So far you have had a date with Destiny, flirted with Death, and danced with the Devil. You’re going to have a serious chat with your wingman next time you go clubbing.
I keep hate-reading plague literature from the medieval era, but as depressed as it makes me there is always one historical tidbit that makes me feel a little bittersweet and I like to revisit it. That’s the story of the village of Eyam.
Eyam today is a teeny tiny town of less than a thousand people. It has barely grown since 1665 when its population was around 800.
Where the story starts with Eyam is that in August 1665 the village tailor and his assistant discovered that a bolt of cloth that they had bought from London was infested with rat fleas. A few days later on September 7th the tailor’s assistant
George Viccars
died from plague.
Back then people didn’t fully understand how disease spread, but they knew in a basic sense that it did spread and that the spread had something to do with the movement of people.
So two religios leaders in the town,
Thomas Stanley
and
William Mompesson,
got together and came up with a plan. They would put the entire village of Eyam under quarantine. And they did. For over a year nobody went in and nobody went out.
They put up signs on the edge of town as warning and left money in vinegar filled basins that people from out of town would leave food and supplies by.
Over the 14 months that Eyam was in quarantine 260 out of the 800 residents died of plague. The death toll was high, the cost was great.
However, they did successfully prevent the disease from spreading to the nearby town of Sheffield, even then a much bigger town, and likely saved the lives of thousands of people in the north of England through their sacrifice.
So I really like this story, because it’s a sad story, because it’s also a beautiful story. Instead of fleeing everyone in this one place agreed that they would stay, and they saved thousands of people. They stayed just to save others and I guess it’s one of those good stories about how people have always been people, for better or worse.
It gets better.
Here’s the thing. One third of the residents of Eyam died during their quarantine, but the Black Plague was known to have a NINETY PERCENT death rate. As high as the toll was, it wasn’t as high as it should have been. And a few hundred years later, some historians and doctors got to wondering why.
Fortunately, Eyam is one of those wonderful places that really hasn’t changed much in hundreds of years. Researchers, going to visit, found that many of the current residents were direct descendants of the plague survivors from the 1600s. By doing genetic testing, they learned that a high number of Eyam residents carried a gene that made them immune to the plague. And still do.
And it gets even better than that, because the gene that blocks the Black Plague? Also turns out to block AIDS, and was instrumental in helping to find effective medication for people who have HIV and AIDS in the 21st century.
Believing she may be ready for a higher-level position within the company, a manager at Vidmark Interactive said Thursday that the time had quite possibly come to promote employee Megan Sharpe to the job she has already been doing for about two years now. “Megan’s been great, and I can really see her taking on a new role [whose official responsibilities she already assumes, by default, in her present position],” said chief content officer Chuck Harpster, to whom Sharpe will report if he ultimately determines she does indeed have the skills necessary to handle the duties she has been successfully performing on a daily basis since early 2015.
My ford got a hydrolic module with a jumping bean in it
bro are drivers insane? That’s like the second car-related post on Tumblr with the amount of hatred literally not seen under any other type of post ever
Yeah the jumping bean makes the car jump over/across
MAN 1 (in a high pitched, whiny voice) Look what you’ve done to my peonies!
WOMAN (angrily) They’re marigolds!
MAN 2 God! I think she’s right! They are marigolds!
MAN 1 I may not know my flowers, but I know a (yells in her direction) bitch when I see one!
It’s back!
I looked this up because I had to know what it’s from. It’s a film called The Gay Deceivers (1969), and it’s about two straight men who, seeking to avoid the draft, claim to be gay, but then have to keep up the pretense when the army places them under surveillance.
The man in the red cardigan in the clip was played by Michael Greer, who was openly gay himself - unusual for the time. He actually worked closely with the director and rewrote much of the film’s dialogue to reduce the homophobia and make it more realistic. As a result it’s quite progressive for its time, having a gay character, played by a gay man, living in a happy same-sex relationship, which is more than a lot of media offers us today.
guys I’m sorry to be a bitch but I just CANNOT enjoy horny posts where they do that thing where they colour the words for emphasis. Why is a video game NPC giving me a quest right now?
and if you want to take it a step further because Vanguard and BlackRock were listed on the original graphic, their reach is lightyears beyond just media. BlackRock and/or Vanguard are among the three largest institutional investors for 505 out of 505 of the S&P 500. (100%). one or the other is the single largest institutional investor in 422 of these (84%). they, along with State Street, control about 23% of the votes of the S&P 500 single-class companies.
the truth is that virtually all corporate-backed media that you consume in 2025 from top to bottom is going to be subject to the oversight of the board of directors for one of these 6 mega billionaire-controlled companies. you should have that fact in mind basically at all times.
and if you want to take it a step further because Vanguard and BlackRock were listed on the original graphic, their reach is lightyears beyond just media. BlackRock and/or Vanguard are among the three largest institutional investors for 505 out of 505 of the S&P 500. (100%). one or the other is the single largest institutional investor in 422 of these (84%). they, along with State Street, control about 23% of the votes of the S&P 500 single-class companies.
the truth is that virtually all corporate-backed media that you consume in 2025 from top to bottom is going to be subject to the oversight of the board of directors for one of these 6 mega billionaire-controlled companies. you should have that fact in mind basically at all times.
I hate to say it, but I think I’m done with sexy vampires. I’m back on board with the idea of vampires as wealthy landowners who live a fundamentally parasitic way of life. It seems more topical.
of the 5 teslas in the parade, one turned off so early we didnt even see it, one had to turn off after someone cracked its windshield, and one had to turn off after it got a window shattered. further down from us people were fully throwing garbage and beer bottles with the intention of breaking glass. only 2 of them made it to the end of the parade, having been jeered end to end.
if this was supposed to be a temperature test- because people are speculating this was a test ride for the military and tesla having a partnership, no one knows why on earth these things were in mardi gras to begin with- then they certainly got an idea of how people feel.
