Back home in Tyria

Controversial opinion incoming: I don't like the end of this book.

Like, this post really sums it up:

Animorphs is not that bad. Cassie's not related to anyone important, at least, and Jake's tie to Tom is mostly just inconvenient. HOWEVER. It's still canon that the Ellimist "stacked the deck" by recruiting Animorphs who are relatives of people like Eva and Elfangor and Tom, and the implication about ~*~superior genes~*~ is still in there.

To me, the reveal about Tobias being related to Elfangor:

Cheapens the message about these being ordinary kids — dumb jocks, bully magnets, screw-ups — who are literally in the wrong place at the wrong time when superheroism gets thrust upon them. Jake is my favorite because he cuts against type for SF heroes: he's not an outsider nerd, he's not talented; he's just some dumb jock who is also kind and brave and optimistic. Giving Tobias the classic SF backstory makes him less relatable, in my book.

Undercuts Tobias's friendship with Ax. Along with the backlash to "they're such good friends they must be in love", I'd like to start a backlash against "they're such good friends they must be related." Because it's still implying that some types of love are more valid than others. The shorms are family before they find out they share genes; do we really need that added element?

Undercuts Tobias's own call to action in the first book. Tobias makes this instant connection with a stranger from another species, in a way that Jake notes only Tobias could ever do, and it ends up pulling all five human kids into the war. There's heartbreaking power to the idea that Tobias is this overflowing with empathy and also naïveté. But whoops, nope, turns out it was a genetic connection all along!

Straight up doesn't make sense? It's a rare case where Animorphs' otherwise pretty good continuity slips up big time — Loren's three husbands, Chapman's contagious amnesia, both Tobias's parents going from "dead" to "missing", Ax's childhood suddenly being illogical. There are so many ret-con gymnastics going on that this twist doesn't feel worth it.

Loses the realism. Animorphs has my love forever for details like Marco not being able to afford admission to the Gardens and Ax fighting tears at the thought of disappointing his dad and Rachel having to be the second parent to her sisters. Tobias having a dogshit home life, just because, and using morphing as a desperate escape hatch — that's realism. That feels perfectly in line with the themes of the series. It feels like things I saw as a kid that no adult, and no other kids' book series, would talk about. Tobias having a dogshit home life because his dad's an alien prince who got time-warped off to fight a cosmic war while his mom was attacked by his dad's ancient enemies and given fantasy!amnesia because of her former role as the first human ever to be mind-controlled... Fuck off. If I wanted fantasy escapism, I'd read a different book.

Like, "Tobias is Elfangors son" feels like a twist that could be done in Animorphs (honestly, they couldve just had him leave either by choice or Andalites coming to Earth to bring him back and Lorens memory just erased by Andalite tech, thus hitting on those themes of war and duty and the Andalites kinds sucking.) But him being Elfanors son doesn't really change anything. Tobias's stories are still more about him being a hawk or being with Rachel. Even his relationship with Ax feels like it should....change more considering Tobias is his nephew. Heck, maybe it'd even be cool to see what the Andalite's as whole think on that. Like, what ARE the Andalite rules for interapecies breeding while in morph? Feels like something that should come up. Hell, how does Tobias feel about Elfangor now, since he has to ASSUME his father abandoned him and his mom to go fight the Yeerks? Resentful? Angry? Hurt? Tobias being Elfangor's son isn't really something that changes anything like it should. I'd even argue Marco's mom being Visser one has more effect because it drastically changes how Marco considers his mission in the war and his motivation.

And yes, all the other family connections pretty much get a pass from me as well. Tom's role is mostly 'surprise, kid; you thought you could ignore the war but it turns out there's already a yeerk living inside your home." And even when that yeerk does become important for the war effort, it becomes important because of Jake -- it steals the morphing cube and gets a giant promotion by holding Jake's family hostage against him. So that connection isn't coincidence. Ax is similar -- he was the only aristh on his Dome ship because he's Elfangor's little brother, not out of luck.

As you said, Eva and Marco feels more coincidental, but even then you can argue that Marco is an Animorph because of Eva. And it's a major plot point that Marco wants Visser One in particular dead. Just like it's a major plot point that Visser Seventeen* wants Jake in particular dead, just like it's a major plot point that Elfangor's death requires Ax to kill Visser Three.

Elfangor had an escafil device on his ship. There is absolutely no reason for that to be the case. He could already morph, and it was critically important that such devices not fall into yeerk hands; why would they be flying them around space? Why wouldn't they be confined to the home planet by the military? There was no reason at all to have one, unless he knew when he left that he would need it.

Elfangor didn't attempt to morph to escape or heal after crash-landing. Most people explain this away as him not wanting to provoke a search and get the kids killed, which is a reasonable explanation, but given how much of a fighter he is at heart and that he knew where the time matrix was hidden and would be expected to at least attempt a last dash for it even if he had to play distraction at the same time, I think a more reasonable explanation is that it was part of a longer strategy -- he knew that he would die there, and that was the price he was paying. He knew that he wouldn't find the time matrix in that construction site. He landed there knowing how it would play out.

Elfangor knows that Tobias is his son immediately. We're told they feel a connection to each other etc., but this is a weird thing to be certain about if you weren't informed in advance.

My opinion has always been that the Ellimist let Elfangor have a son, because he needed him to later on give his life and break one of the andalites' most sacred laws, and he needed leverage to make him agree to this. He couldn't be sure if "this planet where you once met a cool alien is in trouble" would be enough. But "your wife, who you fell in love with and spent years with, and your one and only son who needs your help, are in danger of death or enslavement and only you can give them a chance?" That's absolutely enough leverage.

