2026 Media Log

was really surprised how much I didn't like this one after all the hype. shallow and muddled themes, treated the audience like we were dumb (why did we need like four flashbacks/overlays to confirm the nurse was the old man), and 30min too long. some great effects and successful body horror but even then it felt purely arbitrary sometimes.

a complete sensory nightmare. which was the point and was very well-executed and I loved the lead's performance. but I was in pain.

DANA! Santos and Whitaker are soooo cute and funny. hate the new white boy but love his rivalry with Javadi. the old Jewish lady berating Robby for going on a motorcycle tour and calling him SAD! is so real. but otherwise I feel like this season hasn't gripped me as intensely and immediately as S1 so far.

rewatching while Dasha watches it for the first time. really stressed out to have to face Tuco again.

this is like. my 3rd to 5th time watching some of these eps. but Dasha and I were showing our friend. his favourite was episode 3 which I think is kind of fucked up

2026 is my year of Animorphs. I read a few books as a kid, and then listened to all of a podcast about it in college, but I've been collecting the physical books for almost five years now and I'm finally going to read through them all.
I knew Animorphs tackled pretty heavy themes head on but I still wasn't quite prepared for how truly grim these books are right off the bat. I loved reading this, they're so tightly written and use their short lengths so effectively!!!

this book carried the first book's momentum and style strengths, I absolutely love reading how they put an animal's instincts and personality into words so well. I cried in public while reading about Rachel pushing the time limit on her cat morph to spend some time comforting her crying former friend. every character is layered and lovable in these books but I think I'm a Rachel girl above all...

only took three books to get to the first suicide attempt. again, even with full advanced warning of how grim these books get I still wasn't quite prepared! my favourite little moment was when Tobias made a self-deprecating joke about wanting a mouse for lunch and Marco laughed his ass off while everyone else just stood there looking uncomfortable.

after telling my girlfriend about the plot of the first three books in detail, I ended up reading this one out loud to her, which was great luck because she's a sea creature fan. we got such a kick of everyone constantly dragging and poking at each other. feels organic. like these kids are friends in different capacities but also all the five were never besties with each other. they're like coworkers now. it also gets me every single time when they're like "okay guys we gotta wrap up this save-the-world meeting, I have math homework". they're just kids...

also read this one out loud, somehow all in one sitting. I knew the twist that was coming at the end and waited in dread the whole time. really big fan of everything Ax brings to the table. king of being ambiguous and building space technology from Radio Shack

we are officially reading all of these out loud going forward so that we can both experience them in real time. because this shit is crazy. I remembered the main plot point of this one but I didn't realize it happened so early in the series. Jake experiencing all the memories of the yeerk and its previous hosts as it died inside his head was really genuiinely sad and horrifying. these books are written so effectively it's honestly a marvel.

another book where I thought all thise stuff happens way later in the series. what do you mean book 7 out of 54 already introduces the omniscient time being! anyway. another deeply sad book. the position Rachel is in would already be devastating even without all the guerilla warfare. also immediately after reading the early cockraoch chapter I walked into my kitchen and saw the first cockroach I've ever seen in my life.

AX BOOK!!! Dasha bawled her eyes out while reading this to me. this book was so sweet and funny at times but also haunting me at other times. killing any host whose Yeerk dies in their head. Ax's unique brand of loneliness and being forced into various scapegoat positions. Visser Three's Andalite begging to be killed. the Seerow's Kindness reveal. god. but also Ax impersonating Jake and eating like four bowls of chili to Cassie's horror. and Ax's little diary entries at the start of the chapers were so cute :')

my favourite thing is when Animorphs says stuff like " 'Don't call me Prince,' Prince Jake said."

Hannah gathered us all to watch it because she had seen it and wanted to share how bad it was. I had fun. the villain's entirely dubbed lines were crazy and everyone was so annoying. I kind of feel like it's not that much worse than the average Superhero movie at this point though but I'm also at a point where I could not give less of a fuck about anything superhero related

I'm enjoying it more as the season goes on, Dana is the goat, that is all

we couldn't watch E5 of the Pitt while abroad so we tried something we thought might scratch the itch but it didn't.

a big standout moment for me was Cassie getting mad at Tobias for eating one of the baby skunks. she knows about the harsh requirements of nature and the food chain and she knows that Tobias has no choice but to live as a hawk but she can't help but give him the silent treatment about it for a bit. very real. another really good balance of devastating and silly in this book, from grappling with executing the entire termite colony to defeating Visser Three with the power of stink.