“Oh, so that’s why you are they way you are. You’re two fire signs ruled over by water!”
Pretty sure it’s just the ADHD.
A fun thing to do whenever someone asks you your sign is to lie about your birthday. It still means listening to them attempt to explain your entire personality badly for a few minutes, but then you can undercut them as soon as it gets too annoying.
So, for a while I was doing mailroom/account followup work for a nonprofit, and on my firt day there, one of the ladies, “Debbie” asked me when my Birthday was. Assuming she was planning office Birthday parties, I told her.
The next day she came in with my ENTIRE star chart with personality tropes, life advice, predicitons for my future and so on. Now, I don’t go in for Astrology but I can tell when someone is making a well-meaning gesture and I can say “Thank you” and shut up.
Especially because I told her the Wrong Birthday.
See, my birthday is in the middle of a cluster of a whole bunch of family birthdays and growing up I used to have to share my Birthday with my older cousins and while that’s not really a big deal (even fun if you’re older) it kinda sucks when you’re five and none of your cousins share your interests.
So mom made a deal with me: We’d celebrate my “Un-Birthday” in January, when nobody else in the family has a birthday or anything else, and the “real” birthday would be my Cousin’s. I got my own birthday and they got a second party and it was fun.
As I got older, I just started using my Un-Birthday for everything except paperwork, becuase January is boring and bereft of holidays except the one that’s really part of Xmas these days. On paperwork, I put my real one, but I’ve been celebrating my birthday in the wrong month for over 25 years now, and didn’t think about it when she asked, and told her my Un-Birthday.
And for a few weeks everything was fine.
But Debbie had a RIVAL.
Another woman in the office “Sharon” was also big into Astrology and was convinced Debbie was Doing It Wrong, so when she was going over payroll, she saw my Legal Birthday, realized Debbie had filled out the chart wrong, and then proceded to drag Debbie on the company facebook group, and a bunch of astrology groups they were both in.
I found out when I came in three days later from a long weekend and Debbie burst into tears and sobbed “HOW COULD YOU LIE TO MEEEEEE???”
After an extremely garbled recounting by our coworkers, a talk with my manager about “Hey yeah I don’t think it’s Legal for Sharon to take my name and date of birth from Payroll and put it all over facebook?”, the manager had a talk about “I know you are all over 50 but this is NOT WHAT THE COMPANY FACEBOOK IS FOR”, Sharon was ‘removed from the premesis’ and I finally got to sit down with Debbie.
I explained the slip-up and how I sort of have two birthdays and think of the January Birthday is my “Real” one.
Debie looked up from where she’d been sobbing into her tissue all morning, realization dawning on her less like the illumination of the sun and more like a baby sea turtle headed in the wrong direction because of light Pollution.
“Oh!” She said “You’re TRANS-ZODIAC! You might have been born as an Aries, but you’re really a Capricorn!”
As someone who’s been hit by a minivan and gotten a minor skull fracture from it, I’m pretty sure hearing that sentence gave me more brain damage.
“Sure Debbie.”
You know, I had no idea where this ride was going to take us, but of all the outcomes I expected, that was not it.
What, and I cannot stress this enough, the fuck.
Debbie was a kind woman with room in her heart for all the people of the world and the critical thinking skills of a Sea Cucumber.
look, guys, this may seem ironic coming from a person with Verbose Disease, but I’m about to tell you the secret to winning social media: shutting the fuck up. you have a controversial discourse opinion? shut the fuck up and no one will know. can’t participate in a boycott for various reasons? shut the fuck up and no one will know. you think or do something Problematic that has no bearing on anyone but yourself? shut the fuck up and no one will know. you haven’t been keeping up on a pressing social issue? shut the fuck up and no one will know. your mind is a wonderful place where you can have all the bad takes in the world and they’re all perfectly insulated from everyone and everything unless you try to excise them on a grand scale. you can take the mental L all by yourself without using a public platform as a confession booth and face zero repercussions and it’ll be just fine. open up a damn diary and explain yourself there.
babygirl you wouldn’t believe the people I have blocked over this post
someone called me worse than a fascist for this post
This sounds like a shitpost but people should be allowed to be horny. As in, sexuality is just part of life for most people and there’s no reason for consensual sexual behavior to be punished. A celebrity getting “caught” at a sex club shouldn’t be a scandal. No one should be fired for having a fetlife profile outside of work. Nudes getting leaked shouldn’t be career-ending. Denying and hiding (consensual) sexual interests doesn’t make anyone more professional, it just makes everyone more repressed. And sterilizing ourselves to be better work drones isn’t productive, it’s just creepy. I’d rather my surgeon get absolutely railed on camera and come to work in a good mood, frankly.
Hmmm I know octopuses are generally sweet and gentle and are just curious sea puppies (and I love them!), that being said, the thoughts of being dragged by my feet by one of them into the deep and dark ocean is… safe to say new fear has been unlocked
Marine biologist here: this is the giant pacific octopus, one of the largest species of octopus and cephalopod on earth! And while intimidating, and technically powerful enough to do so, most octopuses do not have reason or instinct to pull a grown adult into the water, as their natural diet is comprised of a very different prey of mollusks, crustaceans, and small fish. (And occasionally each-other) This guy was most likely just curious, as octopuses can have the mental capacity of a small child, making them one of the most intelligent animals in the world. And although yes, all octopuses are venomous to some extent, the potency of the giant pacific octopus, though painful, is not fatally dangerous to humans if treated properly, and is only inflicted through bite from their powerful beaks, which are rarely used on humans. it is also not typically aggressive to us, with only about 4 documented attacks on divers having been recorded in the past 25 years or more. As long as you are calm and careful, you will be ok. What an amazing experience. Protect your marine ecosystems so we can ensure a future for these incredible animals!