We had just adopted an obese cat we thought was female named “Tiger”, turns out he was just too fat to ID the sex without getting in there.

there’s sixteen Colorado counties that their most searched was “wolf furry”, plus thirty-odd counties (not counting either Arapahoe or any of the ones marked here as “Insufficient Data”) which may well have had plenty of searches for “wolf furry”, just fewer than for whatever they’re labeled here

and “skunk furry” searches in Arapahoe County outnumbered “wolf furry” searches in the entire state of Colorado

Botanically, a tomato is a fruit. A fruit is scientifically defined as the part of a plant that develops from the ovary after flowering and surrounds the seeds. It’s defined by its structure and function. In botanical categorization, apples, peaches, grapes, tomatoes, bananas, avocados, pumpkins, peppers, and corn kernels are fruits.

Culinarily, a tomato is a vegetable, because it’s a plant food that is neither starchy nor sweet and you usually don’t just eat it raw. Vegetables are culinarily defined by their flavor and how you cook them. In culinary categorization, any part of a plant can be a vegetable: roots (carrots, parsnips), leaves (lettuce, kale), stems (celery), seeds (peas, lima beans), and yes fruits (tomatoes, peppers, pumpkins). In culinary categorization, “fruits” are usually botanical fruits, though occasionally they are other parts of the plant instead, as long as they’re juicy and sweet (strawberries are actually the stems of a plant; the ovaries surrounding the seeds are the little seeds on the outside! Pineapples and figs are a weird flower-ovary fusion called multiple inflorescence!)

These are simply two different categorizational schemes that through the weirdness of historical linguistics use the same word “fruit” to mean different segments of the totality of plants. Neither is incorrect, because they are two different ways of categorizing plants for two different purposes.

Categories aren’t “real.” Categories don’t exist in nature. Things exist in nature, plants exist in nature, rocks and animals and genes and hormones and human experiences exist in nature. And humans look at the totality of everything and we come up with names and categories to sort and understand them. A category is not real; it is only useful or not useful. Botanical categories are useful for different reasons than culinary categories are, but they’re both useful ways to break up and understand the world. And they are useful in their own contexts, and may not be useful in other contexts. Botany has no use for defining what is and isn’t a “vegetable” so that’s just not a category in scientific botany. It’s a useful category for low-sweetness low-starch plant parts you cook in order to eat, though.

And we put everything into categories, and we have reasons for categorizing things the way we do—but we choose what traits are important to group by, and what traits aren’t. Vegetables, nuts, fruits, and grains are culinary plant food categories. And some categories are silly, like “is a taco a sandwich?” That’s a categorization game: what traits do we decide make an individual item part of the category or not?

They were a continuation of the Egyptian tradition of funerary masks but rather than sculpting them and making them of precious metals, they began painting these lifelike portraits.

It’s hotly debated whether this is an example of Greco-Roman realist style imposed on their subjects, or a home grown Egyptian development of their own ancient tradition. Those who say it’s more Egyptian than Roman point out that there’s no surviving paintings in the rest of the Roman Empire that were this realistic. Those who say it’s more Roman than Egyptian point out the arid climate left these portraits intact, and beleive the others in the rest of the empire were lost.

Personally I think you can call them Egyptian because these people, whether of Roman or ancient Egyptian descent, are still the ancestors of the modern Egyptians today.

“They’re not smarter or faster they’re buying up others’ lifetimes to do their chores”

I see this reaction a lot, and I gotta say, it always makes me a little sad. Whenever the conversation of exploitation of labor comes up, inevitably someone finds themselves struggling with the guilt of “It is so important to me not to contribute to exploitation but I cannot do this thing myself and need someone else to do it for me, so how do I even approach that?”

Exploitation isn’t in the hiring of a service worker. Exploitation is in the respect you show them for their ability to perform the service you need from them.

I have been on a cleaning service staff before, and also been someone who hired a cleaning service, and I can tell you for sure that a lot of cleaning crews (especially worker owned ones) absolutely LOVE their clients and are genuinely happy to be able to make their lives better. The clients they don’t like? Those are the ones who disrespect the workers.

When I was involved with a cleaning service, we had everything from little old ladies living alone to McMasions with five cars as clients, and I can assure you that whenever there was someone who clearly hired us because they were overwhelmed or unable to keep their space clean, those were the households where you put a little more elbow grease in and did a deep clean even when it wasn’t paid for, because you could see how much these people were trying and struggling, and they were always so kind and generous and often embarrassed when talking to you about the job.

I only hired a service a couple if times in my life, but whenever I did, I worked with the same people as often as I could, tipped as well as I could afford, and tried to be the kind of client I would want to have, and that’s how I often ended up with my baseboards cleaned too, or my fridge scrubbed and organized or a restorative clean done in a high use room even when that wasn’t what I had scheduled or paid for.

I’ve heard the same thing from all manner of service workers over the years. Many of us like our jobs! We enjoy the work. It’s the customers that can do a number on you.

a story about grief

I was reading one story where the apocalypse was impossibly-rising oceans. Like, water is appearing from *waves hand* the Earth's crust or something, and literally all dry surface land on Earth is going to become underwater in X years. Part of the story was about a giant research project to invent FTL to send a few hundred humans to a nearby star which might have a habitable planet. You know what they were hoping to find? A planet with liquid water. Their plan was to descend from their starship and restart civilization using just the tools they brought with them, on a world with no life and no breathable air and the wrong gravity and the wrong temperate and the wrong sunlight and the wrong day-night cycle, just because it had liquid water. You know where else has liquid water? The flooded Earth you just abandoned. Instead of researching starship technology, you could have spent that time loading up all the same civilization-restarter tools into boats.