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That sequence is 90s.txt and I love it.
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# ? Nov 1, 2020 01:26 |
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# ? May 24, 2024 23:19 |
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Well, I DO remember the horny jail energies from this chapter at least. Actual question, was Baywatch really a thing outside of memes that was like, popular with boys in the 90s? Or was it only something that existed in joke form? I have vague memories of guys talking about Pamela Anderson and being completely confused why she was considered the gold standard, I think, that's about it.
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# ? Nov 1, 2020 01:34 |
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FlocksOfMice posted:Well, I DO remember the horny jail energies from this chapter at least. As someone who was a straight boy in the 90s, yes it was popular among boys at the time. Also Wikipedia says it was at one point the most popular show in the world. Piell fucked around with this message at 01:48 on Nov 1, 2020 |
# ? Nov 1, 2020 01:46 |
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FlocksOfMice posted:Well, I DO remember the horny jail energies from this chapter at least. Yes. Baywatch was a megapopular 90s phenomenon, and Pamela Anderson and David Hasselhoff were at one point considered the sexiest woman and man alive respectively thanks to their work on Baywatch. General rule of thumb with 90s pop culture references in Animorphs: if they mention it, it was ubiquitous enough that everyone, even children at the time, would know about it. Michael Grant in particular, though he's since moved away from it somewhat in the books he's published under his own brand, was a disciple of the Stephen King style of verisimilitude of "talk about real world people and things that your audience would also know of". He's since confessed that this is also a double edged sword because it dates the work inescapably, and Animorphs is like a mosquito trapped in a glob of hardened amber, and that amber is the 1990s.
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# ? Nov 1, 2020 02:24 |
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Sigh. I miss the 90s amber.
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# ? Nov 1, 2020 02:26 |
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Yeah, this is distilled 90s horny teenagers in high school.
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# ? Nov 1, 2020 03:23 |
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I mean I was a child in the 90s, but I legit always thought it was like, spurious, or just a sort of meme that people ACTUALLY thought anything in Baywatch was attractive. I always thought in Animorphs it was just continuing that joke. I guess child-me never really had a good theory of mind at the time and it's just stuck as an artifact in my head about that. It being so well set in the 90s is GREAT, though. Modern media LOVES to set things in firmly situated points in the past. Stranger Things etc love to do it. Animorphs comes PRE-NOSTALGIC.
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# ? Nov 1, 2020 03:26 |
I think it's worth mentioning that, despite all of the other directly name-dropped pop-culture references in this series, "Jeremy Jason McCole" from "Power House" is clearly a stand-in for Jonathan Taylor Thomas. Joe Bob Fenestre from one of the later books is also a stand in for Bill Gates, so they probably just didn't want to get in trouble for writing real-life people as villains.
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# ? Nov 1, 2020 03:38 |
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nine-gear crow posted:Yes. Baywatch was a megapopular 90s phenomenon, and Pamela Anderson and David Hasselhoff were at one point considered the sexiest woman and man alive respectively thanks to their work on Baywatch. Honestly, I think the series actually benefits from being so solidly rooted in the '90s, mostly because it gets to avoid the unavoidable problem of cellular phones (And particularly smart phones) becoming ubiquitous and thus throwing a massive wrench into, like, half the series. It also helps that the references are usually unobtrusive, can be understood through context clues, and root the books in the Real World—which, given the intended reader was in fact kids growing up in the '90s (Such as myself ) was a Big Deal.
