#animoops

[demenior]

DVD commentary on how you created this THING that broke me:

YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HERE

The strap between Jake's teeth is removed and a caustic liquid is poured down his throat. He coughs and sputters, working his sore jaw through movement. The voice is all around them, vibrating in their very bones and through the darkness they are trapped in.

HAVE YOU LEARNED?

“Learned what?” Jake cries, and his voice is sandpaper on stone.

The memories, they’re surfacing. They’ve been here before. They’ve been here so many times. But they always get the answer wrong. What’s the right answer? What have they said before?

<What are we supposed to learn? Who are you?> Ax is terrified and Jake can feel it. It makes his blood run cold and his heart rate increase.

The voice sounds disappointed.

WE WILL TRY AGAIN

omg DVD commentary!!

Not gonna lie, I had forgotten about this fic!!!

I can't recall exactly the conversation happening in the tumblr animorphs corner at the time, but I remember this was in response to it.

I think it had something to do with the idea in Animorphs canon about powers beyond comprehension (Crayak, Ellimist, the dude from book 43(?) and The One at the end of the series) playing with "lesser" species for fun.

I really wanted to nail some existential dread, that maybe the bolivian army ending to the series was actually a "reboot" and there is some terrifying concept in the idea that these kids have to keep reliving the series over and over again.

It was also definitely inspired by the concept of the Matrix.

[demenior]

I had a completely out of the blue Anivengers dream last night.

Tony was sent by Fury to get “backup” for some fight or smth, and so he goes to this nondescript house in a nice neighbourhood and meets the Berensons and tosses ball with their young son in the driveway, and noticed pictures on the wall that indicate they had another son who passed away (all the pictures w the older son are old photos, there’s no grad pictures, etc)

Long story short something weird happened when The Rachel rammed the Blade Ship, and everyone on board woke up back on earth in the body they originally got their morphing power (aka Tobias, Marco and Jake are stuck as 13yos)

All I remember is that Jake was a salty asshole who resented being called back in to fight but was also relieved cause he felt his life was miserable etc etc

[demenior]

so i’ve been reading animorphs since the series started publishing, and i literally just this second realized that Arbron has a second ‘r’ in his name

i have 100% written about him in fic and made many posts talking about him and no one has bothered to inform me and y’all let me continue on lookin like a fool

[demenior]

I'm rereading Animorphs as I'm working on the script and I've already cried like three times. I'm only on chapter 7. I love these kids so much. Jake is so young and childish here, and it's the last time he's really like this in the series. By the time we get to his pov again he's infested by Tom's old Yeerk and witnesses Crayak and he's ready to make life or death decisions. And in book 1 he's so desperate to not be the leader he keeps fighting with everyone and being a fool about things

[demenior]

idk what it is but i had a sudden, overwhelming need to draw Shawn Ashmore as grown-up Jake today

like i always accepted shawn as jake for the tv show, but he’s never been what jake looked like in my head so... idk what this is... but i’m probably still gonna do it lmao

[demenior]

I'm doing this all on my phone. This is wild I love this ap!! Am I doing it right? Who knows!!

[demenior]

So the Animorphs Alliance Handbook is continuing to destroy any and all confidence I had in myself about my mastery of Animorphs knowledge Chee is not pronounced at ALL like I thought it was

[demenior]

Anivengers... bc it's all I have energy for lmao. I'm thinkin about how SHIELD coerced Jake into signing his life away to them. Ok I'm mostly rambling some what-if thoughts as I continue to work out a coherent timeline, so bear w me (lmao that's a pun!!!! dem go to sleep oh my god) This is LONG, sorry I gotta figure out what SHIELD was like around 1998/99 when the Yeerk War would have ended- but I'm imagining they haven't had much, if any, contact with aliens. Maybe investigated some shit but never found anything concrete or had any encounters of the first degree (maybe they've seen some Skrit Na?) but the base being when they stumble onto the Yeerk War it's Huge compared to anything they've come across. SHIELD opts to cover it up bc A) it's a hugely unbelievable story on its own, B) they don't think people are ready for this kind of thing and C) they don't think Earth itself is ready to deal w a Galactic Audience just yet like that's just inviting MORE aliens to show up and that's just a bigger mess So SHIELD is in panic mode trying to get whatever information they can, and what they learn is that there are 6 kids out there who are Very Important To The Mission. Cut to the kids who won a war, watched hundreds of allies die and then saw Rachel die and the Blade Ship escape, then went and negotiated peace with the assholes who were going to destroy their planet anyways, and actually got an alliance out of it. They've been awake for at least 24 hours. They're exhausted in all ways possible. They get off the Pool Ship after landing back on earth and are immediately swarmed by SHIELD agents who have taken control of Ground Zero and essentially forced into (separate) locked rooms to be 'interviewed' (it's an interrogation) And yes we all know the Ani kids are tough. They are so strong they are unbelievably strong they make me cry with how much they can endure. But the war is over, here are people saying they can take care of it, and so the kids share everything. Or maybe they all elect/force Jake to talk with SHIELD so they can see their families and just Get Away from their trauma and actually be able to grieve. The war is over and they haven't had time to process anything. Either way, in SHIELD archives is a 16+ hour video of Jake locked in a room talking with an agent about everything the kids had done under his orders, and Jake occasionally pauses or starts crying because he keeps thinking about how he's going to tell his parents about Tom or his Aunt Naomi about Rachel of the 17000 Yeerks he killed because he could, and basically he's a very scared, very traumatized 17yo who SHIELD is very afraid of. Jake is v obviously not in any sort of healthy mental state (and also technically a minor!!!) but the agent coerces Jake into signing an agreement that SHIELD will take care of the Animorphs and their immediate families, and won't bring up any charges against the Animorphs for any of the crimes they've committed, so long as Jake is loyal to them. And bc they can't have a minor as an agent, Jake has a full year of being home and horribly depressed before he's recruited to SHIELD and at first it's a blessing and honestly saves his life bc he's working, doing something again. Jake needs a cause and SHIELD has the best intentions and Jake can get behind that and throws himself into his work. The implications of the agreement don't come until more unsavoury work comes up, until Jake starts to resent the fact that Cassie and Marco are making a life After The War, and he can't, because he's protecting them but he's being a self-sacrificial/self-inflicting hero in suffering alone when he doesn't have to- but he won't figure that out for a while yet. He moved to DC, to the other side of the country, to be closer to SHIELD HQ and away from his friends and family and isolates himself even further and lives that way for years, and eventually convinces himself he's happy, and he is happy. Well, he's not massively depressed bc he doesn't let himself Stop, and he's not hurt that his friends have moved on bc he doesn't talk to them and also he's very good at his job and so if that's happy then Jake is happy, and then he's assigned to be liaison w the Avengers for SHIELD. And that's who Jake is when he meets the Avengers.