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words-writ-in-starlight · 6 years

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I would love to hear you talk about ANY plot point in the David trilogy, no matter how minor.

You know how...Jake sends Ax to get Rachel...because Tobias is dead...and now the Animorphs have to do a terrible thing?

That’s...my favorite scene in the entire series. Like...I know I talk a lot about scenes I love...but that is...absolutely without a doubt the best scene in the entire series and it’s only like five sentences, but listen.

Jake the general, Jake the warlord, Jake who is signing the death warrant of another child because he has to, because their lives are in danger and if they die then Earth loses and if Earth is taken then the universe is in danger...but also because there’s a part of him that wants vengeance. Jake is terrified of this part of himself, for good reason, because wars are not won with vengeance and Jake needs to win the war, not the battle.

So when he says we might have to do a terrible thing, he means I’ll try to stop him but if I fail you get Rachel and you bring her and you point her at him and stand back.

And then we have Rachel, Rachel the weapon, Rachel who does the terrible things, and of course he calls on Rachel, because who else? The only other one of them with the potential for it is Marco, and Marco is a cold-eyed strategist when the occasion calls for it but Marco, ultimately, is not prepared to hunt someone down and murder them. And that’s what Jake is calling for, make no mistake, he is calling in a hit, an execution. David has done the unforgivable and in the moment, under fire, with Tobias dead on Marco’s bed, Jake doesn’t look for another choice, he just says get Rachel, and Ax doesn’t ask any questions.

Because of course Rachel will do it. Not just because she’s Xena, not because she’s the blood knight, not because she’s the doer of terrible things, but because that’s Tobias and David killed him and Rachel holds all the terrible things of the Animorphs in herself because the others couldn’t bear them, because the others need to fill other roles, so Rachel takes the parts of them that they’re afraid of and fits them in along her bones. The bloodlust, the rage, the vengeance, and she’s told that David killed Tobias and she has no problem with murdering him in revenge for the boy she loves.

So Jake looks at the body and says get Rachel.

And of course Ax goes, without question, without hesitation, even though this is the same cadet who could not comprehend a traitor just a few weeks ago on the Andalite ship. Because Ax is a quick study and what he’s studied on Earth is that war is messy and ugly and cruel and that guerrilla warfare is shockingly effective and that there is nothing, nothing, more valuable in a war than having people you trust on all sides. Jake is his prince in a way that is more than just the title, Jake has brought Ax through battle after battle and welcomed Ax back after he turned them in and Jake reminds Ax so much of Elfangor, a prince who has his warriors’ devotion because of who he is, not because of his rank. And Rachel is the one who, in the moment, on the battlefield on Leera, stared Ax dead in the eye with his tail blade at her throat and dared him to do it, dared him to prove who he stood with once and for all, us or them, and he said you and that was the end of it, it was never discussed again. And Tobias, Tobias is Ax’s shorm and his best friend and this intruder murdered him in cold blood, like an animal, because he believed that Tobias was lesser.

So it’s David has done a terrible thing and then Jake says we might have to do a terrible thing but really we will kill him and then of course, of course, it’s get Rachel because who else are they going to get.

That tiny little conversation is those three characters in a nutshell, all the best and worst parts of them, and I love it.

#animorphs #rachel berenson #jake berenson #aximili #rachel my bold beloved bloodied sister #prince jake #good trash boy #the david trilogy #david you fuck #god i love this scene SO MUCH #SO MUCH #oh also i love the scene where rachel corners jake and her stance is basically #'use me if you want to but don't you dare lie to either of us about what you're doing'#'tell me what you want me to do don't manipulate me into it'#'i'll threaten whoever you want kill them even but i won't be a puppet'#MY FUCKING GIRL #I LOVE HER #and of course i love this scene because everyone KNOWS how in love with tobias rachel is #everyone knows it and jake knows that right now that love is their best weapon #they need someone who will do anything to stop david at any cost and with tobias dead...rachel is that person #i #love #it #it's terrible and i'm living #otp: way past romeo and juliet #idiot teenagers with a queue #accordionsrule #asked and answered

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words-writ-in-starlight · 7 years

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I'd love to hear your thoughts about adhd Rachel.

So, for context, when I was a small baby human reading these for the first time, I saw Rachel and I was like “!!!!!!”, you know, as you do when you see a character who kind of Speaks to whatever undetermined weirdness you have going on at the time. And then I was a slightly older baby human whose school reputation was Somewhere Between Charming Young Genius And Possible Future Gangster--by which I mean that I have punched many a person in my public school career and consequently had a lot of people who were afraid of me and not many close friends. And I connected even more to Rachel then, because listen: it’s so easy to just fight, and fight, and fight, when you’re too depressed and angry to control overwhelmingly impulsive thoughts. Now I’m an adult and I know that a huge part of my problem was undiagnosed ADHD (in addition to just being...I’m a real angry person you guys, it’s just...how it is), and I went back to reread the Animorphs and I was like “You know who the fuck else has ADHD.”

I connected to that in Rachel, and I have Evidence.

First things first, you know that...thing in Rachel books where she’ll actually verbally go “this may not be a good idea” once she’s already doing it? Constantly? That’s the impulsivity thing in ADHD that you hear about. It’s not dunking your hand into 160 degree water without realizing that you’re going to burn yourself and being surprised when it hurts, it’s dunking your hand into 160 degree water and your brain going “hey, that’s going to hurt, you’re going to get burned” once you’re already whipping your hand back and yelling and being resigned that it hurts. That little voice in your head telling you not to do dangerous stuff is still there, it’s just super late to the party. And Rachel is a fucking thesis on that whole concept. The first time she morphs grizzly, she picks the morph on impulse because she wants to be big and strong and able to fight back, and once she’s finished the change she goes hmm, this might be a bad idea, I don’t know if I can control this morph under pressure but she’s already done it and they’re in battle and she’s committed. When Cassie tells her “I’m going to go get help, don’t do anything dumb” in Book 12, Rachel isn’t unaware that jumping down into the croc pit is something dumb, it’s just that the connection between the action and the fact that it’s a bad idea is made once she’s already up on the railing and jumping in. She knows that morphing into a starfish on a beach full of people in order to retrieve an earring is both stupid and dangerous, but by the time she notices, she’s already committed. So: uncontrolled impulses, check.

