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nine-gear crow posted:My work here is done OK, I've requested your perma and it should go through as soon as HA has time to check the queue.
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# ? Aug 31, 2020 12:08 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 11:55 |
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ax and marco were good together last book ax and tobias seem like they'll be good together from what we're seeing this book one feels like maybe ax is just good e: something that i'd kind of forgotten about, but stumbled back onto while browsing the TFWiki earlier today, is that there were some Animorph-themed Transformers toys released in the late 90s. since we're on an Ax book, here's the toy version of Ax and something resembling a scorpion morph, maybe Homora Gaykemi fucked around with this message at 12:17 on Aug 31, 2020 |
# ? Aug 31, 2020 12:12 |
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The reuse of the stalk-eyes is inspired
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# ? Aug 31, 2020 12:25 |
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Krazyface posted:The reuse of the stalk-eyes is inspired i hadn't even noticed that until you mentioned it lmao, but yeah, that's some good engineering honestly apart from the giant glans-looking tail piece up on the chest and the claws hanging off the forearms it's not a bad looking Andalite mode, either. it's a little blocky, but hey, that is what it is. though it definitely looks more Visser 3 than Ax man
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# ? Aug 31, 2020 12:50 |
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While we're talking Animorphs transformers, at one point they devised this: To be clear, the first set of images are supposed to be Jake, Marco, and Cassie in just their regular human forms.
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# ? Aug 31, 2020 13:41 |
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Krazyface posted:While we're talking Animorphs transformers, at one point they devised this: Looks fine to me, what’s the problem?
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# ? Aug 31, 2020 16:30 |
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Is it weird that I find the most egregious part to be how white they made Marco?
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# ? Aug 31, 2020 21:18 |
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My name is Cassie. I can't tell you my last name, or where I live. If I did, they'd find me. The Yeerks. They're everywhere. And if they find me, they'll kill me, my friends, my family. If they don't kill me, they'll do something even worse. Just a few months ago, before I knew about the Yeerks, my friends and I were just normal kids. Massive scaly golden arms, average golden legs with average three toed reptilian feet, winglike shielded segments protruding in all the places you'd expect, one long conical arm roughly two times my body length... But that all changed the moment we met Prince Elfangor.
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# ? Aug 31, 2020 22:32 |
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SirSamVimes posted:Is it weird that I find the most egregious part to be how white they made Marco? I think it would be more egregious if it weren't for the fact that Jake and Marco had identical heads.
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# ? Aug 31, 2020 23:16 |
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The Alien-Chapter 6 A human has only two eyes. Both are on the front of the face. It Is the same with most Earth species. These human eyes are very similar to our own main eyes. But humans seem fascinated by my stalk eyes. One of the humans, Marco, has said they "creep him out big time." I believe this is a compliment. - From the Earth Diary of Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill quote:There it is," Cassie said. "School. Or, as I like to think of it - purgatory." Seems like a little bit of a heterosexist statement to me, to make that point. But maybe it just reinforces that Ax is straight. quote:At school, the Animorphs must pretend not to be very close. This is so any suspicious human-Controllers will not begin to think of them as a "group." Little awkard here.... quote:"Come on, Ax," Prince Jake said. He was smiling at Cassie and she was continuing to look sick or embarrassed. "We'll see you later, Cassie. Time for first - " We see other times that Andalites can identify Controllers, but he can't here. I don't know if this is just a mixup or what. quote:"Get OUT OF ME!" Mr. Pardue screamed suddenly. It's pretty much the Andalite version of "Don't hate the player, hate the game." quote:Prince Jake looked at me for a very long time. It made me uncomfortable. I think, in a lot of ways, this has probably been the most emotionally intense of the books so far. The Alien-Chapter 7 An Andalite may think that humans are simple, open, trusting creatures. But they are more subtle than they seem to be at first. Possibly this is because of their spoken language, where no word ever means just one thing. - From the Earth Diary of Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill quote:My day at the human school ended with the removal of the teacher who had been a Controller. Prince Jake went home. I went back to the woods and gratefully resumed my true shape. If you remember, Marco moved when his dad got his old job back. quote:He was correct. There were only five types of house. Although some had more grass, and some had less. Also, some houses were decorated with items that had been placed on the grass. Who's on first? quote:Marco's father shook his head. "I must be getting old. I don't understand you kids." Ax is remarkably vulnerable. He''s got the Animorphs and nobody else. And if they stop trusting him, if they turn away from him, he's pretty much doomed. Epicurius fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Sep 1, 2020 |
# ? Aug 31, 2020 23:42 |
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You could make the argument that ax absorbed dna from straight dudes so his dude is genetically straight maybe?