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# ? Nov 1, 2020 04:16 |
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Remalle posted:I think it's worth mentioning that, despite all of the other directly name-dropped pop-culture references in this series, "Jeremy Jason McCole" from "Power House" is clearly a stand-in for Jonathan Taylor Thomas. now I'm imagining the fun Ax would have making Tim Allen noises
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# ? Nov 1, 2020 04:20 |
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quote:“Wussy Weekly, Midget Monthly, The New Dork Times …” Marco added. He and Jake exchanged a high five. Lol dudes rock Acebuckeye13 posted:Honestly, I think the series actually benefits from being so solidly rooted in the '90s, mostly because it gets to avoid the unavoidable problem of cellular phones (And particularly smart phones) becoming ubiquitous and thus throwing a massive wrench into, like, half the series. It also helps that the references are usually unobtrusive, can be understood through context clues, and root the books in the Real Worldwhich, given the intended reader was in fact kids growing up in the '90s (Such as myself ) was a Big Deal. It's also unquestionably part of the reason why the series is so powerfully nostalgic
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# ? Nov 1, 2020 04:23 |
Remalle posted:I think it's worth mentioning that, despite all of the other directly name-dropped pop-culture references in this series, "Jeremy Jason McCole" from "Power House" is clearly a stand-in for Jonathan Taylor Thomas. Joe Bob Fenestre from one of the later books is also a stand in for Bill Gates, so they probably just didn't want to get in trouble for writing real-life people as villains. Fenestre = windows goddamn thats clever
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# ? Nov 1, 2020 04:25 |
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Acebuckeye13 posted:Honestly, I think the series actually benefits from being so solidly rooted in the '90s, mostly because it gets to avoid the unavoidable problem of cellular phones (And particularly smart phones) becoming ubiquitous and thus throwing a massive wrench into, like, half the series. It also helps that the references are usually unobtrusive, can be understood through context clues, and root the books in the Real World—which, given the intended reader was in fact kids growing up in the '90s (Such as myself ) was a Big Deal. Even set a decade later Animorphs would be running into serious camera problems (on both sides of the war) so the blatant 90s setting really helps
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# ? Nov 1, 2020 04:50 |
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:Fenestre = windows goddamn thats clever that's a joke that took me a good 20 years to get
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# ? Nov 1, 2020 04:56 |
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Soup du Jour posted:Even set a decade later Animorphs would be running into serious camera problems (on both sides of the war) so the blatant 90s setting really helps Also the era of social media and Big Data completely t-bone the central premise of both sides using invisibility and anonymity as a weapon. In a world where Facebook can predict if you're gay based on a few minutes interacting with its ad algorithms and Amazon can tell if you're pregnant weeks before even you know, the Yeerks would be outted in no time flat, the Animorphs even quicker. You think the Bill Gates analog coming up is loving scary? Imagine if the Yeerks got their own Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, or Jeff Bezos analog...
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# ? Nov 1, 2020 05:03 |
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I mean, in that the Andalites are like--I don't remember if Ax said this or not so I'm spoiling it?--When he said that human technology had advanced so fast that he and the yeerks were probably scared of humans, that makes sense. We went absolutely WILD with technology lately. That's also apparently part of a thing in one of the WW Vampire lines where now London is a dead-zone where they have cameras tuned to vampires and if a vampire sets foot in London for a second there's an anti-vampire team to take them down instantly. Basically Voldemort would get sniped from half a mile away and so would Visser Three.
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# ? Nov 1, 2020 05:21 |
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nine-gear crow posted:Also the era of social media and Big Data completely t-bone the central premise of both sides using invisibility and anonymity as a weapon. In a world where Facebook can predict if you're gay based on a few minutes interacting with its ad algorithms and Amazon can tell if you're pregnant weeks before even you know, the Yeerks would be outted in no time flat, the Animorphs even quicker. You think the Bill Gates analog coming up is loving scary? Imagine if the Yeerks got their own Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, or Jeff Bezos analog... On the other hand, the chatroom shut-ins posting on the internet about brain slugs that are slowly infesting the country would find a much larger and more receptive audience
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# ? Nov 1, 2020 05:41 |
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freebooter posted:On the other hand, the chatroom shut-ins posting on the internet about brain slugs that are slowly infesting the country would find a much larger and more receptive audience QAnonamorphs
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# ? Nov 1, 2020 05:45 |
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nine-gear crow posted:QAnonamorphs CHAPTER ONE I'm a Qanonimorph. I can't tell you my real name, or where I live. Come to think of it, I shouldn't have posted this to Facebook.
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# ? Nov 1, 2020 23:58 |
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Book 12: The Reaction-Chapter 7quote:Reruns of Power House came on every night at seven. Just after the news. I watched it with my two little sisters, Sara and Jordan. Sara was too little to care one way or the other about boys. But Jordan was closer to my age. That's the thing. Taking over celebrities is a good idea! A lot of the Yeerk plans are pretty solid. If it weren't for those Andalite bandits! <Shakes fist> quote:I watched Power House with a whole new outlook, knowing what I now knew about one of its stars. Was it really possible that someone like Jeremy Jason McCole could be a Controller? Admit it. You've done it too. quote:“Rachel? I’m running down to the store for some milk,” my mom yelled up the stairs. “You’re in charge.” I have to think, this is probably not normal. Chapter 8 quote:“What the …” Boddy horror, anyone? Also, I hope like hell that neither of her sisters were in the kitchen.
