Entries tagged with animorphs

Entry tags:

animorphs

Fic I'm not writing

There's a mermaid flash exchange and one of the possibilities is "any fandom," so stuff like Female Human/Female Mermaid (Creator's Choice of Fandom). And...I can't help but want an actually coherent AU of Animorphs 36 where the Nartec are involved for more than "Atlantis exists and wants to mummify you, lol, let's never speak of this again." Whether that's character/relationship based or just worldbuilding. Maybe something like Andersen's Little Mermaid setting where elderly grandmother merpeople have Strong Opinions about atheism! (...I wrote a long-ish AU of Andersen's Little Mermaid because the religious worldbuilding is the most interesting part, but that's another story.)

Or what if they're actually not related to humans, maybe they're aliens that just migrated underwater thousands of years ago? They could be off-shoots of the Mercora (Mercora, get it?) Except...the Mercora "extinction" was sixty-five million years ago with the dinosaurs. Which on an evolutionary time scale, compared to humans, is kind of staggering.

The intro itself is kind of interesting, I assume it was ghostwritten, but the motive to get involved is to defeat the Yeerks' new ocean-going ship. Which is bad because the Yeerks were genetically experimenting on Hork-Bajir to try and produce amphibious hosts. We get a glimpse of Hork-Bajir theology! ("It's time for Hahn to go Beyond"--Toby to Jara.) And then Jake is like "no, we need to remember why we're fighting, we're doing this for people like Hahn, not just some abstract desire for revenge." But that kind of setup delays the actual "btw merpeople" stuff significantly.

Anyway, I just really want more Animorphs fic that is less episodic and more minor characters who get to return, and also isn't eat-your-vegetables, sigh.

Entry tags:

animorphs

Trying to figure out the space-time continuum here

(points at icon)

Animorphs 31 (the Grandpa G book):

"I remember when he came home from the war," my grandfather mused. "He was a different man. He said he wanted nothing but peace after seeing so much."
--
"The other old soldiers took the folded American flag off the casket and gave it to my grandmother, Grandpa G's daughter."

The first line doesn't necessarily contradict the second--if Jake's grandmother is Grandpa G's daughter, then Jake's grandfather was the boyfriend who knew his girlfriend's dad before he went off to war and contrasts that with the personality change afterwards.

But:

Animorphs is set around 1998-2001ish, and Jake is age 13-16 during that time, Tom is a couple years older. This means Tom was probably born around 1982. We don't know how old Jean was then, but the median age for first-time mothers in the US then was approximately 23 (and on an increasing trend). So let's say Jean was born around 1959, with some wide error bars. Her parents were probably born in the late 30s, and Grandpa G maybe in the late 1910s?

If the quotes are KASUs, then I can imagine a perceptive kid who was still fairly young when Grandpa G went off to fight recognize a personality change upon the return. (US soldiers in WWII skewed towards their early 20s, but by 1944 there were many more 30-somethings with children, which fits with Grandpa G being at the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944.)

If the implication is that Grandma was old enough for Grandpa to be in the picture when Grandpa G left for the war...how old are any of these people??

Part of my pointless curiosity is me trying to compare this into my family's terms. My parents are both younger siblings of large families, and they were older-than-average when my siblings and I were born, in part because they were more-educated than average and spent a while in school before getting married. I don't think I was alive at the same time as any of my great-grandparents, much less a teenager. But my grandfather, who was in WWII, has a great-grandchild (my cousin once removed) who just reached teenagerhood...earlier this month, not in 1998.

I need a tag for "pointless chronology stuff" because it's spreading beyond the Chess fandom, I guess!

Entry tags:

Self-indulgent question

There's discussion of an Animorphs mini bang on Tumblr. If I were to write something (that worked as a standalone, though possibly in connection with one of my other series), would people be interested in:

-Aftran stays in Cassie after book 29 and they deal with the later events
-Elfangor stays on Earth and forms a human resistance, not knowing that the "Andalite bandits" include Tobias, Ax, and the others
-something else?

(I'm not going to do a crossover.)

No poll because I'm cheap.

