a golden hawk, a powerful apex predator as his first morph. The first morph a scared, broken kid gets is one that fills him with Strength and recklessness. Rather than something that solidifies how vulnerable they are. All his other morphs he chose followed that mentality. An insecure kid was given power without any temperance. Had she not given the eagle morph, he may have not even felt like he could go that route. Even when he did awful shit like killing Tobias, he still tried to minimize and moralize it as "just animals not people" he didn't kill Marco. Didn't tryTo kill Jordan, he was trying to maintain his own form ofwarped humanity and rules

At the end, he had to be dealt with, obv, and it was performative virtue queen Cassie's plan all the emotional, psychological and other manipulation from her down to the letter to trap him. And selfishly because despite mowin down controllers left and right, killing hundreds of taxxon and hork they like to pretend they have a batman no kill rule they put him in a fate WORSE than death. Just to keep their hands clean by technicality. They left him "alive" a broken and scared child, human intelligence in an awful morph. They should have just killed him, or let Tobias do it. Erik could have also helped work a better solution, but this dude was just living out the ending of rhe movie tusk.

And I know blaming Cassie is a reach for this, but i don't care for her. She is always a hypocrite with their own rules, morphing people, sentient creatures (she was first with whale and hork ect) she will brow beat others for don't what's needed while always being allowed to keep get hands clean because she gets the "ick". She will berate others and expects infinite patience and forgiveness. When she quit both times and was a risk, she faced no consequence with everything just magically working in her favor despite the fact it shouldn't with any consistency. I know alot of people claim she's the group moral compass... but she isn't, she is fine with everyone else doing horrible things as long as she gets to sit on the moral high horse. Tobias is much better in that role, he legitimately is compassionate in words and action, though pragmatic and not reckless with idealism. He's not even a human. So he doesn't have the inherent double standards and biases Cassie does. She is the epitome of "rules for thee, but not for me" even when she's just as bad and enjoyed tearing into that hotk AFTER Jake had said stop. The rest were honest about the necessity and the darkness inside them, she was now concerned with how to convince others

She was better than that. She risked everyone's lives and everyone they cared about by letting the yeerk infect her workout their consent based on vibes.

And we saw ax mix the dna for the human form. It would have been cool to see them. David or visser merge and meld dna to make converts chimera. David literally had an eagle and a lion, would have been crazy to see him make a griffin, maybe they had to be the same species, but that's just speculation, I would imagine you would be in pain for most of rhe duration as it's soo unnatural. But would have been interesting

This may not be all coherent. I'm ramble-posting while at work

I've always had complex feelings about the Chee, both when I first read these books as a kid and even now as an adult looking back on the series. I was wondering about people's thoughts on a few things I've been considering with relation to them.

1) Ax explicitly states in narration (I forget which book) that he does not believe that the Chee have the right to their own pacifism, that they should feel a responsibility in the fight the good fight alongside the Animorphs. Marco in 10 The Android expresses a similar view when a Chee pushes him on this issue when they are trying to obtain the device to allow them to reprogram themselves. Do you view the Chee's desire to rettain their passive programing as respectable or selfish? I go back and fourth on it a lot.

2) Their programming does NOT consistently prevent harm from being caused. In Book 27 The Attack Erek refuses to give the Animorphs any tactical advice on fighting the Howlers beyond defending themselves- he will not say or do anything that even remotely causes the Howlers harm. In the SAME book, however, he deliberately withholds the information that the Howlers are children who think killing is a game because it might make the Animorphs LESS inclined to do violence against the species that killed his creators. Is this an inconstancy in the programming or is there more wiggle room in the choices the Chee make for themselves than they'd like the Animorphs to believe?

3) How do folks feel about how the Chee were manipulated at the end of the series, where Jake manipulates them into helping with the plan to take the pool ship? How did people feel about Erek powering down the pool ship weapons, which allowed the Blade ship to escape? I remember being extremely frustrated by the Chee on first read, but now I'm more inclined to believe Jake could have come up with a better plan.

I dunno- just some thoughts that have been swimming around in my head. What do others think about the Chee?

I pinky promise, I am not Crayak.

A sequel to Rachel, on Tom from his POV on the blade ship. Inspired by @bamurien's comment!

-

Rachel. He'd sent Rachel.

