Idiot Teens with a Death Wish

Sort of like the IT AU: it only works if they’re really really bad at their jobs.  I’m picturing one of those weird genre mashups like you get in little local bands that don’t make it (usually for a good reason), like the one in my town that’s all banjos and screaming.

Cassie would have the doom metal aesthetic, where everything is very slow and very thoughtful and everything happens extremely gradually over the course of a 35-minute song.  She’s be in the background with her synthesizer and her vocalizations, playing Boys II Men so slowly that it evokes intense dread as it washes over you one note at a time, the entire time the rest of the Animorphs are doing their set.

Rachel would be on percussion.  What percussion, and which song she’d be matching, would be a mystery known only to her.  Cates has headcanoned that Rachel would go through like 12 sets of drumsticks a night, because she really likes throwing and smashing drumsticks, and I am 100% on board with this.  There would be a lot of energy, and a lot of headbanging.  Probably less of this mysterious quality known as “rhythm,” but don’t tell Rachel that.

Jake would be singing doggedly away at his emo white-boy hip-hop tunes.  He’d have written them himself, and no he wouldn’t take criticism.  He’d be the lead singer, and the lead singer’s job would be to give the whole band pep talks to convince them that this time people would applaud instead of falling asleep or throwing coasters at them.  It’d probably help if Jake would take constructive criticism, though.

Ax knows perfectly well that all human music is terrible.  That’s why he has instead decided to mix a set of sounds superior to human music.  Such as the ding of an order-ready bell at the local CinnaBon.  Or the soft susurration of a waterfall.  Or the screech of a malfunctioning engine lock.  Or the rhythmic hum of a dishwasher.  He adds these sounds at random times during the set, and any time he wants to liven up the mood.

Marco has “exotic dancer” on his résumé, but in reality he’s mostly on keyboard and backup vocals.  It’s just that he chooses to vocalize with his entire body, beatboxes and grapevines, twerking and ululation.  He plays the keyboard with his elbows, with his sneakers, with the toss of his hair.  There are a lot of key smashes and piano sweeps, far fewer chords or individual notes.  It’s dance, and the music that happens to come from it is entirely incidental.

It’s a plot point in the early stages of the war that the Yeerk homeworld is under occupation by Andalite forces. I couldn’t remember if they ever managed to take their homeworld back, and looking through the fanwiki didn’t help me there. Assuming they didn’t, the Yeerk Empire as we understand it is descended from the group of renegades that killed their Andalite handlers and escaped into space. Running with this assumption opens up the possibility that they aren’t actually representative of Yeerks as a whole, but rather that they are a faction that claims to be representing all Yeerks.

Which lines up really well with how historical and contemporary fascist movements claim to speak for everyone they supposedly represent.

What I propose is that instead of the militaristic assholes escaping into space, the renegades that leave are committed to true Yeerk liberation. Their MO is not to conquer and enslave, but to seek allies against the Andalites who are keeping their people hostage. The lived reality of first contact is unnerving and upsetting to everyone involved, since their options in the early days to communicate their mission still involve crawling into someone’s brain without necessarily being able to tell them what is about to happen.

But they don’t have to seize control of their potential ally. They can limit themselves to explaining their situation and begging for help. Early days are rough when your faction is so new on the scene that you can’t even speak the common trade languages of the galaxy. There’s no way that potential allies don’t rebuff them because they’re upset about how personal the Yeerk liaison has to be to communicate anything. Even sympathetic individuals might take exception to how thoroughly Yeerks have access to their private thoughts and feelings.

But they sometimes find that one person who agrees with their mission. That one person who sees the Andalites not as heroes or do-gooders, but as bullies who have declared themselves the only legitimate authority in the galaxy. People who take exception to being ordered around by xenophobes who happen to have the best ships and weapons. Allies who have their own reasons for taking the Andalites down a peg.

I do think that there’s an interesting implication there, because (as I’ve mentioned) most of the morphs in Animorphs are characterization.  Not so much the obvious metaphors (fox = clever, rabbit = fast, etc.) but rather the specific qualities of the animals that the text chooses to focus on.  For example, Ax using snake morph in #8 is about it being this weird but surprisingly powerful Earth animal, because in context it’s all about Ax coming to appreciate Earth.  Marco using snake morph in #20 is about how cold and calculating snake minds are, because in context Marco’s the first one to recognize how callous David is... because they’re so like-minded.

Anyway, osprey.

