Megan & Carey read book 48: The Return!

In which: Rats are irresponsible financiers. Teens are foolishly trusting. Wartime challenges are considered. Morals are grappled with. So are horrible controllers, because Rachel and Visser 1 have an all-out, no-holds-barred cage match*!

*Rachel is imprisoned in a literal cage. Nobody has a good time.

Intro music is a clip from "All of Us"(freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Ski…04_-_all_of_us) and outro music is a clip from "We Are The Resistors" (freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Ski…_the_resistors)

both are by Eric Skiff(freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Skiff/), available under CC BY 3.0. (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/#)

Brace your pods, Megan and Carey read the Ellimist Chronicles with Hanni Brosh! (@saffronscarf)

Honestly, who foresaw that the Ellimist's backstory was being a bird person who lived on a hovering crystal and plays endless games of Spore? But now that we're here, there's no choice but to get our hearts broken by a horrifying and strangely hopeful space adventure. Wanna think about the nature of life vs entropy? Want to feel the clock ticking down before one of our fave kids straight-up dies? Most importantly: wanna get nostalgic for the feeling of reading this book at age 13?? Join us!

Intro & interstitial music is a clip from "All of Us"(freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Ski…04_-_all_of_us) and outro music is a clip from "We Are The Resistors" (freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Ski…_the_resistors)

both are by Eric Skiff(freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Skiff/), available under CC BY 3.0. (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/#)

Megan & Carey read Animorphs 47: The Resistance!

Jake sure does have a great-great-grunkle who fought in the Union army in the civil war, huh. He sure does read a journal all about it interspersed with the present-day action in this book, huh. We talk through and about that storyline and its pitfalls in the first ~25 minutes of the ep, and then devote the rest to our sad, sad present-day teens, who are desperately fighting alongside the free Hork-Bajir to protect their valley from a full Yeerk assault. It goes about as well as you'd think. BUT! Don't lose hope! There's still time for a camping trip and an engineering adventure! Well... Sort of.

Intro music is a clip from "All of Us"(freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Ski…04_-_all_of_us) and outro music is a clip from "We Are The Resistors" (freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Ski…_the_resistors)
both are by Eric Skiff(freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Skiff/), available under CC BY 3.0. (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/#)

Carey & Megan read Animorphs 46: The Deception!

Remember when Ax discovered the magic of flavors? Remember teaching him how to act like a regular teen? Those days are super gone and our alien friend is making horrible decisions that make nobody happy. Turns out war with aliens is just not a fun time, who would have thought? But man, do we love these kids.

Intro music is a clip from "All of Us"(freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Ski…04_-_all_of_us) and outro music is a clip from "We Are The Resistors" (freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Ski…_the_resistors)

both are by Eric Skiff(freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Skiff/), available under CC BY 3.0. (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/#)

Megan and Carey watched episodes 23 & 24 of the Animorphs TV show!

It's the penultimate batch of tv episodes!! Can you believe it!! Breakout stars include: Ax's big TV-original-mall-sitcom debut;

Visser 3's brief but deeply appreciated appearance; a whole bunch of really excellent 90s outfits; An Actual, Factual Bear; a 10-shot closeup headshot sequence; and the tantalizing promise of a SCHOOL DANCE FINALE.

Hang in there, folks! There's still time for a shopping montage in the final two episodes!

Intro music is a clip from "All of Us"(freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Ski…04_-_all_of_us) and outro music is a clip from "We Are The Resistors" (freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Ski…_the_resistors)

both are by Eric Skiff(freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Skiff/), available under CC BY 3.0. (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/#)

It's the beginning of the end and Marco has a very terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Join us as we talk about Animorphs #45: The Revelation. We recommend checking this book out before listening, it's worth wading through a bunch of filler for. We're coping with the intense stakes and heartbreaking consequences by focusing on things like: Ax eating a bunch of oreos purchased by a dog robot family and the fact that canonically, the kids all got to hang out with some nice dogs for a while there. While, you know, Marco's heart broke into 10 million peices.

Intro music is a clip from "All of Us"(freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Ski…04_-_all_of_us) and outro music is a clip from "We Are The Resistors" (freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Ski…_the_resistors)

both are by Eric Skiff(freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Skiff/), available under CC BY 3.0. (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/#)

Megan & Carey read book 44: The Unexpected! Which it certainly WAS.

We allowed ourselves to hope, for one brief moment, that Cassie going to Australia might be part of some kind of... relaxation break. Perhaps one of your human "Vacations." Tragically, we were, as always, completely wrong.

BUT DON'T GIVE UP YET! The battle wages on!! We found a lot to like in this book: Cassie draws on her absent friends to make it through her ordeal; foraging for equipment and food to survives takes some unexpectedly sweet cargo-hold turns; we don't spend TOO long hearing about how buff and horrible kangaroos are; there's one last bittersweet blissful mall decompression at the very end; and no good dogs die. On-screen, anyway.

Intro music is a clip from "All of Us"(freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Ski…04_-_all_of_us) and outro music is a clip from "We Are The Resistors" (freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Ski…_the_resistors)

both are by Eric Skiff(freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Skiff/), available under CC BY 3.0. (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/#)

We knew from the image of the Taxxon on the cover that this book would be rough, but we weren't really ready for....this. Megan & Carey survive The Test, wherein Tobias and friends are having a REALLY bad time. Like, seriously, a traumatized-by-war level bad time. Join us in clinging to the fun of Computer Club in the Woods, food court feasts and Rachel picking a cool girl outfit. But life's getting real tough out there for our favorite andalite bandits.

Intro music is a clip from "All of Us"(freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Ski…04_-_all_of_us) and outro music is a clip from "We Are The Resistors" (freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Ski…_the_resistors)

both are by Eric Skiff(freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Skiff/), available under CC BY 3.0. (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/#)

Megan and Carey read book 42: The Journey!

The Helmacrons are back... and they're ready to PARTY*!

*Invade Marco's nose.

That's it. That's all I got. You wanna know what this book is about? It's about the kids gettin real small and having to follow the helmacrons into Marco's nose. Did you watch that episode of Magic School Bus? Did you see Osmosis Jones? Did you catch The Incredible Journey? Remember Double Dare? It's all here, baby, and it's all gross!

Marco deals with the inevitable depression of any-second-now-my-tiny-friends-might-kill-me by joking his way through life. Rachel shows some surprising softness. Ax admits to possible failure (?!). There are a lot of fun moments in this book! Just be prepared: you're gonna need to wade through a lotta mess to get to them. Snot an easy task.

Intro music is a clip from "All of Us"(freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Ski…04_-_all_of_us) and outro music is a clip from "We Are The Resistors" (freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Ski…_the_resistors)

both are by Eric Skiff(freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Skiff/), available under CC BY 3.0. (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/#)

There won't be any new episodes until January 9th, but here's a little afternoon snack of an episode to tide you over while we all collectively hibernate for a couple weeks. Enjoy a snippet of ooooooold audio from before we (sort of) knew what we were doing with podcasting! And before we knew what we were getting ourselves into emotionally and spiritually.

As always, Intro music is a clip from "All of Us"(freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Ski…04_-_all_of_us) and outro music is a clip from "We Are The Resistors" (freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Ski…_the_resistors)

both are by Eric Skiff(freemusicarchive.org/music/Eric_Skiff/), available under CC BY 3.0. (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/#)