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# ? Sep 1, 2020 04:32 |
YESSSSSS AN EXCUSE FOR MY FAVOURITE SMILEY
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# ? Sep 1, 2020 04:33 |
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Karma Comedian posted:You could make the argument that ax absorbed dna from straight dudes so his dude is genetically straight maybe? My favourite superhero is Biderman, a guy who becomes bisexual after his dna is altered from being bitten by a radioactive spider
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# ? Sep 1, 2020 04:43 |
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"The school was very active. There were large numbers of humans racing about at high speed. Others moved very slowly and seemed sad or ill." I really like this book.
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# ? Sep 1, 2020 05:20 |
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I like the fact that Ax is savvy enough that when they're genuinely in a serious situation in human morph, he's perfectly capable of acting normal. Of course that's simply because Applegate wants to use him for comic relief a lot, but my headcanon is that because he's a teenager like the rest of them all of his other odd behaviour is deliberate poo poo-stirring because he knows there's no real consequences. Also unless I'm mistaken, despite what he tells Jake about the Yeerks, as far as we learn they've never before conducted a secret invasion of a planet like they have with Earth. The Taxxons was an alliance and and the Hork-Bajir was open warfare.
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# ? Sep 1, 2020 07:11 |
The Hork-Bajir Chronicles disagrees with that. It ended as open warfare but began in stealth.
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# ? Sep 1, 2020 07:49 |
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Canny of Marco to get him into a human morph before he started asking questions
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# ? Sep 1, 2020 08:12 |
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I thought it was strange at first that Ax would be so surprised by the alarm bell going off at school. I assumed there would be alarms of all sort on an Andalite Dome ship. But I re-read the prologue and at no point - not through coming out of Z-space, or ambushed by Yeerks, being attacked or detaching the Dome - does it ever mention alarms going off, just shouted orders and thought-speech announcements. We know Andalites have ears but I never thought about how a telepathic species would relate to various sounds. Pretty cool detail, which I think was mostly for comic relief.
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# ? Sep 1, 2020 19:21 |
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freebooter posted:I like the fact that Ax is savvy enough that when they're genuinely in a serious situation in human morph, he's perfectly capable of acting normal. Of course that's simply because Applegate wants to use him for comic relief a lot, but my headcanon is that because he's a teenager like the rest of them all of his other odd behaviour is deliberate poo poo-stirring because he knows there's no real consequences. He definitely takes things seriously when poo poo's going down, though I don't know if it's "acting normal" so much as it's instinct taking over. When poo poo's not going down and his mind can wander, that's when taste and voice jump to the top of the priority list (which, sometimes, causes poo poo to go down...).
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# ? Sep 1, 2020 22:17 |
Ax rules
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# ? Sep 1, 2020 22:29 |
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disaster pastor posted:He definitely takes things seriously when poo poo's going down, though I don't know if it's "acting normal" so much as it's instinct taking over. When poo poo's not going down and his mind can wander, that's when taste and voice jump to the top of the priority list (which, sometimes, causes poo poo to go down...). I think a lot of it is that Ax is/was a military cadet, with at least some formal training, an older brother who was a pretty respected commander and who's memory he's trying to live up to, and from a society that's at war and has been at war for a while. So, I think that it's while he likes to explore earth and try new tastes and goof off and be a kid, he knows when he needs to be serious.
