|
Jake is the leader only in the sense that you need someone able to, in the moment of panic, cut through that with a clear goal. It doesn't have to always be a good goal, a well thought out one, but you do sometimes need someone to say "gently caress it, this is what we're doing." In team games (or hell in real life workplace situations) I usually end up in charge not because I'm smarter or better or even the best at coming up with a plan, but because I can say "Okay, this is what we're doing" and get people to all go do it. A group of idiots stumbling towards a goal is at least going to have better results than a bunch of unrelated idiots doing their own thing with no coordination. Jake isn't even always the one to make the plans, it's been pointed out that the plans are usually come up with communally and it's often Rachel or Marco or Tobias who get the actual idea out. Jake's the one who, when everything's at risk of going in every direction at once, can make the team go "No, we're headed this way." So I think Jake actually has a good understanding of his sitch? He's not really "in charge" so much as he's just... a focusing lens. I get that i been there.
|
# ? Oct 18, 2020 07:22 |
|
|
# ? Apr 29, 2024 00:46 |
|
There's a book way down the track where Jake is out of town and delegates to Rachel, which seems like a real bad idea (especially by that point). Marco or Tobias would be the more natural second in command; Ax is too unfamiliar with Earth, Rachel is too reckless, Cassie too cautious. Although when all is said and done Jake really just seems to be a leader in name only. They vote on stuff all the time, disagree all the time, and people go against his wishes pretty regularly. I just rewatched Lost and it's sort of the same dynamic: Jack is the natural leader because he's the humourless, handsome, square-jawed American, but ultimately the group trusts each other and gets along well enough to not really require firm leadership; squabbles and disagreements are mutually sorted out within the group and at the end of the day they all have each other's backs.
|
# ? Oct 18, 2020 10:01 |
|
Epicurius posted:Also just to add, it's not entirely, or at least isn't anymore. I lived in Northern Virginia about ten years ago, and did a lot of my shopping at Safeway. Yeah I was going to say, I'm on the east coast and I've lived near one pretty much my whole life.
|
# ? Oct 18, 2020 10:26 |
|
FlocksOfMice posted:Jake is the leader only in the sense that you need someone able to, in the moment of panic, cut through that with a clear goal. It doesn't have to always be a good goal, a well thought out one, but you do sometimes need someone to say "gently caress it, this is what we're doing." Plus he gets along with everyone. I can't see Rachel taking orders from Marco very well for example, or Marco being happy with Cassie as a leader. He's kind of an Eisenhower type, he's the leader but he lets his subordinates come up with the clever plans and focuses on uniting everyone.
|
# ? Oct 18, 2020 17:49 |
|
Huh. Maybe there's just regions it isn't in.
|
# ? Oct 18, 2020 17:51 |
|
GodFish posted:Huh. Maybe there's just regions it isn't in. So I did some research, and it looks like Safeway started on the west coast, but in the 1920s and 30s it did a massive expansion, buying up a bunch of small grocery chains. Its first big purchase on the east coast was a Washington DC chain called Sanitary Groceries in 1928 (Sanitary Groceries is also responsible for a major Supreme Court case about the right to picket. New Negro Alliance v Sanitary Grocery. In 1936, they opened a store in a black neighborhood in DC, but refused to hire black employees. A group called the New Negro Alliance picked, with the slogan, "If you can't work there, don't shop there." Sanitary tried to get an injunction, saying that they didn't have the right to picked because it wasn't a strike or labor dispute. In 1938,the Supreme Court ruled that the public has the right to picket a business.) Anyway, Safeway expanded east into DC, Maryland, New York, New Jersey and Florida through acquisitions of smaller chains. In the '80s, though, they ran into financial problems and had to close or sell most of their eastern supermarkets except for ones in DC and Maryland.
|
# ? Oct 18, 2020 20:06 |
|
We used to have Safeway in Australia but it was absorbed by Woolworths years ago and it drives me up the wall when people still call it Safeway
|
# ? Oct 18, 2020 22:18 |
|
The Forgotten-Chapter 5quote:5:15 P.M. I'm curious as to whether or not Yeerks like boxing now. But there's a weird kind of parallelism between Jake and Tom-Controller. Like Jake points out, they're on different sides but in the same war. And neither of them can let anyone else in the family know. On top of that, they're both teenagers, and can't just do what they want. They both have the same goal right now....find a way to blow off the fight so they can focus on something more important. quote:Fortunately, my dad and his work friends made plenty of noise, so no one noticed Tom checking his watch. Or the fact that I kept glancing toward the kitchen, where I could see the wall clock. Getting mocked by the guy who's now a professional hawk. That's gotta hurt. quote:“Are you okay?” Cassie asked me. She rushed over and picked me up. Then she set me back down because I was starting to demorph. And I was getting heavier pretty quickly. I have to think Jake is screwing up big time by not telling people he's having these visions. Chapter 6 quote:8:19 P.M. Tobias is so over the rest of them right now. quote:<We are?> That's the end of the series everyone. Hope you all had fun.