Entry tags:

Fic: Changelings/Writing Rainbow

...or, Gafinilan/Mertil are weird even when they're not Gafinilan and Mertil.

For the flash exchange:

Red Letter News (695 words)
Fandom: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Gafinilan-Estrif-Valad/Mertil-Iscar-Elmand
Characters: Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill
Additional Tags: Advice Columns, Character Writes Advice Column Despite Being Ludicrously Unqualified To Dispense Advice
Summary: The anonymous aristh can't tell you his name. Or where he lives. But he can tell you how to live your life.
--
I used that exact same freeform when it was nominated in Galavant, no regrets at being slightly identifiable. (It's a good tag.)

Mark As Red (354 words)
Fandom: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Cassian Andor/Lando Calrissian
Characters: Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, Cassian Andor, Lando Calrissian
Additional Tags: Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Chatting & Messaging, Cast Has Groupchat For Complimenting Each Other's Attractiveness in Increasingly Aggressive Ways, Post-Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Extra Treat
Summary: Even my autocorrect doesn't think ur dustball is a real planet lol

--
Okay, so Cassian survives Rogue One, and then Leia adopts him into the Falcon's groupchat because, uh, he needs a social life. I don't know. Then ESB happens.

The Guide (7013 words)
Fandom: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Chirrut Îmwe/Baze Malbus
Characters: Baze Malbus, Chirrut Îmwe, Wicket (Star Wars), Yoda (Star Wars)
Additional Tags: Book 13: The Change, Animorphs-typical speciesism, Animorphs-typical weirdness about disability, Ensemble Cast
Series: Part 3 of Changelings
Summary: With his health fading and his shorm annoyingly faithful to the Force, the last thing Baze needs is to be saddled with a pair of fugitive Hork-Bajir. The galaxy, or at least Yoda, has a weird sense of humor.

--
As with my Les Mis/Animorphs crossover, the characters aren't completely one-to-one. Like, Leia is kind of Jake, but she's also a little Rachel at times. Both Han and Lando take on the Marco role. Etc.

Baze/Chirrut aren't identically Gafinilan/Mertil, but they're pretty darn close--in particular, I've co-opted the latter's disability/stigmatized statuses, rather than Chirrut's blindness.

I kind of understand why book 40 had to end how it did from the perspective of "you can't disturb the status quo;" if you suddenly introduce two new Andalites who survived the Dome Ship and have never been heard from until now, they can't actually join the long-term fight. But from an in-universe perspective, the taboos around the morphing technology don't make a lot of sense--we see in book 8 that Andalites are shocked by the scale of human technology progression. The Escafil device shouldn't have even been around long enough to have taboos!

(Of course, with that kind of slow-timeframe in mind, the real tragedy of the series is that morphing technology it came just a blink after Seerow's Kindness, albeit precipitated by the war. If Seerow had just shown up with an Escafil device we could have saved a whole lot of trouble.)

Anyway, that's why I had Baze monologue to Lando in the previous installment about where his aversions might have come from, and why I took the route I did here. (Which is also kind of paralleled with Mertil's "come onnnnn" attitude in the flash fic.)

Entry tags:

Unconventional Fanworks Exchange

Me: I'm moving and getting a full-time job, I should not sign up for any more exchanges before Yuletide
Also me: but these format prompts though

Private Bookmarks for User TonyGwynn19
Fandom: Pitch (TV 2016)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Additional Tags: In-Universe RPF, Documentation
Summary:

San Diego Padres RPF is the next big thing in the fanfiction world.
--
My recip prompted "what would be the most popular ship? ...it's Mike/Livan, isn't it." And I was like "yep, it sure would be."

Blame It On My Juice(d Balls) (387 words)
Fandom: Pitch (TV 2016)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Additional Tags: Twitter
Summary:

#InspectTheBall2K19, and other hashtags

--
If Ginny was still pitching in 2019 she'd absolutely be angry about the home run totals and sense a conspiracy theory.

Also, sometimes I feel like I'm the only gen writer in this fandom. Welp.

The Force of Others (856 words)
Fandom: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Lor San Tekka
Additional Tags: reddit, Documentation, Extra Treat
Summary: My name is Lor San Tekka, ask me anything!
--
Lor does an AMA, pre-The Force Awakens.

