it has been forever since i've read an animorphs books. honestly i'm a little shocked i read any in july? i thought i hadn't read any since moving in february. maybe it was lavinraca that ate up all my free time? honestly im not starting this tonight. i'm exhausted and not feeling well. but figured that since my animorphs alarm went off i could at least download it and get it started ~~~ haha wow just over a month later i start reading. at least i started. i have wanted to, most definitely, i just got addicted to a video game by a certain someone (it was maccus) anyways, looks like this'll be the book where marco's mom gets rescued... or... not... doesn't she find out marco is an "andalite bandit' WELL before she's rescued? leverages it for "enemy of my enemy" type stuff. ```THWACK! I was down! My knees hit the pavement and my face landed in a planter full of cigarette butts and abandoned coffee cups. The enemy! I prepared myself for the next blow. Nothing. I looked up. No one had noticed I’d been knocked over. I got to my feet, dazed. I rubbed the ash, dirt, and stale coffee off my face with the bottom of my shirt. I was disgusted. And I was mad. A woman had run me over with her tank of a briefcase. Then she’d continued on down the street like nothing had happened. And no one had stopped to help me. ``` nothing like a lil PTSD to start your day. okay so maybe tobias is just the only one introspective enough to NOTICE when the ellimist is pulling is strings marco INTENDS to go to school, and without thinking instead hops on a bus downtown, immediately wishing he'd gone to the beach instead if he's going to skip school, where he IMMEDIATELY finds his presumed-dead mother. that is ellimist bs, you can't tell me it isn't and i love the ellimist as a conceit to explain any bullshit plot hole or contriviance. ```Think, Marco. She’s alive, but … the disguise. A blue power suit. A curly blonde wig. What had looked like blue contact lenses behind big, black-rimmed glasses. The massive briefcase.``` ngl i would never recognize my own mother with a wig ```I watched my mother’s body walk down the street. When she reached the next corner, I followed. ``` that ruthlessness of marco is preparing for the eventuallity he'll have to kill "his mothers body" and distancing himself from it. think of the yeerk, not the mother. ```Visser One would recognize me as her host body’s son. So I stood. Just stopped right there by the revolving door and waited for the next person to come through. Whoever it was, their DNA was mine.``` you remember when they thought morphing humans was morally incorrect? ```I led Mr. Grant to the elevator. Let me make it clear that I had no intention of morphing this man. I just needed him to get me past security and to the elevators. ``` sure you don't. you were JUST thinking that visser one would recognize you. ```, I couldn’t allow Visser One to see me. There was only one thing I could do. A morph. In the slow-moving elevator. Surrounded by fifteen people and evil incarnate. ``` god this is so dumb. you remembe rwhen the dumb stuff starting a book was like, sneaking into a concert or a party? they had stopped doing things like that well before david... and his tendendancy to do those things they had grown out was one of many reasons they rejected him. (im not saying the whole "i can and will kill/torture you to death if you're an animal" thing wasn't a major part, just, there was a lot more going on) ```“Hello?” Lights popped on. “Mr. Grant?” Footsteps. Slow, but coming my way. I had no choice! I had to morph Mr. Grant.``` sigh ```Morphing a fly may be gross, but morphing a human being is far more frightening. Not to mention morally suspect. In this case, morphing an adult male was like getting an unwanted glimpse into my own future and realizing that my future was not pretty. ``` marco's morphing suit is ripping. because he's morphing a larger human. it doesn't rip when he morphs rhino or gorilla. is this just.... plot hole? or human to human morphing doesn't follow the same rules? ```Luckily, our school has no guards or metal detectors like they have in the high schools``` when did this book come out. i thought metal detectors were post colombine...1999 ah, same year as colombine then. damn. ```“Why is she here, on Earth? Look, we know going way back that Vissers One and Three are enemies. Visser One let us escape from Visser Three early on. Visser Three must have suspected she was behind that. Then he’s got the fact that we let her live when we could have finished her off. So he must want her bad. So why is she walking around downtown? I mean, wig or no wig, Earth isn’t a safe place for her.” Rachel grinned. “Come on, it’s obvious. She’s here to take down Visser Three. Why else? It’s her only way out. Take down her main enemy. Then get herself straight with whoever is above them both.” I nodded. It made sense. Figure Rachel to understand the mind of Visser One. ``` marco really does respect rachel's bloodthirstyness ```“Ax is right, Marco,” Cassie said. “Coming face-to-face with Visser One again will be hard for you. And dangerous. For all of us.” “Did I give myself away on the Royan Island mission?” I demanded. “Or today?” “First time, pretty close,” Rachel muttered. “No, not pretty close,” I snapped. “I didn’t. And that’s the fact.” There was an awkward silence. “I don’t believe this crap,” I said. “We’ve been through this before. The mission comes first. Personal hang-ups, second. I’m in. I’m going. Period.” Jake sighed. “Okay, Marco, Ax, and Tobias. Tonight.” He looked at me. “Don’t do anything foolish. It’s reconnaissance only.” I nodded. “And if it comes to a judgment call, Tobias makes the call.” That caught me off guard. But there was no point arguing. In Jake’s place I’d have done the same thing. “No problem.”