The Blog of Endless Following

There is no posting to be found here, only the browsing of other blogs. For I am boring.

[eedweiz]

Grace insisted on putting Carl's name on the most important paper of the century 🎉

[floutiewhat]

An Analysis Of The Project Hail Mary Soundtrack

First of all, I know embarrassingly little about music theory for how long I've been playing musical instruments (which is most of my life). But I have a piano, I can play by ear, and Project Hail Mary has consumed my life. This isn't a crazy deep analysis, but I haven't been able to listen to the soundtrack the same since realizing these.

There are two main themes I've noticed (and I know there are more, I just haven't found them). I'm calling them the Life is Reason theme and the Ryland Grace theme. I don't know if there are more "official" names for these themes—they're just what I've been calling them.

The first theme, Life is Reason, is super easy to spot. It's the first phrase of "Life is Reason" and repeats throughout the entire piece (the notes are E D E C B C E D E C B G B, if any of you were curious). "Life is Reason" plays when Rocky and Grace unbox the collection device, do all of the experiments from the Adrian astrophage, and then Rocky shouts out "Life is reason! Life is reason!". Hence the name of the piece, and the theme.

It's a pretty cool musical motif all on its own, it's in the key of A minor (my personal favorite minor key), and "Life is Reason" is always fun to listen to. The interesting part comes in because of the other places this same motif shows up.

"Life is Reason" isn't the first time this motif is heard. The first instance I could find of it is in "Top Secret Clearance." Now I don't have the movie memorized, nor do I know exactly what is going on on-screen when the motif starts to play, but in "Top Secret Clearance" it begins at 0:57. It's slower, has a little more reverb, but it is clearly the same motif. "Top Secret Clearance" plays when Eva Stratt tells Grace about Project Hail Mary for the first time. This is when we, and Grace, find out what the plan is to save Earth. This is the entire reason for the project existing.

The third instance of it happens in "Time Go Fishing." I adore this piece. When I first saw it in theaters I couldn't breathe during this sequence, partially because the music does an excellent job portraying the tension and fear of not only crashing into an alien planet, but losing the Predator.

This motif shows up several times in the piece. Again, I don't know exactly what is going on on the screen at each of these moments; but if I'm remembering correctly, each time the Life is Reason theme plays there is something significant, and hopeful, going on with the collection device. Life is Reason is sprinkled into "Time Go Fishing" like salt: not too much, always at the perfect moments, and it skyrockets "Time Go Fishing" into the stratosphere.

The last time Life is Reason plays in "Time Go Fishing" is, after Grace has nearly lost the collection device about three times now, been knocked out, and nearly tears his arm off trying to get it back, and we the audience aren't sure if he's okay (because the camera does a clever cut so we can't see anything)—right when both "Time Go Fishing" and Life is Reason reaches its crescendo (5:24) is when the collection device gets thrown into the airlock, Grace is okay, and they can finally leave Adrian. For the rest of the piece Life is Reason plays, triumphant, because Rocky and Grace just got what will save both of their planets.

It gives me chills every time.

The second theme I noticed is a lot more subtle. I've only been able to pick it up in two or three pieces, but this is Grace's musical theme. And the first instance is in none other than "Ryland Grace, Cognition Assessment."

I believe it's also important to note the instruments that are being used here. I have no idea what instrument was used for the Life is Reason theme (some kind of percussion? I have no idea, I just play wood and brasswinds), but the Ryland Grace theme is made through the human voice.

Here's a tangent: when I took voice lessons back during COVID my instructor made it very clear to me that the human voice is just an instrument as the flute or trumpet is. Because all an instrument is is air vibrating in a hollow object. With reed instruments the reed is vibrating, with brass instruments the vibration is created through the embouchure, and string instruments literally vibrate their strings to make a sound. Our vocal folds (folds, not cords) vibrate in our larynx, and the hollow object the air moves through is the skull. Fun fact of the day.