Incidentally, I always take it kind of personally when people in the fandom read it as...I don’t know, as either Rachel willfully ignoring good sense or Rachel genuinely not knowing a good plan from a bad one. Rachel knows common sense when she hears it, that’s obvious even if she sometimes prioritizes some other thing. And more to the point, Rachel is pretty good at combat tactics in the heat of the moment. Take 22, where she assembles a plan to take down David in the mall--the fact that he had time to prepare the ground doesn’t change the fact that her plan is reasonably tight. This is something I will bitch about at length when I write up a recap for Book 37, AKA my most hated Animorphs book because it does BOTH of those things to Rachel’s character. She’s reckless and impulsive, not stupid, and honestly I kind of resent the part of the fandom that confuses the two.

Second of all, Rachel’s emotional responses tend to either be ‘highly controlled and masked with sarcasm’ or ‘wildly out of hand’, which is really typical of girls with ADHD--society tells us to be utterly in control, which means that the emotional lability (...being mercurial, basically) typical of ADHD bursts out in sudden violence or crying or whatever your particular person is prone to. So, like, take that one time very early in the series where Rachel goes from being totally checked out to slamming another girl face-first into a table. ...I’m not saying I’ve done that. But I am saying that one time when I was twelve a guy came up and hugged me from behind and started complaining when I told him to leave me alone and I put him on the floor and dared a teacher to suspend me. And Marco says, when they’ve all been dragged up to Chapman’s office, that he’s afraid Rachel’s just going to out them to Chapman right then and there because she’s so furious and out of control. I told a teacher to go to hell, and called another one a moron to his face, and told yet a third one that he couldn’t find his way around a literary analysis with both hands an a torch. That’s super standard undiagnosed ADHD shit right there, especially since Rachel’s under a lot of pressure.

Third of all, Rachel’s got some focus problems like whoa: she does struggle to focus on the right thing from time to time, but I’m more interested in the wat she exhibits some real hyperfocus. The main example that springs to mind is the way Cassie describes Rachel shopping in MM4--there’s no war, there’s no outside stressors of life or death issues, and Cassie still talks about how Rachel is absolutely laser focused, to the point of scheming out which stores they’ll hit in what order like a battle plan. We hear a lot about Rachel with this kind of obsessive focus, to exclusion of all else, often about shopping but also about other things. Hyperfocus is a little-discussed but extremely common symptom of ADHD, and it really is exactly what it says on the tin. And Rachel, oh boy, does Rachel ever have it.

Related to the focus thing, there’s this one bit that I read and every time I’m like SAME DUDE, and it’s from that same scene in the mall at the beginning of 22, when Rachel and Ax are forming up to attack. She believes Tobias is dead, Jake is actively bleeding to death on the floor, the situation could not be more dire--and her brain still goes “hey, that store’s having a sale.” And Rachel is furious with herself for it, she hates that her brain kicks that bit of information out while everything is so awful, but she just can’t seem to stop it. That’s the life, man. #ADHDAesthetic right there.

Fourthly--I’m realizing that I have more points here than I thought--Rachel’s a fidgeter. This isn’t really explicitly stated because the books have such a strict length limit that they’re usually really cut down to the bare bones, but there’s one place where body language is pretty reliably described: barn meetings. Marco is usually sacked out on a convenient chair, Tobias in the rafters, Cassie doing work, Jake either standing or sitting. But Rachel’s a pacer. She’s repeatedly described as pacing, and if she’s not, if she’s sitting with someone, it’s for narrative reasons. She’s sitting near Marco? She’s going to smack him, or challenge him to an arm wrestling contest for the dangerous mission, whatever. She’s sitting near Cassie? That’s supposed to say something about her emotional state.

Fifth, Rachel bores easily. And I mean real easily. In the Oatmeal Book, she talks about claustrophobia, but one of the things she complains about the most often is being alone in the dark with her thoughts. For me, that’s the worst thing about insomnia--the inside of my head is only enough to keep my attention for so long, and then I start to lose it, and yeah, it feels like a panic attack, it would be easy to lump in with external claustrophobia. When she’s taking a day off from school, she only lasts a few hours watching trash TV before she bails out to go flying--this is also related to the fidgeting thing above (7). When she has nightmares, she gets up and leaves the house. When Rachel morphs prey animals or motion-attracted predators like cats, it’s easy for her to get lost in the rapid-change thought patterns. I can’t think of a single time where Rachel gets put on surveillance alone--not because she’s not good at surveillance, but because she can’t be relied on not to get distracted.

I could come up with some other things, but these five plus the idle descriptions she throws around about ‘racing thoughts’ and ‘I lost my temper and I just couldn’t think anymore’ would get her an ADHD screen from any respectably competent therapist. Throw in “incredibly high performing academically but with some disciplinary issues” (13 and 5 respectively) and “exhibits suicidally reckless impulses even in non-battle life” (literally every other book), and she’s a shoo-in.

The short version here is that my headcanon that Rachel has severe ADHD is summed up by two books: 12 and 32.

In 32, the two Rachels are both poster children for ADHD--Mean Rachel is impulsive, loud, temperamental, unfocused, and generally uncooperative (you and I all know the stereotypes come from somewhere, a lot of people who manifest ADHD like that are pretty uncooperative, and I say that as one of them), and Wimp Rachel is just as temperamental on the other side of the spectrum, forgetful, easily distracted, genuinely scared of her own impulses and intrusive thoughts, and, you guessed it, kind of uncooperative (again, the stereotypes come from somewhere). You don’t put those two people together and get one non-ADHD person, you put them together and get a person whose symptoms have settled out to a degree of homeostasis.

And in 12, beyond all the really impulsive shit Rachel does and the way she approaches everything from the angle of “this is my fault because I’m not in control of myself,” which, oh my god, honey, same, but no it’s not, Cassie morphs Rachel. And what does Cassie say about being in Rachel’s head?

“I’m having the worst time trying to control this morph!”

“You’re having trouble being me? What could be hard about that?”

“It’s this brain of yours. It keeps trying to make me do really dumb things.”

#animorphs #rachel berenson #adventures in adhd #rachel my bold beloved bloodied sister #i'm RIDE OR FUCKING DIE GUYS #this is way longer than i meant it to be #but my point fucking STANDS #QUOD ERAT DEMONSTRATUM MOTHERFUCKERS #RACHEL HAS ADHD #IT IS F A C T #honestly i relate to rachel so much #but i'm pretty sure this is not just rampant projection on my part #this is canonically supported #anyway yeah that's what i've got #idiot teenagers with a queue #miraculoussparrow #asked and answered

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words-writ-in-starlight · 7 years

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Why the hell did Rachel have a picture of Tobias? ( Also, Tobias??? Just.. Tobias??? Tring to make the best out of a bad situation Tobias???? Coming into this I thought Marco was going to be a favourite but my heart is breaking for this boy.(halfway (?) through Book 3)

Right, so, welcome to my kingdom of fairly elaborate headcanons about Rachel’s very quiet, mostly ignored crush on the shiest, most anxious bully target in school. She never talks about it to anyone, really. Not even Cassie knows. The laws of middle school are pretty absolute, and Rachel runs in radically different circles from soft-spoken Tobias, new kid Tobias, everyone-knows-his-uncle-hates-him Tobias. Shows-up-at-school-for-breakfast-with-ill-fitting-clothes-and-bruises-from-bullies Tobias.

