24 KiB
R!Animorphs: Tobias, Part B
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Author: u/callmebrotherg now posting as /u/callmesalticidae*
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URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11090259/24/r-Animorphs-The-Reckoning
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Score: 36
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Created: 2016-06-12T00:01:15
Post:
Comments:
u/CouteauBleu [+20] We are the Empire. (14 minutes later)
And thus my long sleepless night becomes ever longer and sleeplesser.
David. That was his name.
And there I was, starting to hope the world would not get completely destroyed in a few weeks.
u/Salivanth [+7] (2 hours later)
The Reckoning in five words: "And then it got worse."
u/callmebrotherg [+3] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (4 hours later)
I think you mean, "better."
(For us, anyway!)
u/NotUnusualYet [+2] (17 hours later)
Can you explain who "David" is to someone who read the Animorphs books a very long time ago?
u/CouteauBleu [+4] We are the Empire. (18 hours later)
Basicall what TK17Studios said. In canon, he's a kinda spoiled kid whose father was allegedly a secret agent, and mostly behaves like someone who likes to tear away butterflies' wings and shoot birds with airsoft guns.
u/TK17Studios [+1] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (17 hours later)
[Definitely canon spoilers](#s "In canon, they didn't have the blue box for the first ~20 books; Elfangor kept it on his ship and then his ship got disintegrated. Then they overhear a new kid at school talking about how he found "some weird blue cube with crazy symbols on it" in the construction site. Marco tries to buy it off him, but he's already found a buyer on the internet who's going to give him $$$ for it—Yeerks, obviously. The Animorphs launch a mission to get it back, in the process also barely getting the kid out of there.")
u/NotUnusualYet [+2] (17 hours later)
Eep!
u/ZeroNihilist [+2] (21 hours later)
u/4t0m [+19] Chaos Legion (an hour later)
Ugh, this story continues to be unfairly good, and consistently exceed my expectations. Totally happy with my decision to go increase my pledge to $5/chapter on patreon earlier today.
u/TK17Studios [+5] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (2 hours later)
<3 <3 <3
u/TK17Studios [+9] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (4 hours later)
List of things I will do in exchange for in-depth reviews and long comments/criticisms:
Write more
Do a little dance
Sing a song
Eat a bug
Give you a nickname
Punch a flower
Share an embarrassing personal anecdote
Teach you how to make a pirate hat out of a square pillow
u/LieGroupE8 [+10] ** (7 hours later)
In exchange for this longer comment, please do a little dance for yourself, because you're awesome, and then write more of this excellent story.
Here is what I really, really like about R!Animorphs: the extent to which it gives the sense that the plot is constantly happening in the background, unseen, but with effects that may appear at any moment. I think this is largely a product of the narrative structure of iterating over all the characters. Originally I was skeptical that this structure would be coherent enough to carry the story - but so far it is working spectacularly. As soon as you really get into the story of one character, you shift to another - but the plot just keeps moving for that character anyway. The effect of this is that as I'm reading this chapter, I'm thinking: "What's going on with all the other animorphs? Are they OK? What plans are they working on? Oh no, what's Visser Three been up to this whole time?! Will he suddenly appear and wreak havoc? Oh God, I bet Visser Three anticipated this and Paul Evans and the President are both controllers infested with Yeerk special forces trained to be really good actors, everything is going to go south - no wait, that's really implausible - OR IS IT?" The story doesn't feel like a linear progression of scenes designed to advance the plot - it feels like I'm zooming in on small portions of a huge conflict with lots of things happening simultaneously. This generates an enormous amount of suspense. R!Animorphs has showed me that one of the keys to writing good rationalist fiction (or any fiction) is to construct a huge, intricate world, and then have the discipline to show almost none of it explicitly.
That being said, at some point in the future it might be wise to sometimes break the strict pattern of iterating over characters: I'm not sure how easily a plot can be forced into this sort of structure. There might be some events too important to pass over that we would miss by going to a difference character. Don't compromise the plot to stick to the pattern rigidly. But if it works, keep it up.
Also: as characters die, the chapter titles will reveal spoilers at a glance for future readers. Something to keep in mind.