But I find it wildly interesting that Grace's musical theme is performed through the human voice. In "Ryland Grace, Cognition Assessment" his theme starts at 0:14. His notes are: C# B C# A C# B C# E C# B C# A major triad with the root doubled at the octave (which is a fancy way of saying you play A C# E A at the same time). To me that speaks to his humanity, what drives him, and the hope humanity is placing on him.

This is played during the sequence of the flashing blue and red lights at the beginning of the movie. After this the music gets a little more humorous as we're watching Grace wake up from a coma with a lot of "what's going on."

But this is the very first thing we hear. Before any dialogue, before any cool shots of space or Ryan Gosling with a beard, we hear Ryland Grace's theme. This is what sets the tone for the entire movie, and it's not only a choir singing, but it's a choir singing in a major key. That, more than anything, tells me what kind of movie this is going to be.

This theme is also phrased like a question. The first phrase (C# B C# A) is a little uncertain. It's unfinished. Who is this man? What is going on? The second phrase (C# B C# E) gets brighter and lighter, until the question is finally answered by that big fancy A major triad with the root doubled at the octave.

The second instance of Grace's theme is found in "Tau Amoeba." The theme starts at 1:19 after a beautiful buildup as Grace sees a taumoeba eat an astrophage cell. When it plays here it's faster, it's brighter, and there is a purpose now. Earth and Erid can be saved. The uncertainty of "Ryland Grace, Cognition Assessment" is gone. As more voices and instruments sing this theme over and over again, we know that the world has just been saved. There's a full choir and orchestra singing for this one man and Eridian, all alone in space.

The theme continues as Grace keeps watch over Rocky, modulating to show Grace's own uncertainty over Rocky's fate. Because, sure, the taumoeba is incredible and amazing, all Grace cares about right now is Rocky.

~~

Now, I haven't had the time to find more themes—I'm so sure Rocky has one, and I'm pretty sure his instrument is marimba-adjacent (again, I'm solidly in the wood/brasswind family here)—and most of these observations have happened as I drive to work. But this goes to show how much love and care was put into this soundtrack, and how this soundtrack can stand on its own to tell the story of the Hail Mary.

Daniel Pemberton, you are a storytelling genius.

[moonkent]

Project Hail Mary Reread Thoughts

So, I'd read Project Hail Mary near a half dozen times over the years since its release, but having now seen the movie (er, seven times...), I decided it was time to reread the book again! (And when I say reread, I mean, listen to the audiobook, excellently narrated by Ray Porter and with TOP-NOTCH sound design.)

And because I was doing right after watching the movie, I found myself being a lot more analytical about it, so here are the list of things I thought about as I went along:

When Grace first makes it into the control room, it's because the computer is noting an "Angular Anomaly." We never figure out what that was about. However, Grace does note at a different time that he was surprised the fuel tanks hadn't been automatically ejected once they were empty to make the ship just that much lighter. (This turns out to be quite good for him, of course, because he is able to refill them!) But I did wonder if that was (one of) the causes behind that angular anomaly?

Why are there not two Petrova lines? Why only one? The astrophage leave the star via the magnetic north pole, then head for the nearest CO2 deposit they can detect. But when returning to the star, don't they just head straight back? Grace notes that they head directly toward his makeshift sun-in-a-box when he turns the light on. So shouldn't there be two lines, one from the north pole of the star of out-going astrophage and one heading directly to the middle of the star of in-coming astrophage?

Grace pulls off a tiny chunk of his hull somewhere on his fuel tanks so that he can give it to Rocky to analyze. WHAT IF: this is what causes the hull breach when they have the Adrian adventure?? Sure, he thinks he's pulling it off an empty one, but he doesn't actually know which tank is which. This could have been where the hole initially started, since it no longer had the protective aluminum cover, and then it expanded from there as the astrophage began rushing through.