Rachel’s a tough kid, but even she’s not sure if she’s tough enough for that.

All the same, though, she drops a whisper in Jake’s ear–Big Jake, her gentle giant of a cousin–and suddenly the bullies start to back off, under threat of seeing Jake’s easygoing smile appear over Tobias’ shoulder with a “Hey, guys. What are we talking about?”

Tobias never knows. Rachel never tells him.

That’s not the point, though. By the time Rachel decides that fuck everyone, she’s so fucking over this, if she wants to go hold some dumb skinny dork’s hand she’s gonna do it and fuck the haters–well, they walk home through a construction site. She does hold Tobias’ hand, but it’s because he’s crying so hard he’s shaking trying to be silent, and the Andalite, the dying Prince Elfangor, is screaming in their heads and God, what else can she do except hold onto Tobias and pray?

The next day, Rachel looks across the circle of her friends and meets Tobias’ eyes, soft and light brown flecked with gold in the sunlight. She’s never been close enough to see the glints of precious metal there. His jaw is set hard, no trace of his nervous smile, and he’s standing up straight for the first tine in her memory and the two of them are immediately, viscerally agreed. They are going to war. The others can stay or go, but Rachel and Tobias. They are doing this, because this is what they are. Who they are.

They go to war and it’s worse than anything Rachel’s ever lived except for how it’s not and the next day Tobias….

Tobias isn’t at school. He’s invisible. He blends in with the crowd. That’s what Cassie tells her, tries to reassure her. They might have just not noticed him.

Rachel would have noticed him, she thinks.

So.

The point is.

When she finds out that those soft gold-brown eyes and that nervous smile and those bony stubborn shoulders are gone for good, Rachel goes and finds the one place that might have a picture of Tobias. He drew, you know, pretty well, and she goes to the art teacher and lies her ass off about looking for pictures of the after-school art club. (She knows that Tobias was at home to sleep, almost nothing else. Everyone knew.) The art teacher is an easy mark. Rachel is a sweet kid, a top student, a good girl. Rachel walks away with a small collection of photos, and finds one that’s mostly Tobias, looking shyly up at the camera that had interrupted his work. Brown eyes flecked with gold, a nervous smile. She can’t stand the thought of forgetting what he looks like.

What he looked like.

She keeps the photograph.

#animorphs #rachel #tobias #rachel x tobias #i also wrote a fic to this effect if you are interested #in fact i have written several fics to this effect even though not all of them are published yet #basically i'm ride or fucking die on this headcanon #otp: way past romeo and juliet #oh also idk if this is general knowledge but a lot of schools offer free breakfast-adjacent food if you show up early #which is convenient if someone a) doesn't have the money for food or b) has a caretaker who isn't...caretaking #and tobias' uncle is very much not caretaking so i headcanon that tobias eats most of his meals at school #rachel my bold beloved bloodied sister #tobias my poor lonely warforged child #LISTEN IF YOU THINK YOUR HEART IS BREAKING NOW YOU ARE GONNA HAVE A ROUGH TIME #OH BUDDY #WHEN YOU REACH BOOK 23 COME SCREAM WITH ME #INCIDENTALLY I RECOMMEND READING THE ANDALITE CHRONICLES IMMEDIATELY AFTER 23 #FOR MAXIMUM PAIN REASONS #HAVE FUN #other people reading animorphs #i accidentally did a ficlet?#sorry?#anonymous #asked and answered #idiot teenagers with a queue

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words-writ-in-starlight · 7 years

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ANDALITE. AND-A-LIGHT WOULD BE GREAT!!!!!!!! HILARIOUS. TOP QUALITY. I LOVE IT.

AND A LIGHT. LISTEN I WENT ALMOST TEN YEARS WITHOUG READING THESE BOOKS (long story) AND WHEN I REREAD BOOK 12 I LOOKED AT THE COVER AND THE FIRST THING THAT POPPED INTO MY HEAD WAS “CASSIE I’M SO PROUD OF YOU YOU’RE SO GOOD” LIKE LISTEN THAT LINE STUCK WITH ME COMPLETELY INTACT AND WORD PERFECT FOR A D E C A D E.

Also, if anyone wants to hear my headcanons about ADHD Rachel hit me U P.

#rachel berenson #rachel my bold beloved bloodied sister #cassie #FUCKING BRILLIANT I LOVE HER SO MUCH #LIKE #THAT'S THE GREATEST FUCKING LINE I'VE EVER HEARD IN MY LIFE #I'M SO PROUD OF CASSIE SHE'S MY G I R L #and listen i'm very serious about adhd rachel #i've seen a few 'neuro-weird animorphs' posts where she has bpd or whatever but #seriously #takes one to know one and THAT girl has adhd #idiot teenagers with a queue #anonymous #asked and answered

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words-writ-in-starlight · 7 years

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Jake made a deal with Fenestre--as long as he was inside his own house, he was safe from retribution.

Rachel knows that there are some things that only she and her cousin can do, and this is one of them.

We all know who did the arson at the end of Book 16.

Alternatively, the one where Jake and Rachel do terrible things because who else would be able to?

Which is honestly a genre of Animorphs fic I feel to be sadly lacking, but I digress.

#animorphs #jake berenson #rachel berenson #prince jake #yeah so i honestly just should have tagged this 'family bonding' and 'arson' and it would have about summed it up #but here #i wrote the fic #4k of jake and rachel being terrible together because No One Else Can Do It #which is honestly my aesthetic #rachel and her bloody hands....#rachel my bold beloved bloodied sister #anyway i still have that ask in my inbox about jake and rachel's relationship and once i've worked through the headcanon asks #i SWEAR i'm gonna get to it #but like honestly this #this is why they need and depend on each other #rachel needs direction--she's a gun with no guidance system and without a hand on the trigger she's just blanket ruination #and jake needs someone to get their hands dirty; someone to shed blood and kill and still stand tall at the end of it #and they both need someone who can watch them do the terrible thing and understand and still look at them the same the next day #apparently i've used those first two tags before which honestly does not shock me #idiot teenagers with a queue

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words-writ-in-starlight · 7 years

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The Great Animorphs Reread, Part 7

Book 7: The Stranger

AKA “The PTSD squad sees the future and finally fucking wins a round, the Ellimist shows his not-face, and Rachel antes up her battle morph”

MOTHER

FUCKING

GRIZZLY

BEAR

Anyway. *clears throat* Real talk. Gear up for some incoherence. This is a favorite book to be honest. Because this is the book where it really grinds home for them, on a bitter, visceral level, just how truly fucked they are—they see the future, where the war is lost and Rachel is a Controller and they are all dead—and they give up! They surrender! They agree to let the Ellimist take them to another planet! And then…they win a round. They win quite a round, with the destruction of the Kandrona. I’m so proud.

