Idiot Teens with a Death Wish

(ok this ended up LONG, throwing a cut in here goodness- )

There's a fic someone wrote that's title is this exact ask, and I think it's a pretty good example of how to make the yeerks good

Oh wow, I hadn't heard of it — I must check it out!

There's a fic someone wrote that's title is this exact ask, and I think it's a pretty good example of how to make the yeerks good

Oh wow, I hadn't heard of it — I must check it out!

Barely Coping Berensons sounds like an emo band from the early 2000s. Jake is the lead singer with a gruff smoker’s voice (regardless of whether or not he actually smokes.) Tom is the guitarist who pours his anger into his riffs and the one who tells Jake to take a goddamn break when he decides Jake needs it. Rachel is the drummer who isn’t always good at aligning with the rest of the band but whose solos make the audience scream with excitement. Jordan is the bassist who keeps them on a more-or-less even keel. Sarah is the makeup artist in charge of applying the black liquid eyeliner and making sure Jake’s bangs cover at least half his face. 

The Invasion is such an excellent one-two-three punch of an opening that I've never seen it topped in series fiction. Animorphs tells you EXACTLY what you're getting into with the first book.

We get about 3 pages of our heroes having wonder and joy at aliens being real before #1 hits us with the graphic onscreen death-by-cannibalism of this kind, caring stranger. And if Jake being chased by 7-foot blade monsters wasn't scary enough, he only escapes because a human bystander dies in his place.

So Jake goes home. To his nuclear suburban family, and his piddly sports problems, and his nice morph-training sequence with his friends. And just kidding there's a yeerk living inside your home already and it knows where you sleep. But that's fine, we'll just tell an adul — oh shit the cops are controllers the reporters are controllers the camp counselors are controllers the vice principal's a controller Elfangor really fucking undersold this problem.

So it's up to them, they guess. And Marco might be scared of dying, and Cassie might be reluctant to fight, but Tobias seems 100% confident they can save the world! So they go. And they don't save Tom, and they get people killed, and they do nothing to hurt Visser Three. And they don't even all make it home at the end of the day. Because it turns out Animorphs is not only a series where supporting characters die; it's a series where the main characters get permanently injured and will never be the same again.

Like [SPOILERS FOR VARIOUS HORROR MOVIES] Kane in Alien, Johnny in Night of the Living Dead, Dan in Frozen, Jonathan in Dracula, Hutch in The Ritual, Jason in Cloverfield, Mathias in The Ruins, Mary in Sinners, or Frank in 28 Days Later. [END SPOILERS]

Those characters all exist to be not just supporting cast members but people we know, people we like... who then encounter terrible fates that make the stakes of the rest of the story all too real. Each of them gets a moment that shifts the story from being adventurous (Alien, Cloverfield), family-oriented (Sinners, Night of the Living Dead), or "scary but we're handling it" (The Ritual, Dracula) to HOLY HELL WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE at the moment the eldritch forces eat them alive. They make clear this is a space where damage is permanent, where death is real and Captain America's not gonna popping back up 6 issues later good as new, and where anyone can die.

I had to do a little bit of digging around but I think the relevant tropes are: "The Worf Effect" when a strong/known character is defeated to show an enemy's strength, and "Sacrifical Lion", an important character killed to show an enemy's strength or that shot just got Real.

#i think ‘go for the heart’ works a little better#since the character in question is typically the emotional center of the group#and thus typically ‘the heart’ as in the trope#though admittedly Cassie is more the heart of the Animorphs#we really don’y have too many examples lf the team operating without Cassie come to think of it#when she’s alone we’re normally in her POV#except the taxxon book. they go without her in that one and immediately fall into a trap#Animorphs

You're right that "heart" isn't quite Always Kill James, because while "heart" can mean center, it also implies warmth/caring. It's the motivating character you have to take out, the one who centers and grounds the others on the team. Like, Frozen is about heroic Dan, Dan's bro-ey abrasive friend, and Dan's girlfriend who doesn't even want to be there... so of course it kills Dan first. Cloverfield introduces us to cool-guy Jason, Jason's brother, Jason's friend, Jason's girlfriend, and Jason's hanger-on... and 15 minutes later, it kills Jason. The James is the guy who pushes the friend group forward and pulls them back, who reins in the wilder (Sirius) elements and draws out the quieter (Peter) ones. So the best way to sow chaos and force interesting character reckonings is Always Kill James.

