#animorphs 38

[goodgrammaritan]

"I don't take orders," Prince Jake snapped. "I give them. And now, this meeting is over."

And later:

"Now we stop playing games. You're not the Andalite fleet. And I'm not going to snap a salute and say 'yes, sir!' We deal as equals. Which, to be honest, is generous of us under the circumstances."

"The Arrival" by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #38)

😳😍😳 Jake's never been hotter

[kidrat]

[id: snippet from an animorphs book. It reads 'Rachel jerked her arm away from Cassie's grasp. 'From now on I'm doing it my way. No more Geneva Convention warfare. If I'm going down, I'm taking out all the Yeerks I can before I go.' end id]

Rachel, girl, what do you MEAN 'from now on'? It's book thirty eight. Were you following the geneva conventions when you forced addictive substances on the yeerks? were you following them that time you guys kidnapped and tortured chapman? WERE YOU FOLLOWING THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS WHEN YOU DEALT WITH DAVID, RACHEL?

[rays-animorphs]

The interesting thing about 38 is I know how the series ends. Even if I didn't know, I know the genre. But the kids don't know how it ends. And they're ...acting like this is all real. Which makes a lot more sense than if they weren't. But it's still jarring. This isn't how adventure stories work. Adventure stories work by the heroes being brave against all odds. But this hasn't been this sort of story since the kids watched Elfangor get killed by Visser 3 in the construction yard and did nothing. It's never been that sort of story.

And it does, in fact, feel like they could lose. Like they can't not lose. How can a handful of children win against an invading army? It's ludicrous.

[exigencelost]

#37 being so bad actually makes #38 work better, because the characterization was so mind bendingly stupid in #37 that in #38 when 1) Cassie said fighting a lost cause is morally wrong 2) Rachel accepted the war as lost 3) Tobias stormed out of a team meeting in a huff 4) Jake said the word "please" and 5) Marco walked away from Jake in crisis, obviously my first thought was "this is a fake meeting" but my second thought was "wait maybe it's just really bad ghostwriting again" and I was genuinely unsure until the dramatic reveal.

[rays-animorphs]

Book 38: "Andalites have reached the Earth" we're actually going to move the big-picture plot forward? And it's an Ax book? I can't wait.

You'd think if you were writing a series dozens of books long you'd run out of things to make it interesting at some point, and yet.

I am sad that Tobias doesn't get more POV books though. There are six Animorphs. It should be a six book cycle, not a five book cycle where Ax and Tobias have to share.

[exigencelost]

#38 was very good! More later maybe.

[rays-animorphs]

Oh, Ax. Big hugs.

[rays-animorphs]

Well? Can humans and Andalites in human morph use thought-speak or not? I'm pretty sure in previous books they couldn't, and now suddenly they can.

Grumble.