I'm trying to build up a habit of reading fridays before bed... sometimes its hard tho, cuz ive been in a rare video games cycle, as in im playing them insteada just making arguably game shaped shitposts and crocheting while listening to audio books its nice? its been awhile since ive had the itch fucks my hands up tho, if i play too longer fridays are a day of rest so lets rest everything but my eyes when i saw the watcher live blogging this i genuienly barely rembered reading this book as a kid... i owned all the books, and since my mom disowend me i guess she probably got rid of them all? thats one of the few things i regret about all that that and like man no grainy glitchy vhs tapes from me as a kid i can work into creepy pastas. such a shame... i even asked my sister if she thought they still existed (and could be digitized), but neither she nor anyone else she asked knew ah well ~~~ im p sure nfl games are turn based? like between plays? his dad coulda answered the phone without forfeiting ~~~ i think i remember a tumblr post pointing out that marco deliberately mislead his dad into thinking nora was a controller, once the secret is out just to break them up ~~~ "A few months back he pulled himself out of it." *we have a timeframe* 35 books have happened in "a few months" (not that marco's dad was fine right away but still) ive been estimating roughly a mission a week (or they'd draw too much suspicion... ) 35 weeks is... still within tolerances for a "few months back", especially given his dad wasn't recovering for a while glad to get confirmation ~~~ i don't think yeerks are from another galaxy. galaxies are WAY bigger than you think and there is... there is an *upsetting* amount of space between them. yes yes, i know z space is a work around for light speed limits but still. there is MORE than enough to conquer in one galaxy. you aren't gonna go to another galaxy unless you no longer have anything in your current one. conquering one specific planet in another galaxy is like someone in hawaii deciding they are going to conquer madagascar in particular and ignore everything in between. but worse. maybe zspace sorta just pops you out somewhere random (but consistent), so you are in england then "right next door" is hawaii and then madagascar, metaphorically.. but. seems unlikely? marco's just wildly overestimating how close the yeerk homeworld is to earth ~~~ i do like that animorphs isn't just early introduction to "war is hell, always" but its also a good introduction to "cults target lonely people with the promise of belonging but only exploit them" seriously. be careful. one day you will feel completely alone and hopeless and there might be a group of people who make you feel loved, a group of people who make you feel like you have purpose... you'll want to belong, to be valued by them.... if you're lucky, they'll be true friends, family, the works... but ... sometimes they'll start to pressure you. ask you why you're spending time with other people. ask you why you're spending your money the way you are. ask you why you're not devoting more to them and it will be little things at first. frowns. slight coldness... but it'll get worse and worse until you're one of those people who turns over your life savings to people who do not have your best interest at heart.... cults are terrifying to me, because *anyone* can fall to them, given the right terrible day of their life and the right opportunity. i like playing with that fear, with zampanio, but i try to very carefully keep it as fictional as i can, and have all the little cult vibes be BOTH playful AND as safe and helpful as possible. i do not want anyone to ever feel like they will lose everything they care about if they don't dedicate everything to zampanio, you feel? ~~~ they hadn't mentioned having to wear skintight clothes to morph in a few books, i feel also, marco totally could have let people know the next day. he didn't need to drag anyone out at 8pm on a schoolnight but he wanted the distraction ~~~ man i forgot about the lobster morph ~~~ "Jake’s the responsible, serious, leader-type. I’m the devil-may-care comedian. At least that’s what I often find it useful for people to think. " oh marco... ~~~ god the powerpuff girls were contemporary with animorphs? wild... ~~~ "I’d told the others about my dad dating my math teacher. Back in the beginning. I’d had to tell them that much. We had to make sure Ms. Robbinette wasn’t a Controller. For three days we’d followed her. She’d never gone near any known Yeerk pool entrances. " makes if he lies about her being a controller even worse but thta won't be for a while ~~~ these are cockatoos, but i remember holding a friend of the families cockatiel (much smaller) as a kid, and feeling so happy at its tiny claws on my finger... ~~~ "Visser Three. Our most feared and hated enemy. The leader of the Yeerk invasion of Earth. The only Yeerk to have infested an Andalite. The only Yeerk with the power to morph. " they really have gotten efficient at catching up readers each book with the plot whether you forgot because its been a while or somehow picked this up and nothing earlier ~~~ "“No, Visser, I don’t feel I should kill the bird. I must maintain William Roger Tennant’s animalloving image. But yes, these cockatiels are very annoying.” Pause. Then, “Yes, Visser, the day will come when we exterminate all irrelevant creatures. Looking forward to it.”" oh come on. we know how much the visser loves animals. maybe not EVERY animal, but god knows he plans for the earth to be overrun with big cats ~~~ "Tennant paced over to a tall mirror, took himself in, then headed back to the desk in the middle of the room. “I am a warrior!” he cried, gesturing dramatically with me as a prop. “A warrior trapped in this hideous charade. Can you imagine, little birdie, how