So tired. Moving is so hard. Probably been weeks since i read, but I can at least download it now. Don't rmeember this one. ~~~~~~ okqy. moving still hard, but more and more of each day is normal, so lets try reading animorphs again. finally we tug on that krayak thread again, and man, of course jake is having controller nightmares he was infested in the first like, ten books and we're finally seeing the ptsd from it. it still blows my mind how QUICKLY tobias became trapped as a hawk and jake became a controller. they pulled no punches even in the early days. i think we are at the half way point btw. this isn't the howler book.... i thought krayak was only invovled then. which one is this. (also, its really fun the Watcher of Threads is reading animorphs now too) you know, its for the best yeerks automaticaly leave hosts when they die. cant imagine it rotting around your brain being good for your long term health. interesting they lead with the nightmare and THEN the obligatory kids book explanation of the plot ```Me, I like quiet and still. Didn’t used to. But now I guess any time I get to sit quietly, no running, no morphing, no terror, no screams, no horrible decisions and horrible aftermath … I can handle sitting still and listening to music and watching big giraffes gallop around onstage.``` horrors of war yo ellimist time. wait maybe this IS the howler book. i thought he morphed howler on the front, but maybe the howler was shown in the inside cover they never scan for these things. ```You have to understand: It’s not that we weren’t scared. We were scared. But we’d been scared by people who wanted to kill us. This was just “creeped out” scared. We ate “creeped out” for breakfast now.``` love it and they really do they have to tolerate the creepiest fuckign body horror just to morph man, i do love the idea of equal and opposite not-gods competing over what the galaxy should be like. a lot of this i thought we only learned in the ellimist chronicles. but i guess that ones point is to take the piss out of how godlike the ellimist seems. cringe fail gamer is the best possible not-god appelgate has such a big brain its interseting too that we get an EXPLANATION for the mysterious ways the godlike figure works in that its gigglesnort hidey talk not because the ellimist is a DICK but because he's trying to rules lawyer argue he should be ALLOWED to help yessss it IS the howler book ```“Yes, including the Yeerks, who will benefit from changes I cannot explain to humans - or even to mighty Andalites,” he added with a gentle, steel smile for Ax. ``` because of the rules, not because its too complicated. they learn by the end. that the species he's trying to save can show the yeerks a third path. in a few hundred years. ```Tobias had thought the Ellimist would return him to normal. Instead he merely gave Tobias back his morphing powers. But that had not been a lie or a trick. Not really. He’d promised to give Tobias what he wanted. He had. It was Rachel who couldn’t accept that Tobias had chosen, and still chose, to remain a hawk.``` and thats a major point of contention between tobias and rachel as it goes on ```Normally, on big issues like this I don’t push my opinions out there. I’m supposedly the leader, but to me there are times when the best thing a leader can do is let others work things out for themselves. But I had to say something. ``` he tries so hard to be a good leader. i get that. farrago was like that for me. then i burnt out. kr gives me things sometimes. logos for jackElope. the name for jackElope, tbh. she plays west with everyone else. but fundamentally... the farrago team is gone. partly my fault, because i burnt out. but part of why i burnt out is it was already going. i thought if i worked harder, if i buried my wants and needs better that people would stay but life goes on this too shall pass and when you add on the hyperfocus i have for creating, working HARDER was absolutely not the fix it just meant i was doing ten times what anyone else was and starting to resent that fact. zampanio has been chiller. because i sit here not really expecting help. willing to create alone and to an empty room. i'm grateful there are observers grateful theres conspirators but fundamentally. i'm alone. even IC is too burntout with jorb stuff to help much anymore. and thats okay. wow its midnight, better go to sleep. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ getting back into the reading swing is hard, because of hte moove, but im trying ```“But I just want to point out one thing: The Ellimist didn’t force us, he asked us. Our choice. And maybe he’s right that we can do this. But part of the reason we’re saying yes is that this Crayak thing has been taking pokes at Jake. And Crayak plays the same long, patient games the Ellimist does.” “So what are you saying?” Cassie asked. “I’m saying maybe Crayak wants us there. Maybe he wants us to say yes. And you know what? That’s not because he thinks we’ll win.” ``` such a good point. ``` “Get back, you stupid jerks!” This was directed at the press of a dozen Iskoort, all yammering incessantly. And to Ax: “What is this, Planet of the Salesmen?” Marco demanded. “Back off! All of you, back off!”``` god i love the fucking Planet of the Capitalist Yeerks. Not that they know they're yeerks yet. ```We’d been beaten in a fair fight. No, not a fair fight. It had been six of us plus Erek against one Howler. We’d fought to a draw. A tie. Seven against one. A tie. If there had been two Howlers, let alone all seven, we’d have been killed in ten seconds. We weren’t scared, not the way we might be, facing a battle. We were worse than scared: We were beaten.``` and thats what made this book stand out so heavily in my mind. its not just another actual space book, but its just. they're outclassed. horribly. its not just "visser 3 scary but dumb" its they WILL die if they fight again. ```“Ax!” I said louder. “Ax, we need you.” He looked up, startled. I didn’t tell him not to call me Prince. This wasn’t going to be handled with a little joshing. The Andalites are an essentially peaceful race, but with a long warrior tradition, too. Ax was an aristh. A military cadet. And he’d spent his entire life in the shadow of his brother, Elfangor, who was considered a great war hero. ``` insight into the whole "don't call me prince" running joke. ```We slept in shifts. Two of us on guard at all times. A futile gesture. If the Howlers found us, we would die.