Have I mentioned that I live for Rachel. She’s so strong, and she doesn’t believe that she is—when they attack the Kandrona, she claims that she’s not brave because she believed the guards were humans. But Rachel knows that humans would be carrying guns (probably BIG guns, given what they’re guarding), she knows that being shot is awful, she knows it fucking sucks, she knows that even a rampaging bear is going to notice a bullet. And she still trucks right on in there because she has a war to fight and a battle to win and I just. Love her.

It’s easy to forget how much damage Rachel does and takes in battle. Marco takes the most really spectacular injuries (there’s a statistical analysis of how many times the various Animorphs are dismembered/disemboweled floating around the Interwebs somewhere, and he ‘wins’ by a landslide), but I think for sheer numbers, Rachel takes the cake. I cannot think of a single battle in which she doesn’t take any damage whatsoever, and the injuries are frequently “you better demorph before you bleed out” levels of severity, either individually or en masse. I think this is partly because she’s their tank, so that’s her job—they’re a pretty well-coordinated D&D squad, someone remind me to write down my headcanons for an AU where the war is all a tabletop RPG and they are happy and trauma-free children—and also because, since she’s the tank, she would rather suffer than watch her friends take the injuries themselves. She throws herself headlong into battle because she would rather take the bullet/rampaging Hork-Bajir/hungry Taxxon herself than let the others get hurt.

Also! As the opening bullet points might have suggested, this book includes the advent of my favorite of Rachel’s morphs: the grizzly. Ursus arctos horriblis. Like, okay, if you want finesse in combat, the gorilla is a good one, it has hands. If you want mobility, the hawk is decent, what with the flying and all. The wolf has the advantage of sheer endurance, they can run for days. An Andalite…um…has a sword attached to its body, I feel like the advantages of this are self-explanatory. For a balance of speed and strength, Jake’s tiger is unmatched. But for sheer raw power—aggressive power, not bulldozing power—nothing tops a grizzly bear. I lived in Montana, just outside Yellowstone, where grizzlies were a plague, kids, I know of which I speak. A grizzly bear can take your head off with one swing, and those claws and teeth aren’t just for show. As battle morphs go: grizzly bear. Yeah. I would want a grizzly as my battle morph.

I don’t…like the Ellimist much. Like, I think he’s a really interesting character, and I’m actually super into the concept of the handpicked dream team to face down the Yeerks being just…people, not soldiers or heroes, just kids with the backbone and grit to do what had to be done. But that being said. The Ellimist jerks the Animorphs around largely just to prove he can. I don’t honestly care what he says about having some grand master plan, he’s just doing shit. He’s well-intentioned—although more from the motive of stopping Crayak than saving people, but I’m not going to fucking split hairs over the fate of the Earth, okay, he can have whatever motive he damn well pleases—but he basically spends this whole book yanking the Animorphs’ chain. And I get why he does it, I understand his logic, but just for the record: fuck him.

Future Rachel is a scary motherfucker. I mean, so is present Rachel, but at least with present Rachel it’s a good, clean fear of being eviscerated. I’m a little sad Rachel didn’t get to whomp her future self in grizzly form.

Speaking of future selves, I continue to be a fucking wreck about Rachel and Tobias, that is all we are talking about for the rest of this thing. Of all the people at Visser Three’s disposal to put the screws to Rachel—and of course he guns for Rachel, because Jake is the leader and Cassie is the heart and Tobias is the soul and Marco is the schemer and Ax is the brains but Rachel is the fighting spirit, the part of humanity that has to break if the Yeerks want to win—he goes for Tobias. Not her best friend, or her cousin, he goes for Tobias. He talks about how they killed Tobias and roasted him and Rachel ate him because he wants to break her, and you know what? It works. It works. She goes back on her decision to fight, in order to save the people she loves—her family, her friends, and Tobias.

Rachel and Tobias go to visit each other when they’re stressed or upset or bored. Rachel worries about Tobias’ safety so much and stresses about how dangerous life as a hawk is for him. Tobias is so careful with Rachel when she’s upset, and he’s so distressed when she flies away from him to acquire the bear at the Gardens. They get each other on this really visceral level, Rachel who’s learning to be a killer and Tobias who’s learning to be a hunter, and they have so much in common on that level. I? Cannot handle this? I need someone to request some early war era Rachel/Tobias fic from me, I NEED to wallow in this.

OH. AND WE SEE TOBIAS AS A HUMAN AGAIN. Okay, fuck the Ellimist for many things, but this ain’t one of them. Tobias is so surprised and cautious and sad about being in his own body again, he has so clearly missed being a person, and also? The others? I am distraught? The others have clearly missed him, too, missed having him around, being able to see his eyes and watch him smile. And Rachel—who, to remind you all, is habitually described as extremely beautiful and effortlessly smooth, and who could therefore probably walk into her school and have every guy in the building panting over her—is so glad to see him. Tobias is a dweeb, he’s the quintessential bullied kid, not the kind of kid who traditionally gets that kind of response from a pretty girl. And to boot he’s a neglected, outright abused kid, so having someone whose response to seeing him is just sheer delight must be weird as fuck to him. I’ll bet you cash money, here and now, that part of the reason he can’t control the hawk’s immediate response to panic when Rachel runs at him to hug him is because that has never happened to him before. I’ll bet he’s never in his life had to deal with someone rushing toward him like that except to attack him. Of course he gives in to the hawk instinct to try to escape. And she’s so upset with herself for having scared him, and he’s so embarrassed for having reacted badly, and these kids deserve a movie night or some shit. It’s so fucking sad, God, I’m a mess.