Do not be afraid, it is merely the small child of the ocean
so i’ve got this really small bathroom spider. i’m talkin super teeny tiny, like micron sized, this dude is naught but a speck of dust. he’s behind the faucet of the sink in there, his webs structured to rely on the faucet and the wall behind it. every time i wash my hands i have to turn the handle some of his foundation rests upon and it makes his web jiggle a bunch and he kinda like scrambles around to stay on it and it’s pretty cute and funny to watch. but then i finish washing my hands and turn the faucet off and it’s fine, he’s back to normal and everything is chill, maybe just a couple strands to fix after he catches his breath. and at first i was gonna post about this and be like “lol poor motherfucker what an incomparably crazy situation that is for him” but then i realized that humans experience earthquakes all the time and i went. ah. hm. We Are All Bathroom Spiders In the House of God, i suppose
so i’ve got this really small bathroom spider. i’m talkin super teeny tiny, like micron sized, this dude is naught but a speck of dust. he’s behind the faucet of the sink in there, his webs structured to rely on the faucet and the wall behind it. every time i wash my hands i have to turn the handle some of his foundation rests upon and it makes his web jiggle a bunch and he kinda like scrambles around to stay on it and it’s pretty cute and funny to watch. but then i finish washing my hands and turn the faucet off and it’s fine, he’s back to normal and everything is chill, maybe just a couple strands to fix after he catches his breath. and at first i was gonna post about this and be like “lol poor motherfucker what an incomparably crazy situation that is for him” but then i realized that humans experience earthquakes all the time and i went. ah. hm. We Are All Bathroom Spiders In the House of God, i suppose
“The LBGTQIA+ community is a cult!” Look, even if it was; I would rather be in the “love everyone, accept each other, do what you want to do if it makes you happy cult” then the “do one thing wrong, and you’re going to burn for all eternity, things you can’t control are your fault” cult.
“OP why are you mad that your words are being misinterpreted you’re on the piss on the poor website” actually i think it’s very reasonable to demand people pay attention to the words they use, the choices they make, the things they believe, and their capacity for empathy and comprehension and that it’s sort of weird that you’re finding humor in making excuses to just believe that there simply is no possible way to improve your actions
“OP why are you mad that your words are being misinterpreted you’re on the piss on the poor website” actually i think it’s very reasonable to demand people pay attention to the words they use, the choices they make, the things they believe, and their capacity for empathy and comprehension and that it’s sort of weird that you’re finding humor in making excuses to just believe that there simply is no possible way to improve your actions
Sometimes it’s not even fanfic. Sometimes I do that on regular ass posts, and the nice thing about regular ass posts is that I can also block the OP on my way past. Don’t care, didn’t ask, skill issue, get fucked, touch grass, learn to read, learn to write, begone from me vile creature
all demographics and time periods and geography taken fully into consideration, some people were just born to lose
was thinking of this guy when i made this post. invented the two most environmentally damaging chemicals in history and then got polio and immediately killed himself with a contraption
“one-man environmental disaster”
they called that man an organism
as bad as your worst day has ever been, do you have a wikipedia article saying you “possess an instinct for the regrettable that is almost uncanny”
For as much as I love Animorphs, I’ve never actually read it in order all the way through. It was always scattered entries, whatever I could find at the library or buy at garage sales. There’s even a small handful I haven’t read at all. That’s why, for my New Year’s resolution, I plan to reread the series in its entirety. However, I know how my brain works, and I’m afraid I might lose motivation and quit too soon. That’s why, after each book, I will add to this post with, in my opinion, the most fucked-up part of the book, as well as the silliest part (because anyone who’s read these books knows that those are the two main tenets of the series). That way, I’ll have a publicly available record to hold myself accountable to if I start slacking, plus a nice thread of propaganda to hopefully suck more people in. I plan to read one mainline book a week, starting with:
#1: The Invasion
Most Fucked-Up Part: Lots of strong contenders to start us off with, but I think the first scene in the Yeerk Pool takes the cake. A city-sized cavern beneath the actual city filled with cages of slaves begging for their freedom in the few moments they actually can.
Silliest Part: The fact that Marco legitimately names them “Animorphs” and nobody objects to it. You’d think Rachel would at least have a remark about a name that cheesy.
#2: The Visitor
Most Fucked-Up Part: Melissa Chapman lives her life believing that her parents don’t love her when, in reality, they sacrificed their own freedom to keep her safe and constantly fight to ensure that this bargain is upheld.
Silliest Part: Visser Three, the comically evil leader of the Yeerk invasion, repeatedly expresses admiration for a housecat named “Fluffer McKitty.”
#3: The Encounter:
Most Fucked-Up Part: The gang hits the two-hour time limit while in wolf morph and nearly get stuck as half-human, half-wolf abominations as they try to demorph. Tobias (who is fully trapped in the body of a hawk) witnesses this, semi-directly leading to him finally having a mental breakdown and attempting suicide in a fit of panic.
Silliest Part: One of the biggest obstacles they face is the fact they they need to catch a fish to morph into, and almost none of them have the patience required for fishing.
#4: The Message:
Most Fucked-Up Part: While in dolphin morph, Marco has his tail bitten off during a shark attack and nearly bleeds to death. His immediate thought is the fact that his mother died by drowning, and he doesn’t want to meet the same fate.
Silliest Part: A whale talks to Cassie and gives her directions to Ax’s crashed ship.
#5: The Predator:
Most Fucked-Up Part: I mentioned Marco’s mom in the last book so I could segue into this book’s reveal that she’s alive and the host body of the mastermind behind the Yeerk invasion, but I completely forgot that this was also the ant book, which definitely eclipses that. Upon morphing ants, everyone becomes so engulfed by the insects’ mindless devotion to their colony that they entirely lose their sense of individuality. Shortly thereafter, they become engaged in combat underground with another ant colony, describing it as their most brutal fight thus far. These combined events traumatize them so thoroughly that they will spend the entire rest of the series talking about how terrifying ants are and adamantly refusing to morph them ever again - the only animal to receive such harsh treatment, to my recollection.