How far can an astrophage-powered ship travel? It's said that astrophage can travel up to eight light years, but presumably that's when they're under their own power, propelling only themselves, otherwise there's no way that the Hail Mary would be able to get to a star system that is 11.9 light years away. Since the fuel on board works by exposing only one layer of astrophage at a time, presumably the rest are lying dormant until they see the CO2 spectral signature. How long can an astorphage survive off of its stored energy? This would also imply that fuel would get less efficient over time, as the astrophage use up some of their energy and become less "enriched" - could this also be part of the "angular anomaly" that the nav computer noted?

Is standing out in the Petrova line healthy? Yes, it makes an excellent visual for the movie, but Grace also is out there in the book. Shouldn't there be a bunch of little astrophage bumping into his suit and then turning their little heads away and bombarding with him with a bunch of joules of IR energy as they propel away? Shouldn't that be a situation something like gradually toasting a marshmallow in the fire at the least?

How did the Eridians successfully breed astrophage in their little ocean balls? Yes, they plenty sufficient heat energy and CO2, but on Earth, humans also used magnetic coils and a super bright regular light to simulate the entire Sun-Venus journey. Maybe the Eridians got lucky and happened to include some magnetic materials in their breeder balls, but there's no way that they would have figured out how to make light sources that simulate the sun, right? One might suggest that the bright "sun"light isn't necessary, but if that's the case, why didn't the astrophage on Earth just start breeding once it was exposed to Earth's atmosphere? It clearly had sufficient CO2, else they wouldn't have bred at all, so why wait? (Perhaps the Sol astrophage and the Erid astrophage differ slightly in that respect? We never see Grace study the latter, so I suppose that is possible.)

Grace and Rocky got SUPER lucky with the Taumoeba. They assumed that a predator would be found where the astrophage clouds were the thickest, but given how voracious we later see Taumoeba to be, it could have been the places where it thinner that the predator would be, since it would be actively eating the astrophage there. This could have been a classic example of survivorship bias.

So, the xenonite walls are semi-permeable to air and let the smell of ammonia linger, do they? Nice little foreshadowing to what follows in the next couple chapters.

This one is a film only note: While I love excited!Rocky eagerly exploring the Hail Mary for the first time, why does he say, "I see Grace!" when wandering behind the storage containers? He's echolocative, he should be "seeing" Grace the entire time, not just that one moment when they are both in line-of-sight from a human visual perspective.

Anyway, these are my random thoughts from this last reread! Do you agree/disagree with any of them? Have alternate theories? Noticed any details that stood out? I'd love to hear them!

[mercifulmother]

– Animorphs: The Reunion, K.A. Applegate

[justabigoldnerd]

I SAW "PROJECT HAIL MARY" WITH THE DIRECTORS' COMMENTARY AND HERE'S WHAT I WROTE DOWN

The voice of the Hail Mary was recorded live on set with Ryan so they could react to each other in real time!!

Ryan was so nervous and intimidated by the kids in Grace's class (who were played by children of the cast and crew 🥹)

The dots of astrophage Grace shows his class??? That was done by filming burning steeling wool, inverting it, then PUTTING IT IN BLACK AND WHITE

Ryan didn't know what was going to be in Yáo and Ilyukhina's bags, and they were real photos of the actors. He was told to "remember who these people are" and a lot of the emotions we see from him in that scene were real 🥹

The walk outside the classroom was one of the first scene Sandra and Ryan shot together. Sandra whispered "You wanna race to the bike?" And they DID and they KEPT THE SHOT which is why they're doing that hysterical little speedwalk I- ajdgsjshsj

They purposely emphasized reflections to reflect the themes of the movie. They loved glass, they loved light, they loved reflections.

They called the hardware store "off brand homedepot" LMAO

When talking about the shopping trip they said they wanted to show that "Playfulness and creativity are intertwined" 🥹

Grace's goggles that he uses to find the astrophage in the box in a box are literally made from an iPhone duct taped into makeshift goggles. And the infrared footage of him finding the four dots was actually shot ON an iphone!!!