``` this really demonstrates how far they've all come as a team, how much intrinstic trust and understanding there is between them. they can say something as insulting as "we think you're compromised" but have it be taken in good faith ```` Jake came and took my arm and drew me with him outside into the afternoon sunlight. I cringed. I knew what was coming. “I noticed a certain lack of details about what happened today,” Jake said. “Which tells me you did things that I probably don’t want to hear about.” “Yeah. You probably don’t.” I tried out a devil-may-care grin. Not a big success. Jake folded his arms over his chest and looked down at the ground in silence. Then up at me. Jake has changed a lot over the months we’ve been fighting this little war. The look he gave me did not come from my boy Jake, my bud, my pal. It came from a battle commander. Freaky seeing how old Jake has gotten. “Marco, you’re my best friend. But if you ever go off like that again you and I will have serious problems.” In the old days I’d have said “Bite me,” or something equally brilliant. Now I said, “Okay, understood.” It was all I could do to stop myself from saying, “Yes, sir.”``` god. i don't even know how to articulate what this does to me. when i read these before, i wasn't much older than they were. they're what, 14, 15 now? hell i mighta been too. i didn't have a mental model of ptsd or trauma or anything. there was a lot missing me. ```We were alone on the twenty-second floor. Except, of course, for my mom. No, not my mom, I told myself. I couldn’t start thinking that way. She was Visser One. That’s who we were up against. ``` see? ~~~ the watcher's ongoing baccano live blog has me remembering to keep doing this. get back in the habit. (thanks watcher (i really am enjoying it)) man yeah animorphs just really goes hard. marco is forced to look at his mother's body, HER body, no yeerk, ten seconds from being able to free her, forever, and make the decision to leave her to have the yeerk reenter her. because of a lot of things. because who KNOWS who is working with visser one, who would know that something is up if suddenly her host goes missing and visser one dies. what that would compromise about the war effort. or does he make that choice? ```Suddenly there was an Andalite tail blade at my throat. I stopped. Ax said calmly. ``` is it a kindness that ax does this? ax knows marco fairly well. knows the ruthlessness. sure, maybe marco is compromised, maybe all humans are a bit too emotional to ax (tho most andalites are too emotional for him as wel) but is this a GIFT because now its not that MARCO choose to abandon her. it was ax, making the tough call ```I stepped back. I felt like dirt. She was right there! Free, if only for a moment. I could tell her I was okay! I could tell her … Nothing. I could tell her nothing. Ax was probably right. I would not have been able to free her. Visser One would reinfest. Security would be breached. Our secret revealed. And then? And then we would have to destroy the innocent as well as the guilty. It made sense. It was the cold, calculated, smart thing to do. I wiped my hand over my face. It came away wet.``` the absolute devestation of the kid marco IS struggling with the warrior he's become hell, lets not even bring age into it. ADULTS would have this same struggle. but at the same time... marco was so young when he lost her. and when he lost her, for a long time, he lost his dad too. more than any of the others he had to grow up in a hurry if he didn't want to starve, if he didn't want his DAD to starve, to give into despair. they say we revert to the age we were when reminded of a trauma. and right now, yeah, marco DOES feel like a kid, more than ever before. ah i see, no longer visser one. a sub visser ``` I told Ax privately. Tobias erupted. Ax said, He laughed. ``` i love how ax just immediately role plays the aarogant andalite. ```Then she narrowed her eyes and looked at us, each, one after the other. “One of you does almost all the talking. Two of you stay in morph. Visser Three is a fool. He has overlooked something strange about your group of rebels. He has missed something.”