In Praise of Poland (1878 words)
Fandom: Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Lando Calrissian/Poe Dameron
Characters: Lando Calrissian, Poe Dameron
Additional Tags: Ship Manifesto, Format: Meta, Extra Treat, Embedded Images
Summary:

An exploration of the Star Wars ship Lando Calrissian/Poe Dameron.
--

Me rambling about why I ship it. This was probably not very anonymous. Oh well.

Guardian of the Wills (702 words)
Fandom: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Cassian Andor/K-2SO
Characters: Mon Mothma, Original Characters
Additional Tags: Epistolary, Wills, Extra Treat
Summary: Cassian and K-2 left an intangible legacy behind. They also left a literal one.
--
One of those silly and usually morbid "lateral thinking puzzles" is like "A woman killed her husband, the authorities knew about it, but they never did anything. Why?" And the convoluted answer is "they both had children from previous relationships and both hated their stepkids. Then they were in a fatal car accident together. By making sure he died ever so slightly 'before' her, she inherited all his money, and then passed all of hers and his down to her own kids." Which might not actually happen IRL but that's how these puzzles are. And then I was like "...would anyone have even known what order Rogue One died in??"

I was on the fence about making an entire fic out of this idea but then I came up with the title and I figured I had to do it.

Wikipedia: Guidelines for Covering Extraterrestrial Topics (1501 words)
Fandom: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Additional Tags: wikipedia - Freeform, Documentation, Post-Canon, Extra Treat
Summary:

From Wikipedia, the free intergalactic encyclopedia.
--
Wikipedia editors arguing over notability guidelines and capitalization standards after the Animorphs' history gets revealed.

Entry tags:

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

(Not sure who if anyone will appreciate this multifandom parallel, but I Have A Type, okay.)

It's been pointed out by many (including in one of the English-language forwards) that one of the main themes of Quatrevingt-Treize is "is mercy sometimes a bad thing?" Most notably, Gauvain shows mercy to not-great dude Lantenac, and has to accept the consequences. Ditto Tellmarch. The Bonnet Rouge shows mercy to Michelle and her kids, who aren't bad guys, but this winds up putting them in trouble. Etc.

Well, in Andalite Chronicles, Elfangor is responsible for creating Visser Three...by refusing to kill thousands of defenseless Yeerks in the transport ship. And like, even if not all of them are Lantenac-level villains, they're on the Taxxon homeworld as part of a war to create a slave empire.

Visser Three brings about Elfangor's death (albeit much more indirectly/later than Gauvain's), and Elfangor is left with basically nothing but his honor, and...IDK, I have a type, that's all.

Entry tags:

animorphs,
autism

Andalites (and autism stuff)

So I saw some interesting prompts for autism-related speculation but it was also easily derailed. I'd previously seen someone else's opinion that Andalite Chronicles is one of the worst books of the Animorphs series and doesn't add anything new, which, um, no.

It's not hard (for me anyway, but also other writers) to see Tobias as autistic, and Elfangor and/or Ax as having autistic-type traits. I don't want to project specific human diagnoses onto other species who we wouldn't expect to think or act like us anyway. We also know that they're not the only examples of Andalites out there (Alloran, Arbron, etc.) But I like to interpreting Elfangor+Ax as examples of more "typically developing" people relative to Andalite culture/having traits that their society values. So with that in mind, here are some of the worldbuilding tidbits we learn about Andalites and what we can extrapolate from them. Not all will be autism-related, and not all will be consistent with each other/the series. (There are lots of examples of KASUs: the one-child policy stuff and its implications are a big example, but I also find it really interesting to speculate about.) And I recognize that they're not one-dimensional good guys. Still interesting!

