jesus christ its the ANTEATER one. god. i have only the vaguest memories of tiny lil aliens that cassie had to blackmail by eating them??? also its advertising the tv show on this book which, is WAY earlier than i thought the tv show came out? maybe its a reprint of it. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ moving is hard. esp when its hard to move. which sounds like a tautology? but what i mean is? i am moving to a new house so i have to do a bunch of packing. even though i have an intermittant mobility disability. long story short, i PROBABLY won't be hobby coding this month? or maybe i'll throw it into myself to ignore the stress of needing to pack things but not having the phyiscal spoons. either way. its time to read. ~~~ memory says this book sucks btw. which is so sad after so many bangers back to back to back. pretty much from 19 on has been intensely plotty. actually 18 was p good as well, revealed andalites to be dicks. ```Go forth, mighty warriors! Go forth into space! All the galaxy shall tremble before the Helmacrons. All will obey us. All will be our slaves. For only we are truly worthy to be Lords of the Universe. - Posthumous Exhortation of the Emperor. From the log of the Helmacron ship, Galaxy Blaster``` god the fact that they LEAD with this before we realize how dumb its going to be. ```You must know the truth. You must accept what is happening to Earth, to humanity. Because only by knowing can you fight the terrible evil that is upon us. I am referring, of course, to the Yeerks. Not to the Helmacrons. ``` immediately take the piss out of it. ```But now they are after their greatest prize: Homo sapiens. Humans. Humans, with fingers more delicate and capable than any Taxxon or Hork-Bajir or Gedd. Humans, who could be fed almost anything, unlike the bark-eating Hork-Bajir or the eternally ravenous, cannibalistic Taxxons. Humans, who exist in numbers far greater than all those species combined. ``` yeah thats what stuck with me over the years. the idea that we are useful because of how easy it is to get us in mass numbers. i remember theres a book, nto the one with the rachel viewpoint, where they go into the future (or maybe just jake?) and jake lives an adult life in a yeerk controlled planet and its dystopic and the environment is destroyed but mostly the human controlelrs are just.... humans. working 9-5 jobs with shitty bosses. god, thats right, they're attracted to the energy of the blue box. ```The blue box has some official Andalite name. Several, actually. It’s the device they use to transfer the morphing power to an individual. A kid named David found it not so long ago. We’d used it to make him an Animorph, but David hadn’t handled the power well. David was a rat. Literally. He would live a rat, die a rat.``` I like that she phrases it as david not handling the power well. They didn't do it because he was a tiny murderous asshole who didn't see the value in any life. no, it was because he misused the power. that adds weight to my theory that just about anyone would have suffered a similar fate, just because they weren't as far along the path to child soldier as the animorphs are at this point. ```Most Powerful Emperor, Lord of the Galaxy, disaster has struck your bold minions! Our engines have malfunctioned. We searched the planet for a power source we could tap. But now, even as we replenished our strength from a strange source of transforming power, one of the alien monsters of this planet has attacked! We have sustained damage, but we are undaunted! Perhaps the weak and unworthy captain of the Planet Crusher will assist us so that we may achieve everlasting glory! - From the log of the Helmacron ship, Galaxy Blaster``` i mean, say waht you will, the animorph books are never boring. man they're going harder on shipping cassie and jake. ```“Jake, you know what’s hidden in that water pump?” “Of course I do.” He shook his head slowly. Then he snapped into his “leader” mode. “Okay, the weekend just got canceled. Cassie, you and Rachel morph right now, get to the woods, and bring back Tobias and Ax. I’ll find Marco. Back here in half an hour. Go.” ``` i feel like someone should have stayed to guard the blue box tbh you don't need TWO people to fetch tobias and ax, esp cuz once you have tobias he can help find ax (or vice versa) literally the first time i disagreed with one of jakes tactical decisions on anything other than ethical groudns (looking at you, jacuzi full of yeerks) ```. I began to feel the familiar, creepy morphing sensation of pain-at-a-distance. Morphing does shocking things to your body: dissolves organs and twists bones and causes body parts to grow where no body part had been. It should be the most hideously painful experience any human has ever endured. But the morphing technology masks that pain. Like Novocain masks the pain of having your teeth drilled. But just like when you go to the dentist, you sort of know the pain is there. I mean, you realize pain is being created, it’s just not reaching your brain.