As for criticisms, I don't have many about the story content or writing at this point. I really like what you're doing, and I need to see where the story is going before I have a good sense of what worked and what didn't. I could voice minor quibbles about mistakes made by the characters, but that's all part of the story anyway; characters with no flaws are boring. Sometimes I am confused by small things that appear to be inconsistent to me, but sometimes turn out to have an explanation. For example: I am confused that in the last chapter with Cassie, when they are looking at the scene in the Yeerk pool, it says
That was the source of the two bright laser beams I had spotted earlier, both discharges hanging halfway between the aliens and their targets. [Emphasis mine]
Now, I'm assuming that the Ellimist (or whoever that was) simulated time being frozen by plugging the Animorphs' minds into a simulation and running it really fast relative to the real world, so that only microseconds would pass in real time while the whole Yeerk pool tour was taking place. But this doesn't make sense if, as it says in the following interlude, "there could be no discrepancies between the true pool and the projection." I presume that the light beam would travel faster than the simulation could run, and so there is no way that the Animorphs could see it hanging in mid-air and have that be a true representation of reality. That's just something that bothers me, but I'm not even sure if it's a true inconsistency, and anyways it's very minor in the grand scheme of things.
I will say something, though, about the use of higher powers, including godlike beings, prophecies, and the like. This is a general comment about rationalist fiction not wholly specific to R!Animorphs. I'm not sure what most rationalist fiction is like, since I don't read most of it, but in both HPMOR and R!Animorphs there is a tendency to use higher powers to justify plot points. In HPMOR [possible spoiler alert], the plot wouldn't have been possible without lots and lots of prophecies in the background to justify why Harry didn't fail instantly against a smarter opponent. In this story, the plot wouldn't be possible without the Ellimist and Crayak in the background arranging coincidences. I worry that rationalist fiction in general is over-reliant on higher powers as plot-forcing devices. This can potentially lead to lazy writing in which too many convenient coincidences are justified by appeals to fate or the gods. (Then again, I don't know if most rationalist fiction has this problem since I don't read it).
For this reason, I probably would have left out the Ellimist and Crayak entirely if I were writing R!Animorphs - but I'm glad you didn't. You make good use of them, and they don't kill the story by being too overbearing in their interventions. Also, it's great that in this story the bad guys can benefit just as much from coincidences as the good guys - so the suspense remains.
u/TK17Studios [+9] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (8 hours later)
Thank you so very very much for taking the time to share your thoughts.
I'll probably start messing with the cycle eventually ... I used to joke that if I didn't, at some point Marco would be like, "Hey, guys, ever notice that interesting stuff happens to us sort of—in order? I think maybe we should keep an eye on Rachel for a while..."
I'm pretty sure there are at least a dozen inconsistencies like the one you describe that I ought to clean up on a second-pass edit, but I thought you might be interested in this article, which is kind of relevant to the bolt-suspended-in-midair question. As far as the bolts moving during the frozen moment, I think you got me—I just didn't even consider that. I hastily invent that, under your interpretation , the freeze-frame was from a moment right at the end of whatever span of time the overclock took up, and so they were secretly getting a sneak preview of a femtosecond in the future.
As for the higher powers, I agree with your point 100%. I'm hoping to work around this inherent narrative weakness in a few ways ... by character-izing Crayak and Ellimist so they're brought more into the realm of "normal reality" and less fully outside the plot, by revealing that various events attributed to them just ... weren't (though this is a sauce to be used sparingly), by making sure they stay superfocused on butterfly effect stuff, and don't overtly intervene too often, and by making their nature and motivations extremely relevant (in specifics) in the endgame. Hopefully you guys will kick me if they start making things lame.
Thanks again (very much).
u/CoolGuy54 [+1] (15 days later)
The story doesn't feel like a linear progression of scenes designed to advance the plot - it feels like I'm zooming in on small portions of a huge conflict with lots of things happening simultaneously. This generates an enormous amount of suspense. R!Animorphs has showed me that one of the keys to writing good rationalist fiction (or any fiction) is to construct a huge, intricate world, and then have the discipline to show almost none of it explicitly.
The occasional little montages (like towards the end of Chapter 14: Jake) really strengthen this for me as well, like there's a huge world out there we're getting little glimpses of.
u/CouteauBleu [+6] We are the Empire. (12 hours later)
Well here we go then.
There's two things that I think are really great in The Reckoning: adherence to canon and verisimilitude.
The Reckoning does more than integrate canon elements in its universe (the way Methods of Rationality did, which is still kind of cool), it adheres to the spirit of canon. So you don't just have mind-control slugs, you have morally ambiguous yet James-Bond-henchmen-ish mind-control slugs. The Animorphs aren't just kids who gain superpowers and try to save the world, they also have bundles of issues, self doubt, and keep facing the reality that they need to keep killing a lot of innocent people if they want a chance to live. Visser 3 is arrogant and likes to gloat, Hork-Bajiir are peaceful creatures bio-engineered for gardening, the yeerk pool is suitably horrible, Ax is fascinated by vocal communication, etc. I'm not sure exactly what I mean or how to say it, but it shows a deep understanding of the quirks in Animorphs, and it means we see more than the key elements of canon, we also see the reason behind them.