-Lots of rituals in culture: morning ritual, death ritual, wishflower ritual. Importance of following the rules and doing things the same way over and over again.
-Elfangor and Ax are both overwhelmed by taste/sensory issues when in human morph (as is Estrid).
-Elfangor prides himself on his ability to overcome the Taxxon hunger instinct in TAC, and that gets him separated from Arbron and Alloran and kickstarts another episode of the plot. I think it's significant that inner strength/resistance is the first characteristic that distinguishes "our" hero from the other guys.
-Elfangor is surprised to learn that Alloran had a strong sense of humor in his youth (much like Arbron).
-Elfangor tells Loren that Andalites tried to live in cities for a while but preferred the smaller-scale social structures of scoops, with a few spaceports (say that five times fast). Preference for not too much socializing?
-Names, how do they work? Elfangor and Ax's family is the only detailed example we see: parents Noorlin-Sirinial-Cooraf and Forlay-Esgarrouth-Maheen, sons Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul and Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. So presumably it's the middle names that get inherited. Noorlin passes down his name to his son at a time when (because of the one-child policy) they might only expect to have one child? So maybe children typically inherit from the same-gender parent? But then when Ax came along they would get to keep Forlay's name in the family too.
-Ax mentions that "all human fathers are male." ?? My headcanon is that this has something to do with who gets to pass down their name in same-sex couples (more on this later).
-Ax has the ability to time exactly two Earth hours in his head, which is obviously necessary to the plot; we don't see any other Andalites doing anything like that. Do different people have different weird skills?
-Noorlin served in the military in peacetime. Is this common? Maybe a couple years after people (men) complete their studies?
-Seerow's Kindness was probably one of the first times Andalites shared technology with another species, otherwise it wouldn't have been such a crushing blow. How many other species outside the Yeerks and the Kelbrid do they know and consider roughly tech equals? There are a couple others namedropped ("only us and the other guys fight the Yeerks...") but never expanded upon.
-Humans are considered a relatively quickly-developing species technology-wise. The Andalites in some form are ancient (Ellimist Chronicles) but developed spaceflight, Z-space tech relatively slowly. (The great tragedy of the series is that the Escafil device came along so shortly after Seerow's Kindness--if only the Yeerks had gotten that first!) This however leads to some consistency issues, see the #40 discussion.
-Utzum is mostly considered a myth, like the Ellimists. Related to religion? ("the captain is like one of the ancient gods...") Or belief in an afterlife?
-Why the prohibition/discouraging of women in the military?
-The Quantum Virus/biowarfare stuff. Indicative of a disconnect between the military and the rest of society (led by the Electorate) that's developed by that point: even Elfangor as an aristh is shocked to learn the cause of Alloran's disgrace, and the crew from #38 are presumed dead to everyone. So we see the tension of both general society's principles of honor and the recognition that not everybody lives up to that. I suspect some of the military guys see it as a hyper-utilitarian "greatest good for the greatest number" along with "well the Hork-Bajir are kinda dumb, so who cares about them."
-Gafinilan & or / Mertil. Were they a ship? I don't think they canonically are, and so it's a little frustrating to see them described as "oh it's definitely gay, 100% gay, anyone who disagrees is wrong." But I also don't think it's necessary to assume that Andalite society is homophobic. If anything, I think the population growth concerns (again, ignored by several other books) would make society fairly accepting of same-sex marriage--"you two go adopt kids and argue about who passes down the name, no need to make new babies."
-Where does prejudice against vecols stem from? Maybe some nonverbal individuals preferred to really become recluses and that led to a societal taboo? Ax mentions being surprised that someone like Mertil, who wasn't compatible with the morphing power, would be let in the military--which doesn't make a lot of sense when you think about the timescale, the morphing technology is a relatively new innovation. (And Andalites tend to only use it for espionage stuff or rapid healing, since they think their natural bodies are so great that why would anyone need another form to fight in?)
-How does symbolic language develop in a society with telepathy??? Skimming Ellimist Chronicles, it looks like they develop signed language first, and then that gets associated to more formal thought-speech? Elfangor can project warmth and courage in book 1--is that just something he can do, an individual quirk like Ax's timing, or more general?
-Lots of implications for how this plays into autism-type traits. I can see it leading to emotional overload if people go around "dumping" emotion on each other too often--so society prizes stoicism, etc, and people prefer to live on their own in the scoops rather than crowded cities. Or "why would we need words to talk about how we're feeling if we can just, like, share it."
-IDK, I just have a lot of thoughts, and better in my own space than disappearing into the void, I guess!