|
# ? Oct 19, 2020 02:34 |
|
A $40 pay per view fight makes sense but Jake's family seems to record EVERYTHING
|
# ? Oct 19, 2020 04:16 |
|
That's what we did in the 90s. Lots of favorite TV show episodes and cable movies ended up on tape. The first time I watch Star Wars was on a Betamax recording.
|
# ? Oct 19, 2020 04:45 |
|
At this very moment in my basement are several VHS tapes of original Angel/Buffy/Charmed broadcasts that my wife recorded as a teenager. I don't know why she still has them. But they exist as an artifact of what life was like before entertainment was on demand.
|
# ? Oct 19, 2020 04:49 |
|
Yeah to be fair, growing up I had bookshelves full of books, but also an entire bookshelf full of VHS tapes recorded from TV and duped rental videos.
|
# ? Oct 19, 2020 04:49 |
|
Yeah I remember like a wall of tapes, most of them with cramped labels from having a couple of things on them (except for The Matrix which was written in big spaced-out vertical caps)
|
# ? Oct 19, 2020 04:54 |
|
Epicurius posted:But there's a weird kind of parallelism between Jake and Tom-Controller. Like Jake points out, they're on different sides but in the same war. And neither of them can let anyone else in the family know. On top of that, they're both teenagers, and can't just do what they want. They both have the same goal right now....find a way to blow off the fight so they can focus on something more important. This was always an aspect of the series that fascinated me yet ultimately seemed underplayed in the long run because we never got to see the opposing side of the dynamic in as great of depth for a number of completely understandable reasons. But something always felt strange to me that the series set up this whole Brother Vs. Brother (and alien parasite controlling Brother) sub-plot and always kept it at arms length, but as a necessity for maintaining a narrative status quo, and because following it up from the "Vs. Brother" perspective means grappling with exactly how specifically evil the Yeerks actually are. And that just invites misery porn in an already surprisingly misery porn-prone series. Especially because your only two options are either having an entire book from the POV of a broken body snatcher victim slave, or restoring his agency at the cost of making him an outright collaborator to the evil body snatcher slave empire, two equally unappealing choices. The more I think about it the more those glut of "Tom and A Good Yeerk" fanfics on AO3 start to make sense as a way to fill in that hole. Also $40 for PPV sports. Oh 90s economy pricing, where did you go? FlocksOfMice posted:Yeah to be fair, growing up I had bookshelves full of books, but also an entire bookshelf full of VHS tapes recorded from TV and duped rental videos. Same here. We had actual VHS tapes of the Disney animated features, and then everything else was copied from VHS rentals, hilarious tracking and recording errors and all.
|
# ? Oct 19, 2020 05:10 |
|
I'm pretty sure if I dug around hard enough in my parent's basement I could still find my mom's old VHS recordings of Dawson's Creek.
|
# ? Oct 19, 2020 05:33 |
|
The only version of The Phantom Menace I've ever actually owned was recorded off of TV with the commercials painstakingly removed by pausing the recording the instant the commercials started, then pressing record again about two seconds before the end of the final commercial. Honestly one of the proudest achievements of my life.
|
# ? Oct 19, 2020 08:24 |
|
Rochallor posted:The only version of The Phantom Menace I've ever actually owned was recorded off of TV with the commercials painstakingly removed by pausing the recording the instant the commercials started, then pressing record again about two seconds before the end of the final commercial. Honestly one of the proudest achievements of my life. That last sentence broke me in a way that nothing that actually happens in Animorphs ever managed...
|
# ? Oct 19, 2020 08:52 |
|
nine-gear crow posted:The more I think about it the more those glut of "Tom and A Good Yeerk" fanfics on AO3 start to make sense as a way to fill in that hole. Hmm, yeah. And at this point we know Tom's Yeerk has already been swapped out with a lower-ranked one, but we don't know anything about the newbie, right?
|
# ? Oct 19, 2020 09:33 |
|
Fuschia tude posted:Hmm, yeah. And at this point we know Tom's Yeerk has already been swapped out with a lower-ranked one, but we don't know anything about the newbie, right? Nope, it's a complete blank slate at this point in the series. There was so much potential to take Tom's new Yeerk in so many interesting directions, but ultimately it just wound up being a somehow even shitter and stupider version of Temrash.