``` memory says she figures out that they're human, AND that marco is one of them all on her own. she really is the most dangerous kind of enemy: a smart one if visser3 weren't in charge of the earth invasion this story would have gone very, very differently. he is a classic blundering middlemanager promoted way above his competence level and making it everyone elses problem. tiny me had no idea. ```Tobias shifted his wings, moving slightly away. I swear, I’ve never met anyone who could express disapproval the way Tobias can. ``` tobias still is my favorite. ```I knew Tobias and Ax were doubtful. I knew they didn’t entirely trust me. They thought I was playing a double game. But they were wrong. I had seen the way to destroy both Vissers. I had seen it in all its perfection. People don’t understand the word ruthless. They think it means “mean.” It’s not about being mean. It’s about seeing the bright, clear line that leads from A to B. The line that goes from motive to means. Beginning to end. It’s about seeing that bright, clear line and not caring about anything but the beautiful fact that you can see the solution. Not caring about anything else but the perfection of it. That’s what had happened. I saw the way to take both Vissers down. And that’s all that mattered. But I wasn’t going to explain all that. Other people’s pity just messes with the straight line. Other people’s pity makes you think things you can’t think about when you are seeing the line.``` there it is! the line! (the bright clear line) the quote tumblr is always referring to. ```I launched from the windowsill. Neither Ax nor Tobias spoke to me as we traveled. Maybe they were privately ripping me apart. I didn’t care. I saw the bright, clear line.``` i thnk its a bit like how after getting torn apart by a shark, marco became obsessed with BECOMING one. he doens't want to feel things. he especially doesn't want to feel things that make people PITY him. planning, action, that gets his mind of feelings and lets him larp being a ruthless robot. man i get that. ```Ever have one of those nights? Where you’re exhausted, where you’d pay anything just to fall asleep? But the wheels in your head just keep spinning and spinning aid spinning? Imagined conversations. Me talking, explaining, arguing. Changing the words around, repeating them, rehashing them. Around and around in circles. Me talking to Jake, an imaginary Jake. Explaining, with perfect logic. Me talking to my dad in some fictional future, some nonexistent world where things were different and I could at last tell all the secrets I’d guarded with my life. Me talking to my mom. Raging. Explaining. Me explaining to my mom, as my mom, as my real mom, why I had to do it. Me explaining to my mom as Visser One. Laughing, chortling, savoring my victory over her. This is how I defeated you! I crowed. This is how I saved you! I explained. No choice. No choice. I had to do it, Dad, you understand, right? What else was I going to do? Too much on the line. I had responsibilities. You know how that is, right? And besides, she was already dead to you. You’d already grieved, remember? You spent years just sitting in your chair, staring blankly, your life falling apart … See, Jake? Don’t ever doubt me again. I did it, okay? I put the mission first. I saw the big picture. So just don’t ever doubt me again, because I did what had to be done … . Mom, what was I supposed to do? I saw all the plays. I saw all the pieces on the chessboard. There was no solution that freed you. There were only solutions that destroyed you. I had to. How else? How else to … Die, you Yeerk piece of crap. Wither and die, and remember with your last, dying thought: It was for her. I killed you for her. For Jake. For my dad. For … Around and around, as the hours ticked away. As exhaustion sank deep into my bones``` god the writing is so good ```Kids would study us in school. Bored, probably. And then the teacher would tell the story of Marco. I’d be a part of history. What I was about to do. Some kid would laugh. Some kid would say, “Cold, man. That was really cold.” I had to do it, kid. It was a war. It’s the whole point, you stupid, smug, smirking little jerk! Don’t you get it? It was the whole point. We hurt the innocent in order to stop the evil. Innocent Hork-Bajir. Innocent Taxxons. Innocent human-Controllers. How else to stop the Yeerks? How else to win? No choice, you punk. We did what we had to do. “Cold, man. The Marco dude? He was just cold.”``` god. yeah. that is what war is, isn't it. ```I avoided looking at Cassie. From Jake there was just the briefest flicker of sadness. But Jake, too, is addicted to the bright, clear line.``` theyre treating it like a heist movie. we dno't knwo what the plan is, just parts of the planning for the plan. ```I understood Visser One. She saw the bright, clear line, too. Problem was, only one of us could be right.``` the thing is, we know from the Visser side story (which i sitll haven't reread), she's gtting her intelligence and ruthlessness from EVA, from her host. it runs in the family ```Cassie took over the job of communication. We needed to put Visser One off her guard. Needed her to begin to see us as allies. Cassie was the one for that job.