#animorphs fandom

I'm so happy that these books that mean so much to me have a fandom, and someone so dedicated to breaking down these books and talking about the content within them. Please keep up the fantastic work. (And I'm so sorry about the spam of like and reblog notifications you might get after I finish the series oh no)

She truly is an underrated treasure of humanity.

Months ago, I had the serendipitous and very unexpected opportunity to go to an event she was at, 12 minutes from my house.

I was delirious with excitement. I don't think even I understood the awesome emotional enormity of what I'd gotten the privilege to experience.

Tonight I did. I'm crying as I write this, with the realization that I got to meet (and got a hug from!) the author who shaped my young adulthood.

I mean, I can take you to the exact geographic spot on the planet Earth, where I was sitting in 6th grade (USAmerican), and I saw the Animorphs book one advertisement in the scholastic book flyer.

I didn't know it then, but what I felt was the fulcrum of destiny weighing on me, and I chose to commit myself to those books. And like almost every other reader, I was forever changed.

I never, in a million gazillion years, in my most wild imaginings, even in the absolute heights of my young adult flights of fancy, did I ever think I'd get within miles of Katherine Applegate. Let alone get to hug her, as a thank you for changing my life!

We, the Animorphs fandom, are truly one of the most dedicated and blessed and undervalued and underappreciated fandoms. But we're all family, knit together by struggle, and pain, and bonds of friendship and connections that run deeper than family.

To all my fellow friends, family, and fellow shorms.

So a friend of mine (whose name I'm excluding for privacy reasons) is reading Animorphs for the first time, and once she reached about book three (The Encounter), she started giving me some commentary on her thoughts with the series. I asked her if I could share what she's sent me, and she said yes, so here's what she's sent me so far, which will be continued in future posts as time goes on:

(these first messages are around the time of her readthrough of book 3)

The next messages were books 4-7, as well as a bit of jumping ahead that she did.

For reference, "Theola" who she's mentioning is my D&D character that I play in a campaign we're in together. Theola was actually loosely based on Cassie.

She's well-aware that this book series is from the 90s, by the way. She's just giving some extra input on the feel of the series.

So that's what she's sent me so far! I'm really enjoying the commentary, so I'm glad she said I could share it with Tumblr. I hope the other Animorphs fans here find this as entertaining as I do.

Rosebud was the name of his tenga egg.  

I am so glad that my twenty-three years’ revenge on my brother for daring to speak anything but golden encomiums of my work made someone happy. Thinking about Animorphs fanfic still has the power to make me happy, to be honest. The series was so good. Early fandom was so good. I was reading it back in 1997 and 1998, and following the series as the books actually dropped (when The Pretender dropped we all went absolutely out of our tiny little minds) was something I will keep with me for ever.