|
# ? Oct 19, 2020 09:49 |
|
nine-gear crow posted:Nope, it's a complete blank slate at this point in the series. There was so much potential to take Tom's new Yeerk in so many interesting directions, but ultimately it just wound up being a somehow even shitter and stupider version of Temrash. Well poo poo, now I want to see some of these "Tom with a good Yeerk" fanfics. I never really thought about it growing up but it does sound like an interesting concept.
|
# ? Oct 19, 2020 23:16 |
|
Book 11: The Forgotten-Chapter 7quote:8:25 P.M. In case you didn't know, flies have very good senses of smell. quote:We didn’t need Tobias to guide us the rest of the way. Our fly bodies were eager to head for the smell of rotting garbage. I can see the advantage to them of landing a Bug Fighter on the White House lawn. Also, note Jake's resentment there about having to make a decision like that, which, is, obviously, a pretty major one. Chapter 8 quote:8:32 P.M. It makes sense. Tobias has been feeling pretty useless in this entire thing and sorry for himself. He's glad to be included. quote:<Tobias? You ready?> "No second rate Yeerk technology is too sophisticated for me." Pride goeth.... quote:“Great,” Marco said. “Now find the get-us-the-heck-outta-here switch!” The Animorphs are going to Washington, DC! Want to take bets on if they'll get there?
|
# ? Oct 20, 2020 01:40 |
|
For some reason the flys crossing the street part stuck out to me more than anything else in this book. That and I remember I first read it in a doctor's office waiting room during a midday rainstorm? It's actually a solid plan in that they KNOW the president isn't compromised yet, because they foiled a plot to get a president-controller a bit back already.
|
# ? Oct 20, 2020 09:21 |
|
Sorry about this, but a crisis has come up tonight and the next two chapters are probably going to have to wait until tomorrow. I'm very sorry.
|
# ? Oct 21, 2020 01:58 |
|
Uh oh, hope everything is ok! Take care
|
# ? Oct 21, 2020 02:29 |
|
It's all good! I think we've all absorbed enough Animorphs by now to write our own chapters. Or, at least the Animorphs Opening Chapter™ and a small treatise on thermals.
|
# ? Oct 21, 2020 03:44 |
|
Tree Bucket posted:It's all good! I think we've all absorbed enough Animorphs by now to write our own chapters. One of these days we need to feed all the books into a text generator and see what it comes up with.
|
# ? Oct 21, 2020 03:52 |
|
Epicurius posted:One of these days we need to feed all the books into a text generator and see what it comes up with. I can't tell you who I am, only that my name is Xena. warrior princess. We fight the evil half-deer, half-human, half-scorpions using the powerful Cinnabuns given to us by Prince Jake. We thermal thermals and thermal thermal thermaling thermals whale jesus.
|
# ? Oct 21, 2020 05:16 |
|
Epicurius posted:One of these days we need to feed all the books into a text generator and see what it comes up with. I. Am a thermal. A pillar of warm air, rising off ground heated by the sun. I can't tell you what street, skyscraper, or sunny meadow I rise from. I can't tell you what birds I have lofted skywards, like an elevator raising them above the surly bonds of gravity. I can't tell you what nimbus clouds I have made into thunderheads. I can't tell you those things not because the earth is being invaded by brain-stealing alien slugs called "Yeerks" or anything, but because I am a temporary convection phenomenon, and not a conscious observer.
|
# ? Oct 21, 2020 05:45 |
|
"Jake, you have to check out this youtube video." I rolled my eyes. Marco always wants me to check out this youtube video. The thing is, Marco has terrible taste in youtube. Last time he tried to show me something he called a deep-fried meme. I had only managed to follow the first ten seconds of the video before I had to call it quits. "Marco, is this one of those let's players?" I asked him. "Yeah. Yeah, this is Markiplier. He's one of the big ones." I shook my head. I never got the idea of watching other people playing video games. I mean, sure, if you're hanging out with a friend, sometimes you take turns in a game. But to spend all day watching someone scream at a scary game? It didn't make sense to me. He was playing some scary game about animatronics, really playing up how scared he was. He was clearly just acting. I wondered what Marco was showing me this for. A quick look at the video's title revealed this was episode 50 of this nonsense. And that's when it happened. "Well, that was spooky, wasn't it!" Markiplier's little face in the corner of the video smiled. "Big shout out to our new sponsor, The Sharing--" and that's when Marco paused the video. "He's a controller," Marco said seriously. "Markiplier's a controller. He has 27 million subscribers, Jake. You know what we gotta do?" I nodded grimly. "We have to cancel Markiplier."