Silliest Part: Marco, Jake, and Ax morph into grocery store lobsters to hide from Yeerks, and accidentally terrify the poor lady who buys them for dinner.
#6: The Capture
Most Fucked-Up Part: Jake is infested by a Yeerk, becoming a prisoner in his own body. The Yeerk, who had previously infested Jake’s brother, Tom, spends its time tormenting Jake before ultimately starving to death, a tortuous process for both of them.
Silliest Part: Everyone morphs into flies for the first time and are surprised to find it one of the most fun morphs so far.
#7: The Stranger
Most Fucked-Up Part: Everyone gets eaten alive by a Taxxon while in cockroach morph. They escape by demorphing, blowing it up from the inside.
Silliest Part: Rachel gets mad at a circus performer using cattle prods on his elephants, so she morphs into an elephant, tells the performer she’s from the “International Elephant Police,” and throws him across the big top.
Megamorphs #1: The Andalite’s Gift
Most Fucked-Up Part: Rachel, having lost all her memories from a bad head injury, unconsciously morphs into a bear and then gets both of her front legs completely eaten off by an alien monster.
Silliest Part: There are a solid two or three chapters dedicated to Marco’s horrible driving skills. Another driver on the road says he drives like he’s from Jersey. This series takes place in California.
#8: The Alien
Most Fucked-Up Part: Ax, desperately homesick, manages to contact his homeworld. Instead of providing reassurance, his people order him to take the fall for his brother’s crimes and then declare it his duty to kill the single most dangerous individual alive.
Silliest Part: Ax has to be literally dragged out of a movie theater by Jake and Marco after he starts eating popcorn boxes off the floor and tries to steal Raisinets from a child.
#9: The Secret
Most Fucked-Up Part: The Animorphs morph termites, hoping they won’t be as bad as the ants. They find that they are entirely unable to control their own bodies, subject only to the instructions of the queen. The nature-loving Cassie is forced to kill the queen to free everyone, and is subsequently left shattered by the fact that she destroyed an entire colony that was only trying to survive.
Silliest Part: Cassie forces Visser Three to surrender by morphing into a skunk and spraying him, then lies that grape juice gets rid of the smell.
#10: The Android
Most Fucked-Up Part: Erek, an android programmed for strict nonviolence, rewrites his programming to remove that limitation and subsequently destroys an entire building’s worth of Controllers in less than ten seconds. Unlike our human protagonists, who are offered some relief by their imperfect memories, Erek’s robot brain will forever preserve this moment in perfect detail, torturing him for hundreds of millennia.
Silliest Part: Dogs were not originally domesticated by humans, but rather by a race of androids called the Chee, who implanted wolves with the literal essence of their extinct creators. The Chee now secretly live on Earth in a giant underground dog park.
#11: The Forgotten
Most Fucked-Up Part: A bloody and unconscious Rachel is nearly eaten alive by a colony of ants. This isn’t even the worst ant-related trauma in the series (tune in for book 39!).
Silliest Part: The Animorphs are sent back in time by a few hours. Luckily, they apparently teach this stuff in Andalite school. Unluckily, Ax wasn’t paying attention in class that day because he was distracted by a cute girl. This isn’t even the stupidest time travel plot point in the series (tune in for… actually there are too many to choose from).
#12: The Reaction
Most Fucked-Up Part: Rachel begins to lose control of her morphing. Highlights include morphing into an elephant and destroying her house, morphing elephant in the middle of the ocean and nearly drowning, morphing into an ant afterwards and getting trapped inside an air bubble, and having a fully formed crocodile crawl out of her body on a TV set.
Silliest Part: The Yeerks’ new plan is to get a popular teenage heartthrob to become the new spokesman of The Sharing, their front organization. After being saved by the Animorphs, he quits acting and moves to Uzbekistan instead.
#13: The Change
Most Fucked-Up Part: The Animorphs encounter a pair of Hork-Bajir who have managed to escape the Yeerks. To prove they’re not under Yeerk control, one of them slices his own head open to show his brain.
Silliest Part: Hork-Bajir eat tree bark. They don’t seem to like Earth bark that much, but are afraid to admit it because they don’t want to hurt Tobias’s feelings.
The Hork-Bajir Chronicles
Most Fucked-Up Part: God, where to start with this one? The Hork-Bajir are a simple race with no concept of violence, who are then invaded by the Yeerks and forced to learn how to fight. They’re used as pawns by the Yeerks, the Andalites, and the Arn, and once it becomes clear that they’re fighting a losing battle, Alloran releases a virus intended to wipe out the Hork-Bajir so the Yeerks can’t get their hands on them.
Silliest Part: I got nothing. This might be the most humorless book in the whole series. Esplin gets thrown around by a big monster called a “Jubba-Jubba” and that’s kind of a fun image, I guess.
#14: The Unknown
Most Fucked-Up Part:Prepare for some tonal whiplash, because this book is possibly the silliest entry in the series. There’s nothing to put in this section.
Silliest Part: If you’re an Animorphs fan, you already know this book’s punchline, and if you’re not, I’m not gonna be the one to spoil it for you. Luckily, there are plenty other ridiculous moments I can share, like Cassie winning the Kentucky Derby or Visser Three decapitating Daffy Duck.
#15: The Escape
Most Fucked-Up Part: The Animorphs get microchips implanted in their heads. Because the chips don’t change size when they morph, their heads nearly explode when they try to morph flies.
Silliest Part: Tobias, now with his morphing ability restored, has to make physical contact with a dolphin so he can morph it. Given that he’s still a hawk, this goes about as well as you’d expect.
#16: The Warning
Most Fucked-Up Part: Jake gets swatted while in fly morph and the others have to drag his mangled body to a safe location before he dies.
Silliest Part: To provide a distraction so Ax and Marco can break into AOL’s head office, Rachel morphs a bear and begins mopping the (carpeted) floor.
