They Live Ch. 1: Drive

In which Tom comes home after a long, long weekend of Blade ship nonsense, takes a nice nap, relaxes, and passes the rest of the week in peace. Or that's the plan, anyway.

Peregrine falcon. 2023

@druddigoon

don't believe everything you see

What should I call my next fic?

I'm stalling on what to call the next Eleutherophobia fic, which I've been referring to as The Octopus because it was so messy/chaotic but deserves a title that isn't something I called it out of frustration now that it's finally taking shape.

Things that happen in this story include: Rachel comes back to life all legal-like. Tom gets an unexpected offer. Jordan talks about her feelings, kind of. Pro-human extremists are massive jerks. Rachel tries Code Red Mountain Dew. Jake continues to insist he isn't Batman. Bonnie eats a disappointing sandwich. Everyone plans their future, involuntarily, kicking and screaming the entire time.

Had a thought today when considering Andalite polearms: what if they looked like a Vulcan lirpa, but bearded like an axe so they can be used in more ways?

For reference, this is a lirpa:

hmmm, I like it BUT A: andalites have weak arms, so I imagine it is considerably smaller than a human polearm? B: it would also be cool if when they started making them they used discarded tail blades, and now I am wondering how that would look.

My headcanon for the "weak arms" things has always been that weak arms aren't normal for an Andalite, but instead the result of having so many machines and automation that most Andalites never use their arms for anything - sorta like how people like me who spend a lot of time on the computer and not a lot of time exercising would be described as having weak arms, because it's true - I can't lift very much and I tire quickly when doing anything intensive. But that doesn't mean other people necessarily have weak arms - some people have very strong arms, and that strength used to be more common back when physical labor was an everyday thing for most people. I mean, look at Gafinilan - Dude's huge and clearly been working out from the way Marco describes him. I can't imagine he has weak arms. It wouldn't be right for someone to bulk themself up to the size of a house and then skip arm day all the time and end up with scrawny noodle arms next to legs that could kick a hole through concrete. xD Also, you don't necessarily need a lot of strength to use a spear. You just need to able to hold it and move it around. The sharpness of the blade and the momentum of any movement does most of the work for you! That's why spears were one of the best tools to equip the masses with, back before firearms. You didn't need tremendous strength like an archer or quick reflexes and specialized techniques like a swordsman. Think about how much a knight does with a spear - They hold it up, then they tuck it under their arm and hold it straight while the pure momentum of the horse does all the work. Not a lot of work goes into it at all.

I can get the logic of "the weak arms thing was meant to emphasize andalites having cushy post-technological lives", but I feel like it's ignoring the Doylist explanation- andalites have weak arms because "really good arm strength, especially for throwing things" is a Notable Thing About Humans that K.A. Applegate wanted to emphasize. The Andalite Chronicles really went out of its way to emphasize the reaction everyone had to Loren throwing something. It's not portrayed as "wow, this young woman is doing something a strong andalite could do!", it's portrayed as "i literally could not guess that she had the ability to accurately pick something up and throw it at a target with force. What about their biology makes this possible?". (God, it's the best part of the book. Everyone freaks out at THROWING things, but of COURSE they do!)

I mean, throwing things isn't really about *strength*, though. Every single one of our Great Ape cousins is stronger than us, but we throw better than all of them for various reasons that have nothing to do with strength. It's actually more down our wrist structure and the fact we walk completely upright and are completely tail-less, and we have a little ballistics computer in the back of our head that's constantly calculating trajectories so we don't fall over when we walk! Which is something nobody ever tells the Andalites, come to think of it. They wonder how we get around without tails, but nobody ever tells them it's because there's a lump of brain the size of a fist in the back of our head that's entirely devoted to ballistics.