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# ? Nov 2, 2020 02:06 |
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Even with Ax acting as Jake for 2 days or changing Marco's dad's program, this probably has to be the hardest event to explain away to an animorph's family to date. For some reason I remember less about this book than others and can't remember what happens next so I can't wait to see what she comes up with
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# ? Nov 2, 2020 04:00 |
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I'm loving what they chose to change to a sound-alike vs. what they kept in as a reference to set the scene. The CD and Yasmine Bleeth (is that a word?) conversations are both excellent Animorphs nostalgia moments, and the What is happening to our Xena???
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# ? Nov 2, 2020 04:11 |
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quote:I stopped and scrolled back. There it was. The twenty-fourth. Jeremy Jason was doing the Barry and Cindy Sue Show on the road. On the road … right in our town for the week. Bullshit, she would have had to disconnect from the internet, then call Cassie, then spent a few minutes dialing back into the modem.
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# ? Nov 2, 2020 04:34 |
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Rachel's family has money and 3 teenage (ish) daughters, they probably have 2 phone lines.
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# ? Nov 2, 2020 04:45 |
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OctaviusBeaver posted:Rachel's family has money and 3 teenage daughters, they probably have 2 phone lines. And probably a fax line too. Her mom's a lawyer and her dad's a weatherman. Rachel is straight up 90s Middle Class Rich.
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# ? Nov 2, 2020 04:47 |
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For some reason, this scene remains with me to this day as the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Animorphs. I don't know why this scene in particular, but the elephant crashing through the ceiling is a vivid mental image, I guess.
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# ? Nov 2, 2020 08:18 |
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Yeah, it was the same for me, though I didn't remember why it happened. The way it ends (or at least, the climax chapter) has always stuck in my mind, too. And Rachel's new nickname she picks up in this book.
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# ? Nov 2, 2020 10:21 |
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I never made the connection between Power House and Tool Time. In my neighborhood as a kid there was a super fundie church called Power House that barraged us nightly with commercials with handsome young pastors telling us to accept jesus and stuff. I thought The Sharing was using a church as a front in this book until I just read those posts. Gosh.
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# ? Nov 2, 2020 20:00 |
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I think the bit that stuck with me the most over the years was Rachel getting devoured by ants, and then Jake's attempt at forcing an ant war, although I forgot the context of when/how that happened. Well, that and the fate of David=====
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# ? Nov 3, 2020 00:11 |
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Book 12: The Reaction-Chapter 9quote:CRASH! Good point. quote:My mom was home by the time they dug me out. She did a lot of yelling and wailing and hugging and crying. They made me take an ambulance to the hospital to be checked over. This is very stereotypically reporter. "How did it feel seeing your family eaten by wolves in front of you?" quote:“Sweetheart, are you okay?” my mom asked for about the millionth time once all the cameras were gone. We obviously only see it from Rachel's perspective, but I like the way her parents and their relationship are depicted. They obviously can't stand each other (although they make sure to keep it civil in front of the kids), but they both love their kids, and there's no indication either of them are bad people. There's even that sort of resentment the custodial parent has where the non-custodial parent gets to be the "good parent" when he comes visit, leaving the custodial parent having to be the disciplinarian. quote:Right then, I realized that a wonderful, perfect, golden opportunity had just opened up right in front of me. Rachel has an in! Chapter 10 quote:I went straight from the hospital to my dad’s hotel. Everyone had decided I needed rest. I didn’t. Ah, to have a teenage metabolism again quote:I used the remote control to run through the Pay-Per-View choices. It was nothing but martial arts movies, crime movies, action-adventure movies … What I needed was a nice, calm romance. My life was an action-adventure movie. Yes! Tell Jake! Tell all of them! These kids sometimes. quote:I picked up my burger. Cassie stared at me for a while, then she started picking at her salad again.“ Just as a note, the "Rachel mused" is original text. Unless Rachel has started talking about herself in the third person, it should probably be "I mused", but... Anyway, it's more adolescent horniness.
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# ? Nov 3, 2020 03:08 |
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Epicurius posted:
As a youngster, this bothered me: yeah, Rachel's mom doesn't and can't know what actually happened to the house, but the builder/contractors/inspectors/previous owner did nothing wrong! Houses aren't built to elephant specs! I think I just decided she didn't go through with it since it's never mentioned again. Epicurius posted:Just as a note, the "Rachel mused" is original text. Unless Rachel has started talking about herself in the third person, it should probably be "I mused", but... Honestly, given the one-book-each-month scheduling, the fact that there are so few editing errors like this one is impressive.