``` cassie was against this. protested that this would scar marco for life. but she's ruthless, too. they all are. never forget cassie was the one to design the plan that trapped david. ```I started to tell Cassie what to say. But she was already there, ahead of me. ``` i find it interesting that of all the animorphs, marco is the one to underestimate cassie the most. to forget that she's just as cunning and ruthless as he is, simply because she chooses to care about a goal diffrent than simply "winning the war" she thinks about what comes AFTER. marco sees her following a different line than his and assumes that must mean she doesn't see ANY and i also find it interesting that marco calls her the tree hugger, the bleeding heart, all those things, but fundamentally doesn't understand how SELFISH her motivations are. i'm not saying they are WRONG. but when we're in her head what she focuses on is how she can't live with doing x or y or whatever. its not the pain of how others feel that motivate her, but her own. and she worries about that, too. that her motives are selfish. ```“Do you imagine I will be more gentle when I am in power again?” I started to tell Cassie what to say. But she was already there, ahead of me. Cassie said. Again, it had the feel of honesty. The insult would make it seem honest. And it had the added benefit of focusing my mother … Visser One … on the danger of Visser Three. We were reminding her just how deadly Visser Three could be. “And yet …” Visser One mused. “And yet, the casualty reports from Earth are always weighted heavily toward Hork-Bajir and Taxxons. In fact … I am trying to recall when I have ever seen a report listing a human-Controller casualty.” My guts were ice. We had made a mistake. We had made a terrible mistake. Cassie demanded. My brain wouldn’t work. The thoughts wouldn’t form into any sort of order. Visser One had just put her finger on our greatest secret. Rachel yelled. Jake interrupted. “Well, well, well,” Visser One said. She knew. There was only one reason why a group of Andalite guerrilla fighters would inflict more casualties on Hork-Bajir than on humans: The Andalite guerillas weren’t Andalites. A human would spare a human life. Jake said. ``` its just so goddamn intense. marco and cassie 5d chessing visser one and losing , not their king, but at the very least their QUEEN. one of their most important secrets is just. out there now. and marco freezes. and now he thinks jake and cassie are dead (we know they aren't but...) ```Visser Three was going to win. He was going to kill my mother. And he would not die. He would kill her, and he would not die. I would have set up my own mother for murder by my own worst enemy. No. No. That couldn’t be. I had to think. Had to think. Tobias, maybe. Rachel, maybe. They were the next step. Ax. Where was Ax? Clearing the place of campers? Scouting the location? Where? What were they doing? How … Show me the line, I begged. Show me the A to B``` he needs to be ruthless or he breaks down. god. ```That was the plan, too. Too rushed, too scared, too tired to think. And yet, she already knew too much. She’d figured out what Visser Three had not. It was weird, perverse, maybe. But I was proud of her. As if it had been my mother, and not the Yeerk in her head, who had penetrated our deepest secret``` she had. eva is the brains, unwilling or not. ah the plan has shifted to account for eva knowing they are human the "hork bajir" (rachel and tobias in morph) ask her to morph, not "knowing" she's not an animporph. eight pages remainin. once i start reading it always goes so fast. its so well paced. no filler. ```I shuddered. I was lost. Her life would end here. So would mine, I now knew. How could I live? How could I live, knowing?``` and then he makes a prince of egypt reference because why bother pretending to be andalite anymore i guess ```She smiled, right at me. “I know you. I know you, don’t I?” “No. Andalites don’t make jokes. Let alone human popular culture references. No, you’re a human. And …” She searched her memory, rolling her eyes up. “Someone I knew, once. Long ago, maybe. But someone I knew.”``` whoops, apparently it hadn't been on purpose. ```I froze. Stiff. Still. I wanted her to say my name. I’d given myself away. Deliberately. I wanted her to say my name. I wanted her to call out to me, to say, “Marco, I love you, I miss you, I’m still your-” Oh, God, I had messed up. The plan, I’d ruined it, just to hear her say my name. I’d been fooling myself. I couldn’t do it. ``` oh god. ```She stared at me. She moved to aim the weapon at me. I lowered my head and felt the power in my legs. It would be a hundred-foot drop. I whispered. And then, I lunged. “The boy!” she whispered, amazed. “It’s the boy!”``` ```I lunged. The Dracon beam moved. Her finger tightened. Too slow. She was too slow. I would hit her a split second before she could fire. I would hit her with all the power I possessed and she would fly backward into emptiness and - RRRRROOOOOAAAARRR! A flash of orange and black. It appeared over the lip of the cliff. So fast! The tiger hit me. Claws retracted, it hit me in my side and knocked me off my feet. ``` jake isn't going to let marco be the one to kill her. to live with that. ```I didn’t know how I’d gotten down off that mountain or made it home. I was gone during all that. Gone to a place in my head. ``` horrors of war visser one might be alive and both marco and rachel realize that will hurt more. the end.