Any advice for writing host centered fics? Like how would one write trauma? Consent stuff? Any resources would be fun if you have nothing to say on the matter. Love your blog btw <3
I feel like this is the kind of topic that it is not really possible to be an expert in — other than through reading Animorphs, which I assume you've already done. However, some resources I found useful when writing Eleutherophobia:
Trope Talk — Mind Control. Does a great job of breaking out the different types of mind control, including the complex questions of agency raised by each one.
The Rhetoric of Fiction by Wayne C. Booth. A somewhat dry read, not gonna lie, but extremely good for explaining how to make conscious choices about narrative voice.
dub-con, non-con, trigger warnings and you: a post about how not to do it wrong. The best breakdown I've ever seen about how consent works in fiction and why it matters.
Spoon Theory by ButYouDontLookSick. Super relevant for explaining invisible disability and the difficulties of communicating about it.
Ghost Boy by Martin Pistorius. Memoir by a man who spent his adolescence with "locked-in syndrome," which prevented any movement or communication.
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. One of the funniest and most relatable memoirs about writing and perfectionism I've ever read.
Human Subjects Research Training by CITI. The formal training all psychologists complete about, among other things, the definition of consent and the power dynamics that complicate it.
Frontiers in Psychology: Kids. A great open-access peer-reviewed journal that's all about making topics like synaptic pruning accessible for a non-expert audience — as proof of concept, every article has to be approved by a child before publication.
The Burden of Stigma on Health and Well-Being: A Taxonomy of Concealment, Course, Disruptiveness, Aesthetics, Origin, and Peril Across 93 Stigmas by John E. Pachankis, Mark L. Hatzenbuehler, Katie Wang, Charles L. Burton, Forrest W. Crawford, Jo C. Phelan, & Bruce G. Link. It's less accessible (in case the title didn't make that obvious) but also a super-interesting resource about the universals and specifics of stigma, from anti-childlessness to ageism and everything in between.
The Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail by Owlet. One of the best uses of experimental writing techniques I have ever seen, specifically focused on agency and recovering from mind control.
The Host by Stephenie Meyer. A romantic adventure story built around proving that consent is sexy, even between a human and a mind-controlling alien.
City of Lies and Hollow Empire by Sam Hawke. An epic fantasy series whose protagonists both have invisible disabilities, with some of the best plotting I've ever read.
Animorphs-Specific Research
The Smartest Guys in the Room by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind. Remember the Enron scandal? Remember how the specific culture of turn-of-the-millennium California helped give rise to the Enron scandal? If you don't, this has all the dirty details.
Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member by Sanyika Shakur. This one is obviously about a very different subset of a similar time and place, but it's also a shockingly frank account of what it's like to be a 14-year-old American caught up in a war.
The Nurture Assumption by Judith Rich Harris. In case you were wondering, there's a ton of science to back up the "your friends make you who you are" truism.
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