#17: The Underground
Most Fucked-Up Part: The Animorphs consider the ethics of weaponizing drugs after discovering an addictive substance that can physically and psychologically destroy Yeerks, but permanently leaves the hosts as raving lunatics in the process.
Silliest Part: Said drug is instant ginger and maple oatmeal.
#18: The Decision
Most Fucked-Up Part: In a freak accident, the Animorphs are suddenly transported to an extradimensional plane where they nearly asphyxiate to death.
Silliest Part: Ax has a dramatic showdown with Visser Three on top of McDonald’s. Visser Three runs away and jumps into a dumpster.
Megamorphs 2: In the Time of Dinosaurs
Most Fucked-Up Part: Tobias betrays a group of peaceful aliens, knowingly sentencing the last remaining members of their race to death.
Silliest Part: I mean. Come on. Just read the title of this one.
#19: The Departure
Most Fucked-Up Part: Cassie willingly allows herself to be infested by a Yeerk in an insane attempt to broker peace. Upon learning of this, Jake gives Marco the order to kill Cassie if she’s still a Controller by the time they find her.
Silliest Part: Fuck, this is another pretty heavy book and the next three are probably gonna be just as bad. Uuh Marco pretends to be a smoker to get out of class. That’s about the only non-serious thing in this one.
#20: The Discovery
Most Fucked-Up Part: A new kid at school stumbles upon the morphing device, leading to the Yeerks destroying his house and infesting his parents trying to get it for themselves. Faced with no other choice, the Animorphs induct him in as a new member. They will definitely not come to regret this decision.
Silliest Part: I’m not even gonna try. See ya in three books.
#21: The Threat
Most Fucked-Up Part: David turns on the other Animorphs. The book ends with him seemingly killing Tobias and leaving Jake critically wounded.
Second Most Fucked-Up Part (This book gets two): Cassie (in flea morph) is biting Jake (in dragonfly morph) as he starts demorphing. The sudden change in pressure as his vascular system changes back to human causes her internal organs to explode.
Third Most Fucked-Up Part (One more for the road): Everyone hits the two-hour time limit again, this time as fleas. Marco is nearly stuck half-morphed as a human-sized flea.
Tune in next time as things somehow get even worse.
#22: The Solution
jesus fucking christ. okay
Most Fucked-Up Part: As the threat of David grows too large to handle, the Animorphs take him off the table by devising a plan to permanently trap him in morph as a rat and abandon him on an island. Rachel has spent the entire book terrified that she’s become a killer and forces herself to believe that this is a better option to that somehow.
Second Most Fucked-Up Part: In the last book, Jake and Rachel’s cousin Saddler was hit by a car and left in critical condition. In this book, David pushes the near-death Saddler down an elevator shaft and plans to use his morphing powers to steal his identity and regain a normal family.
The Andalite Chronicles
Most Fucked-Up Part: Elfangor’s friend Arbron is trapped in morph as a Taxxon, an alien species burdened with an insatiable, overpowering hunger. He tries to trick Elfangor into killing him rather than live with the hunger.
Silliest Part: Elfangor drives a Ford Mustang into battle on the Taxxon homeworld while playing Hank Williams on the radio. This happens directly after the aforementioned Arbron scene.
#23: The Pretender
Most Fucked-Up Part: Tobias decides to become fully human again upon learning he has a cousin who wants to take him in. The cousin turns out to actually be Visser Three in morph, and Tobias is left shattered by having the promise of a real family yanked away from him.
Silliest Part: It’s been so long since Tobias has had a human beverage that he completely freezes up when someone asks him what he’d like to drink and is nearly overwhelmed by the taste of Coke.
#24: The Suspicion
Most Fucked-Up Part: Cassie and Marco are shrunk down to a sixteenth of an inch by alien technology. The others try to rescue them in insect morph, leading to the horrifying comparison of a cockroach “the size of a Wal-Mart” and a spider “with legs the size of the St. Louis arch.”
Silliest Part: Meet the Helmacrons, a race of aliens the size of a grain of sand, yet with the largest egos imaginable. They spend the book flying around in three-inch long spaceships, declaring how they will conquer the planet and all will grovel before them.
#25: The Extreme
Most Fucked-Up Part: The Animorphs are trapped in the Arctic, freezing and starving to death and kept alive purely by the morphing technology, when they witness a polar bear brutally eviscerate a seal. After the bear leaves, they feast on what remains of the seal’s carcass. The seal’s pups arrive as they eat, looking for their mother, and Marco is reminded of when he believed his own mother to be dead.
Silliest Part: The gang is temporarily helped by an Inuit teenager named Derek, who takes the situation in stride surprisingly well.
#26: The Attack
Most Fucked-Up Part: The Howlers are a species of ruthless killers that have annihilated countless species over thousands of years. When Jake morphs one, he discovers that they never mentally develop past infancy and view their actions as nothing but a big game.
Silliest Part: This book takes place on the planet of the Iskoort, a species with the architecture sensibilities of Dr. Seuss and a culture entirely built around bartering organs and memories.
#27: The Exposed
Most Fucked-Up Part: The Animorphs get caught in the crossfire of a drug bust and it turns out that normal human guns are still plenty dangerous. Rachel’s shot in the head, Marco’s shot in the neck, and Cassie’s paralyzed by a shot to her back.
Silliest Part: When Erek malfunctions at the mall, Marco carries him out in gorilla morph, pretending to be promotion for an upcoming King Kong movie.
#28: The Experiment
Most Fucked-Up Part: They morph cows to infiltrate a slaughterhouse. Use your imagination on what happens from there.
Silliest Part: Ax has a TV now, and spends the entire book making references to various sitcoms and soap operas, much to the confusion and slight horror of everyone else.
#29: The Sickness
Most Fucked-Up Part: Cassie is forced to perform brain surgery on Ax to remove one of his glands before it explodes, killing him.
Silliest Part: They try to infiltrate the Yeerk pool by morphing eels and swimming through the city’s plumbing system.