Tobias only really plays that role before being nothlited. In #1, Tobias puts Jake in charge, Tobias talks Cassie and Rachel into joining the war effort, and Tobias gets all the others to try morphing. It's Tobias's idea to try fighting the war themselves instead of telling an adult (like Elfangor suggested), and it's Tobias who walks right up and starts talking to the scary alien while the others are half-planning to run away. But Tobias being trapped in morph knocks him out of that role, and forces a change in motivation for the rest of his team.

The Invasion is such an excellent one-two-three punch of an opening that I've never seen it topped in series fiction. Animorphs tells you EXACTLY what you're getting into with the first book.

We get about 3 pages of our heroes having wonder and joy at aliens being real before #1 hits us with the graphic onscreen death-by-cannibalism of this kind, caring stranger. And if Jake being chased by 7-foot blade monsters wasn't scary enough, he only escapes because a human bystander dies in his place.

So Jake goes home. To his nuclear suburban family, and his piddly sports problems, and his nice morph-training sequence with his friends. And just kidding there's a yeerk living inside your home already and it knows where you sleep. But that's fine, we'll just tell an adul — oh shit the cops are controllers the reporters are controllers the camp counselors are controllers the vice principal's a controller Elfangor really fucking undersold this problem.

So it's up to them, they guess. And Marco might be scared of dying, and Cassie might be reluctant to fight, but Tobias seems 100% confident they can save the world! So they go. And they don't save Tom, and they get people killed, and they do nothing to hurt Visser Three. And they don't even all make it home at the end of the day. Because it turns out Animorphs is not only a series where supporting characters die; it's a series where the main characters get permanently injured and will never be the same again.

Like [SPOILERS FOR VARIOUS HORROR MOVIES] Kane in Alien, Johnny in Night of the Living Dead, Dan in Frozen, Jonathan in Dracula, Hutch in The Ritual, Jason in Cloverfield, Mathias in The Ruins, Mary in Sinners, or Frank in 28 Days Later. [END SPOILERS]

Those characters all exist to be not just supporting cast members but people we know, people we like... who then encounter terrible fates that make the stakes of the rest of the story all too real. Each of them gets a moment that shifts the story from being adventurous (Alien, Cloverfield), family-oriented (Sinners, Night of the Living Dead), or "scary but we're handling it" (The Ritual, Dracula) to HOLY HELL WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE at the moment the eldritch forces eat them alive. They make clear this is a space where damage is permanent, where death is real and Captain America's not gonna popping back up 6 issues later good as new, and where anyone can die.

I had to do a little bit of digging around but I think the relevant tropes are: "The Worf Effect" when a strong/known character is defeated to show an enemy's strength, and "Sacrifical Lion", an important character killed to show an enemy's strength or that shot just got Real.

This book earns its reputation for being silly and inconsequential, yes. But BOY HOWDY does the series need a light book as of #24. The series-altering gut punch of the David Trilogy, then the hork-bajir crisis in #23, are just behind us. The epic kids-vs-gods plot of #26 and #27 is coming up. Hork-Bajir Chronicles is just behind, and Megamorphs 3 ahead. Comic relief is meant to be a literal term — when done well, it gives the audience a chance to let out a breath and relax their shoulders before the tension starts ramping back up.

Interesting that Cassie lists humans' attractive qualities (to yeerks) as "Humans, with fingers more delicate and capable than any taxxon or hork-bajir or gedd. Humans, who could be fed almost anything... Humans, who exist in numbers far greater than all those species combined. We are the perfect host bodies." (p. 3).

Also: I love how the helmacrons serve as a sort of character checkpoint. The kids are so casual about a second alien invasion because they've gotten so good at fighting the first. Arguably the helmacrons are a serious threat to Earth — their shrinking ray could in theory do a lot of damage to a lot of humans, and they know the Animorphs' identities — but the Animorphs themselves are jaded enough to respond with a collective eye-roll rather than fear.

