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meme [gen]

unpopular opinions

Do you think people are too sensitive? Or that Superman isn't so super? Think cats aren't cute? The Beatles are overrated? Love pineapple on pizza? Maybe you just don't like chips rly. Even the best of us have some controversial opinions. Let people know what a monster you are.

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with your characters’ unpopular and/or controversial opinion. Or share few of them at once. In person or via text. Prepare for disagreement.

comment

to tell them why they're wrong, validate a kindred spirit, or just troll them for caring about such a silly-ass thing in the first place.

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[ dryly: ]

I wouldn't disagree.

Of course you wouldn't. Now your good little aristh might. All pumped full of Andalite pride and hubris.

Ax is learning. He's actually come a pretty far way, you know.

[ All it had taken was Jake threatening to kick him out of the Animorphs a few times, but... still. ]

An Andalite learning? I'll believe it when I see it.

[ Bitter much? ]

You were able to learn and change. Thanks to Cassie.

And no thanks to your Andalite, who wanted me dead.

[ Sorry, Jake. She knows she should be grateful, but most of that gratitude is focused onto Cassie for obvious reasons. ]

Not like any of the rest of you would have given murdering me a second thought. I got lucky that it was Cassie. Seventeen thousand, three hundred seventy-two of us weren't fortunate enough to get that kind of mercy.

[ Gritted teeth, a clenched jaw. That particular number is carved into his soul. The war tribunal might have chosen not to indict him in the end, but that hadn't gotten Jake off the hook for his own guilt. He'd go to his grave remembering that number. Seventeen thousand, three hundred, and seventy-two. Plus seventeen auxiliary Animorphs. Plus Rachel. ]

I know.

Cassie's better than all the rest of us. You won't ever find me arguing against that, either.

[ There's a flicker of something unhappy behind Aftran's flinty gaze. She isn't going to let him forget, not when so many died. Not when some of them were Peace Movement yeerks who'd only wanted the war to end. Not when all of them had been helpless before the righteous anger of the human resistance fighters. ]

She's better than most of us. Has a bigger heart than almost all of us, too. Somehow.

I'd say it has something to do with her being raised taking care of other living creatures, but plenty of people work with animals and are still pieces of shit. So, I guess it's just all her somehow.

[ Their mutual fondness for Cassie is one of the few things this Yeerk and this human have in common, most likely. They might've split up long ago, but Jake can't shake that affection in his voice when he talks about her. Sometimes, you can love someone and still not be right for them, and vice versa. ]

I know this probably isn't something you want to hear from me, and it probably won't change anything, but— still. I really am sorry, Aftran.

Sorry? For what? Which part?

[ There's a hollow sort of laugh. She crosses her arms tightly across her chest. ]

Sweet light of Kandrona you really are just a damn kid.

For how the war ended. I'm still not sure if—

[ Not sure if it was all worth it. If, maybe, they could've won anyway without flushing the mothership. Jake's gaze drops, downcast; he'd been capable of staring down Visser One and the goddamn Andalite council, but he can't wield that defiance here, with her. It's like something core and vital has been ripped out of him ever since the war ended, that strong spine sagging. He cuts himself off, switches gears. ]

Anyway. Yeah, I guess I am.
How old are you, in how Yeerks measure age?

[ She waits for him to switch gears, staring at him with an impassive and unrelenting indifference. She might adore Cassie, but she could always take or leave the rest of them. There's a faint scoff beneath her breath and she shrugs. ]

Old enough.

[ Her gaze slides away from him for a moment, seeks out some point beyond Jake so that Aftran can look elsewhere. ]

...Does it matter? I'm not a Yeerk anymore. Not really.

Edited 2020-12-25 06:24 (UTC)

Doesn't really matter for going forward, I guess. But subjectively, like. Were you the equivalent of a teenager, like us? Or are you like, I don't know, an old grandma in Yeerk terms?

[ Yeerks die when they reproduce, which he remembers — from the conversation with the visser's twin, and from his own fleeting mind-meld with the one who had infested him — but he still finds himself curious about this. Wanting to know more. (About these people he slaughtered.) ]

I was old enough that I could have created more Yeerks. I wasn't a juvenile. Not the same way you all were.

[ Which is weird because her body takes a good deal of Cassie, which makes her Jake's age. At least in human terms. ]

Why?

[ It had been so surreal, Aftran taking on this new body. Seeing this face that both was and was not Cassie. And of course, of course she had offered that up, her own DNA and her own body to this Yeerk. Jake could understand the reasons behind it, could even approve of the solution — it was a better option than any animal alternative — but he could still be skeeved out by it. ]

I don't know. Even after all those years, there's so much I don't understand about Yeerks. Not like Cassie did.

[ Largely because he hadn't let himself. Had closed himself off to it, as the only way to get through that war, to keep going. ]

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