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# ? Sep 1, 2020 23:24 |
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The Alien-Chapter 8 Books are an amazing human invention. They allow instant access to information simply by turning pieces of paper. They are much faster to use than computers. Surprisingly, humans invented books before computers. They do many things backward. - From the Earth Diary of Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill quote:It was evening of the next day. I was in the woods. I was reading a book. The book was called the World Almanac. Did you know that twelve percent of households have a dehumidifier? Did you know that a sheep can live for twenty years? Did you know that humans used to believe the sun orbited Earth? When I was a kid, my parents used to buy me the World Almanac every year for Christmas. It is a wonderful book. quote:The book told me many useful things. It took humans only sixty-six years to go from inventing the first flying machine to landing on the moon. It took Andalites almost three times as long. So that's kind of interesting, with Cassie and morphing and all. We knew about it for a while, but not really that the Andalites recognized it as a special talent. quote:"What did you do?" Marco's human mouth had reappeared. Oops. quote:<Einstein. Yes. I read about him in the World Almanac. He was the first human to realize that matter and energy - > Poor, poor Ax. Chapter 9 quote:They left, and I ate. I feed at dark whenever possible. It is not the way I would do it at home, but I must always be very careful not to be seen. When I run in the open spaces it must either be dark, or Tobias must watch over me. Honestly, his homesickness and loneliness here is just so palpable and so tragic. quote:I slowed my run. I was far across the fields. I could see the lights from Cassie's farm. The thing is, I'm not sure that it was just carelessness that brought him so close to Cassie's farm. I think he just wanted to be around somebody, even if it was an alien, and to know that they were nearby. Also, we get into the old "Humans are special because we advance really quickly" trope, which doesn't bother me, but I know a lot of people don't like. What do other people think about it? (I'll also point out, inviting Ax in for dinner is maybe not the best idea, given past experiences) Epicurius fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Sep 1, 2020 |
# ? Sep 1, 2020 23:45 |
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I don't mind the trope, it's more a statement about adaptability than intelligence. It does get old when you see it everywhere, but this is one of the early examples of it right?
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# ? Sep 2, 2020 00:06 |
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It feels very '90s. A relic of a more optimistic age.
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# ? Sep 2, 2020 00:10 |
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Epicurius posted:Books are an amazing human invention. They allow instant access to information simply by turning pieces of paper. They are much faster to use than computers. Surprisingly, humans invented books before computers. They do many things backward. - From the Earth Diary of Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill I remember as a teen being bothered by the obvious socio-historical nonsense of this: how could any species invent computers prior to books? But maybe because Andalites use thought-speech it was less intuitive to turn those impressions and ideas into pictorial symbols. More likely it’s just a bit of 90s-era scholastic “Reading is fantastic!” Epicurius posted:Also, we get into the old "Humans are special because we advance really quickly" trope, which doesn't bother me, but I know a lot of people don't like. What do other people think about it? I’m somewhat willing to forgive it here because the other species aren’t just humans in funny faces but are distinct enough that their alternate development paths make sense. Andalites are telepathic grazers with 1/100th the population density of Earth, Hork-Bajir are engineered to be dumb, Taxxons I’m unsure were even technological before the Yeerks got to them, and the Yeerks are basically parasitic neural mats who only recently got uplifted technologically anyway.
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# ? Sep 2, 2020 00:18 |
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So according to Ax, we should have faster-than-light travel in about two decades? I miss the 90's.
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# ? Sep 2, 2020 00:21 |
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Tree Bucket posted:So according to Ax, we should have faster-than-light travel in about two decades? No one in the 90s could have predicted 9/11, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump.
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# ? Sep 2, 2020 00:33 |
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ANOTHER SCORCHER posted:I remember as a teen being bothered by the obvious socio-historical nonsense of this: how could any species invent computers prior to books? But maybe because Andalites use thought-speech it was less intuitive to turn those impressions and ideas into pictorial symbols. More likely it’s just a bit of 90s-era scholastic “Reading is fantastic!” KAA's distaste for computers is rolleyes-worthy sometimes (though, sure, it was the 90s, computers all kinda sucked), but I admit to enjoying it when it's Ax being all "what kind of species invents the computer after the faster, more reliable, cheaper book?"
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# ? Sep 2, 2020 01:27 |
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disaster pastor posted:KAA's distaste for computers is rolleyes-worthy sometimes (though, sure, it was the 90s, computers all kinda sucked), but I admit to enjoying it when it's Ax being all "what kind of species invents the computer after the faster, more reliable, cheaper book?" Applegate seems wary of computers, Grant loves computers from the sound of it, both utterly despise the internet, and with good reason
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# ? Sep 2, 2020 02:21 |
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Epicurius posted:Also, we get into the old "Humans are special because we advance really quickly" trope, which doesn't bother me, but I know a lot of people don't like. What do other people think about it? ANOTHER SCORCHER posted:I remember as a teen being bothered by the obvious socio-historical nonsense of this: how could any species invent computers prior to books? But maybe because Andalites use thought-speech it was less intuitive to turn those impressions and ideas into pictorial symbols. More likely its just a bit of 90s-era scholastic Reading is fantastic! Also Andalites are (spoilers for future Andalite culture info) kind of dumb as well. On top of that, they don't really organize well in large groups, they're basically all arrogant as hell, and they're very hierarchical and caste-oriented with warriors at the top. Andalite women are pushed to the scientific side but also Andalite society is also sexist and thinks women are inferior because they can't fight as well, so I'm sure attempted scientific advances got pushed over by some War-Prince demanding a tailblade on his ship so he can stab the Yeerk ships. Piell fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Sep 2, 2020 |
# ? Sep 2, 2020 02:42 |
I can't wait for the next chapter.