Megamorphs 3: Elfangor’s Secret
Most Fucked-Up Part: This one’s a time travel book. The climax sees them brought to Normandy on D-Day and you can probably imagine how that goes.
Silliest Part: In medieval times, Tobias morphs into a Hork-Bajir to pretend to be the devil. He coincidentally grabs a pitchfork from a farmer before unknowingly running into a church, scaring the hell out of the priest (no pun intended).
#30: The Reunion
Most Fucked-Up Part: Remember that plot point about Marco’s mom being the host body to Visser One? Well, this book is about Marco formulating a plan to kill Visser One and desperately trying to convince himself that his mom is acceptable collateral.
Silliest Part: In a dramatic confrontation at the end of the book, Visser One deduces Marco’s true identity and Marco tells his mom that he loves her before she falls off a cliff to her presumed death. This entire super-emotional scene takes place while Marco is a goat.
#31: The Conspiracy
Most Fucked-Up Part: The Animorphs kidnap Chapman out of his own home while his daughter watches. They keep him tied up in a basement somewhere and threaten to starve him to death if he doesn’t comply with their demands.
Silliest Part: Tobias attacks someone that they believe to be a Controller trying to infest Jake’s dad. Turns out he’s just a normal dude who’s upset that he stole his parking spot.
#32: The Separation
Most Fucked-Up Part: Rachel exercises her right to bear arms. By which I mean that she has her arm chopped off in bear morph and subsequently picks it back up and clubs her enemy to death with it.
Silliest Part: Okay. This book. Due to some starfish-related shenanigans, Rachel is split in half. We alternate between reading about Mean Rachel, an unhinged maniac who uses the word “kill” in every single sentence, and Nice Rachel, a timid Valley Girl who spends the whole book alternating between shopping and crying.
#33: The Illusion
Most Fucked-Up Part: This is the “Tobias gets tortured” book. Tobias spend half the book in a near-death state, trapped in a box and forced to relive all his worst memories on repeat.
Silliest Part: Marco gets trapped in a chocolate fondue fountain as a fly and has to be saved by Ax.
#34: The Prophecy
Most Fucked-Up Part: Aldrea (the main character from back in The Hork-Bajir Chronicles) is temporarily brought back to life and returned to the Hork-Bajir homeworld, where she sees her home and everything she ever held dear destroyed and replaced by Yeerk occupation.
Silliest Part: Aldrea is basically a ghost possessing Cassie’s body in this one, and “alien ghost possession” is a pretty crazy pivot, even by the standards of this series.
#35: The Proposal
Most Fucked-Up Part: Marco’s morphing powers go haywire, causing him to turn into horrific amalgamates like a half-trout/half-gorilla or a half-skunk/half-spider.
Silliest Part: The villain of this book gives an extended maniacal villain monologue to what he believes is a completely normal cockatiel. He doesn’t even know it’s actually Marco. He just starts yelling at this bird about how much he hates it.
Visser
Most Fucked-Up Part: A man is left with a dead Yeerk in his brain, leaving him as a ranting street crazy in the years afterward. If you’re surprised I’m not putting something Edriss-related in this section, that’s because holy shit where the fuck would i even begin. I beg you, if you haven’t read Animorphs before and any of this sounds even the slightest bit interesting to you, at the very least, read this one. You will not regret it.
Silliest Part: When the Yeerks first arrive on Earth, they sift through television broadcasts to learn about humans and mistakenly believe Star Trek to be an intimidation tactic against alien invasions.
#36: The Mutation
Most Fucked-Up Part: Jara Hamee (one of the free Hork-Bajir) watches an old friend of his slowly asphyxiate to death after Visser Three haphazardly tries to turn Hork-Bajir amphibious.
Silliest Part: Atlantis exists.
#37: The Weakness
Most Fucked-Up Part: Rachel flies a plane into a skyscraper. Luckily, this book was published in 2000.
Silliest Part: A child bystander calls a gorilla-morphed Marco “Curious George,” and starts crying when Marco lectures him on the difference between gorillas and monkeys.
#38: The Arrival
Most Fucked-Up Part: Hey, remember that time Alloran tried to commit genocide? Well, the Andalites’ latest strategy is to send a secret suicide mission to Earth and give it another shot.
Silliest Part: Tobias destroys an entire McDonald’s from low orbit.
#39: The Hidden
Most Fucked-Up Part: Hey look, we’re finally at that ant trauma I mentioned a while back. In what is now the third? fourth? ant-related entry on this list, an ant obtains the morphing power and morphs into an ant/Cassie hybrid. Cassie watches in horror as this mindless facsimile of herself screams in agony over the overwhelmingly alien concept of free will. It tries to attack her, but gets gored by a buffalo (don’t worry about it) and Cassie watches herself bleed to death.
Silliest Part: The aforementioned buffalo is the first character in the series to unequivocally defeat Visser Three in a one-to-one battle (again, don’t worry about it).
#40: The Other
Most Fucked-Up Part: Ax is incredibly ableist in this book. Like, it is seriously uncomfortable listening to one of our main characters repeatedly suggesting they leave a crippled warrior to die and ardently refusing to do any self-reflection about it.
Silliest Part: A pair of disabled gay Andalites live in a normal human house in the middle of suburbia.
Megamorphs 4: Back to Before
Most Fucked-Up Part: In an alternate timeline where the Animorphs never became the Animorphs, we finally get to see Tobias’s abusive uncle firsthand and watch as his shitty home life leads him to falling into the Yeerks’ traps and willingly becoming a Controller. Also all the main characters die in this book but that’s just par for the course in time travel stories at this point.
Silliest Part: Cassie is apparently a time anomaly. This has never come up in any of the previous time travel stories, nor will it ever be relevant again.
#41: The Familiar
Most Fucked-Up Part: In a different alternate timeline from the last book, we see a world where the Yeerks won. They force their human hosts to procreate and then raise the children in warehouses, devoid of joy or education, feeding them only vitamins and forcing them to work out until they are deemed fit for infestation.
