fickle | Link of the Day: This Is War.

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Link of the Day: This Is War.

Link of the Day: This Is War.

Nope, not a political link. It's about Animorphs, actually, and why the final book ended the way it did. While procrastinating on writing final papers, I've been cleaning up my tags and found out that I had an Animorphs tag, which led me to a very old entry where I discussed a letter that

nyrhtek had linked to wherein K.A. Applegate discusses the end of the Animorphs series.

And I hated the end of the series. I really, really loathed it. I wanted to scream and fanwank about it when I read it though thankfully, I didn't have a livejournal or a deadjournal back then to rage about it.

Why thankfully?

Because I was completely and totally wrong to hate it as I did. She had a really good reason for ending it the way she did and just because I hated it on a personal level and was horrified at what happened to my favorite chars, well, reading her letter got me over that. Especially the following paragraph:

Pretty soon you'll all be of voting age, and of draft age. So when someone proposes a war, remember that even the most necessary wars, even the rare wars where the lines of good and evil are clear and clean, end with a lot of people dead, a lot of people crippled, and a lot of orphans, widows and grieving parents.

A-fucking-men.

...And now I want a Tobias-hawk icon. Or maybe a Rachel-Tobias one. Canon ship ftw, in this case. Which is another reason why the Animorphs books are awesome -- they're good enough to make me ship a canon pairing, which is pretty rare where I'm concerned. I'm picky about shippings and pairings and unless I like both characters in a pairing, it's unlikely I'll like the actual pairing as a whole. And I'm even pickier about female characters, because there aren't that many of them to begin with and I tend to get a little irate when I keep empathizing better with the male chars than the females. Nothing against guys but it would be nice to have some female characters out there that I can understand and really get behind, you know what I mean?

So, Rachel/Tobias? Totally my rock-solid OTP there. Hits all my buttons and has two of my top three chars from the series. Occasionally my top two depending on what I've been reading recently.

Edit: I have an Animorphs icon now. XD Text is Elfangor's hirac delest, image is of Rachel and Tobias dancing. With apparently Ax-the-Afro-Andalite in the background.

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(I told you it was awesome. :P )

Yah, my biggest problem with the ending was more the execution (a little too choppy and short), rather than what had actually happened to the characters. I wouldn't say it was... fitting, the end, but it made a whole lot of sense to me. And it makes you think, which was awesome. That entire series made me think a lot... well, not entire. The beginning and the end because a lot of the middle books just... sucked. But once things really started happening, my god. The entire thing with using the morphing box to give powers to those who were crippled? That was insane. And just so disturbing, that anyone-especially a bunch of kids-could make a decision like that. So many of the things they did were just like... holy shit, not good.

And Jake. Jake was never my favorite, nowhere near, but I felt absolutely horrible for him in the end. He lost everything. His parents, his brother, his cousin, his girlfriend, his life, and I don't mean the last just from the fact that he probably died. It's amazing, some of the stuff that happened in the series because it's not something you really expect. But deep down, you know you should have because that's just how the series went. It was never really very happy, despite the humor. And it was never meant to be either. >_o

:P Thank god I get to go home and wander through the books... you're making me want to read them again! Well, at least the end of the series, from the point where Tobias's mom comes back into the picture.

(*grins* Yes, it is.)

I have to admit, I loved some of the middle books just because of the premises -- like Rachel splitting into a good half and a bad half? That just really clicked for me in a whole bunch of wrong ways, especially when she was talking about how everyone else's balances of a nice side and mean side would be but Tobias would split into a bird and a boy, like good and evil are irrelevant for him. And the David arc and the one where Crayak gave Rachel ultimate power and got her to fight Visser Three/One/whatever he was? That hurt. The ending of that, where she was just sitting there, trying to make herself kill him as a rat when he was begging for it...

Ow. Seriously, ow. I just heart K.A. Applegate for that because she really made me care about the characters. She made me empathize with them, enough to make me want to cry. And that's kind of why I think they're better than the HP books because the HP books can't evoke that sort of visceral, emotional reaction from me but for Rachel and Tobias and Ax and hell, even Marco and Jake and Cassie, I can't help but kind of get it.