Entry tags:

Past Imperfect reveals

I wrote two fics for the time travel exchange Past Imperfect, Future Unknown!

The Manipulation (3210 words)
Fandom: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Rachel (Animorphs), Marco (Animorphs)
Additional Tags: Time Travel, Non-Time Traveller POV, Iskoort
Summary: All the Animorphs have secrets to keep. But Marco seems even more secretive than normal, and his secrets hold promise--or peril.

Grave Accents (1540 words)
Fandom: Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Mace Windu, Leia Organa, Anakin Skywalker
Additional Tags: Time Travel, Extra Treat
Summary:

In retrospect, Mace decided, it had mostly been Qui-Gon’s fault. He was measured enough not to blame the master for the entire state of affairs; after all, it was not Qui-Gon but chance or the will of the Force that had brought young Leia to Jedha.

--
Post-canon Marco goes back to his younger self (and body) to diverge the Animorphs' future; young Leia accidentally goes back to the PT era and becomes Mace's Padawan.

I feel like a lot of time travel stories (including these!) can find themselves wanting to be epics, and explain every divergence and the ripple effects...and that's not the kind of story I can write as an exchange gift with a fixed timeframe. (Or possibly ever, given my energy levels. :p ) So it winds up being like just a few "snippets from this universe," which I hope doesn't leave with a "but it ended just when it was getting good! :(" feeling. If so, sorry!

(I have a few self-indulgent and poorly thought out headcanons from down the line of "Grave Accents," but no idea how to explain what happens in the immediate aftermath.)

Entry tags:

Yuletide reveals! (plus one)

Another fun year of Yuletide with small fandoms new and old!

Miracle on Ice (3598 words)
Fandom: The Divine Cities Series - Robert Jackson Bennett
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Turyin Mulaghesh, Original Characters
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Canon-typical language, Yuletide 2018
Summary: Part of Mulaghesh wonders how much Ghaladesh counts as the world. The world, in its vastness, calls to mind the small-minded squabbles of highland Voortyashtan, the areas of Bulikov cordoned off after the Blink, the humid isolation of Javrat.
Yet Ghaladesh is changing every day.
--

Post-canon "casefic" of sorts for Divine Cities, featuring Mulaghesh learning about Dreyling hockey and trying not to swear on the job.

Zersetzung (3982 words)
Fandom: Die perfekte Diktatur - Farin Urlaub Racing Team (Song)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Narrator's Friend (Die perfekte Diktatur), Narrator (Die perfekte Diktatur)
Additional Tags: Dystopia, Yuletide Treat, Yuletide 2018
Summary: There is only one way out.

--

I discovered this song via a Yuletide promo (lyrics in translation, on Youtube)--less than five minutes but features a cool plot twist and raises all kinds of worldbuilding questions. This is a retelling from another POV.
--

Escort Quest (6633 words)
Fandom: Chess (Board Game)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Knight (Chess), Pawn (Chess)
Additional Tags: Chess Problems, Fairy Tale Elements, Embedded Images, Crueltide, Yuletide Treat, Yuletide 2018
Summary: A loyal knight has one goal: to guide the kingdom's heir to promotion. But nothing will prepare them for the friends and threats they meet on the way to enemy territory...
--
Chess puzzles! Featuring "retroanalysis" (what was the last move? etc) shenanigans, and en passant-related angst.

The Bishop's Gambit (1589 words)
Fandom: Pierre Menard Author of the Quixote - Jorge Luis Borges
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Pierre Menard, Ruy López de Segura
Additional Tags: Chess, Yuletide Treat, Yuletide 2018
Summary: Pierre Menard meets one of his heroes.
--
More chess, this in the context of a Borges short story which is kind of the essence of "crack treated seriously." This was a fairly "iddy" fic for me in the non-porny sense; not just chess nerdiness but also allusions to other Borges stuff, calculus nonsense, and a weird philosophical trilemma in which I tend to reach a difference conclusion than Menard (and Borges' narrator), but think about on weird occasions.