Rachel with the makeshift weapons! Morphing is for Tobias and the others; she has a baseball bat, and a brick, and another brick, and two perfectly good fists. Also, Jake shamelessly cowering behind Rachel and her brick supply. Hard same.

"Tobias turned, but he was shrinking fast. He was already down to about hummingbird size... «Well, this is unfortunate,» he said" (p. 40). Most Tobias response ever. Shout-out to Sisi Aisha Johnson for her bone-dry delivery on this line.

[Nonny, you shall have to see if you agree with my reasoning or not.]

• I can't tell you who I am, or where I'm from.  As in, I can't.  Seriously, I can't remember.  I woke up in an area of forest that I didn't recognize, which could mean anything — I don't remember any places.  Maybe these woods were just outside my house — if I even had a house.  Maybe I was thousands of miles from my home.  I just don't know.

• I woke up under a tree.  I was lying on the uneven stick-stabbing ground, my head aching like someone was banging at the top of it with a rubber mallet, trying to unstick my brains like so many rusted-on gaskets.  If so, it wasn't working.

"Hello?" I said out loud.  It came out weirdly garbled.  My mouth wasn't moving how I expected, something misaligned.  That wasn't right.  I just knew, in a way I didn't know which was was home or even my own name, that I wasn't supposed to sound like this.

I was meant to have lips and teeth, not this... this ceratioid thing I could feel on the front of my face when I raised my fingers toward it.  Toward, because I wimped out before actually touching it.  It was like an open wound.  It was not a part of this body.  I knew that much.  I was certain.

Focus, I told myself.  You need to figure out what to do with... this.  You'll die out here if you don't.

And then I felt it, something moving deep under my skin.  A sound escaped me then, a whimper of pure horror but with a bird's hoarse cry somewhere in there as well.  I swear, at that exact moment, a cloud passed over the sun.  Just one, where the sky was otherwise clear, and then it was gone.  But it was like the weather was changing around me with my thoughts — or else my vision was.

This was wrong, this was so wrong, this wasn't supposed to be happening...  But before long it was done, and I was left with two lips, several teeth, and a much clearer voice.

"Hello?" I said again.  Better.

"Hello!"  I yelled it this time, twisting my aching head to look around myself.  "Hello!  Please, someone help me, I'm lost!  I need help!  I was flying, and then I fell—"

Abruptly I stopped talking.  Flying?  What was that about?  Flying.  I was...  I looked again at my fingers, my nails, my arms and legs and toes.  Human.  Humans didn't fly.

"I hit my head!" I called, an edge of real desperation now.  "And now I'm losing my mind!"

The echoes faded into the trees, and no one answered.

• After another minute of sitting there and shouting, all the while battling the urge to cry, I gave up on shouting and pushed to my feet.  Turning in a slow circle, I tried to get my bearings.  Trees, all around me, most of them so tall that their lowest branches were above my head.  Sunlight from mid-morning or mid-afternoon, I couldn't tell which one.  The only thing out of place was the spot of blood on the trunk of the tree directly above me, about twenty feet up on its trunk.  I could feel a swelling on the right side of my forehead, but if I fell from that height, why didn't I have any broken bones or even scrapes?  As I stood there, another sound gradually became clear to me: water, from somewhere to my right.

"You're supposed to follow running water, right?"  I spoke out loud, in case there was anyone looking for me.  "It's a... clothesline.  I think.  A straight line you follow if you're lost in the woods, because otherwise you naturally walk in circles."

Then I shut my mouth, listening for the sound.  Definitely to my right.  I started that way, listening carefully.  Bare feet and forested floor were a painful combination, but I didn't exactly see a K-Mart anywhere around here and I didn't want to sit there under that tree forever.

Had I heard that clothesline thing in science class, or in some cartoon that made up different rules for reality?  This was insane.  I was insane.  I was scared, I was lost, I was going to die out here, and maybe my campground was 500 FEET AWAY but I'd never find it again because I'd been dumb enough to climb a tree and then brain myself so hard I hallucinated feathers onto my arms.