Jake was definitely not my favorite. Least favorite apart from Cassie, maybe. But yeah, he suffered a lot, though most of my sympathy was reserved for Tobias -- I mean, Tobias got his mother, yeah, but she didn't really remember him and judging from the fact that he went off to live on his own in a meadow, they didn't really do the whole family thing even though he saved her. And that's pretty ouch in its own way, especially after reading the Andalite Chronicles and seeing how kickass Loren is (not to mention how much Elfangor loved her, I can't believe how good the romance in those books were even though it really took second place to the action), and to think of her reduced to that state by a car accident...

That was actually one of my fav books, mostly because the humor lines and snark like Ax and Marco--

Ax: I am a dangerous delinquent and have destroyed the symetry of this shelf that required hours of labor on the part of underpaid employers. If you could see me, you would be afraid.
Marco: *mutters* If she could see you, she'd have you committed.

It's amazing how funny the books were, considering how dark the topic matter was. I think that's also kinda proof that they're good, that even though she took on such a serious and heavy subject, she still managed to pace the books decently and make them engaging, so that people actually wanted to read them. I know it's not great literature or likely to become a 1984-type classic but still...

I want to read them now too. Rereading the series is going to be the highlight of my winter vacation, I bet. XD

(I win. Yay.)

I didn't hate all of the middle books... but I think it was after about... the 30th book that some of them just got really... pointless. Like the one where Cassie ended up in Australia. It doesn't help that I'm not overly fond of her character in the first place. And some of them are good, but nowhere near as good as the first or last books. The one you mention with Rachel and David... I liked the concept too, but it could have been done in about fifteen pages with the same impact, especially since the major part of the impact for me was from her dilemma with whether or not she should kill David. The David arc in general was just... god. Awesome. Loved it. It was actually at that point that I got into the series, so I have a special fondness for it. :P I don't remember the splitting one quite as much (the starfish one, right?), although I remember not liking it quite as much as the other books.

I love Ax. :D His humor was just... funny. There was a lot of things about that series that I just loved. And really, all of the characters had shitty lives, or would by the end of the series (if they were still alive, anyway). It's horrible what happened to them, what they went through, and how little they accomplished for themselves in the end. I mean, they saved the world, but lost so much to do it. And that's just so true.

I think the series would have been a lot better without some of those middle books though because I really thought about stopping in the middle. It just got... bogged down, I think. But once it really took off again, ooh boy. So glad I didn't stop reading, although whenever I do reread, I usually skip a lot of books in the middle or at the very most, skim like mad.

...I think el-jay just ate my long comment response to you about how the middle books were ghostwritten, Cassie sucks, Rachel rocks, Ax rocks, Marco rocks, Tobias rocks and K.A. made it REALLY REALLY clear her main characters are teenagers, no matter what else.

I think it did too.

I heard about the ghostwritten thing on Wikipedia (GOD!).

I have a friend who likes Cassie a lot. I was okay with her at the beginning but after a while... I mean, it makes sense that she's like that, but it's still incredibly irritating.

Rachel is okay - I never really connected with her. Ax, Marco, and Tobias are the best though. Yay! *cheer*

El-jay is evil like that. It made me look like an idiot in front of Gail Simone (comic book writer I fangirl) by double-posting (well, I thought my original didn't go through so I commented AGAIN with slightly different wording) my comment in response to her. When she'd been originally asking me if I was mad. Way to look like I have multiple personalities, huh? Especially when we were discussing a comic about MPD, in a way.

Yeah, that's where I found about it too. Though since I'd read Sweet Valley Twins books when I was younger, the whole 'with thanks to' thing made me suspicious anyway. Though at least she came up with her own plots and stuff instead of people just using her name.

Cassie never got much empathy from me. Probably the pacifist thing, since I can understand maybe liking animals better than humans, but she and Jake always came off kinda whiny to me. Though I loved book 19, the one where she met Karen/Aftran for the first time.

Rachel is one of the few female characters I really love. I was horribly outraged when she died, but in a way, I guess it made sense. The war had really consumed her -- even if she'd survived, she'd have just started fighting elsewhere. And then what would Tobias have done? Tobias always had a special place in my heart though, for being the outsider amongst humans and Animorphs both. I was SO FUCKING THRILLED when it turned out Elfangor was his father, even though that made Elfangor's death scene even more poignant.

Dude, whenever I read Elfangor's death scene now, I practically end up bawling. I mean, that's your son! YOUR SON. And you get to meet him for about sixteen seconds before you die. That was awful.

:P Yah, LJ has like... issues these days. I don't comment too much so it's not a problem most of the time, but sometimes it's like... argh-y.