#animorphs #the great animorphs reread #rachel berenson #the stranger #rachel my bold beloved bloodied sister #you will pry the headcanon that rachel had a bit of a crush on tobias pre-war from my cold dead hands #i had that tag already?#where the fuck did i use that tag already?#anyway yes talk to me about animorphs as a dnd au where it's all good and happy #with rachel as the tank and tobias as the ranger and obviously tom as the dm #it's all good and happy and no one is dead and the only major conflict is that they find out that tobias' family sucks #so ax is like 'hey you could crash with me and my much-older brother' and tobias sleeps at ax's sometimes and rachel's sometimes #and elfangor finds out about the situation of this kid staying with him and is like 'um fuck no' and kind of pseudo adopts him #and then they find out other stuff and elfangor actually gets custody and everything is immediately better #anyway #it's been like a month since i posted the other one #if you get impatient feel free to remind me that this series exists because i just forget #it's not that i don't have a backlog of these posts

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words-writ-in-starlight · 7 years

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@lathori has wriggled a deal out of me to write her TWO happy AU’s for Animorphs. This is one of them. An actual college AU where no one is miserable.

#animorphs #rachel x tobias #rachel #tobias #jake berenson #prince jake #marco #rachel my bold beloved bloodied sister #tobias my poor lonely warforged child #i love them all so much #starlight writes stuff #animorphs fic #rachel is a kinesiology major and tobias is an english major and this is mostly going to be smut and awkwardness #and an excuse for jake to sit all of his housemates down and have a conversation to the tune of #'everyone must be wearing at least pants or a shirt and underwear at all times'#'because i am a good person and do not deserve to see my cousin half naked'#furthermore #i'm really amused by the idea of rachel and jake leaving to get out of the blast radius of tom getting out of a cult #also i realized that the worst and also best au would be the animorphs as rogue one

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words-writ-in-starlight · 7 years

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7 and whoever you want

7: I do not believe in love at first sight. But god damn. (Look at you.)

Two things. First,it’s a very dangerous thing to say ‘whoever I want,’ because I go straight forthe niche fandoms that I love the most. Thus: Animorphs. Second! It has come to my attention that Iaccidentally swapped two prompts—this line is actually prompt 17, and prompt 7got used for the Sith!Padme AU. BecauseI’m a fucking disaster area and my brain likes to pull switches like that onme. (Math classes suck for this exactreason.) But like the Sith!Padme AU isdone? And I was halfway through this by the time I realized, so I am VERY sorry but I’m doing this.

Tobias could give you the exact moment hefell in love with Rachel, as a bruised thirteen-year-old kid in a body hebarely remembered. Love at first sightwas a fairy tale, but he could give every detail of the moment—it was likelight being struck from a match, casting everything in a fresh glow.

Admittedly, he remembered everything aboutthat night in the construction site, about Elfangor’s serious eyes and VisserThree’s terrible morph and the desperate giddy feeling in his chest of yes, yes, I knew it, there’s more to thisworld. Which made a lot more sense,in retrospect, but of course at the time he just knew that something hadclicked into place. While everyone elsewas standing around being awestruck and wondering, Tobias had been too busyfeeling a wash of relief that, oh God, he wasn’t crazy, there really was something else and it was exactly asspectacular as he had always believed it would be.

But even in that chaos, Rachel had been likea beacon.

He’d had a crush on her from the moment hearrived in town, of course, but then he could guarantee that about every boy attheir school agreed with him, save the ones who were related to her. He could list five girls off the top of hishead who were probably head over heels for Rachel, having a crush on her wasn’tanything special. She was clever andfunny and fierce, her beautiful face was almost an afterthought.

And Tobias had needed something bright andstrong to hold onto, and just being around Rachel, in the line of her sharpeyes, was a good start.

So it never did shock him, that he was inlove with her.

It wasn’t her grip on his hand as theywatched Elfangor die, although he was sure everyone would be shocked to hearit. That was just…Rachel, scared half todeath and still with strength and ferocity to spare. She clutched his hand because it made herfeel better, to steady someone else, and God Tobias had needed it. He’d almost bolted right then, run back tothe Andalite’s side, because he barely had a life to live anyway and he’d feltsomething from Elfangor’s thoughts he’d never felt before. Some messy tangle of regret and pride andgrief, all centered around a bright hard thing that made affection look like small fry. The loss of it hurt like broken glass in Tobias’ throat, sharp andbloody. And it was Rachel’s grip on hishand as he cried that kept Tobias hidden behind the wreckage, kept him saneenough to live through the night.

But it was later, that it really hit him.

They were running and, at the time, Tobiashad desperately wished for wings. It wasalmost funny, now, but probably only to him—he’d never told the others howoften he wished he could fly away, before he got a new appreciation for thedangers of wishes.

Here was something else the others neverknew: he had three cracked ribs that night. There was no way, even with adrenaline pumping ice through his blood,that he would be able to outrun the Hork-Bajir on their tail. Tobias’ forgotten human body was tall, butskinny and out of shape, not strong like Cassie or fast like Jake, he was slowand hurt and shocky. And he had a momentof strange clarity, as if he could see the future as clearly as the Ellimistever showed it to them. He would die,and it would be awful, but the others would live and that would be…good. They had people who would miss them, and hedidn’t. They would live to fight theAndalite’s war, maybe save the world, and Tobias would get to rest.

And then Rachel, tall, athletic Rachel whocould probably have outpaced every last one of them, even Jake, slowed, anddropped back. She was shouting, armsoutstretched with a wild, ecstatic look of challenge on her face. Tobias could only catch about one word inthree, but they were…vivid.

That was the moment. Tobias, tearing across the rough ground ofthe construction site with impossibility on his heels. Rachel, screaming curses in death’s face inorder to protect the people she cared about. It was more like being struck by lightning than anything so polite as fallingin love, but.

Goddamn.

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words-writ-in-starlight · 7 years

Note

If you are in the mood to write pain (and, really, when aren't you in the mood to write pain): Rachel/Tobias during the early war

*mean cackling* So when I’m in a very particular moodabout the little girl I used to be and how much she was screwed over, I tend totake it out on my characters. Ergo, I ambanned from touching my Alleirat story until our houseguest leaves, and willinstead be writing Animorphs because how much worse could I make it. Sorry. And since this got pretty long and also there’s not exactly loads ofAnimorphs fic, I crossposted it to AO3. If you like Animorphs, maybe comment on thatshit or something.

here we stand (with our arms folded)

It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours sincethe disastrous attack on the Yeerk pool, the sun still over the trees at theedge of the forest where it butted up against Cassie’s farm. The horse she’d morphed, whose quick legs hadsaved Cassie and one single woman the night before, was loose in the field, andRachel was cross-legged on a crate in the barn as Cassie murmured to a woundedrabbit. Rachel felt dazed, withexhaustion and shock, as if every blink and turn of her head demanded a freshcalibration of her brain, a new moment of I’malive and nothing is okay. She’dspent an hour in the shower after getting home, with the water as hot as shecould stand, but she could still feel the grit of the Yeerk pool floor on herpalms and feet, and kept expecting to catch a glimpse of Hork-Bajir blood onher human teeth in the mirror.