There's a bright orange sticker that reads "CIVILIAN" on the back of Grace's flight helmet and the directors don't know if thats something they actually do but they found it hilarious

When Grace is shoved in front of the room full of world leaders to explain the astrophage, they said, "One of the many times we demonstate Ryland Grace's social anxiety by having people stare at him" ajdgsjdgsjjs

There was a team called "The Poetry Unit" who's job was just getting beautiful shots. And goddamn did they do a beautiful job. Also I've been talking nonstop about the inherent poetry of space travel since Artemis II launched and this just solidified it for me.

Talking about Daniel Pemberton's masterful soundtrack, they said, "He would not be alone in the soundtrack. In fact, two different planets would be rooting him on." 😭

THAT SCENE ON THE BEACH IN THE DONT GO CRAZY ROOM WHERE SOMEONE IS WALKING TOWARDS HIM??? THATS HIS FUTURE SELF ON ERID. (They also said "we dont know how they let us keep this in the movie" which is very funny but im very glad its there)

The scene where he catches the canister took ELEVEN takes for him to actually successfully catch it and everyone on set cheered

They call song that plays (or maybe they're were referring to the scene? A little unclear) when Rocky's ship starts spinning "The Gravity Tango" because "as Rocky spins his ship, its an invitation to dance."

They had 3 ramen ship models on set and every single one broke at some point 😆

Some of Ryan's reactions to Rocky copying his dances are his live reactions of being "absolutely delighted" by the puppet team

Rocky is 200 years old!!

The "Close Encounters" joke was pitched by STEPHEN SPIELBERG HIMSELF

Rocky's carved patch has the petrova line, as well as the base line six number for 23, the number of crew on his ship

The overlapping blue circles on Rocky's arm is his wedding band!!

When Rocky puts his forearms together, he's displaying his family crest!

Rocky has a lot of nonverbal communication cues, and one of them is that every time he says "Question" to form a question, he stomps twice!

They had a deaf consultant for Rocky's nonverbal communications!

Quote from one of the directors: "Its a movie about looking, witnessing one another."

In the scene where Rocky is bossing Grace around telling him how to build his enclosure and Armando and Mary get involved, one of the directors says, "Mary, Rocky, Armando- he's [Grace] creating his space family!"

When Stratt sings "Remember everything will be alright" it is confirmed she is singing it directly to Grace. They talk alot about how much she cares and loves but cannot care and cannot love, and how much she believes in him. How much she sees in him. I just. Man. Wow. They also say that this scene is a bit of an exchange. Grace is daring her, "Come, be human with us." And Stratt is accepting that dare, as much as she can.

I have seen this film three times (counting today) and until the directors' commentary pointed it out, I didn't notice the little HEEL CLICK Grace does when he comes in from collecting the astrophage coming from and going to Adrian AHHHH

"I love how on the spectrum Rocky is" CANON AUTISTIC ROCKY also the director who said this is a parent of a child on the spectrum which makes this all the more authentic and heartwarming 🥹

A lot of the scene where its revealed to Grace that he is the back up is improvised by everyone at the table

After Rocky saves Grace. The little model of himself that Rocky made that he holds up. The little item he holds up beside it? Thats a model of the device that opens the orb that caught the Taumeoba. Its Rocky telling Grace to finish the job. I'm in tears.

"As Rocky wakes up, the lights turn on, the movie warms up. Its like day breaking." 😭😭😭

They built the flexible panel on Rocky's ball MAINLY so Grace could give him the Earth ball akdhjshd

THE RAINBOW WHEN GRACE IS GETTING SEDATED IS REAL IT HAPPENED WHEN THEY WERE FILMING THAT SCENE IT APPEARED IN THE SKY JUST WHEN THEY WERE FILMING AND THEY HURRIED TO CATCH IT IT WAS JUST TOO PERFECT

"Even though he's going away from his home, Earth, he's going towards his real home, which is Rocky." HIS REAL HOME IS ROCKY Y'ALL MY HEART