Animorphs is pretty much the only series I've ever gotten into. I've read others but never all of them, so I never really figured it out until I read about it on Wiki.

Cassie... I feel for her, but at the same time, it is a war. Although yah, book 19 was really good. It's one of my favorites, just because it was the first time you really got to look at it from the 'bad guy's' pov. That was one of the first times I ever really read anything like that either. Usually it's so nicely cut and dry, especially in kid's books, so that was a definite 'whoa' experience for me.

Awww! The death scene was especially poignant in the Andalite Chronicles, I think. Where he's talking about how it's his last recording and how he feels like maybe there's some hope for the universe after all if this is his son, but where he also gets to see the time-space thread of Tobias' life and knows ahead of time how much suffering and pain Tobias'll be put through -- that just aches in. Ow. K.A. really knows how to rip at you.

El-Jay is being so evil that I'm glad I don't have a permanent account. It makes me less tied to it if I ever decide to move.

Hm. I remember that because of Animorphs, HP really disappointed me. I kept expecting to like HP more than I did, so it was really a weird experience to love Animorphs so much and be left unmoved by HP. Especially when people were talking about crying over Cedric or Sirius dying, and I could only remembering having teared up over Rachel.

But I thought Sweet Valley Twins/High was a staple of middle-class teenage girls. Nice to know someone escaped. XD

Cassie, well, I could really see her point sometimes but her incredible focus on the animals really grated. But so did Jake's sanctimoniousness. I think that it's probably the fact that they're the ones who do the most moralizing, whereas Ax is ruthless, Marco's all straight-line, Tobias is ... Tobias and Rachel is ruthless. I like ruthless characters.

And I love Marco being all, "No choice. I saw the straight line from A to B and I had no choice. People think being ruthless means being mean. It's not. It's seeing the straight line from A to B and following it. And right now, I could see the straight line." And the book where he has to set his mother up to die and knows it and then wants to save her last minute but gets tackled to the ground? Ow ow ow ow ow. Animorphs is amazing in how much depth it has and how well K.A. conveys pain.

Don't move! ;-; How are we supposed to stalk you then?

Yah... I don't always read the entire Andalite Chronicles (even though I think it may be my favorite of the Chronicles), but I always have to read that scene. It makes me bawl. My roomie finally read the entire series last summer and I was like, 'ELFANGOR AND TOBIAS. *SOB*' ;-; I thought that was an interesting twist. I know I didn't see that coming. :P

I cried over Sirius dying, but that's because Sirius is my favorite character so I'm allowed to. But his death was lame. >_o;; I guess I've never really compared HP and Animorphs... I don't often compare books, I guess. I would say I prefer HP because that's just something I would read over Animorphs, but when I'm in the mood for some Animorphs, I can literally sit there for hours and just read. :P

XD No Sweet Valley Twins. I don't think I've ever read any books from that series. I guess I was always more of a fantasy person, so Tamora Pierce was my personal god. :P

I wouldn't say Ax is ruthless as much as... practical, I guess. I'm not sure. He never struck me as ruthless. Marco struck me as a little ruthless though, in a very calculating sort of way. Jake sorta tries to balance doing what is 'right' and doing what's needed, so that's always been interesting, while Cassie is just completely on the moralistic side. But I can see her point, which is why I don't dislike her. Not like in House, where the female character's moralistic bullshitting makes me want to beat my head against a desk.... :P

It's a great series because when I first read it, I didn't THINK about all those issues. I just read it and... went on. But now when I reread, I'm just amazed at everything that went on in that series that just went over my head. I appreciate it more, in a way. It's kinda like Avatar... I watch that and just think, 'Do the 12-year olds watching this UNDERSTAND all the shit that is going down?' and I'm amazed. I like how you can reread or rewatch something when you're older or not the target audience, but there's still a powerful message in it that younger people might not catch on. It's neat. ^_^

By paying careful and close attention to the links on my ff.net page? XD But aww, I'm flattered you think I'm worth stalking :P

ALSO, I FINALLY HAVE AN ANIMORPHS ICON MADE. It only took over twelve hours. *dies* Because I was distracted by RPing.

I am pretty much tied between the Andalite Chronicles, the Ellimist Chronicles and the Hork-Bajir Chronicles for favorite of them. I mean, Hork-Bajir has best romance and ethical conflicts, no doubt, Ellimist is the most creative in terms of space creation, and Andalite is just awesome because SQUEE, parents of Tobias and Elfangor and cool Loren who is SO MUCH LIKE RACHEL and and and and SQUEE!