The other point I like a lot is the realism of this fic. This is a story (laws of physics, omnipotent trickster gods and the odds of a species managing interstellar travel but not AI aside) I could hear about in the news or in history books. The characters making reasonable decisions is a part of it, but more than that, I think it's the characters having reasonable reactions to what they see. Reading how Jake, Marco and Tobias react to things like the yeerk pool, the gods, or the logistics of asymmetrical warfare make the story feel much more real. One of my favourite moments in the fic is when Jake enters the pool for the first time, freaks out, and at some point says "This is bad, man, Auswitch-level bad!". It's great because it gives a context to the story, it means the characters aren't unnamed kids in a unnamed town in a vague period of time (one of canon's biggest flaws, honestly), but actual children making decisions that aren't determined by any laws but what their thoughts dictate. It really brings home the whole "we don't have any safety net and there's probably a greater than 10% chance one of us screws up at some point and everyone on the planet dies" thing.
Which is actually a third thing I like in this story: literary conventions aside, the Animorphs don't know what's going to happen. I'm not sure exactly what part of the fic conveys this, but you get the sense that the Animorphs know they might die, they might all die without achieving anything because war is unfair, the Earth might be destroyed despite their efforts because they're completely outmatched, and because from their perspective this isn't a story and real life doesn't provide any protection against powerful aliens glassing your planet.
Anyway, that's it for the general themes I really like. Specifically, I also like how grown-ups aren't stupid, how yeerk henchmen sometimes show a little personality and initiative, how the kids learn to save the world thanks to wikipedia (and other 2010s references, like the mention of Jake getting a PS4 for his birthday, god that made me feel old), how each kid is smart/clever/rational in a different way, how Cassie is not automatically Lawful-Good, actually everything about Cassie and ethics, how Tobias is portrayed, how Jake deals with absolutely everything, how Rachel is becoming increasingly badass and terrifying, how Marco is clever and ruthless (and he gets it, you know?), how Garett EVERYTHING, and how nobody respects Ax because being Ax is sadness and awkwardness.
I don't like that the Chee and Ellimist+Crayak were included (they're well written, but they kind of remove some of the verisimilitude and "we're fucked if we fail" aspect of the story), that the Chee and Ellimist+Crayak were included BUT THE ISKOORT WILL NOT BE (WHYYYYY?), and oh oh did I mention that I like that Aftran is there and the references to the Chronicles and... okay, going to stop now.
u/philophile [+8] (13 hours later)
how each kid is smart/clever/rational in a different way
This is probably my favourite part of all about The Reckoning. I think it's arguable that giving them each a different flavour or approach to rationality distinguishes their chapters better than their books were distinguished in canon. Canon was largely interchangable descriptions of external things happening, and when it was focused on someone's internal world it was the kinds of things they thought about (e.g. clothes, or animals, or hunting rabbits) that set them apart, not their style of thinking (with occasional exceptions). Really, I guess this is what I enjoy about rational fiction as a whole- that it's so much more thought-process-oriented than regular fiction. And The Reckoning is taking it a step further by making the characters really, really feel like different people, some of whom are suitably other or alien.
u/Bowbreaker [+3] Solitary Locust (13 hours later)
some of whom are suitably other or alien.
Which ones do you mean? Or are you talking about the viewpoint characters that are actually alien?
u/philophile [+3] (14 hours later)
I did mean the actual aliens, but Garret as well. And I think it still applies with the aliens- Ax feels actually different from Visser 3 feels different from the Chee feels different from E/C (what we've had of all of them so far anyway). Though making the aliens feel different is probably less impressive than making the kids feel different from each other.
u/callmebrotherg [+4] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (7 hours later)
Can I hold rewards in reserve in order to combine them later on (e.g. song and dance, the song portion regarding an embarrassing personal anecdote involving making a pirate hat out of a square pillow, and the dance routine including such steps as eating a bug and punching a flower)?
u/TK17Studios [+2] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (8 hours later)
It sounds like you're offering to write me SEVEN in-depth comments, so ... yes.
u/CouteauBleu [+2] We are the Empire. (21 hours later)
I think I made a lot of those. What do I win?
(more Reckoning chapters? please be more Reckoning chapters!)
