Welp. It's been another chunk of time. The Watcher caught up with me tho so I wanna get back into reading. Honestly I haven't been reading much lately cuz I got back into audio books while Crocheting (stormlight chronicles are sooooo long jesus) im not too far from the end, am i? 54 books. more than half way through. welp. i have it downloaded, ive started this document, need to wander off for a bit but going to start reading tonight. ~~~~~ "Out of all of us, Cassie’s the one who really understands the more complicated things: motives, emotions, right and wrong. Marco’s my best friend, and if I wanted to talk about what works, about how to get from point A to point B and forget the consequences, I’d talk to Marco. " yeaaah ive been surprsied to see theres some kinda fandom hate on for cassie, that she's a 'marry sue'??? except i never see people SAYING That, just people complaining about people saying that? she never interested me as a kid, possibly because ethics and morals and stuff went over my head. she wanted the cool fights to stop, that seemed kinda boring. as an adult i like her a lot more. she and marco are, in their contrasting ways, the two most 'adult' characters. yeah, jake has an "old soul", he's been aged and traumitized more than any of them. but cassie and marco are very often the mouth pieces of the adult writers i think. is this wrong or right? what consequences will there be from this action, regardless of ethics. jake makes the decisions, and then he beats himself up over them. but he still FEELS like a kid as he does so. like, all of them have concerns well beyond their peers, age wise. but i think jake is more job oriented (how can i be a better resistance leader) than adult. rachel and tobias have a very .... simple (and not in a bad way) of looking at the world. both of them do what feels right in the moment and think fighting is the right thing. iirc tobias backed cassie with sparing aftran originally. and rachel worries that jake (in particular) views her as a blade he can use. but neither are focused on the bigger picture. ~~~ "Marco re-crumpled the note and put it back in the trash. Placed the apple magnet back on the fridge. I stood there, frantic, vibrating with impatience, wanting to go, go, GO somewhere, anywhere, just get going and find my father. “We have to cover our tracks, Jake,” he explained. “We can’t let Tom know that we know.” " see what i mean? yes, marco can be emotional and impulsive. but he always thinks about consequences. about next steps. ~~~ "“No, it’s easy. He always carries a cell phone. I’ll just call and ask him -” “You can’t,” Marco and Erek both said at the same time. “Why not?” I said. “Jake, if you call and ask your dad where he is, and then the meeting gets broken up by us, don’t you think the Yeerks’ll put two and two together?” “I don’t care,” I said, before I could stop myself. The sympathy on Marco’s face evaporated. “You’re not getting me killed to save your father!” he snapped" yeah.... ~~~ "“But -” I said. “No buts, Jake,” he said. “You know me. You know I’ve worked it out.” I hesitated, frustrated and not used to being the one taking orders, but I couldn’t deny that he was right." and this was David's problem. yeah, he was a cruel asshole who couldn't take 'no' for an answer... but he was doomed from the start, anyone would have been trying to join a team with such implicit trust and discipline. jake will listen to marco. he woulnd't to someone who just joined. and marco wouldn't trust someone who just joined to listen. ~~~~ " Tobias interrupted. I looked at him. So did the rest of us. he asked, sounding defensive. He was quiet a moment. Then, abashed, he said, “Your relatives are jerks and they didn’t deserve you,” Rachel snapped." it still IS an option though. yeah it would fuck tom over for a bit to run away for the weekend... the consequences might be not being allowed to go to the sharing but parents only have conseqeuences if you let them. tho, tom isn't a terribly useful host if he gets the reputation as a delinquint or drops out of school or anything. oh yeah, the book immediately says that. ~~~ aparently tobias is a fan favorite. he was always mine. ~~~ "Morphing may be a great weapon. It is also a horror beyond imagining. " how did tiny me not realize this was horror? i guess i was also reading stephen king and goosebumps so as far as i was concerned ALL books were horror books i mostly thought of them as cool adventure books with animals ~~~ "I was playing a defensive game. It’s easier to attack. On the attack you can pick the time and place. On the defense all you can do is wait. Wait for the enemy to pick his time and his place. And wear out your resources and your people waiting, waiting, knowing all it takes is for the enemy to get lucky and all your tense, cramped-up waiting will be for nothing" which is one of the many reasons why 6 kids are holding their own against an entire army. defense is hard mode and the yeerks are on it. a later book, when the yeerks get morphing, emphasizes how hard it is to relax when literally any bug you see could be an enemy spy or warrior ~~~ " I guess when I think about it, that’s what I hope I’ll do when I’m older: treat my family right, do my job well, not be a jerk to the people I meet. Maybe that’s not a huge, ambitious goal, but it would be enough for me. I’ve done the hero thing. You can have the hero thing. Me, I wanted a day when all I’d have to do was be a decent human being." the irony. not that he ends up being like, a domestic abuser or an asshole but he rejects the quiet life, in the end. and chooses to die a hero. ~~~ "I don’t know how this war will turn out. Don’t know if we’ll win or lose or even, somehow, compromise and make peace. But I know one thing: I will kill the Yeerk who has done this to my brother. I will kill him" god its so tragic knowoing how this turns out. ~~~~ "“You need to back off on this,” Marco said quietly. “You can’t make this call. Not about your dad and your brother.” “You made it when it was your mom,” I said. Marco shrugged. “Yeah, well, that’s me. If it’s any comfort to you, I’d like myself more if I was like you. But the question here is, how far do we go to protect your father?” Marco said. “And who is going to make that decision?”" ouch. ~~~ "“It makes me sad to think that Grandpa G isn’t here anymore,” my mother said quietly, watching as the sun set over the lake. “He really loved this place.” “I remember when he came home from the war,” my grandfather mused. “He was a different man. He said he wanted nothing but peace after seeing so much.” " if only jake took after him like this ~~~ lol, of course jake didn't fool his friends. who did he think they are? cassie read him like a book, marco planned their counteroffensive. and they saved his dad better than he ever could. ~~~ " a voice ordered. I obeyed, glad for once to take orders rather than give them. Relieved to have the decision made for me. " thats the thing right. people telling him to demorph often saves his life. he's always so relieved to be told what to do. he never asked to be the fearless leader, but god is trying to live up to it ~~~ ```“I was too close to it,” I said. “You were right. I was too close to see things clearly.” Marco didn’t argue. He didn’t gloat, either. I guess we each have our strengths and weaknesses. Marco’s strength is the ability to see the way to the goal, even when it means disregarding consequences and feelings and basic right and wrong. He’d seen this solution when I missed it.``` they're a good team ~~~ ```Everything was back the way it had been. My brother still lived. So did the enemy inside him. It had all been a pointless battle. No one had wanted it, no one had profited. Everyone had suffered: Chapman, Ax, Tom, Marco, and some guy who just wanted his parking space back. And me. ``` ```I know he was proud of being brave, proud of doing his best for his country. But I also know why the medals were in a pouch, in a footlocker, in an attic, kept far out of sight. Someday maybe there’ll be medals for those who fought the war against the Yeerks. I’ll need to buy a footlocker.``` jesus. welp. that is a successful reading of a new animorphs book, and in a single night as well. maybe i'll go back to my one a week again. maybe more. who knows. ~~~ thinking about it. tom's yeerk was just as dumb as jake was, panic morphin tiger. tom's yeerk decides to *stab* his host's father in a situationw where theres only so many possible culprits. even if he tosses the body in the lake, it'll be found. was he just hoping that there would be controller police as part of the search party for his dad?