*petpet* I tend to compare books when I'm trying to figure out what I would rather read. I have the HP books with me at college just because there are fewer of them so they were easier to carry but I haven't read them all semester long, and I have to admit, if they were Animorph books, I think I would have pulled them off the shelves at least a few times by now.

I was so voracious, I think that I read everything. Plenty of fantasy, but most other things as well. Though I was a classicist and hearted Greek Mythology mostly when it came to fantasy as a kid, I remember. XD

Ax, well, yeah, he does come off as more practical than ruthless but that's because he doesn't think about it in terms of a moral dilemna. His practicality is ruthless but unlike Marco and Rachel and Jake who worry about it, Ax just takes it for granted that of course the logical course is a better option the possible high ground, because being an Andalite automatically gives him that. House, I've never seen, but Cassie just got on my nerves more often than Jake because there was just THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE at stake and although I can get qualms, this is THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE we're talking about here.

How old were you when you first read it? I actually think that I was about 11-14, not entirely sure how long it took for the books to catch my attention. Those days, I went on the interesting system of randomly pulling out something from the closest bookshelf after I sat down, then reading everything else by that author if I liked it, so there wasn't any guarantee about me reading material fit for my age group or not.

Psh, you were hiding your penname for a while, I remember. I only managed to find it because I looked at who had "Sunrise" on their favorites list and started comparing their e-mails/lj addresses. *grins*

Animorphs... I have the TV eps still recorded somewhere. I was going to drag Val over sometime so we could appreciate it... it's probably going to be awful, but fun nevertheless. As long as the tapes still work... and still exist. Which they should; I haven't even recorded over some figure skating events that are close to 8 years old now. O_o;;

I actually did not like the Ellimist Chronicles at all. I barely remember them because it was a struggle for me to finish it. The other three I liked, but not that one. ^^

Greek Mythology... did you read that big orange book with the cool illustrations and shit? I memorized that damn thing. I never bought it but whenever we used to go to the bookstore, I'd find it, sit my ass down, and read it. I loved that thing. When we had to read... I think it was Edith Hamilton's Greek myths for my lit class in high school, I didn't really like it so I sorta ended up skimming most of the time. Which was fine because since I had memorized the kid's book, I knew pretty much all of it anyway.

(Same went with the Bible. Thank you Great Illustrated Classics!!)

(And you need to watch House. Just finished watching the eppy. So frustrated. Need more. GYAH.)

I'm not sure how old I was when I read it... I know I started in elementary school. 5th grade, I guess? Which is how old... I don't know. o_o;; Uh... ten or eleven, I guess??

I tend to just reread the books I like over and over and over again, although in middle school I read books that were shiny and pretty which was how I got into Terry Brooks. >D I'm so shallow like that....

Heh, I kind of feel like rereading the end of the series and some of the chronicles now. :)

I remember how much I freaked out after the last book... (though reading it while on a class field trip probably wasn't such a good idea anyway) and I can't say that I'm too proud of how much I ranted about it at the time, either. But I think that the fact that since then war has become a very close reality definitely makes me more appreciative of Applegate's letter to her fans, and for ending it the way she did.

The chronicles rocked seriously hard. I still can't decide if the Andalite, Hork-Bajir or Ellimist chronicles are the best. Though I hated the choose-your-own-ending things but I hate those on principle.

And man, I want to reread them too. What's driving me nuts is that I swear there was one passage in one of the books that stuck in my head about 'Rachel had always been [adjective]. But the war made her [adjective]'. I think the second adjective was rutheless somewhere in that paragraph but it was basically about how the war had changed all of them but Rachel had changed the most dangerously and GAH, I really want to remember what the paragraph said exactly because it struck me really powerfully at the time.

I freaked like crazy. I think I had convinced my parents to order the last ten or twelve off Amazon for me since this was when I lived in Europe, and I gobbled them down like candy. Then wanted to throw up the last one when it ended on a cliffhanger and trashed any chance my favorite chars might have had at living happily ever after.

And then I read Forley's (I think it was Forlay?) fic where Rachel hadn't died and instead became hooked on drugs and alcohol and died anyway and just gah. It made sense. Especially the Ellimist's line about how Rachel at least deserved a chance to fight her fate because she was a brave soul. It gave me a small measure of peace. Despite the ouch factor.