it pains me to be nice and kind and polite, morning, noon, and night! How I yearn to lash out! To strike! To kill all the fools that surround me! But I cannot. No! That would not be in character for William Roger Tennant, great advocate of human virtues. Caretaker of all life-forms. Bah!”" oh! oh oh oh! what a fun foil! marco, the devil may care comeddian. marco, always quick with a joke and a smile. marco who seems to always miss the point. to not think about anything too deeply. to not feel anything deeply. it would be out of CHARACTER for marco to lash out. to cry. and look at his opponent. theyve been doing a lot of foils lately tobias with his tortuerer, cassie with her ghost rache with litearlly herself jake and tom both coming up with the worst plans known to man or yeerk yes, this feeds me ~~~ "I was going insane. Hard to believe that after all the craziness I’d been through since this war started, a simple, everyday, domestic problem would be the thing to push me over the edge. " it always is isn't it... i think that... our brains know to brace for the big things? to roll with the punches. but its the little mundane things that... catch us off guard... and all the stress comes out at once, in a big pile, multiplied by how dumb it feels to be so affected by "nothing" ~~~ "We yanked off our uniforms. I looked around frantically. Empty chair! Just one, but it would do. “May we join you?” It was a table full of old people in suits or dresses, depending. One of them may have been our mayor. I’m not sure. “There’s only one chair.” “It’s okay, we’re very good friends.” I sat down and yanked Ax down onto my lap" and he was calling ax's human morph "weirdly attractive" before no wonder the fandom ships them ~~~ "“What did I do?” I whispered. “You’re in a war, Marco. You’re here, in your own living room, eating cookies and watching TV and going to school on Monday, but you’re in a war. Bad things have happened to you.” “Tobias isn’t losing it. Ax isn’t losing it. Look at them, they’re both all alone. My God, Tobias isn’t even human anymore.” “Marco, you don’t know what they’ve gone through. They’d never tell you.” “Guy code,” I said. “It doesn’t matter what they feel anyway, you know? You have to deal with what you feel.”" its true i wonder if cassie is reading up on therapy guides, the way jake was learning about historical generals ~~~ i like that marco's plan is to make this guy as stressed out as he is ~~~ ". I morphed again, and the minute his foot hit the pavement, I was peeing on it. " okay real talk. *where did the pee come from* i know we gloss over how the "dna" tells you what to become (dna wouldn't know how much fat is on your body or how long your hair is or etc), im sure its just a hand wavey translation error from andalite-ese, some kinda, "soul marker" instead dna obviouslyl when you morph your eyes and mouth are moisturied, or you'd be in incredible pain. theres MOISTURE coming from somewhere... but a full bladder? did the poodle just happen to have to pee when it got acquired??? ~~~ im glad it therapeutic for marco to be fucking with this guy ~~~ "“Nora and I have been talking about getting married, Marco. But we won’t do it without you okay.” “Yeah? And what if it’s not okay?” I said. I could hardly hear my own voice. He sighed. His eyes turned vacant, distant. The way they’d looked for a large part of the past two years. I hadn’t missed that look. I hadn’t missed it at all. “Marco, we’re a team, you and I. We’ve been through a lot together. If you say no, I’ll accept that.” Fine. So it was on me. Great. Typical. Yeah, why not? I’ll decide if my dad is happy or not, if my mom is still my mom. I’ll decide if she lives or if she dies so that I, the Great Marco, the great coldblooded Marco can prove how tough I am by leading her into a trap, setting her up … I felt pain. I was digging my fingernails into the side of my head. I was going to explode. Some artery in my head was going to blow apart. It was too much. Way too much. “I’m out of here,” I said. I got up and ran for the door." god. ~~~ "I poked Tennant’s huddled body with my paw. Watched him shrink and shudder. Cassie said soothingly. Jake snapped. It was like a bucket of ice water dumped on my head. It was like waking up from an intense dream. Fast. Painful. Slowly my mind grasped control. Cassie said. Jake said. I started to shrink. My body deflated like a balloon with a pin-hole. My head, shrinking. Becoming a normal poodle head. Cassie shot back, obviously angry. Jake said. What I always say? What was he talking about? Jake said, I laughed. Laughed in recognition. Oh, yeah. I do say that. " cassies way is probably better in the long run. but right now there is only the short term, they need marco to slam his coping mechanisms into place long enough to not die. because thats the thing, isn't it? coping mechanisms are there *for a reason*. they help us survive when we need it. they only are something we need help dismantling when the threat is finally *over* after the war, marco is going to be still relying on the things that helped him live, helped him COPE and they are going to sabatoge him at every turn because they are good for the SHORT term, for SURVIVAL but not for actuallyl being happy in the long term. for thriving. cassies instinct is what would hopefully help marco when its finally all over. but processing grief, while healthy... is not useful while you're on fire. ~~~ "“Marco, if you’re there, pick up.” My mother. To be continued in … Visser" heeeeeeeeeee i remember it was such a good stand alone story `~~~ sleepy me had one additional thought: the chee are sort of an analog of marco's dad as well. they let grief consume them, and became shells only play acting at living a life , wholy defined by the loss of their creators no wonder marco's book was the one to introduce them