When Grace and Rocky reunite on Rocky's hull, the translation of what Rocky chirps at him through the transparent xenonite is "You came back for me, question?" 😭😭😭

The tattoo Stratt has at the end means Life In Prison Without Parole

The beach in the Earth Dome on Erid is so rocky because the Eridians got the scale of sand wrong 😭 They're TRYING OKAY

About all the imperfections of Grace's habitat: "Really, all that matters is that he's with his best friend." 🥹🥹🥹

The song choice for the end credits, the "Hallelujah", is because Grace has ascended 😭😭😭😭

THEY REPLACED THE MGM LIONS ROAR WITH ROCKY'S CHIRPS FOR "AMAZE AMAZE" AWWWWWW

[emeraldmew]

"When you say 'killed,'" he asked quietly, "you mean 'killed' as in 'stunned' or 'captured,' right?" "Unfortunately, Mr. Carpenter, I mean killed as in dead."

One of those iconic Animorphs lines.

As a kid I thought Richard was a fool. As an adult rereading this it hits home more how Richard's mindset could allow him to avoid thinking of the real danger for so long.

They're told of the war by children who, when asking for help, bring along a group of "thirteen campers, ten kids and three adults" to fight alongside the Hork-Bajir instead of insisting that only the adults come along.

To the Animorphs this makes sense: They are kids fighting this war. They know if they only invite the adults then the adults are going to end up thinking they know better than the Animorphs. Even if they haven't realized this potential issue yet they also just don't really see the difference in letting the kids fight or not because everyone on Earth is a target anyway.

To a kid reader this makes sense: you've seen the Animorphs fight despite their age. You could project yourself onto any of the unnamed campers and imagine the Animorphs asking for your help in the war.

To an adult reader? I can see why not making the distinction lulls Richard into an entirely unintentional false sense of security. Adults underestimate kids as is, but he's a year 2000 American adult who can't fathom a war actually happening. Even less so if kids are the ones bringing him this news. Last book made a point about how Americans don't really understand a war coming to them and it holds just as true in this one (heck, it holds just as true when we bomb overseas countries. It's a war but it's not at home so it's abstract.)

The idea that he's still unaware after warning after warning from Jake makes sense. He's seen the fantastical side of the war. He's seen a kid turn into a tiger and another kid turn into a bird and met friendly aliens.

Okay, bear with me but I'm about to make a convoluted comparison to a meme in a way that was never intended.

You know that fairy or walrus thing? The question of whether you'd be more surprised to open the door to find a fairy or a walrus had rung the bell, and most people in the poll said they'd be more surprised by the walrus? It's kind of like that. A walrus - a war - is a real thing that can happen but it's so unexpected and improbable in the mind of the door opener/Richard that it would be harder to believe than the fairy/shapeshifting children. A fairy pops up and you just rewrite your brain to accept that what you knew of reality is not applicable and start going with the new flow. A kid turns up and turns into a tiger and introduces you to aliens? You think you've become the main character of your favorite show. Your living the dream.

But then the dream wears off when you see the hork-bajir next to you preparing deadly weapons has already lost an arm in the fight. The tension of the battle of Helm's Deep is setting in among all of the aliens and kids and you snap out of the "I'm living an episode of Star Trek" feeling and realize a very large walrus with very large tusks is actually right there at your door and it isn't friendly.

And it's too late to close the door.

[moonkent]

MoonKent Muses - Animorphs #47

There's a couple of things that are...shall we say, Not Good about this book, but let's look at one of the less problematic ones! And that's, Writing Your Final Words As You Lay Dying, With Beautiful Poetic Drama And Prose.