A lot of the in-text descriptions focus on its versatility.  Ospreys can operate in and around water better than red-tailed hawks, but not as well as seagulls (MM2).  Ospreys are smaller and faster than eagles (#14) but not as small or fast as peregrine falcons (#31).  Ospreys do better over long distances than either eagles or falcons, but not nearly as well as geese or ducks (#51).  Osprey blends in better than red-tailed hawk once controllers start recognizing Tobias (#27), but osprey still does not blend in nearly as well as pigeon or seagull (#21).  Ospreys have better vision in non-optimal conditions like glare or low lighting than red-tails or harriers, but cannot match the low-light vision of owls (#50).

So what’s that say about Cassie and Marco, “the only two real survivors” (#54) of the team?  Partially, them using the same morph — not just as raptors, but also how often Marco uses wolf — is about foreshadowing that reality.  Ospreys adapt, and wolves endure.  Those two compromise a hell of a lot, and then they figure out how to live with themselves after those compromises.  However, I also think that it’s a comment on their role on the team.

If you’ll forgive a metaphor that Animorphs trashes: let’s talk about chess. 

The obvious connection is Jake and Rachel as the king and the queen, respectively.  The king (Jake) is pretty unimpressive on his own (#21, #31) and incredibly powerful as part of a team (#26, #34, etc.).  Most importantly, the team cannot function without the king, even if it can get by without any other single piece, to the point where outsized effort gets devoted to defending him (MM3, #37).  The queen (Rachel) is easily the most powerful offensive piece on the board (#1, #7, etc.) to the point where she leads the charge much of the time and often goes daringly far into enemy territory (#17, #25).  The check on her power then becomes her very boldness — because opponents will often be gunning for her first (#54).

So what I think the osprey points to is Marco and Cassie’s role as the team’s bishops.  The bishops are best known for their opposite-but-equal roles.  One can only use the black squares; one can only use the white.  Both are easier to hem in than knights or rooks, meaning that they go undervalued by amateur players.  Both are capable of zooming clear from one corner of the board to the other, if the pawns get out of the way and give them that bright clear line for the kind of devastating distance attacks that amateur players often don’t see coming.  Bishops are harder to track at first blush than rooks, because while they’re still moving only in straight lines they move along lines that are harder for the eye to trace than the neat rows or columns that rooks use. 

Cassie and Marco are diametrically opposed in many regards.  Marco thinks about the big picture first, last, and always, to the point where he tends to neglect the little guy.  Cassie thinks about the little guy so much that she tends to neglect the big picture.  But they’re both needed to keep the team in check, not in the least because they can be counted on to follow their own nature.  Jake can send either one of them to act as lieutenant for a partial team, because he knows exactly what they’ll do.  Cassie will stick by her ethics, and Marco will stick by his.  Neither one of them will make impulsive decisions like Rachel, or decide mid-mission that they’ll go off book like Tobias or Ax.

Marco and Cassie think things through.  They’re usually the ones to come up with plans — Jake’s role is far more about making snap decisions mid-battle — and the ones to kick around others’ plans in search of the flaws.  Cassie and Marco arguing with each other is how 80% of the decisions on the team get made.  (There’s too many examples to list, but some of my favorite arguments between them are in #9, #19, MM3, #30, #43, and #46.)

Marco and Cassie move along straight lines, but their straight lines are not everyone else’s straight lines.  Even some of their most shocking-in-context decisions are still aligned with their individual priorities.  Marco tries to kill Eva because it’s expedient, to use Marco’s own word, in that it advances the Animorphs’ goals at all costs (#30).  Cassie stops Jake from killing Tom because it follows her dedication to minimizing unnecessary harm, especially when Jake’s alleged long-term ends that justify his current means are nebulous at best (#50).  It’s notable that Jake is not just angry but flabbergasted when Marco risks everyone’s life by morphing with a noseful of teammates in #42 — it’s wildly uncharacteristic for Marco.  Rachel or even Ax might morph on impulse in a moment of strong emotion, and Tobias might decide to do his own thing at any given moment.  But Marco (or Cassie) would never take that kind of risk without thinking things through... unless, of course, Marco had rabies.

Okay, this is fabulous and incredibly spot-on, but I need you to know that I feel punched in the face by everything between "morphing with a noseful of teammates" and "Marco had rabies."  What the fuck happened in book 42.  Did I black out and miss it entirely.  Animorphs what the FUCK.   (Man I love these books.)