Silliest Part: Jake attends a Yeerk HR meeting.
#42: The Journey
Most Fucked-Up and Silliest Part: You know that one episode of The Magic School Bus where they shrink down and go inside Arnold? Well, instead of a magical educational adventure through the digestive system, the Animorphs are thrown into a horror show with such attractions as Rachel getting blinded by swimming in stomach acid and Marco’s heart being blown up from the inside.
#43: The Test
Most Fucked-Up Part: Tobias and Ax have to morph Taxxons and neither of them are able to control the morph. Tobias nearly eats the rest of the Animorphs, and Ax gorges himself and nearly dies from overeating.
Silliest Part: I get the impression that this section is going to get much harder to fill as I approach the final stages of the series. Uuuh Ax gives Tobias a haircut.
#44: The Unexpected
Most Fucked-Up Part: Cassie has to do surgery again. This time, she amputates an old man’s leg after it gets badly infected with an alien pathogen or something.
Silliest Part: Cassie gets knocked out on a plane and winds up stranded in the Australian outback. The final battle has her in kangaroo morph while people throw boomerangs at the Yeerks.
#45: The Revelation
Most Fucked-Up Part: Marco’s dad gets forcibly pulled into the plot and finds out everything. Marco selfishly doesn’t go back to save his stepmom once she has a target on her back, and then lies to his dad that she was probably a Controller the whole time anyway.
Silliest Part: The Animorphs steal a spaceship only for it to turn out to be a custom-made special needs ship they can’t actually operate.
#46: The Deception
Most Fucked-Up Part: Ax steals a nuke and threatens to blow up the Yeerk Pool (along with the metropolitan area on top of it).
Silliest Part: Ax hacks into the NSA with an iMac.
#47: The Resistance
Most Fucked-Up Part: This book swaps narratives between Jake and a Civil War soldier. In Lieutenant Fitzhenry’s story, we watch his command slowly dwindle and die of fever as they try in vain to stop the Confederate’s advance.
Silliest Part: The Animorphs enlist Trekkies into battle.
The Ellimist Chronicles
Most Fucked-Up Part: Toomin, the last of his species, is captured by an immense being known as Father, where he spends decades - or perhaps even centuries - trapped in a simulation, forced to play games against Father while surrounded by the never-decaying corpses of his people.
Silliest Part: The Ellimist, a god-like cosmic being that has continuously made cryptic appearances throughout the series, repeatedly refers to himself as a gamer. “Ellimist” is literally just his gamertag. I’m not even joking.
#48: The Return
Most Fucked-Up Part: David comes back, nearly asphyxiates Cassie, and tries to trap Rachel in rat morph as revenge. The book ends with a helpless David begging Rachel to kill him so he won’t have to continue his miserable existence as a rat, and we never learn what decision she makes.
Silliest Part: David tries to threatens Rachel by claiming to have an army of “loyal rat lieutenants” at his disposal.
#49: The Diversion
Most Fucked-Up Part: Marco has his face ripped off in battle and nearly bleeds to death.
Silliest Part: The main villain of this book is a little old granny with a gun. She also flies a helicopter.
#50: The Ultimate
Most Fucked-Up Part: The Animorphs sneak into a children’s hospital and enlist disabled children to fight alongside them.
Silliest Part: They get into the hospital by pretending to be child entertainers. Throughout the entire time they’re asking these children to risk their lives, Cassie is dressed as a fortune teller and Jake is wearing a fake goatee.
#51: The Absolute
Most Fucked-Up Part: Relatively light book this time. Going to war against the National Guard, kidnapping government officials, Tobias nearly getting run over by a roller coaster, the usual.
Silliest Part: Marco steals a tank and drives it down the interstate. He reassures Tobias he knows how to drive it from his experience with video games and the History Channel.
#52: The Sacrifice
Most Fucked-Up Part: The Animorphs make good on Ax’s threat from a couple books back and blow up the Yeerk Pool with a payload compared to that of “a small nuclear blast,” destroying most of the city’s downtown area and killing an unknown number of bystanders.
Silliest Part: lmao. nope.
#53: The Answer
Most Fucked-Up Part: Jake knowingly dooms the entire platoon of disabled children by sending them on a suicide diversion mission. Every single one of them is killed. He decides to follow this up by giving the order to kill 17,000 unarmed enemy combatants.
Silliest Part: Jake rides a bright yellow Volkswagen Beetle to a war meeting.
#54: The Beginning
Most Fucked-Up Part: As is the true nature of war, nothing ever ends cleanly. Not all the good guys make it out alive, and not all of the bad guys face punishment. The final battles of the series take place not on the battlefield, but in courtrooms and negotiation tables. Some of the survivors are able to move forward with their lives, while others are left as nothing but broken shells. But in the end, whatever peace they manage to find for themselves can never truly last - there will always be a new threat to face, another war to fight. You wanted a happy ending? Too bad. This was a war story. And wars don’t get happy endings.
Silliest Part: The Andalite homeworld gets its own Krispy Kreme franchise :)
And with that, one year and 62 books later, my Animorphs reread has come to a close. In case it wasn’t blatantly obvious already, this series holds an incredibly special place in my heart. To simply call it my favorite book series would be a disservice. It is my favorite piece of media, period. Animorphs has genuinely shaped who I am as a person - my love of nature, my sense of humor, my passion for reading, my respect for children’s media and those who create it, my distaste for violence yet also my understanding of the occasional necessity of it, my perspective on humanity, and my hope for a better tomorrow - all of that can be traced back to the day that my older cousin gave little seven-year-old me a box of his old books and introduced me to the series that would change my life. Please, please, I beg you, if you actually read through this entire post and haven’t read Animorphs before, do yourself a favor and go fix that. The entire series can be found online very easily (with the author’s blessing, no less!). And if nothing else, at the very least read this: the final letter to the fans K.A. Applegate wrote following the release of the final book. This letter is the entire underlying ethos of Animorphs, laid bare in a few simple paragraphs. I think about it so often I can practically recite it by memory.