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# ? Sep 2, 2020 03:01 |
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freebooter posted:It feels very '90s. A relic of a more optimistic age. The 90s really did seem to assume that the world had been getting better quickly, and would only keep getting better. Not only did that not happen, I can only sigh at how naive and blind to existing problems and fault lines we seemed to be.
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# ? Sep 2, 2020 03:17 |
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I'm really fascinated by the idea of the Hork-Bajir bioengineering a war every 62 years. Does that get addressed in Hork-Bajir chronicles? I wonder how that lines up with their life history and stuff. Like, do they only live 20-30 years each and at most distant have a cool grandfather that was in the last war? Or is it more in line with their life history so each "generation" gets a big war. And also like, why? I remember the HB homeworld being (HB Chronicles spoiler) a rifted forest where the deep volcanic parts house their creators, the genetic manipulation obsessed Arn. But I don't remember really why they created them or if any of the cultural stuff was ingrained genetically or taught to the first of the species or whatever. will be interesting to see if any of that ties into the deeper looks we get into Hork-Bajir life. I maybe just forgot it all since it's been years. I just reread book 13 so I'm really in love with Hork-Bajir at the moment.
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# ? Sep 2, 2020 03:17 |
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QuickbreathFinisher posted:I'm really fascinated by the idea of the Hork-Bajir bioengineering a war every 62 years. Does that get addressed in Hork-Bajir chronicles? It is addressed by saying that the Hork-Bajir don't know what war is. And that like was changed for the rerelease. I think it's just a matter of Applegate changing her concept of them between The Alien and Chronicles.
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# ? Sep 2, 2020 03:23 |
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Cythereal posted:The 90s really did seem to assume that the world had been getting better quickly, and would only keep getting better. There were kind of two inflection points that inextricably set things on the "things only get worse now" path, at least in the United States, and both came after Animorphs, and the 90s were effectively over: George W. Bush becoming POTUS, and 9/11 happening. The series came in for a landing at the perfect moment in history because 9/11 would have just t-boned it irrecoverably.
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# ? Sep 2, 2020 03:23 |
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nine-gear crow posted:There were kind of two inflection points that inextricably set things on the "things only get worse now" path, at least in the United States, and both came after Animorphs, and the 90s were effectively over: George W. Bush becoming POTUS, and 9/11 happening. The series came in for a landing at the perfect moment in history because 9/11 would have just t-boned it irrecoverably. Especiallythe part where the animorphs fly a plane into a skyscraper in one of the later books Piell fucked around with this message at 03:32 on Sep 2, 2020 |
# ? Sep 2, 2020 03:29 |
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nine-gear crow posted:There were kind of two inflection points that inextricably set things on the "things only get worse now" path, at least in the United States, and both came after Animorphs, and the 90s were effectively over: George W. Bush becoming POTUS, and 9/11 happening. The series came in for a landing at the perfect moment in history because 9/11 would have just t-boned it irrecoverably. I wish the books' message of "war is awful, even if you say it's a 'good' war" was circulating a bit more widely back then... Piell posted:Especiallythe part where the animorphs fly a plane into a skyscraper in one of the later books Imagine the thermals!!
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# ? Sep 2, 2020 03:40 |
Piell posted:Especiallythe part where the animorphs fly a plane into a skyscraper in one of the later books I... don't remember this at all.
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# ? Sep 2, 2020 03:49 |
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:I... don't remember this at all. They steal a Bug Fighter at one point and are forced to ditch it before it crashes after it's shot down, I seem to recall.
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# ? Sep 2, 2020 03:54 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 11:55 |
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:I... don't remember this at all. nine-gear crow posted:They steal a Bug Fighter at one point and are forced to ditch it before it crashes after it's shot down, I seem to recall. No, they literally steal a jet and fly it into a building, jumping out of it in bird morph before it hits
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# ? Sep 2, 2020 04:00 |