You want to know what people write when they lay dying? Things like, "I love you, Mom." "I'm sorry," or "Goodbye, Fred." Short, quick, and to the point. After all, you're DYING, you don't have the time or energy to write 500 words describing how you "fell, fell", and using similes compare muskets to clubs and shovels, and adding dramatic parallels to the final lines. Bet you his friend Jacob was real annoyed as he last dying and Isaiah would take a moment to, you know, TALK to him instead attempting to write in a journal that, you know what, shouldn't be legible anyway after the curtain of rain and the mud and the blood gushing all over Isaiah's fingers! "Hold on, bro, I know this is your last breath, but I gotta get these words on the page! This is good stuff, I'm so inspired now. My nephews are gonna love it. You know, assuming they find my body and I'm not just tossed in a mass grave with you or something."

Honestly, I'd kind of love it if Jake lampshaded it? About how unrealistic that was, and how someone else must have written the last entry, and how sometimes war is just about who dies in the mud next to you, instead of any great cause, and it could have been a cool call-forward to what the future will be for them - the way you can lose even in victory.

But nope. It's just the extremely-over-dedicated journalist, and we're just meant to believe that he verbosely wrote the ENTIRE final battle in the few moments he had before bleeding out.

In the rain. In the mud. With at best a crappy charcoal pencil.

...Yeah.

((Side-note: there are two instances of this trope that I don't mind: One is in Lord of the Rings, with the "We cannot get out" record keeper, who's a) whole job was to leave a record for fellow dwarves, and b) could have written those lines hours before actually dying (as opposed to Isaiah's mere minutes). And NumberTwo is in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where the characters DO lampshade the dying words, even wondering if they must have been dictated to have been so accurately preserved.))

[moonkent]

Ever wonder what character from Animorphs you were? Did you identify with Rachel's fierce spirit or Cassie's gentle nature more? Are you mor

I took an Animorphs personality quiz, and it says that I am Jake! Which is exactly what I've always felt and who I most identify with, so I'd say this is a fairly accurate quiz.

Your Result: Jake You're a natural leader. Part of that is that you genuinely aren't in it for the power. People just trust you and you don't let want to let them down. Your charm and humility doesn't mean you can't make hard choices sometimes and when pushed, you can be truly ruthless. You just wish you didn't have to be.

[oriley42]

For National Embroidery Month, sharing some close-ups of my in-progress Animorphs embroidery! Thread painting based on animal pictures, broken up by sparkly blue structures to signify morphing.

Image ID:

Embroidered orange and black tiger close up on roaring face with sparkly blue outlines

Embroidered brown bear head roaring with sparkly blue outlines

Embroidered grey wolf head with sparkly blue outlines

Embroidered red tailed hawk with wings spread and sparkly blue outlines

[jbk405]

I said this when I re-read the Animorphs series a few years ago, but it's so shocking how young the characters are at the start. So naive. And I want to expand on that thought, because the series emphatically is not lighthearted at the beginning. This isn't one of those children's adventure stories which start out as "not that dark" and then take a turn a few books in, or after the first TV season. ** The characters are in a brutal war story from the start.

The main characters begin having PTSD nightmares in the first book. The first explicit suicide attempt is in #3. When offered an escape for themselves and their loved ones, they agree as a group to give up the fight in book #7 (Of 54).

So what do I mean by calling them young and naive if they're scared and traumatised from the very beginning?

Because their fears at the start are only that they will lose the war and die (or be made into Controllers). That is all that they think about.

They never even consider that they may survive the war, but be haunted by what they had to do in order to win.

They never think that they may grow to like the fighting and violence, until they won't be able to imagine themselves living a normal life at all after it ends.

They never imagine that they could possibly change and become as cold and merciless as their enemies. That they may have a higher bodycount than their enemies.

At the start of the series, they think that they can win a Noble Struggle. They know it's hard and dangerous and will be painful, but they think it's possible. Because they're kids, and to kids it's possible for a war story to have a happy ending.

But wars never have a happy ending. Even if the Good Guy wins -- and the Animorphs ARE the Good Guys here -- there isn't a happy ending. You survive and you go on as best you can, and hopefully you can find happiness again in the future, but the war does not have a happy ending.