Cassie didn’t seem much better, her handsstill where she would usually be smoothly going through her tasks and her voicemindless nonsense, as if she was as numb as Rachel. The silence wasn’t quite tense, but there wasan unmistakable taut feeling that kept even the noisiest patients subdued andquiet.

“Did Jake say why he wanted to talk to us?”Rachel finally asked, and Cassie glanced up, shaking her head.

“No,” she said.

Rachel nodded and sat quietly for anothermoment, fidgeting her fingers over the seam of her jeans and trying to hold theanxious question tightening her chest behind her teeth. Letting out a breath that carefully didn’tshake, she asked, as casually as she could manage, “Have you talked to Tobiastoday?”

Cassie paused for a longer moment at that,considering, and her eyes were more focused when she looked up. “No, I haven’t,” she said, and offered Rachela small smile, an attempt to reassure. Cassie was good at that, Rachel thought distantly, at beingreassuring—Rachel had never mastered the trick of it. “But I’m sure he’s fine. We’re trying not to stand out, remember? We didn’t exactly run in his social circlebefore, there’s no reason he would have come to find us today.”

Chewing at her lip, Rachel tried to feel reassured. It didn’t take, and she said, “I didn’t evensee him at school, though. What if he’shurt, or–”

“Rachel,” Cassie said, peeling off her heavywork gloves and closing the rabbit’s cage. “Calm down. I barely knew Tobias’name until…yeah. He’s good at blendingin with the crowd, I’m sure you just missed him.” She walked over and pushed at Rachel’s legsuntil she dropped them to let Cassie perch beside her.

Cassie’s close-cropped hair crinkled againstthe skin of Rachel’s neck when she pillowed her head against Rachel’sshoulder—the same shoulder Tobias had perched on the night before, before theywent down into the Yeerk pool, Rachel couldn’t help but think. Rachel tucked an arm around Cassie’sshoulders and rested her cheek against Cassie’s hair, trying to feel more atease. She and Cassie had sat togetherand watched movies and talked like this for years, Cassie taking cheerfuladvantage of Rachel’s taller frame to curl up against her side, and under anyother circumstances, Rachel would feel calmer just being able to smell her bestfriend’s cocoa butter and hay scent.

Rachel hadn’t felt calm since theconstruction site, and couldn’t begin to imagine what would repair her.

“I would have noticed him,” Rachel muttered,low enough that she wouldn’t have minded if Cassie had pretended not to hearher.

Cassie straightened up, a curious glintshowing through the layers of weary shock in her eyes, and opened hermouth. She was cut off by a quiet knockon the barn door.

“Come on in,” she said, a note of forcednormality in her voice. “It’s just meand Rachel in here.”

“It’s us,” Jake said, pushing the door openand preceding Marco through. He offeredthem both a faint smile, but Marco, uncharacteristically, looked downrightgrim. “We need to talk.”

“What’s wrong?” Cassie asked, shifting tostand, and a shadow swept over the dirt floor before the red-tailed hawk sweptthrough the door, flared, and landed neatly on an empty cage.

“Oh, God, Tobias,” Rachel said, jumping toher feet so quickly a caged fox squalled in surprise, eyeing human and hawkalike with suspicion. “We were worried,we didn’t see you at school.”

Tobias said, soundingstartled.

Cassie stood, more slowly but just asserious. “Jake, what’s going on?”

Tobias said atonce, and when they turned to look at him, he flared his wings, ruffling thefeathers uncomfortably. He trailed off and Jake sighed.

“Tobias was trapped in the Yeerk pool,” Jakesaid after a moment, and Rachel, in all her years of knowing her cousin, hadnever heard his voice so heavy. Not eventhe revelation that Tom was a Controller had weighed on him so clearly. “It took him more than two hours to make itout.”

There was another silence, uglier and darkerthan the one that had hovered between Rachel and Cassie, and Tobias was the oneto break it.

he said bluntly, andhesitated.

“Don’t be sorry,” Rachel said automatically,and although she recognized her voice in the air, she didn’t seem to be the onespeaking. Her body seemed to be outsideher reach—somehow, until this precise moment, she didn’t think the reality oftheir situation had quite sunk in. Thedazed exhaustion from before started to clear, and left something hot andbitter and vengeful in its wake.

“It’s not your fault you were stuck downthere,” Cassie said quietly, and thank God for Cassie, who could always say theright words as Rachel stood and tried to wrestle her voice into obedience. She could feel her body again, imagined gritand all, and it was trembling with the need to hurt someone for doing this tohim. She knew that feeling, the burn inher gut as if something toxic wanted to eat through her skin, but now there wasthe wicked murmur at the back of her mind that she could, and it shook her. “Even if you’d been human going in, you’d have been stuck. And you saved me.”

Her words cut through the tight-wound airlike a blade, and Jake let out a deep breath, his shoulders slumping as heleaned back against a sturdy wooden table. Marco shoved his hands in his pockets, and Cassie sat down on the crateagain. Rachel, hands knotted into fiststo keep them from shaking and not quite sure that she could bear to sit justyet, leaned against the nearest empty cage to where Tobias had perched.

The five of them looked around at each otherfor a moment, trying to decide what needed to be said. “What are we going to tell people?” Marcoasked.

“Try and give a crap about the situation fora minute, Marco,” Rachel snapped, the heat flashing into something cutting fora moment. She regretted the words thesecond she’d spoken them, and Marco bristled at her.

“No, Marco’s right,” Jake said, interveningsmoothly. He was looking at the ground,near Cassie’s feet, with the wrinkle between his brows that said he wasthinking hard. “We have to find a way toexplain where Tobias went, we can’t tellanyone.”

Tobias offered, and he sounded like he was trying to make the situation easieron everyone.

“Dude, you’re missing,” Marco pointedout. “Like, milk-carton-kidmissing. We have maybe another day, you can’t file a missing person’s report for afull twenty-four hours.”

Tobias said, pragmatic and blithe.

The fire in Rachel’s chest changed, goingbright white-hot, and she felt her lips twist into a snarl as she pushed awayfrom the cage at her back. It clattered,and voices called, but she ignored both—she needed out, she needed to be somewhere where it didn’t feel like she was aheartbeat from punching someone she cared about, her best friend or her cousinor even Marco.