I am really, really glad for this letter. I wish that this had been the letter that had been printed in the back of the last book instead of the one that was, or maybe this had been printed as well.

...Also, is that a Tobias/Rachel icon? I never saw the TV show apart from maybe one ep but she's a blonde girl and I did mention Animorph icons so... *stares at it hopefully*

Gah, I know, it's so hard to choose between those three! I didn't like Visser nearly as much, though. And oh, those choose-you-own-ending ones sucked so bad. xX And I'm kinda on the middle ground about most of the Megamorphs... like, parts of them were good, but the concepts were mostly kinda hokey (y hallo thar Time Matrix!) XD

Ooh, I remember that passage! But I don't remember which book it was in... @_@ Damn, now I really wanna go find that.

Yeah, this letter was much more helpful to readers than the one included in the book. I think the other was basically just saying that she enjoyed writing the series but was finished with it, thanks for reading, now go read her other stuff - or something to that effect.

And yes, it is a Tobias/Rachel icon! I could not resist making it, the dance episode just begged for an icon with Goo Goo Dolls lyrics. "Iris" is their song, yo~ :3 Feel free to nab it if you want.

I wasn't a big fan of the Visser either, which is why I didn't include it on the list. But I have to admit, it was pretty cool getting to see it from her POV as well, and to know what Yeerks really thought of humans the first time they met, barring Elfangor's and Loren's hidden adventures. The Megamorphs, I have to admit my inner dinosaur geek was made all happy by one of them, especially when it turned out that Tobias had liked them. And even if the Time Matrix one was a little cliche, I hearted the AU about what would have happened if the Yeerks hadn't come. Because if she hadn't written it, a fanfic author would have, and there is something innately cool about an author AU'ing her own works.

HAH! If you find it, I will forever love you if you can quote it in your journal and tell me where it's from. Or even what exactly it was. Because I loved it so much.

*nods* The other letter just basically advertised Remnants, which I actually found a little tacky just because dude, you ended one of my favorite series LIKE THAT and want me to go read something else you wrote? Pssh, like hell you say. This one just made more sense within the context of the series and the ending.

Actually, my Internet went down for a little, so I started working on an icon of my own! But thank you very much for the offer -- oddly enough, I also snagged a screencap of a dance episode, so let's hope my icon doesn't come too similar to yours. XD But I think that I'll use a book quotation if it's at all possible, just because there are some lovely Tobias/Rachel lines in there.

Look! Here's my Rachel/Tobias icon!

...Made, ironically enough, with what's probably the exact same screencap you used. XD

Also, in your Xmas fic request, you asked for Marco/Ax/Tobias. Did you mean that as a ship (I kinda suck at threesomes but I'll give it a try if you want!) or as character requests? Or any ship made out of two of those three?

Yay icon! :) And yay for Ax in the background with his 'fro. XD

Um...any of the above? ^^; Though I did mean as an OT3, because I am crazy like that. But anything's cool, really.

That's AX?! Man, he's nowhere near as hot as he should be. XD

And oooh, okay. *considers* I shall give it a whirl, then!

I didn't mind that Rachel died, but that I heard the ending had so many loose ties.

Define loose ties?

it was never clear who won/there was no real ending to the war/cliffhanger. I could be wrong, it's just what I heard.

Cliffhanger. Totally. But you know the humans won the war, sort of. The Yeerks also got a decent deal out of it.

It was pretty realistic, really -- nobody really 'won' the war, everyone suffered, but the war did come to an end and then WHAM, something new started up. I think. I really wish I knew if the Animorphs actually survived the new thing they went rushing off into, but her letter makes the ending a lot more palatable to me.

I can't judge the ending, but I heard it was a weak one, and I dropped the series for awhile because of... something lol it's been too long.

How long is the series?

54 books plus about six more specials?

o.o Oh my xD Alrighty then!

*nods* It was expensive. But worth it. Your best bet would probably be to check if a library has them. XD

@_@ I can see that xD The expensive part - I believe it's worth it too, since I've been hearing about it since "day one" and interested since then ^^'

I think I will... but, we owe a fine for late books and all, so won't be able to get them right away ^^''

Thanks~ ♥

omg, what you put in my stocking was the best present in the world! You really know me :D

Hah! I totally do. XD Or I'm just used to seeing you squee over it. *huggles*

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Link of the Day: This Is War.

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