Weird Science

Tobias is the central tragic figure of the animorphs, even if he doesn't get as many books. He's literally so chosen one coded. He's a suicidal trans bird. He's full of hope for humanity. He is deeply alienated from his own humanity. He survived abuse and neglect. His dad's a fucking alien prince. He saved a different alien species from extinction, and became the namesake of their first free leader in like, three generations. God talks to him personally and doesn't do anything that he wants. He's the most character of all time. He's just like me for real. No one is doing it like him.

And Rachel!!!! Girl has the best character arc of the entire book series (outside the Hork Bajir Chronicles but I digress). She's a princess. She's a monster. She's the pretty one. She beat a man to death with her own severed arm. She sacrificed herself for humanity. She self-destructively followed orders to her own demise. She almost gave up her human life and became a cat forever just to comfort a crying friend. She's Satan's most specialist favorite teenager. And she was a Packard Award winning student to boot!

But together, they form the messiest, most dysfunctional situationship that any middle schooler ever read about. They love each other. They flirt with other people (or birds). Rachel cared about Tobias when everyone else thought he was some weirdo who would never amount to anything. She also wants him to stop living as his authentic self because it's inconvenient to her. Tobias thinks that Rachel is the most beautiful creature ever to grace the earth. He also enables her most self-destructive tendencies and romanticizes her for being the monster she doesn't want to become. He knows that she loves him no matter what. He was mortified that she saw him eating roadkill, and fears her judgement like death itself. She celebrates his birthday with him, even though he forgot when his birthday even was. She also, and I cannot stress this enough, thinks that he should leave the fight that gives him his only living purpose and stop living in the body that he's chosen for himself because she doesn't know how to be a bird's girlfriend (and like, fair. Not a normal situation tbh). They are doomed by the narrative. Together ❤️

Eridian speculative biology time!

Erid is a very big planet, very very very big planet, twice the size of earth in fact- and divided by oceans, perfect conditions for populations to remain and develop separately and for long enough to create diferent species. So, unlike us, Eridians are a Polytypic genus: there's more than one species of sapient eridian, All of them sharing a common ancestor in the form of a small, 5 legged ambush-hunter land carnivore, all share common traits taking only slightly different evolutionary paths

Divers- get their name from living in semi-flooded caves, their high small vents allow them to be partially submerged without drowning and their long arms allow them to grip things easily underwater, similar to a sea-horse tail

Climbers- similarly, they get their name from their living enviroment, living in very high caves, their long thin arms allow them to grip and climb very steep rock walls, kinda like goats in a way

Drills and Stompers get their name from the shape of their arms, they both developed closer to the surface compared to the others, their arms are like that for dealing with sandstorms, while Drills "drill" themselfs in place, Stompers use their body weight to keep themselfs down

Blocks are very similar to Stompers, but they live in caves much deeper down, so they're quite compact

Common traits between all species: all Eridians can thrum, all Eridians organize in "colonies" like ants or termites (tho the specifics of how each colony works varies), all Eridians are True Carnivores(can only eat meat) and all Eridians are unisex

In theory any one eridian can procreate with any other eridian, between the 5 species there are 4 fertile hybrids and 3 infertile hybrids posible

note: tho each species has a more broad vague shared culture between themselves, none of them are a monolith, all of them have vastly different culture, language, texture, practices and even phenotypes between different colonies around the world

note 2: the fact humans are a monotypic species (there is only one in our genus) is really fucking weird to them

I- UFY767CBD!!??? YOU!!!