The sun had started to drop behind the trees,outside, and the air was cooler, less stifling than in the barn. It cooled something in her throat, unwound abit of the tension in her shoulders as she skirted around the wall to the backof the barn, where the shadows of the trees stretched across the field. Not for the first time in the last week,Rachel wished she’d let Jake convince her to do karate rather than gymnastics,when they were both six and he didn’t want to do it alone—punching somethingwould be really gratifying rightnow. Instead she pressed her backagainst the wood of the barn and blinked against the burn behind her eyes,fingernails cutting into her palms.

Nothing was fair. Nothing had been fair, not ever, and shecouldn’t do anything about it. Theirattack on the Yeerk pool was a failure, the Andalites were God knew how faraway, and Tom, her cousin, who hadn’t questioned her sudden habit of turning upunannounced during the divorce and had just handed her whatever book he’d beenassigned lately for school ‘because Jake only reads comics and boring-ass warstories sorry-for-the-language-Rache’, was a Controller. And now, God, now Tobias was stuck as a hawk,sweet gentle Tobias who she’d always smiled at in the halls and worried aboutwhen he showed up with bruises. She’dtried, when she saw him getting into trouble with the bigger guys at theirschool, had dropped a murmur in Jake’s ear and been relieved when she saw hertrustworthy, reliable cousin towering over two guys with Tobias behind hisshoulder.

And now he wasn’t ever going to be that sweetgentle kid with the solemn eyes and sad smile again, and he believed, reallybelieved, that no one was even going to miss him.

Rachel wanted to kill something. MaybeTobias’ uncle, or his aunt, or his absent parents, but she’d settle for apunching bag if one made itself available. Maybe the gymnasium had one.

Rachel wasn’t sure how long she’d stoodthere, eyes fixed on nothing and hands clenched so tight it hurt, but theflicker of movement in the corner of her eye startled her. Red and brown—Tobias, fluttering down to landon the fence near her.

“Sorry,” Rachel said, barely a whisper, andhe cocked his head.

hesaid, almost teasing. But he was seriouswhen he spoke again. am sorry, Rachel.>

“You don’t need—I’m not angry at you!” she burst out, and found she wasbreathing hard, the hot thing in her chest shaking to pieces without anoutlet. “I’m just angry.” She closed her eyesand scrubbed at them with one hand, catching a stray drop of salt water anddashing it away before more could follow it.

Tobias didn’t say anything as Rachel tried toswallow down the acid in her throat, and she was briefly, desperately, gratefulfor his silence. She needed it, neededthe space to get herself under control again.

“You shouldn’t be the one being nice to meabout this,” she said at last, when she thought her voice was reliable.

Tobias was quiet for another moment, then hesaid, Rachellooked up to meet the fierce eyes of the hawk, and he continued, slow andcareful, as if unsure about his words. He ruffled his feathersagain, a vague approximation of a human shrug, something vaguely sheepish.

“I’d miss you,” Rachel said withoutthinking. “If you just up anddisappeared.”

Tobias’ voice was quiet, almost shy, when heanswered.

“It’s not fair,” she said. “This whole stupid war and your whole stupidfamily and this whole stupid two-hour limit. None of it’s fair, and I can’t doanything about it, and I’m just—angry.”

Tobias said, thoughtful.

“It’s not enough.”

Tobias said, and fluttered into theair again, this time landing on her shoulder. His talons were a careful set of pricks against her skin, not quitepainful, more…itchy. He was lighter thanhe looked, but a comforting weight on her shoulder nonetheless. Rachel tipped her head slightly to touch hercheek against his wing, as she had before the Yeerk pool.

#animorphs #rachel #tobias #rachel x tobias #otp: way past romeo and juliet #agony inc #starlight writes stuff #asked and answered #fic request #anonymous #can we talk about how niche this fucking fandom is #rachel my bold beloved bloodied sister #tobias my poor lonely warforged child #the title is from 'way beyond' by bastille and i do not recommend listening to 'wild world' while thinking about animorphs #also #you will pry the headcanon that rachel had a bit of a crush on tobias pre-war from my cold dead hands #they just click so well #this has been my favorite ship for like years and years #also i am still in that particular mood so how about you all send me some more early war animorphs prompts

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words-writ-in-starlight · 6 years

Note

Rachel very very technically fulfilled the bargain with crayak from 27. The deal wasn't Jake specifically, just the life of her cousin.

WHICH IS HONESTLY SUCH AN INTERESTING CONCEPT????

I’m a lil buzzed bruh but listen

All I have ever wanted is someone to write me an AU of the last book wherein Rachel is saved from death by Crayak because--well, she DID fulfill the deal, right? And then Rachel reaches the ground, where her friends are mourning her for dead, and has the choice: either lie and claim she doesn’t know why she’s alive, or tell the truth and say that Crayak paid her for killing Tom by saving her life. And I just want that hypothetical AU to really wallow in the angst of Rachel feeling like she bought her life with Tom’s, who Jake has been trying to save since the very beginning, it would be so GOOD, just let me have Jake and Rachel struggling to find a middle ground on the issue of the terrible things she’s done and the terrible things he’s asked her to do, and in this AU I would REALLY want to have David’s parents be involved because DAMN I want Jake and Rachel to deal with that! Let me have my angst! Please!

#animorphs #rachel berenson #jake berenson #prince jake #rachel my bold beloved bloodied sister #hey y'all: the combination of not a lot of food and not a lot of sleep and probably another liter of wine means i'm NOT SUPER COGENT #so obviously i am going to answer some asks #but YEAH anyway my POINT is that i live only for the rachel angst #and the crayak thing is PEAK rachel angst #fam talk to me about my ideas for this au when i'm sober i Got Some #also just in case any babies follow me #pink wine is very deceptive #the eight dollarest bottle of wine you can buy WILL get you pretty darn duzzed #idk if i'd consider myself properly drunk but i am MORE BUZZED THAN LAST TIME I TOLD Y'ALL I DRANK A LITER OF WINE #it's cause my dinner was like half a bell pepper some rice and a tortilla #but by the time i decided i was hungry again i was too buzzed to be comfortable with the stove #so now i have had half a bell pepper some rice and TWO tortillas in addition to more than a liter of wine #listen i'm usually SO GOOD about my life choices let me have this one i'm stressed #idiot teenagers with a queue #i'm still thinking about changing my queue tag #but no one would GET the kencyrath joke i'd want to make #'queue deeper than the sea of stars' COME ON GUYS I'M FUNNY #m to the 6th power #asked and answered

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words-writ-in-starlight · 8 years

Text

Moran Rereads Animorphs

Book 3: The Encounter

AKA “The first named character attempts suicide and suffers the first breakdown regarding humanity”

This is going to be messy because 98% of my thoughts on this are PLEASE LET MY BOY REST.