"Keep going," I whispered to myself.  "Just keep going.  Find help.  That's all you have to do."

• The sun had moved to directly overhead and then started setting a little, my legs were trembling-tired, and my feet hurt like crazy by the time I decided to give up and drink the river water.  Moving water was safer, right?  And it would be stupid to die of thirst this close to a water source.  Drinking the cold, slightly dirt-flavored water made my headache go away, which for some reason made my feet hurt even worse.

"Let's review what I know," I said out loud, to distract myself, picking along the river bank.  "I speak English.  I know what English is.  I know what a clothesline is.  I know what clothes, are, though..."  I looked down at my raggedy skintight togs.  "I'm not very good at picking them out before a hike.  I'm a human.  Right?"  I frowned at the trees.  "I'm human, I guess.  What does a human feel like?"

This made my head hurt worse.

"Okay," I said.  "No.  Only humans wear clothes.  Normally more clothes than this, but..."

I stopped talking then.  Stopped walking as well.  Held my breath, even, trying to block out the river.  I thought I'd heard...

And then, faster than thought, I was sprinting through the woods as fast as my torn feet would carry me.

• When I burst through into the clearing, I let out a yelp of sheer joy: humans!  There were humans there in the clearing, seven or eight of them.  Better yet, most of them were walking around with trash bags and grabby tools, cleaning up trash, and they all had matching t-shirts.  Nonprofit.  The word just came to me: nonprofit!  By now I was stumble-running down the hill.  They were volunteers for some charity.  I was saved!

"Hey, kid."  That was a guy with patterned tattoos wrapping his arms under the sleeves of his cheery turquoise t-shirt.  "You okay?"

"No!"  It came out half-wail.  "No, I'm not okay.  I'm lost.  I got lost in the woods.  I think I hit my head, and now I'm having trouble remembering things.  Please help."

The guy squinted at me like he wasn't sure what to make of this story.  I knew how it sounded — like something from a crime drama — and I hadn't even mentioned any of the really weird stuff yet.

"Okay," he said slowly.  Moving forward, he dropped his trash bag on the ground to put a warm hand on my arm.  "Let's get you inside, right?  There's a park shelter right over here, it's got running water and everything."

• The guy with the tattoos introduced himself as Bill, and the medic who met us in the shelter as Sharon.  They were both so nice it was almost overwhelming, bringing me granola bars and bottled water and a blanket I didn't need.  The shelter was sparse, just two tables and four benches in a common area and bathrooms off to the side, but it felt so good to be inside.  Sharon put me through concussion checks, then she disinfected and bandaged my feet.  Bill ducked out to talk to his fellow volunteers, probably about getting me a ride to the nearest hospital that might know who I was.

"Sorry we don't have any spare shoes," Sharon said.  "For now..."  She produced a pair of fuzzy socks, the kind with no-slip soles, and she even slid them gently over my feet before I could offer to do it myself.

"Thank you," I said.  "I'm so lucky I found you."  Like the t-shirts and the blanket, the socks were marked with the nonprofit's name.

The Sharing.

• When I stepped out of the little shelter, I found every one of the volunteers standing in two small clusters, whispering to each other and looking at me.  News of the crazy kid had apparently spread.  I was about to retreat back inside, but—

"Cassie?  Cassie Osei?"

The guy striding toward me was tall, light-skinned, with brown hair and a slow-spreading smile.  I could swear he reminded me of someone, though the name eluded me.

"Is that my name?" I said.  "Cassie?"

He stopped walking, eyebrows drawing together.  "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm sorry," I said, "I hit my head, and now I don't remember anything.  I don't even remember who you are."

The guy turned, exchanging a glance with the volunteer to his left.  Something passed between them that I wasn't privy to, but I could see it happen.

"Why don't we step back inside and talk in private."  He turned back to me, smiling again.  "My name's Tom, and I know you.  Sounds like you have quite the story to tell."

• I'm not sure why I ended up telling Tom everything.  Maybe because everyone was being so nice — he even pulled a bench out for me to sit, almost gentlemanly.  Maybe because he did seem faintly familiar, in a way no one else here did.  He said we'd known each other a long time, so I guess I was half-remembering a younger version of him, which fit with how some part of me expected him to be a little younger, a little shorter, more chubby and less muscular.  Warmer, too, if I was being honest.