|
# ? Oct 21, 2020 07:39 |
|
Book 11:The Forgotten-Chapter 9quote:8:42 P.M. Marco's right. As we know, Jake always forgets that the SleazeTroll shows up whenever you cross the Never Fjord. quote:“Grab the joystick,” Marco suggested. As strange as it seems, there actually was a joystick. It was for much bigger hands than mine, and the two buttons on it were clumsy to reach. But it was a joystick. "Whatever. I'm busy here." quote:We were rising up through the atmosphere. We were above the clouds already. I could see brief flashes of the lights of the city down below, but mostly it was clouds and more clouds. This is the problem with having the guy who doesn't know Earth geography pilot the ship. quote:“Yeah, I guess not,” I said. Although it was such a wonderful sight that I almost didn’t want to worry about where we were going. “Ax, maybe we’d better slow down, get some idea of where Washington is and -” Admit it, you were wondering how long it would take Visser Three to show up, weren't you? Chapter 10 quote:8:54 P.M. Is this a clue? quote:Suddenly, friction flames began glowing from the nose of the Bug fighter. We were going back into the atmosphere. Just to point out, this is the second time this ship has crashed.
|
# ? Oct 22, 2020 01:01 |
|
It certainly is not intentional, but Cassie noticing the inconsistency in the daylight is consistent with her being an anomaly grounded in the true timeline.
|
# ? Oct 22, 2020 02:56 |
|
Epicurius posted:Spoken as someone who's owned a dog, I can vouch for that. Lies. The way it really goes is that you throw the ball/frisbee, the dog catches it, and then she brings it back to you and drops it at your feet and runs back out to where you're going to throw it. Getting scratched after each throw is for dogs who don't have what it takes to go pro.
|
# ? Oct 22, 2020 22:03 |
|
Book 11-Chapter 11quote:Time Unknown. That's a true thing. Apparently, there's so much competition for sunlight high up, very little actually gets down to the ground, so not much grows/ quote:Suddenly I came to a clearing. A hole in the canopy where a tree had fallen. Bright sunlight shone down through the gap. And it was as if every species of plant life you could imagine was crowding into that sunny spot. I found myself facing an incredible wall of vegetation: a dozen types of Master of understatement, there. quote:I followed Tobias, pushing and shoving and fighting my way through forest that seemed determined to stop me. I was dripping with sweat and gasping in the thick air. And they don't think he has a sense of humor. Chapter 12 quote:1:22 P.M. - Again. Again, the Animorphs met the least studious Animorph. quote:“I’m thirsty,” Rachel said. “Whatever else we’re going to do, we have to find water. And food. Ax, can we fix the Bug fighter?” Again, this is a look at the responsibility of leadership. Jake just sent Ax to do something that could kill him, and he's got to take responsibility for that. We've also seen Tobias's frustration with being a hawk and with feeling like he's not contributing to the team and the mission.
|
# ? Oct 23, 2020 02:13 |
|
quote:HOO! HOO! HOO! HOO! HOOHOHOHOHOHO! HAH! HAH! quote:HOO! HOO! HOO! HOOHOOHOOHOO! HAH! HAH! HAH! Anyway, Jake didn't have any visions of getting caught or dying, so I'm sure everything's going to turn out fine.
|
# ? Oct 23, 2020 05:27 |
|
Epicurius posted:
Never cross the streams.
|
# ? Oct 23, 2020 13:31 |
|
I hope above all else we get to see Visser Three commend the Andalite Bandits for their most assuredly intentional ploy.
|
# ? Oct 23, 2020 16:07 |
|
"Why couldn't it be a stupid alien? I mean, they gotta have 'em." - Sphere
|
# ? Oct 23, 2020 17:51 |
|
Two things that struck me in this chapter: 1) Aren’t they be in their morphing outfits? I was weirded out by the mental image of Jake walking through the Amazon rainforest barefoot in bike shorts and a tight t-shirt but the narrative just glossed over it. If I were him I would have morphed tiger as soon as I realized I was in a jungle. 2) why did Cassie tear her shirt to make a bandage for a cut on her hand? She could have just quickly morphed anything and demorphed to heal herself. And she should know this.
|
# ? Oct 24, 2020 02:05 |
|
Does anyone else think it's kind of sad that Jake didn't call out for Tobias, or hell, even Ax? Such white male human privilege... nothlit/andalite lives matter!
|
# ? Oct 24, 2020 02:35 |
|
|
# ? Apr 29, 2024 00:46 |
|
King of Foolians posted:Two things that struck me in this chapter: This bothered me as well. I also think it would have been interesting to have Jake wake up with broken bones or paralyzed and has to morph to heal. For crashing from outer space they faired well
|
# ? Oct 24, 2020 02:37 |