This is another concept that keeps being brought up that bothers me: that morphing something is the same or similar to yeerks infesting people. I think there could have been a good ethical conversation about morphing something that has a sense of self in terms of invading its privacy and violating it,

but it sort of falls flat for me that it's equated with yeerks infesting someone and taking their autonomy away. It's like the difference between someone literally controlling you and someone having a copy of your body to do whatever they want with. They're very different ideas but by equating them, we're not dealing much with the ethics of the latter. The fact that its actually not similar doesn't make it a less interesting conversation in my opinion.

My best explanation for why the Animorphs worry so much about that: Early on, the Animorphs are like, 13 years old. They're dealing with Adult Problems without any Adult Experiences or Adult Guidance, so they're trying to apply the best logic and philosophy they can without having experience in either. They want to be good and do the right thing, but don't always know what the Right Thing is, and Ax can't answer their questions because he was too busy flirting when he should've been paying attention in school. So like... yeah, the rule is silly to us, but it's not to them because they don't know any better. They're just doing the best they can. They actually have lots of little rules like that - see the "We don't steal clothing, we always drop a $20 dollar bill on them later" rule later on, even though the adults at the clothing stores will absolutely not make the connection between "Part of our inventory is missing" and "A bird dropped a wad of cash on my head". Later on, when Animorphs have more experience and the demands of the war require occasional morphing of sapient life, they still cling to the No Morphing Sapients rule because it's one of their few rules they haven't completely shattered. It's like a security blanket. "Ok, we still haven't done THIS thing we decided was really important. And when we have, we always had really good reasons and asked permission first. That means we're not evil, right? We're still doing the right thing? Please say yes." There is also at least one instance where one of the Animorphs claims that their dolphin morph or something actually is aware of the human controlling it, but since that only comes up once, I don't count it.

Jake: "Uh…Marco? Why is Ax wearing your pants… On his head?" Marco: "I was trying to prove to him that Andalites could wear hats if they wanted to. See? It works!" Ax: <Hello, Prince Jake. I have come to regret my life choices.>

if there’s ever an animorphs animated series…..i want in on that…..let me sprinkle my magic on those cassie+rachel episodes with my art n storyboarding………….blz

to add/clarify, id like to plan out visual dev and storyboard for at least one episode of “Animorphs: The Animated Series”. i figure the first episode would be one of the longer ones??? ehhh. yeah. this isn’t like a “what ifF” it’s like a “this is something i need to do eventually to satisy an itch” lol

 im busy with animation stuff for a thing i wanna enter but when i come back to this ill post more here relating to it.

YO We should team up! I already have a character lineup! And I saw the other comment about the person making a script for the Invasion, I’d LOVE TO Storyboard that!!!

if i ever get my dysfunctional self together this will be lit. reblogging for reference to come back to yall.

Okay, I HAVE to share back where it all started! Here is the finished storyboard!!!

You can read the whole thing over here:

This is a speculative project where I imagined Animorphs if it were an animated series! The script was written by Liana Walsh (Here’s her site: www.lianawalsh.com )

This has been a labour of love for a couple years now, but it also means I’ve been mainly working on it from the backburner. I do plan to keep working on things as I go along, but one of the goals of this project is for it to be an open fan-project. What that means is if you would like to take any of these and do voiceover or animation, or anything, you are free to, so long as you credit both me and Lilac.

I’m @Wheatart on most socials, and if you would like to see more of my animorphs fanart, please check them out here: https://www.deviantart.com/wheatart/gallery/59559813/animorphs https://wheatart.com/tagged/animorphs%20portfolio%20project

Aside from that, please enjoy!

they won't feel anything, they won't be hurt. if you don't wanna watch, you don't have to.

thinking about Cassie and the frog scene from e.t.

Space fight

andalite homeworld panorama that started as a warmup and ended up serious

man i cant wait to go to pokeparis

posting frutiger animorph when they least expect it

My other secret santa piece! I was inspired by the idea of eyeshine (or tapetum lucidum), and wanted to do a piece with Cassie!

I'm gonna do a bunch of reblogs, so brace yourself :D