"You had bird parts, when you woke up," Tom said, when I was done.  "And you didn't have a mouth, until you morphed yourself one."

A jolt went through me, at the word morphed.  It seemed to have the same effect on the guy standing in the door, who shifted in position and cleared his throat loudly at the word.

"No, I..." I glanced at the door, then back to Tom.  "I had a mouth, there was just something wrong with it.  You mean morphed like a caterpillar?  I'm not sure."

"Okay."  Tom sat down on top of the table, which — with me still on the bench — put him both further over me and a little closer to me than I was strictly comfortable with.  "Look.  Owen..."  He tilted his head toward the door.  "Is just nervous, because he thinks that we might have a big problem on our hands before the next two hours are up.  Do you think that that's the case?"

"Um."  I scooted back a little on the bench, trying to be subtle about it.  "How do we know each other again?"

"Cassie."  He touched a hand lightly to his chest.  "I'm your foster brother.  We grew up in the group home together, remember?  Even if you don't remember me, do you think you can remember any details about our foster mom Helen, or our dad Ricky?  What about our cat Snowflake?"

He was watching me closely as he spoke, and I could see it all over his face: he didn't believe me.  I knew it sounded far-fetched when I'd said it, but I'd been expecting condescension, not this level of suspicion.

"If you say so," I said. "I think I remember scooping litter boxes." It was the only true statement that came to mind.  "Do we have a lot of pets?"

Sighing, Tom dropped his head.  His hand went into his pocket, and I tensed, but when he removed it he was just holding an ordinary thermometer.  "Okay," he said, "I think you're running a fever, because you're not making much sense.  I'm going to check, for Sharon's records.  That all right with you?"

I don't know why I stood up then, my heart pounding so hard that I could feel it in my own eardrums.  Why I was staring at the ordinary plastic thermometer in his hand like it really was a gun he'd pulled out.  "Is there..."  I cleared my throat.  "Is there maybe an oral thermometer I could use instead?  Or one of those ones that goes under the armpit?  I just..."

It was the kind that went into your ear.  Why was that scary?  I didn't know, but I also couldn't get myself to calm down enough to sit there and do this completely ordinary medical check.

"Pro tip, andalite."  Tom's voice had gone ice-cold now, no emotion at all.  He set the thermometer on the table next to him, standing up to walk down the bench toward me.  "Next time you impersonate a human, try doing any research at all.  Humans don't morph, you sanctimonious imbecile, and Cassie Osei has met Tom Berenson maybe three times in her life."

"Don't—"  My voice came out small, and I felt like I was shrinking under his gaze.  "Please, just leave me al—"

The wind was rising around us, sky darkening as Tom loomed closer over me.  He was crazier than I was.

"Shit!" Owen said.  "Now you've done it!"  He strode around Tom, hand coming out of his jacket pocket.  "Stop!" he shouted.  "Or the Veleek—"

Later, it would occur to me to wonder why the thing he pointed at me scared me even worse than the thermometer had.  It was just a clunky black flashlight, nothing special.  But that would come later.  In that moment, I was distracted by the entire building exploding around us.

• The roof was gone in an instant, simply pureed into fragments.  The building's walls and furniture shattered around me, ripped into chunks and then shredded down to dust by the force of the whirling mass of devouring blades that all the while roared like a tornado.  The scream of wood ripping apart, the jackhammer shatter of broken cement underneath, and — worst of all — human screams as well.  "WATER!" someone was shouting.  "GET WATER!"  And then the words were lost under an unending cry.

I cowered down underneath the bench, half-sobbing with terror and shock.  I wanted it all to stop, to go away, and more than anything I wanted to disappear.  I wanted to become nothing, nothing at all...

And I was.  My hands had already shriveled away, where they had been clamped around my head, and my legs were disappearing as well.  My whole body was getting smaller and smaller, becoming translucent, no more than a fingernail clipping in size, bones and hair willed away by the force of my sheer overwhelm.