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (22 hours later)
I am deeply appreciative of how many words you've been willing to spill over the past year, especially the updates where you were basically the only one. You win more Reckoning chapters, for sure, and also several emoticon hearts <3 <3 <3 and also whatever it is you might do with the large and durable amount of goodwill you currently have on account in the Metaphorical Bank of Duncan's Psyche.
u/CouteauBleu [+2] We are the Empire. (22 hours later)
Yay emoticons! Also, holy shit, it's been a year? Wow.
And yeah, I feel kind of obsessively invested in this fic. I stopped reading Animorphs around book 30 when I was a kid, and ever since I started re-reading it I've felt unsatisfied with the universe's lack of Animorphness (like what most people would feel if JK Rowling had stopped writing after The Half-Blood Prince); there are some really good fanfics out there (The Perspective, Idyllic, Sacred Host, and Home for Dinner and Week-Ends to name a few), but yours is the only one that's still updating, so here I am.
(and before anyone asks, I am not Secretly Randall Munroe; does he know about this, by the way?)
u/ketura [+3] Organizer (5 hours later)
Hmm...how large a bug?
u/TK17Studios [+5] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (5 hours later)
#bug
u/callmebrotherg [+2] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (7 hours later)
For this to be attractive, we first have to know how interested you are in eating bugs to begin with. For all we know you eat a pound of chocolate ants for dessert every night. >:P
u/TK17Studios [+6] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (8 hours later)
I am exterested in bug-eating.
u/PeridexisErrant [+2] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (a day later)
extrested
The correct form for "not interested" is simply "trested", much like [in]conceivable or [in]flammable. source
u/TK17Studios [+3] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (a day later)
I see you excourage linguistic inperimentation ...
u/PeridexisErrant [+4] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (a day later)
Lexguistic, please! (having inverted the usual goal of linguists...)
u/TK17Studios [+8] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (7 minutes later)
Whole chapter in one piece available here and here.
Patreon here if anyone's feeling patronizing. I had to pause my self-contributions to my kids' rationality bootcamp due to medical bills, so donations during this next couple of seasons make a real difference.
u/jldew [+6] (56 minutes later)
I'm really hoping it isn't THAT David, but that would be too easy.
u/Salivanth [+3] (a day later)
So let's take a look at The Reckoning vs. canon, shall we?
Chapters 1-5 are basically books 1-4, minus Tobias getting trapped in hawk morph.
Then, Visser Three says "Fuck canon", and skips us ahead about 40 books over the course of a single conversation with Alloran. The "Andalite bandits" are discovered to be humans over the course of what, three days? This is the prime escalation that sets everything up to follow.
By Chapter 17, we've almost reached the end of canon. Like Book 52, the Yeerks have escalated their attacks, except without actually revealing themselves to the world. The Animorphs attack the Yeerk pool and kill hundreds of people. Chapter 18 is Book 54; an Animorph dies in a totally stupid heroic sacrifice, but the Yeerks are wiped out.
Except it's not over. We're now on Book 55, the book that never was. The main story has completely moved past canon. Canon has already happened, and it wasn't enough to take down Visser Three, and nobody has any idea what's going to happen next, except the author.
Dis gonna be good.
u/TK17Studios [+2] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (a day later)
Except for books 20-22.
u/Salivanth [+2] (a day later)
You know, I'd barely even thought of that, because I was thinking to myself:
"How in the hell is one renegade Animorph going to pose as much of a threat as David did, considering how intelligent and ruthless the Reckoning group is? Plus, knowing the Reckoning, the David story has to be at least seventeen times more lethal."
Now I'm scared. After all, I said the same thing three chapters ago when I saw the aftermath of the Pool attack. "How the hell is Visser Three going to respond to THAT?"
...Yeah.
u/4t0m [+2] Chaos Legion (3 days later)
Should we be worried that the story will end soon?
u/TK17Studios [+2] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (3 days later)
By my estimate, we're somewhere between 40 and 60% of the way through.
(That's in terms of plot. It may be that we're closer to the end since things accelerate and fewer words need be spilt on setup and character. But it's not ending "soon.")
u/4t0m [+3] Chaos Legion (3 days later)
Huh, for some reason I thought we were still in the opening stages of the story. Has this cycle ended or will there be an interlude (or several)?
u/TK17Studios [+2] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (3 days later)
It's probably more like 40% than 60%. We're not at the end of "book 3" (still need Ax and V3 and possibly an additional view), but it looks like there will only be 5-6 books total (maaaaaybe 7-8).