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# ? Nov 3, 2020 05:44 |
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Mazerunner posted:I think the bit that stuck with me the most over the years was Rachel getting devoured by ants, and then Jake's attempt at forcing an ant war, although I forgot the context of when/how that happened. Well, that and the fate of David===== Yeah, of course, David. I think I remember thinking that ending/plot felt right, but this series had some brutal books. disaster pastor posted:Honestly, given the one-book-each-month scheduling, the fact that there are so few editing errors like this one is impressive. But surely Scholastic had editors proper on the payroll?
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# ? Nov 3, 2020 08:28 |
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Epicurius posted:This is very stereotypically reporter. "How did it feel seeing your family eaten by wolves in front of you?" There was a kid abducted and murdered in Australia a while ago and his parents became huge, well-known child safety advocates. On the ten year anniversary of his death they released an app (in partnership with some government agency I guess) designed to be a sort of panic button for kids. First question from a journo in the piece I was watching: "So why did you decide to make this app?"
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# ? Nov 3, 2020 09:14 |
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Fuschia tude posted:But surely Scholastic had editors proper on the payroll? Yup, that's what I mean. I'm not surprised something like this snuck through, because I'm sure they had a lot to catch.
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# ? Nov 3, 2020 14:12 |
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Book 12: The Reaction-Chapter 11quote:I woke up approximately fifty times during the night. I kept having to check to make sure I was human. And I had some seriously odd dreams. In one, I morphed into Jeremy Jason and then got fly eyes. Must be hard not knowing if your vice principal wants to talk to you about something or kill you quote:“So.” So now is clearly not a good time for this. Chapter 12 quote:My heart missed about four beats before it started up again, going a hundred miles an hour. “Uhhuh,” You can sort of see the appeal for kids who are feeling insecure or don't have a lot of friends or who have problems. Just a club where you can have fun with other kids and get away from your problems. quote:“How did I look on TV?” I asked. I'm glad she's not telling the rest of the Animorphs about this except for Cassie and Ax, because she clearly has this under control.
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# ? Nov 4, 2020 03:45 |
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It's so surreal that in addition to managing an alien invasion of Earth, Chapman also has to participate in education conferences and host PTA meetings. It's a nice inversion of the Animorphs' situation, in fact.
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# ? Nov 4, 2020 07:26 |
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Rochallor posted:It's so surreal that in addition to managing an alien invasion of Earth, Chapman also has to participate in education conferences and host PTA meetings. It's a nice inversion of the Animorphs' situation, in fact. <Iniss, what are you doing?> "Apologies, My Visser, I need to finish signing off on these report cards. Can I call you back?"
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# ? Nov 4, 2020 08:49 |
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Rochallor posted:It's so surreal that in addition to managing an alien invasion of Earth, Chapman also has to participate in education conferences and host PTA meetings. It's a nice inversion of the Animorphs' situation, in fact. It still works for him, though. He can use those as recruiting opportunities, voluntary or otherwise. Meanwhile, the kids aren't exactly sitting in class looking for chances to tell their teacher about the Yeerks.
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# ? Nov 4, 2020 15:17 |
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disaster pastor posted:It still works for him, though. He can use those as recruiting opportunities, voluntary or otherwise. Meanwhile, the kids aren't exactly sitting in class looking for chances to tell their teacher about the Yeerks. What would a parent teacher interview between a Yeerk teacher and a Yeerk parent even look like?
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# ? Nov 4, 2020 16:15 |
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# ? May 24, 2024 23:19 |
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Rochallor posted:It's so surreal that in addition to managing an alien invasion of Earth, Chapman also has to participate in education conferences and host PTA meetings. It's a nice inversion of the Animorphs' situation, in fact. 8:45 AM-Meet w/principal re expansion of computer lab 11:00 AM-Review of compliance w/state guidelines re school nutrition requirements 12:00 AM- Taco Tuesday at cafeteria! 1:00 PM-Leave early for dentist appointment 3:30 PM-Delay Flight 253 to Chicago at airport so that VIPs can get implanted 6:00 PM-Dinner w/Carlsons
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# ? Nov 4, 2020 16:40 |