And it's heartbreaking to see that knowledge get ground into them over the course of the series. The knowledge that even if they defeat the Yeerks and save humanity and manage to survive -- which they (mostly) do -- it still won't be a happy ending.

And they keep fighting anyway. They fight because it IS the right thing to do, and because they know that if they don't then nobody gets to have a happy ending. But it's still such a stark contrast from the early books, when their only fear was violent death. ** For example: Steven Universe's first episode revolved around Steven thinking ice cream activated his magic powers. Much of the first season was similarly lighthearted. But then the first season finale revolved around the alien invasion which had attempted to genocide all life on earth, and which his mother had lead a violent rebellion against which resulted in the death of almost all of her compatriots and fellow fighters, returning to resume their operations.

[suspendnodisbelief]

Richard's Animorphs Forum - Index

Richard's Animorphs Forum is back online, after being completely down for more than a year! If there are any Animorphs enthusiasts who miss the old message board style of discussion forum, I'm hoping this can draw in some new interest, or that it might catch the attention of some of the forum's old guard.

[moonkent]

it's back!

[moonkent]

MoonKent Muses - #40 & #41

So, it's a truth universally acknowledged that the ghostwritten era of Animorphs suffers in quality compared to the AppleGrant era, but sometimes the lesser books could have been just THAT much improved by the tiniest of changes.

For example, in book #40, we have the Animorphs WILLINGLY morph hive insects again. After their awful experience with both ants and termites (*especially* Marco with the former), the kids all swore never to morph social insects again, only to just...forget that when it comes to this book.

The thing is though, there ARE solitary bee species out there! They didn't even HAVE to morph social bees! We used to have a carpenter bee in our backyard every spring, and it would hover for literal hours in the same place, which makes it the PERFECT surveillance bug! It could have been a cool learning experience AND keeping in character with the kids' past. But nope, suddenly social insects are "the buzz", because these bees are somehow... just less hive-minded? Okaaaayyy...

And then, for book #41: Okay, we agree that the future sequence is MEANT to be inconsistent, that it's an intentional dream-like reference. But you want to know what would make just a little bit cooler? Bringing back the Anti-Morphing Ray! Just a one-line moment about how it covers all of New York or something, which would make it SOOO much more understandable that everyone is shocked that Jake can morph, that Rachel was permanently disabled from severe injuries, that Tobias would choose(?) to nothlit a being with more fighting capabilities if there was no other way to fight alone, and that Cassie would definitely die from a fall of significant height. It would have been soooo much better!

Does anyone else have headcanons that would have improved these last dozen books?

[splendidsneb]

Growing up I did a lot of reading, as many kids in the 90s did, and thusly, much like many 90s kids, I was exposed to the wonderful world of Animorphs.

So OBVIOUSLY that meant I had to read the recent graphic novel adaptation. Which I honestly quite enjoyed for the most part.

It had some minor issues here and there, but it excelled in depicting the mid-morph process, (great job!) conversely it really struggled with it's basic character design, and because of this, nearly all the human characters had a terrible case of same face.

Everyone having the same chubby heads and big round noses, regardless of age, gender or race, and all of them constantly making that stupid DreamWorks eyebrow meme face that I found really unfitting for some characters. I was frustrated by it, because it really detracted from what I felt was otherwise a really solid adaptation.

So when I saw this piece of official art included in one of the later issues, I thought 'Wow, that's super cute, I just wish the characters looked a bit more like themselves.'

(Included here is the original image.)

So I decided to redraw it, using a mix of their book descriptions and their cover models. I really wanted to blend the aspects of both, as the covers are just so instantly recognizable to anyone even vaguely familiar with the series, I just felt I would be remiss not to.

Also I wanted to add Ax! Now the group is truly complete!

I hope fellow Animorph fans will enjoy. 💖

[moonkent]

MoonKent Muses - Animorphs books #33 and #2

So, obviously I'm backtracking here, as the Animorphs Book Club is on book #39 this week, but I decided to revisit some of the early books because I thought of some fun counts I want to keep a tally of (more on them in a future post).