``` ``` ``` ``` Ax demanded, speaking for the first time. Guide acknowledged. Ax’s tail was at the Iskoort’s throat before he could form the next word. ``` iconic ``` Tobias argued. Guide pleaded, whining away through his diaphragm. Dead silence. No one said a thing. The reality of it was sinking slowly into our suspicious brains. “Oh, my God,” Cassie said at last. “Of course. It’s the way. The only way. Parasite becomes symbiote. No more infestation. They create the next step in their own evolution and become true symbiotes.” “No more war,” Erek said quietly. “No more need to conquer new species, to infest and enslave.” “The Yeerks don’t know about this,” Cassie said. “Even the Yeerks who want peace cannot imagine a way out, a way to end the cycle of conquest.”``` this was such an important concept. that no matter helpless evil a species seems OBLIGATED to be, there is always the chance of another way an option between blind helplessness and evil. ```This was why Crayak had to destroy the Iskoort. And why the Ellimist couldn’t allow it. Someday, maybe far in the future, Iskoort would meet Yeerk. And the Yeerks would see that there was another way. I smiled. The first time in a long time. The ant had just figured out part of the chess game. ``` the consequences are suddenly more than just life and death it is bad fucking ass jake demorphs mid air just to acquire a howler but its the same rules they had in the dinosaur era, or the jungle or the arctic. if you find yourself outclassed, time to get new morphs. ```I felt a surge of anger at Erek. Marco was right: What right did Erek have to cling to his nonviolence in a universe where the Howlers annihilated entire species on orders from an evil force? How do you stand on the sidelines when evil is running amok? ``` its not like he has the pemalite crystal handy to reprogram himself. first human to human kiss in the series. i love that the way they decide to win is a psychological victory. to poison the memory well. and i love that instead of being some aggressive vicscious morph, the howler is basically a dolphin. ```For a horrible moment I could actually see the white bone of my human spine. The interlocking vertebrae melted and reformed as thick, steel-gray cylinders, each able to turn on its base.``` as morphing becomes more and more normal for them they only focus when it is EXTRA weird, like that time marcos finger bonse grew out of his hands when morphing bir. this is one of those times howlers being dolphines... and knowing what i know about the ellmist.. i wonder if it was INTENTIONALLY done to fuck with the ellimist. who used to be a child playing and got his entire species wiped out. to drive home that innocence is not the same thing as moral goodness. a psyop against ellimist and child soldier you feel bad for killing combo luckily the ellmist had his OWN child soldiers to pit against them. fucked UP. ```Was I pleading? What did I think we could do? It was too late. Them or us. Them or the entire Iskoort race. But they didn’t know what they were doing! They didn’t know! My head was swimming. The Howlers were what someone else had made them. How do you hate a creature for doing what it has been taught to do? I had gloated when that Howler fell to its death. And now no choice! No choice! I ordered. ``` this has the same vibe as "vriska did nothing wrong" yeah she killed/maimed randos, even her friends but she was taught to do that. she didn't know better. ... hoestly im surprised they needed the memory emmiter. you'd figure jake morphing them would add his memories to the pile. ```The Howlers had never been defeated. So they believed, but I knew that wasn’t possible. Somewhere, somehow, someone had to have beaten them, at least once. Perfection was impossible. So if the collective memory had no trace of defeat, it could only mean that Crayak had destroyed his defeated Howlers before the memory of failure could infect them all. He might have done that many times over the millennia. Always keeping the Howlers’ collective memory from any taint that might weaken their innocent evil. He had no choice. A collective memory was very useful for spreading battle tactics and experience. But it was a weakness, too. Crayak could not allow his murderous children to learn one simple fact: that their victims were not part of a game, but real people, with dreams and hopes and loves. Crayak had acted quickly. The memories of humans and Andalites, Chee, and Iskoort had not been allowed to infect the Howler memory. Nothing had gotten through … No. Not nothing! Sifting through the collective memory, through the unbroken chain of horror, I caught a single fugitive image, like a few seconds of film. Just the picture of Cassie running to me, and our arms and lips and … I demorphed back to human. And when I had my own mouth again, I said, “You were too late, Crayak. Something got through to the Howlers’ collective memory.” “What?” he demanded. “Love.``` the fact that a kiss happening on screen happened being a vital plot point is so damn funny overall also its v enders game, which i hadnt read back then. keeping children ignorant of the consequences of their "war games" ```t before the Ellimist had whisked us off to the Iskoort planet. “What did you accomplish? No one knows the future. Not for certain. But it is now more likely than it was before that three hundred years from now the Yeerks will encounter the Iskoort. They will realize that they are related. And the Yeerks will see that there is a better way.” Tobias asked. “It doesn’t,” the Ellimist said. “But within six months Crayak will send a Howler force to annihilate a race called the Sharf Den. Instead of slaughtering the Sharf Den, the Howlers will try something different.” The Ellimist winked. “They will attempt to kiss them. Crayak will have lost his shock troops. And the Sharf Den will … well, no one know``` this ALWAYS botherd me that "how does that help us in 300 years" when the yeerk peace movement is RIGHT THERE, they can TELL them i mean. not quite yet. they cant contact the yeerk who had been in casssi, and dont know shes been going recruiting but still. i wish they had. yeah the peace movement doesnt have genetic engineering YET but having that as a future to dream towards probably would really help their recruiting numbers.