this book got repetitive at times between the usual required plot beat repitition combined with dealing with an amnesia plotline (which I am never partial to), but this one had such good gang antics that I had to love it. Marco describing the group as "I'm the smart, cute one. Jake is the bossy one, Cassie is the nice one, Rachel is the stupidly brave one, and Tobias is a bird." was my favourite, closely followed by Tobias telling Marco to stand under his branch when he pissed him off and Marco driving like a maniac while Jake yells at him

Emily Austin's first novel affected me in ways I still struggle to put into words, but none of her other books have quite come close. This book dealt with some interesting ideas with reflecting on a past relationship unreliably because the ex-partner is now dead and what that all entails. it's an homage to public libraries as well which I can always appreciate, but otherwise the book was just generally a little too on the nose at times. I think I'm just well past being able to tolerate when a novel clearly states the definition of compulsory heterosexuality in the text at this point. all that said I still liked it well enough, a nice low-stakes beach read at least

re-read (first read in 2022) because it was on sale at Walmart and I wanted to give it another go before I hopefully read McCurdy's debut fiction novel soon. still just as harrowing upon re-read. I also felt kind of crazy because I swear the version I read in 2022 placed a little more explicit blame on Ariana Grande for preventing McCurdy from directing but it seemed more subtle here? Unsure if there was a change since the first printing or if I'm misremembering.

tell me why we both cried at the goofy ass alien dog cyborg lore reveal. this is one of the few books where I did remember the ending (either from a tumblr post or from the Animorphs podcast I used to listen to in college), but it didn't help make it much less dreadful. Marco getting eaten by a crow while in spider morph and exploding out of its throat a he demorphed was a surprise though.

the time travel shenanigans making this book just one really long really bad day was effective, and the environment change to the jungle was a fun change of pace. I do think it was bold and necessary to fix the time displacement by literally having to just kill everyone. also these kids just can't escape ant related trauma...

okay maybe it's natural fatigue from reading this many Animorph books in less than eight weeks, but the usual level of plot beat repetition started to wear on me here a bit. the allergy plot point didn't feel as well-thought out as the usual world building, and I think some of the antics in this one were a little over the top. also this shouldn't matter but it pissed me off that Rachel's mom said "I'm going to the store to get some milk" but when Rachel morphed elephant and destroyed her kitchen she specifically described seeing a gallon of milk glug glugging on the floor of the exploded fridge but her mom wasn't even back yet. where is the attention to detail I'm used to ! but I loved Rachel getting so incredibly enraged at her teen actor crush "betraying his fans" specifically.
lastly, my girlfriend called Jeremy Jason McCole "Jacob Sartorius" when she couldn't remember his name so we read his name as that out loud the whole rest of the book

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this season feels extra afterschool special-y, though maybe I just didn't clock it in S1. but I still just really love all the nuances in the character dynamics. and suicidal Robby *thumps up*. Santos getting hit on by a furry was so fanfic but whatever I'll take it

I've been excited for this one since preorder!!! all the skating is beautifully rendered, something I imagine is especially difficult to get across in drawings.

I fell asleep just before the Hork-Bajir cut his own head up but Dasha made sure to tell me in great detail the next morning. I knew Tobias regained morphing powers but I didn't remember him getting his own DNA back. a part of me loves the delicious tragedy of the idea that human Tobias essentially ceased to exist, DNA included, as soon as he got stuck as a hawk, but I suppose I can let Tobias have this win

I know I just complained about The Reaction feeling too over the top but the feeling does not carry on to this book. I loved this one, we had a blast. so incredibly funny all throughout. Tobias having a weird mean hawk expression while in human morph, Cassie writing 12345678 as a fake phone number, Cassie morphing a horse and thought-speaking to a jockey while also actively beefing with some random stallion, the Yeerk Horses and regular follower horses and Animorph horses wreaking havoc in the not-Area 51 hangar then politely leaving after being yelled at by a general, Marco's dreams of a rigged gambling empire, Cassie not being able to read military time, Visser Three just standing still inside a haunted house ride. I could go on.
also it was very serendipidous to read an ER Noah Wyle reference in this book a few hours after watching a new Pitt episode

the tonal whiplash of reading this right after the goofiest book that was The Unknown. god. devastating and harrowing all the way through. I loved getting to pull back and get some more detailed lore and different species perspectives. Aldrea & Dak had a really deliciously painful dynamic - "We had more in common than he could ever have with any Hork-Bajir. It was too late for Dak. He knew that the stars were not flowers." <--- OUGH! anyway I also cried at the Toby name reveal at the end. while sitting at a work event where I was reading all day

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