The Journeys of Sarah Sioban Grey (19 words, about 5000 across all playthroughs)
Fandom: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August - Claire North
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Sarah Sioban Grey
Additional Tags: Interactive Fiction, Yuletide Treat, Yuletide 2018
Summary: Life, death, rebirth, memory.
--
I'm into time travel and the conceits of this book (a few people are reborn after they die in the same time and place they were born the first times, with all their memories; they form a secret society where one generation can slowly pass messages on to another) held my attention more than the main characters. I thought IF would be a fitting format for this minor character exploration, since all of the possible "lives" could still take place in some order or another.

And not for Yuletide, but also just revealed, a holiday fluff treat:

Different Dreams (1021 words)
Fandom: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Gafinilan-Estrif-Valad/Mertil-Iscar-Elmand
Characters: Gafinilan-Estrif-Valad, Mertil-Iscar-Elmand
Additional Tags: Soulmates, Dream Sharing, Extra Treat
Summary:

It is said that Andalites have two eyes to see their own world, and two more to see their beloved's.

--
Gafinilan/Mertil soulmates worldbuilding!

Hope you have a happy and healthy new year. :D

Current Mood: dorky

Entry tags:

animorphs,
essay

The teleological fallacy and Animorphs: a ramble

"Things fall to Earth because of the law of gravity."

"What did we do before the law was passed?"

Hey everyone! This is Ember Nickel (primeideal), longtime fan and occasional author of fanfic. A few months ago, I completed a long series reread of Animorphs, jotting down things that caught my eye along the way. Starting around book 9 (and Megamorphs 1), I noticed a couple patterns of things I'd like to discuss further. Here, I'll be talking about more of the "science" side of "science fiction." So the intro-y stuff will be a biology refresher course, and then it'll be onto the fandom aspects! (Feel free to skim.)

For those of you who do know more about biology than me, I'm sorry if I've egregiously misrepresented any of the details. I'm also sorry if I'm quibbling about something that annoys me more than it annoys you, but I had to get this out there.

( Read more... )

Entry tags:

"Nonviolence" ficlet

Freebie "nonviolence" ficlet for the Crowdfunding Creative Jam.

chordatesrock prompted "Someone travels one or more universes full of conflict, healing people indiscriminately," and I've been on an Animorphs kick, so...this happened.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: hopeful

Entry tags:

Fandom Appreciation Week: Post (and mid)-54 Animorphs

(This, and perhaps the next few posts, and indeed the previous, are for Fandom Appreciation Week, hosted at

china_shop 's journal.)

The first fanfiction I really wrote--though I didn't know what it was called at the time--came via the Animorphs fandom, what some might call "fix fic." For the uninitiated, Animorphs, despite being a series of paperbacks, mostly ghost-written with plots returning to the status quo after each adventure, turned dark and inconclusive at the end, alienating me and perhaps many others. As a result, there's lots of fanfiction set after the end, trying to make sense of it all--and, of course, like any good series, there's more satisfied fare as well. Since most of my reading and writing is done away from this journal setup, it's particularly easy for me to come up with three favorites.

Animorphs: the beginning: the conclusion by Shivanfire: A "happy accident," in the parlance of the fandom, for me that this fic was completed (after four years in the making) just after I arrived on FFN. An amazing re-imagining of what might have happened after the series ended. Not completely happily-ever-after for everyone, which is good! But still in keeping with the themes of hope that were emphasized early on, and at least in tone, a far better match for those early books than the ending we were left with. (Rated T: 18,000 words.)

I Kill One Aux by HotPinkCoffee: Few titles go from being so confusing to so perfect within so short a fic. This fic starts a little before book 54, but is as good an explanation as any I've read for its...confusing...ending. Technically it's outside of FFN site rules; technically, I'm looking the other way. (Rated T: 700 words)

Surcharge by Qoheleth: A drabble sequence involving some OCs, or, thinking seriously but hilariously about how these SF scenarios would really play out. (Actually, an entire list of three fics could have been Qoheleth's thinking seriously but hilariously about how these SF scenarios would really play out. They are that good.) Best part? The title and each chapter title, in keeping with the "drabble" theme, are Dollar Words. (Rated K: 4x100 words)

It's an amazing fandom that came to a stupid end, but readers' loss has certainly been fanficcers' gain.