The scene in the mall almost made me cry, oh my God.

I am now older and have had more therapy and have come into my own personality, and I now understand much more fully why I always connected the most with Tobias the broken boy and Rachel the war machine and....um, yeah.

His family doesn’t care enough to realize that he’s gone. I’m fine. *holds organs into body* I’m fine.

The scene where they all almost get stuck as half-wolves is SOME SHIT.

I worry about Tobias so much.

Is he okay.

Is he cold.

Is it raining, does he hide out at Rachel’s when it’s pouring and he doesn’t want to deal with it, does she conveniently acquire a knickknack to keep on her desk (Rachel’s desk is usually pristine) that works as a perch so that he can read over her shoulder and listen to her complain about the Grapes of Wrath and help her with geometry (Tobias is brilliant and you can fight me) and crack horrible unfunny jokes about Romeo and Juliet.

Rachel and Tobias weren’t QUITE my first ship. But they were close. And I was committed. I loved that ship. I still love that ship. Someone link me to art, I need to cry over birds and warriors and people who matter.

Don’t talk to me about the scene where Rachel calls out to say goodbye to him from inside the tank ship because they’ve all decided to go down fighting and she expects to die before she sees him again. I have. Some trauma regarding Rachel saying goodbye to Tobias, it happens one too many times for my liking.

SOMEONE HUG TOBIAS??? OR SOMETHING???? DO SOMETHING FOR HIM??? TELL HIM HE’S USEFUL???? THAT HE MATTERS???? THAT THE OTHERS CARE WHETHER HE LIVES OR DIES????

Rachel is the best thing that happens to him in this book to be honest, she’s the one he goes to after he kills, who tells him he’s still a person, that he’s not evil or cruel for killing to eat. I think this is a glimpse of the Rachel we see later in the war: Tobias needs to live and that means he needs to eat. To Rachel it’s that simple. It doesn’t make him anything except Tobias. He thinks she’s bothered that he’s killed, but I’d bet anything that she’s bothered because he’s upset and she wants him to be okay.

The others were there. Cassie gets to be the hero, talk the others out of the wolf morph, and that’s awesome. Marco…poor kid’s just so terrified and it manifests as being an asshole, I get that, and I think it makes Tobias feel better to be mocked by Marco. Jake tries so hard to take good care of his people, someone kill me.

#animorphs #the great animorphs reread #the encounter #TOBIAS MY POOR LONELY WARFORGED CHILD #RACHEL MY BOLD BELOVED BLOODIED SISTER #PRINCE JAKE #yeah i'm a wreck just #just leave me #I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW EARLY THEY HAVE A SUICIDE ATTEMPT #JESUS #J E S U S #i mean to be fair tobias was pretty clearly depressed pre-war and i get it but W O W #THREE BOOKS IN KIDS #and like i get that everyone clocks the start of the 'real PTSD' at marco's PTSD nightmare in book five #but #i'm just saying #tobias is never SQUEAMISH okay his glitch is almost certainly NOT that he killed #i mean he rips out a hork-bajir's eyes in the yeerk pool in book one #i think his hangup is what he manages to express to rachel later #he's terrified that by giving in to the hawk's hunting instincts he's becoming as bad as the yeerks #that #that's maybe not full-blown PTSD (although some time i should talk about my thoughts on tobias' pre-war life and the effects of that)#but that's definitely SOMETHING

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words-writ-in-starlight · 8 years

Text

Moran Rereads the Animorphs

So turns out we’re doing a post for every single book. Literally why am I like this. Posts will be going here, feel free to block the tag. Spoilers, yadda, yadda.

Book 2: The Visitor

AKA “We get some seriously grim insight on voluntary Controllers, the first bug morph, and probably the reason I hate shrews”

Let me take this moment to remind you that I LOVE RACHEL.

Let me also take this moment to remind you that THESE ARE CHILDREN. Like. I just. Just really THINK about the fact that this whole book is them vs. their vice principal. THEIR VICE PRINCIPAL. AT THEIR MIDDLE SCHOOL. God I’m just such a wreck about this whole situation. Leave me.

Rachel fits the cat morph so beautifully. She really does best in the morphs that are top predators—a feral tomcat is, pound for pound, a better hunter than just about anything out there, although grizzly bears are definitely up there—and the confidence and arrogance of the cat brain just matches up perfectly with the self she tries to project. Also, I always think of that line from the first book when I read about Rachel: “I guess you never really know someone until you see them scared. And even scared to death, Rachel had strength to spare.” She just. Is everything to me. That is all.

The shrew morph fucked me up the first time I read it and I still kind of hate the creepy little things. Reminder that these books were PRETTY FUCKING FORMATIVE.

Jake and Rachel have a conversation about how much they’re both terrified of eventually having to morph insects and then???? Jake morphs a flea because he’s worried about Rachel and he can’t leave her alone and he wants to protect her and make sure she has backup. Jake’s such a desperate kid tossed into the role of the leader and he’s so ready to trample past his own boundaries and limits in order to protect his people and get the job done, and honestly I think that’s both the thing that I love the most about him and the thing that leads to…well. He doesn’t go down in history as Jake, Savior of Earth, does he. His whole perspective of the war is formed by that desperation, and he’ll do anything to win, and we all know where that got him. God, this kid, I am a ruin of a human being.

The scene where Chapman—the real Chapman—gets his body back for a while and talks to Visser Three and defends his daughter is VERY UPSETTING. The insight we get into voluntary Controllers is just…so sad. These people who sold out to the Yeerks to protect individuals, and because they believed that someone would save them eventually, that it would be impossible to conquer the whole world, that the Yeerks were not that bad. God. Fuck. Can you imagine the slow revelation, once they had the Yeerk in their head, of just what they had consented to? I wonder how many hosts started out voluntary and became involuntary later.

On a lighter note, Jake’s flea morph gives them SUCH a skewed concept of what bug morphs are like, Jesus fucking Christ. Sit tight for commentary on the ant morph in Book 5, because THAT SHIT.

#animorphs #the great animorphs reread #RACHEL MY BOLD BELOVED BLOODIED SISTER #prince jake #THEY ARE CHILDREN #fucking hell #also #i am so so sorry for deluging all of you in this stuff #also also #in other news #i accidentally marathoned the entirety of voltron today with adler #we're real upset #if you wanted to talk to me about it #i would be very happy #and i would ACTUALLY GET AROUND TO ANSWERING #i'm still so fucking sorry for the delay on the ficlets #i have an enjolras/grantaire one half finished #the visitor

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