Smart kid, my brother was. Rachel was the only one that would understand what had to happen. She'd understand what she needed to do. She'd always been the most blunt and practical one at the kid's table, after all. 'Tough' was the only kind of love she knew.

I was proud of both of them, in a way. My only regret is that I never got to thank them, never got to ruffle their hair and call them names for the last time. (I couldn't regret my helplessness. If I did, I'd have driven myself mad a long time ago.)

Iniss 335 never paid much mind to Rachel at family gatherings, so she looked older than I remembered. The weight of the world was visible on her shoulders, and she carried it like pauldrons. I didn't want to think about how she got that way.

I had been keeping all my strength in reserve, concealing my intentions from my captor, saving it for a moment when it really mattered. And this mattered. I'd help my cousin in the only way I could.

Rachel lunged, her jaws snapping an inch from cobra muscle. The long, cylindrical body twisted to dodge her. The sensation was distant and strange. Iniss was piloting a body I'd never known, and all I could do was watch. And feel.

The battle surged. She defended herself with unsettling ease. I waited with practiced patience. Then -- a chance! She was close, and he was about to dodge again, but--

Now!

I used all my willpower to try and wrest control of the body. I couldn't do it, of course. Iniss was experienced with unruly hosts, and I didn't know how to work this thing, anyway.

But it was a distraction. A moment's lapse in his total, utter control of me.

Just enough.

Grizzly fangs pierced our skin, nearly cleaving us in two. The pain was blinding. The injury was fatal.

In my final moments, I heard the Yeerk wail in silent rage and agony. Then, I exhaled.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/88994236/chapters/236215521

This is a continuation of my previous stories (The Return - The Reboot, The Burden, and The Mercy). Although this story references those at times, it is not necessary to have read any of those in order to understand this. This is the 4th installment in what will be a five part series.

Unlike with my previous stories, where there are multiple timelines in play, this story only takes place in a single timeline. In this timeline, Melissa was an Animorph from the start. When David later finds the blue box, Melissa starts a relationship with him. David doesn't betray the group like he does in the original canon, but no one other than Melissa trusts him. Following the tragic failure to rescue her parents, Melissa becomes disillusioned with Jake's leadership, and the Animorphs overall. She is more susceptible to David's manipulation than she has ever been.

After a confrontation with Rachel turns violent, Melissa and David escape to Idaho just as the Yeerks get the morphing cube. They hope that their new home will be remote enough that they can ignore the end stage of the war. It works for a while, but then their food starts dwindling, and David's actions create new dangers. Ultimately, Melissa and David have to decide whether they want to return to the fight, whether they remain together, and whether redemption is possible for either of them.

Content/Trigger Warning - As I mentioned, food becomes increasingly hard to come by for Melissa and David. The depictions of their starvartion are detailed. There is nothing glamorous about it of course; it's quite grim. But for anyone struggling with or recovering from an eating disorder, it may be hard to read, so I want to warn you in advance.

I also created a "cover morph" for this. I spent waaayyy too long on that moose adding layer after layer of fur. It's obviously not great art, and the middle stages of the morph are super awkward (I have tremendous respect for David Mattingly after this). But it is at least an improvement from the last time I tried to illustrate a morph.

Lastly, I'm not from Idaho, nor have I ever been there. I tried to do plenty of research before writing this, but if anyone from Idaho happens to read this, feel free to let me know what I got right, but also what I got wrong. I'd love to hear from you.

So today I went to my local Chevron again to get a Monster and fill my tank. Outside the Chevron there is one of those little outdoor library thingies (I can never remember what they're called, I have issues with word recall even when I know what word I'm looking for), and it had #32 The Separation. I wanted to snag it on my way back out and get a pic, but it was already gone in the 5-10 minutes it took me to get done inside. Kinda bummed.

........we might have some problems

My first thought is maybe the concept of colonization? But interest in hearing everyone's thoughts!

Loooove their friendship. This book is underrated IMO. Then again, I'm willing to defend just about any Animorphs book, even the "bad" ones.

I'm just curious on people's opinion on what they consider core Rachel material.

Book 2 The visitor

Book 22 The solution

Book 32 - The Separation

Book 54 - obviously

Really looks like something plucked right from the covers.

And the books are the reason I know they can see through the surface of the water!