But given how far ahead the reread is, it actually works out because now I can post thoughts without spoilers!

So, in book #33, one of the interesting things about Jake is how well he knows how to use his team like tools by now. He KNOWS that the person who has to volunteer for the anti-morphing ray mission is Tobias, but because it will be dangerous, he doesn't want to out and out order Tobias to go; instead he just manipulates the conversation until Tobias volunteers on his own. It shows something of how callous Jake has had to become as the leader.

Thing is, there are actually hints of that all the way back in book #2, which I didn't realize until this last reread! When the team is deciding what to do next for spying on the Yeerks, Jake has already done the math and decided it makes the most sense to use Melissa. She's Chapman's daughter AND she already has connections with Rachel, which makes it easier to get close to her. He already knows how to use people strategically right back at the start! True, he's much more apologetic and uncomfortable with this skill at the time, but it's impressive to see how much of the groundwork for later character development is already present here.

[animorphs-30]

remember this poll about a potential animorphs zine? well, it's happening! to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the series, i'm proud to announce Animorphs30, a zine to celebrate three decades of animorphs!

if that sounds like something you'd be interested in, please fill out this form!

we're looking for people who can contribute:

art — digital, traditional, or mixed media art pieces/comics.

writing — fanfiction, essays/analyses, poetry, personal stories, opinion pieces

physical media — photos of cosplay, crochet patterns, fanbinding projects, crafts, etc! anything you've created relating to animorphs that doesn't quite fit in the first two categories.

also, keep in mind that:

the use of generative AI in any way, shape, or form is NOT permitted under any circumstances. this is a hard boundary.

anything you submit must be created by you.

animorphs30 is a SFW zine. if you have questions about what is and is not allowed, do not hesitate to ask.

and, of course, anything you submit has to be animorphs-related!

please have your responses in by 20 January 2026! happy creating 👍

[moonkent]

Slight spoilers for the new Avatar!

So my brother and I just got back from seeing Avatar 3, and I cannot help but compare the moment that the Tulkun (the Pandora whales) decide to fight with a similar moment in The Hork-Bajir Chronicles of the Animorphs series. In both, you have a completely peaceful culture being faced with the decision to take up violence to defend themselves, or risk being destroyed (one by slaughter and the other enslavement).

In Avatar 3, the moment that the Tulkun agree to fight is a moment of celebration. Our heroes have gained powerful allies! What was once a hopeless fight now has a chance of victory! Yes, some will die, but more will live! Yay!

In The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, that same moment is a devastating tragedy that only one person truly understands. Only Dak Hamee realizes that by choosing to fight, his peaceful, simple brethren, who had never once raised arms against another before, would forever lose their innocence. They would no longer be a culture who embraced peace as a basic ideal. They would intimately understand violence and what it felt like to kill another living creature. Even if they managed to win the war, they would be forever tainted by that knowledge.

It kinda makes you think, doesn't it? Hollywood loves to simplify things for its movies. Sure, there's only so much nuance you can put in a two three-hour movie, but seeing everyone cheer when the whales and squids are happily killing every single one of the people on the ships (not just the bloodthirsty bad guys, but also all the grunt workers and people just doing their jobs who might have disagreed with the mission but didn't have the ability to walk away) without a single thought to the loss of life or innocence? Makes me wonder what that said about we as a society and how like everything to be categorized into simple Black and White. Fighting with our heroes = Good, being on the opposite side = Bad, and no one needs to care about the bad guys.

It makes me really appreciate the nuggets of literature like Animorphs that don't shy away from the shades of gray involved in war. That even when you win something, you lose something too.

[emeraldmew]

Speaking of the bonus material in the back of the book, this one comes for Marco hard.

[lilacnothlit]

Marco is indeed a sdut. Wait. I read that wrong.

[moonkent]

Marco is Dust and the Yeerks are Hatters, got it!