Animorphuckery

Who are we? Grown-ass neurodivergent millennials who are still hung up on our elementary-school hyperfixation. Why are we here? To take children's books way too seriously, or to acknowledge how serious these children's books are, depending on your perspective. What's our purpose in life? Purposes include:- Examining cultural and psychological themes that appeared in Animorphs,- Telling K. A. Applegate et al. how much we love them, but occasionally acknowledging we have some concerns,- Comparing Animorphs to other works of sci-fi, primarily Deep Space Nine,- Screaming nonsensically about our feelings,- And more!

Real life cult recruitment tactics along with how they apply to The Sharing. Also discussed: the 2016 US election, toxic religious groups, Scientology, and sexual assault. The doxxing will begin in 5, 4, 3….Books heavily covered: 1, 2, 6, Visser, and Megamorphs: Back to Before.Check out Telltale Atheist and Genetically Modified Skeptic on YouTube, along with these additional resources:https://bigthink.com/the-present/four-cult-recruitment-techniques/ https://people.howstuffworks.com/cult3.htmhttps://medium.com/@cosseymelanie/how-cults-entrap-people-d2f012c10149 https://www.alittlebithuman.com/the-bite-model-of-cult-mind-control-explained/https://youtu.be/KSf5ib-mCDI

A 55-year old sci-fi nerd reads Animorphs for the first time. Phuckery discussed: religious trauma, censorship, addiction, The War on Drugs, cannibalim, getting eaten alive, torture, Rodney King, suicide, slavery, genocide, sex trafficking (specifically in Maine?), sexual assault, trans rights, dysmorphia, women's rights, broken homes, 9/11, and the War on Terror. You know, because these are kids' books. 

Back in the 90s Hannah and Shannon were isolated homeschoolers who didn't have much in life, but DID have Animorphs. Being tiny little blonde girls with attitude problems the importance of Rachel cannot be overstated. Then Mama Applegate murdered Rachel. Then Hannah and Shannon met Mama Applegate. Hugs and hate mail ensued.Phucked up topics include: PTSD in war veterans, beating a man to death with your own severed arm, murdering your family for the cause of the war, Native American genocide, 90s Feminism, gender fluidity, 9/11, Columbine, Desert Storm, The Holocaust, and defeating Nazis with cocaine.Many tangents including The Hunger Games, Dear America, The Royal Diaries, The Giver, Number the Stars, His Dark Materials, and Grace and Frankie, somehow?See more of Shannon (and sometimes Hannah) talking about controversial literature at https://boundandgaggedbooks.wordpress.com/

Are you sick of Rowling's TERFy nonsense? Do you want to stop supporting Harry Potter but don't have a good replacement lined up? Have no fear, everyone; anything Harry Potter ever did right Animorphs did better. Topics include family, race, representation, free will, neurodivergency, trauma, whimsy, good and evil, and gay aliens with Space AIDs living in suburbia. A HUGE thanks and shoutout to the Animorphs Yeerkposting Facebook group for all their suggestions. https://www.facebook.com/groups/891899307817393/permalink/1631466913860625/

Chelsea is a schoolteacher and it shows. Hannah majored in Political Science and minored in History. We both had A LOT to say about Imperialism and Animorphs!Topics include: The Irish diaspora and Potato Famine, the Hong Kong and Panama 99-year treaties, the Spanish-American War, the Lewis and Clark Expedition, one-child policies, third-culture children, white saviorism, 9/11 and the War on Terror, women's history in STEM, and the Native American Genocide (with a strange amount of focus on the Pennacook tribe). Also, it is now headcanon that COVID is an Andalite STI. READ "WITCH CHILD" AND "SORCERESS BY CELIA REES. YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT.The dog picture described at 1:05: https://twitter.com/animorphuckery/status/1485051648061763584?s=20Resources:Outline of American Imperialism: The Territorial Expansion of the United States by Adam Burns (https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/12432) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfsfoFqsFk4 Introduction to the Age of Empire (https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/rise-to-world-power/age-of-empire/a/intro-to-age-of-empire)“Who Built the Panama Canal? with Professor Kaysha Corinealdi” from Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness

CW: This episode discusses the misguided belief that disabled lives are not worth living or preserving. If now is not a good time to be in that headspace, please have a wonderful day listening to something else

Travis, aka @WlkngCntradctn, has the coolest Twitter bio ever:"Bi/Pan white cis male poly kinky quadriplegic therapist published philosopher/author semi-professional origami artist and canonical Animorph."After reading that I just HAD to hear everything he had to say about Animorphs, and sure enough, he was full of great things to say. Topics include: Avatar The Last Airbender & Korra, disability, grief and acceptance associated with becoming disabled, various forms of privilege, The Trolley Problem, The Prisoner's Dilemma, Spiderman 2, the therapeutic uses of pop culture references, Don Quixote, Logan, elder care, and more.NOTE: This episode (and most other episodes of Animorphuckery) contain full-series spoilers. If you followed Travis here from Animorphing Time and are reading the books along with them, wait a few weeks; you're almost there!