``` ```And yet throughout all this, throughout watching my friends undergo very similar changes, we kept up a normal flow of conversation. It’s amazing what you can get used to, I guess.``` i love it. explanation for why the body horror isn't as much as focus now that we have the actual horrors of warriors ```I followed her, hopped down onto the bumper of the truck, and from there flapped my wings and tried to get off the ground. But it was dead air there behind the Goodwill building, so I ended up scooting along the ground for a few feet before I could get enough lift to fly. I flapped hard to get the first few dozen feet of altitude. But once above the roofline I found a gentle wisp of breeze, turned into it, and caught some easier altitude.``` animorphs really did want us to know EXACTLY how birds fly i can't believe how fast they cut through, when before they were barely doing anything. cassie literally found them, BOTH Times, seconds before they were stealing the box. talk about ellimist guided. (i DO enjoy fictional settings that let you blame plot holes or bad writing on some kind of in universe god like figure) they really should demorph. as humans they're too big to really be damaged by their tiny beams, and they could just pick the box up. yuuup, and there we go. honey i shrunk the kids plot. ~~~ ```“Boy, you miss Jake when he’s not around to make the life-and-death decisions,” Marco said ruefully``` and i do find it interesting that its not that jake is GOOD at these things, though he's trying to get better its that SOMEONE has to do it and its easier if its always the same person so theres no conflict. and so no one else needs it on their shoulders. he does SO much emotional labor for the group ```“Yuh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uk,” Marco shuddered. “Man, I did not need to see that. That’s worth about thirty nights of waking up screaming in a cold sweat.” ``` he's saying that about seeing a bridge sized spider. given we have been in his head while waking up screaming (about the ants, about the sharks, about his mom) we KNOW he knows what he's talking about. its a joke but its also true. that was. an Event for them. god, thats right, cassie tricks them into going after visser 3 ``` “We’re going to lead them to Visser Three?” Marco asked me in a voiceless whisper. “You have a better idea?” “No.” He shook his head admiringly. “It’s just so … sneaky. I didn’t know you had it in you.” ``` its like he wasn't paying attention during the david arc. cassie was full blown manipulative there. fed his ego even as she tried to stab him in the back. she knows exactly what to say to solve things 'non violently' heh thats right they're all girls ```“And why do you want your captain to be dead?” That seemed to stymie Marco. But the patient male who even I was now thinking of as “Wuss” went on to explain. ``` you know, i think of this in the context of how jake beats himself up and second guesses any decision he makes that leads to failure. ~~~ one thing i find interesting is that originally the animorphs would get tired doing multiple morphs back to back now its just a tuesday they really did build up a tolerance. i'm sure its LESS exhausting for them but what i mean is they just assume the default state of life is exhausted fear okay so like. tobias morphing human is a HUGE security risk. visser 3 could see it. see a human face he KNOWS. tobias should have morphed ket halpek. tho yes, i suppose they try not to morph sapients without consent. but still. ```Visser Three came to a stop. We stood facing him. I saw none of the Visser’s usual cool arrogance. he said. That was pretty calm for him. I think maybe the fact that he was the size of a dandruff flake depressed him.``` ten out of ten, esplin should be depressed more often ```I heard another thought-speak voice. Lower and more sinister. Visser Three said. He had copied our trick. He had also morphed the anteater. ``` oh interesting. so that also explains why the second the planet crusher (or was it the galaxy blaster) was destroyed, their former rivals immediately started hailing them as heroes. because they WERE the fallen crew, sort of, now. and there we are, book completed, and before its time for the next one.