• The queen.  The queen needed help.  The workers had to help the queen, and she was so very far away.  But that was all right.  These six strong legs were enough to carry this body until it dropped, trying to reach her, and then this body would serve as fuel for others.  Just like a taxxon, constructing a living hive.

• Taxxon? A nothing thought. Never mind.

• The legs powered on.  The thoughts were not troublesome, not when the queen was in need.

• Taxxon.  The legs stopped.  The antennae sought, the feet scrabbling, but—  Taxxon.  I knew that word.  I.  I knew.  I knew it, because I was.  I was.  I was.

«Oh my god!» I shouted, there in the termite tunnel I'd built for myself.  «Oh god, oh my god, I have to demorph!»

Cassie.  I thought of Cassie.  And suddenly there was so much to think about.  The hair I'd cut short, after I got tired of maintaining my braids, and the nose I liked but the hips I hated, the spine I was hoping would grow taller before I was done with puberty.  Cassie.  The hands I used to pick up ducklings for bottle feedings, the knees I braced with when I was lifting a bale of hay, the voice that everyone said sounded just like my mom — My mom!  Dr. Michelle Rhonda Osei.

By the time I was done tearing my human body from the ground, I was laughing so hard I was fully hyperventilating from the insanity of it all.  I was me.  Me.

"Morphing," I whispered into the grass, where termites couldn't hear me and wouldn't care.  "I just had to complete a morph, and it healed me.  Of course!"

I was on the ground, just into the edge of the woods.  It felt like I'd walked for hours in termite morph, in search of that dead queen, and maybe I had.  But I'd only made it about fifteen feet in that time.  Still, I was away.  That'd been way too close.  If that enormous wind-monster-thing hadn't happened to show up just as I was starting to morph...

• And then I stood up. I turned around.  And then I just stood there, looking over the clearing, for a very long time.

• It'd ripped them all apart.  I took nearly an hour to confirm, going from body to body trying to find anyone intact enough to bother checking for a pulse.  Nine of them, I thought, though it was hard to tell with so little left of some.  I could recognize now the two clusters that had formed when I had walked out of the woods: full members.  And innocent civilians.  All dead now.  For what?

Water.  Owen, or maybe Tom — oh god, Tom, I was going to have to be the one to tell Jake — had yelled for water, in the last seconds before the many-toothed alien thing had gotten them.  So the controllers had known what it was.  And they'd thought water could save them.

I threw up, when I was done.  I'd been swallowing it down for a while, but at some point I was so spent I couldn't anymore.  I wiped tears and snot off my face, when I wiped my mouth, and I didn't care.  Maybe I should have been glad, at least six of my enemies dead — seven if you counted what I suspected about that thermometer — but I couldn't bring myself to be even bittersweet about it when there were nine of my own species slaughtered around me.

• "Okay," I whispered.  It was a day for talking to myself.  Like soothing a spooked horse.  "Okay, Cassie.  Get home, and get the others.  Tell Ja—"  I stopped, then, because that part I couldn't say out loud.  But I finally knew who I was, and what I had to do next.

So I focused on my inner osprey, the morph that had gotten me into this.  And I started to change.

I saw the dust monster coming this time.  With osprey eyes, of course I did.  And I flew like the devil trying to get away.  But even my wings were no match for its speed, and before I knew it I was surrounded by those terrible ripping blades.

Closing my eyes then, I gave in.  The way I hadn't, not even to the termite mind.  But I was so tired, I couldn't bring myself to care.

• To my surprise, it didn't devour me.  It simply carried me, enveloped in its mass, so surrounded by dust that I couldn't see out.  And when at last it opened itself, I was dumped into the bridge of a spaceship.  A spaceship manned by hork-bajir, and taxxons, and exactly one andalite whose face was all too familiar by now.

«Cassie?» a voice behind me said.

Scrabbling around on my talons, I found myself face-to-face with a gorilla inside a steel-sided cage.  «Marco?»

He crossed his arms, tilting his chin down at me.  «Where have you been all day, young lady?  We've been looking all over for you, which is how Ax and I ended up blown to Oz by the Wicked Witch of the East over there.»