GET IN, SHORMS, TODAY WE ARE FACING OUR TRAUMA.How traumatized were each of the Animorphs before the war? How about after? What methods exist for reducing the impact of traumatic events? Why does the Animorph fandom seem to be so full of people who had shitty childhoods? Join us as we analyze each character's (modified) ACE scores before and after the war and learn about the healing power of shorms.Safety warnings:- This episode talks about some heavy shit. If you are not in a mental place where you can be doing that right now, please don't.- We are not professionals; we are just people who have learned a thing or two while trying to get our own shit together. If you feel you need a professional, please seek one out.Learn about ACE scores here: https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/fastfact.htmlLearn about preventing ACEs here: https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/preventingACES.pdfA Question of Hope: https://intranet.bixbycenter.ucsf.edu/resources/files/Video_A%20Question%20of%20Hope_Background.pdfThe Body Keeps The Score:https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18693771-the-body-keeps-the-scoreAdult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23129659-adult-children-of-emotionally-immature-parentsIf you haven't sustained enough emotional damage, check out this worksheet and measure it against the Animorphs' parents. Or, even worse, your own: http://curioushealing.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/ACEIP_exercises.pdf

I'm not saying I am done talking about Animorphs, but I am saying WELCOME TO SEASON TWO OF HANNAH CAN'T SHUT UP ABOUT 90S CHILDREN'S SCI-FI!If anything else about Animorphs comes up that desperately needs to be said, I'll say it, but in the meantime Chelsea and I have decided that the Disney show So Weird MUST be discussed. I am convinced that the Venn diagram of people who would love Animorphs and people who would love So Weird is a circle. Its on Disney+ right now; go make your life 1000 times better by checking it out and then join me and Chelsea as we launch our So Weird rewatch podcast.... soon? Ugh, adult responsibilities really need to take a seat so we can focus on what really matters; 90s children's sci-fi.

There are a thousand reasons us kids that grew up watching So Weird have never fully forgotten the show. Join us as we revisit the show and gush episode by episode about why it was SO GOOD!

Let's meet the characters, gush about our bisexual neurodivergent icon Fi, responsible older brother Jack, stoner-coded comedic relief Clu, mother-of-the-year Molly. Chelsea the elementary school teacher and Hannah the former homeschooled kid agree; Ned is teacher of the year. This episode begins with images of corpses being pulled out of a shipwreck, builds up to parents watching their child fall to their death, and ends with absolutely iconic 90s fashion. Along the way we compare it to The X-Files, The Addams Family and Lizzie McGuire, deconstruct 90s dumb-blonde culture, discuss which moments fucked us up as kids and which moments fucked us up as adults, the importance of listening to kids (the fictional ones in the show, us as the audience, and ghost kids haunting your laptop), memoirs of the 90s Satanic Panic and hiding our love of this show from loved ones because of it, and reflect on the irony of having technical difficulties while watching a show about a ghost haunting a laptop.Everyone involved in producing this show was obviously giving it their all, and we are so grateful. 

This week we talk about plots that got scrapped on the writing room floor (thanks to the other So Weird podcast that did ALL the research and archiving to keep this show alive during the dark years), Molly's (and Mackenzie's) triumph over addiction, the season 3 that could have been, the pure brilliance of the theme song, Henry Winkler's contributions to Millennial culture, and that's all before we even start talking about the episode at hand.In this episode: phenomenal rapport between the characters, intense turning points for technology in 1999, the importance of communication (which is probably going to come up a lot in this series), WEAR YOUR SEATBELT AND DON'T CLICK ON MYSTERIOUS EMAIL ATTACHMENTS.Go check out the original So Weird podcast. Go watch What Dreams May Come. After listening to this episode go listen to the full version of In The Darkness again. 

What if you can't trust your own mind or memories? What if you don't have the resources you need to stay alive? What if you are under the control of people who are not in their right mind and they make poor decisions that put you at risk? Each of the characters respond to this situation wildly differently, and deciding who is right and who is wrong is not straightforward. Drugs? Mental illness? Alzheimer's? Caregiver neglect? Lack of resources? Somehow this episode about aliens is relevant to all of these things, and therefore one of the most relatable stories ever set to film. One trip to IMDB later we are pretty sure this was intentional. Yet again, this show had the best team imaginable and they created magic. 

PUPPY!!!!!!And by "puppy" we do mean "Bigfoot." Join us for the "feel good episode" in which Fi literally finds the corpse of a Civil War soldier.Themes include giving your life for someone else, self-awareness, compassion for outgroups, communication, Colonialism, ecological preservation, intent versus impact, respecting autonomy, and bringing families together.Tangents include Desperate Housewives, Tarzan, and gawking at how incredible the creators of this show were (as always).

Quick question: did we all have fantasies about being able to astral project when we were kids, and did those fantasies evaporate once we all got our drivers' licenses? Asking for a friend!Astral projection acts as an allegory for escapism from the stresses of life in this episode. Capitalism sucks, the 90's treatment of "gifted children" was highly misguided, and it turns out humans need enough free time to experience boredom in order to live up to their full potential. Sometimes that full potential is creating podcasts about 90s children's sci-fi, and THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. 

Fi and the crew have to fix a flat tire by preventing Elon Musk from launching Starlink. Molly learns to "walk up, not out." Erik Von Detten may have invented the word "boomer." I am not exaggerating nearly as much as I should be. 

Ned has one of the worst moments of his life and still manages to spend it loving the kids. Fi saunters into the underworld without a second thought. Clu milks a cow.  Chelsea shares her cancer-survivor perspective on Gabe. Hannah desperately hopes Patrick Levis didn't experience too much Satanic Panic backlash for his involvement in this show. This entire episode is full of people loving and protecting each other, and it gives us warm fuzzies.