Thanks for sticking around and, uh, sorry for such a long post. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go get myself a cinnamon bun.
This weekend I was told a story which, although I’m kind of ashamed to admit it, because holy shit is it ever obvious, is kind of blowing my mind.
A friend of a friend won a free consultation with Clinton Kelly of What Not To Wear, and she was very excited, because she has a plus-size body, and wanted some tips on how to make the most of her wardrobe in a fashion culture which deliberately puts her body at a disadvantage.
Her first question for him was this: how do celebrities make a plain white t-shirt and a pair of weekend jeans look chic? She always assumed it was because so many celebrities have, by nature or by design, very slender frames, and because they can afford very expensive clothing. But when she watched What Not To Wear, she noticed that women of all sizes ended up in cute clothes that really fit their bodies and looked great. She had tried to apply some guidelines from the show into her own wardrobe, but with only mixed success. So - what gives?
His answer was that everything you will ever see on a celebrity’s body, including their outfits when they’re out and about and they just get caught by a paparazzo, has been tailored, and the same goes for everything on What Not To Wear. Jeans, blazers, dresses - everything right down to plain t-shirts and camisoles. He pointed out that historically, up until the last few generations, the vast majority of people either made their own clothing or had their clothing made by tailors and seamstresses. You had your clothing made to accommodate the measurements of your individual body, and then you moved the fuck on. Nothing on the show or in People magazine is off the rack and unaltered. He said that what they do is ignore the actual size numbers on the tags, find something that fits an individual’s widest place, and then have it completely altered to fit. That’s how celebrities have jeans that magically fit them all over, and the rest of us chumps can’t ever find a pair that doesn’t gape here or ride up or slouch down or have about four yards of extra fabric here and there.
I knew that having dresses and blazers altered was probably something they were doing, but to me, having alterations done generally means having my jeans hemmed and then simply living with the fact that I will always be adjusting my clothing while I’m wearing it because I have curves from here to ya-ya, some things don’t fit right, and the world is just unfair that way. I didn’t think that having everything tailored was something that people did.
It’s so obvious, I can’t believe I didn’t know this. But no one ever told me. I was told about bikini season and dieting and targeting your “problem areas” and avoiding horizontal stripes. No one told me that Jennifer Aniston is out there wearing a bigger size of Ralph Lauren t-shirt and having it altered to fit her.
I sat there after I was told this story, and I really thought about how hard I have worked not to care about the number or the letter on the tag of my clothes, how hard I have tried to just love my body the way it is, and where I’ve succeeded and failed. I thought about all the times I’ve stood in a fitting room and stared up at the lights and bit my lip so hard it bled, just to keep myself from crying about how nothing fits the way it’s supposed to. No one told me that it wasn’t supposed to. I guess I just didn’t know. I was too busy thinking that I was the one that didn’t fit.
I thought about that, and about all the other girls and women out there whose proportions are “wrong,” who can’t find a good pair of work trousers, who can’t fill a sweater, who feel excluded and freakish and sad and frustrated because they have to go up a size, when really the size doesn’t mean anything and it never, ever did, and this is just another bullshit thing thrown in your path to make you feel shitty about yourself.
I thought about all of that, and then I thought that in elementary school, there should be a class for girls where they sit you down and tell you this stuff before you waste years of your life feeling like someone put you together wrong.
So, I have to take that and sit with it for a while. But in the meantime, I thought perhaps I should post this, because maybe my friend, her friend, and I are the only clueless people who did not realise this, but maybe we’re not. Maybe some of you have tried to embrace the arbitrary size you are, but still couldn’t find a cute pair of jeans, and didn’t know why.
This post is one of those things that I will reblog every time it appears on my dash. This is so important, and no one ever tells you about it.
I almost didn’t read this but then I did and I’m really glad that I did.
Super important
Tldr: The reason clothes never “looked right on you” is because models and celebrities always had their clothes tailored to fit them perfectly.
I love this post but it always frustrated me just a little because I can’t even afford to buy new clothes let alone get the clothes I have tailored. But then I remembered that a lot of things are easier to do than you think they will be, so here’s some resources on how to alter your own clothes!
Please read this, it’s an opportunity to learn about yourself, possibly a new skill and why it isn’t you, it’s the industry.
I have a friend who is extremely short for a man. I’m talking, like, 5'3" tall. And unfortunately for him, he is ALSO built like a fucking tank. He is beyond stocky. He is beyond sturdy. He is, quite simply, built like Gimli, Son of Brick Shithouse. But he’s always able to look so put-together despite being such an uncommon size and shape. So one day I asked him how he always looks so fucking crisp when I can’t find anything that fits a moderately built 6’ dude. And that is how I learned that being a short king, in addition to the societal cost of everyone making Snow White jokes, also comes with an added cost of getting EVERYTHING tailored to fit you, because otherwise nothing will. He just buys clothes made for barrel-chested, broad-shouldered Viking warriors and has them cut down to size. And he looks impeccable.
This weekend I was told a story which, although I’m kind of ashamed to admit it, because holy shit is it ever obvious, is kind of blowing my mind.
A friend of a friend won a free consultation with Clinton Kelly of What Not To Wear, and she was very excited, because she has a plus-size body, and wanted some tips on how to make the most of her wardrobe in a fashion culture which deliberately puts her body at a disadvantage.
Her first question for him was this: how do celebrities make a plain white t-shirt and a pair of weekend jeans look chic? She always assumed it was because so many celebrities have, by nature or by design, very slender frames, and because they can afford very expensive clothing. But when she watched What Not To Wear, she noticed that women of all sizes ended up in cute clothes that really fit their bodies and looked great. She had tried to apply some guidelines from the show into her own wardrobe, but with only mixed success. So - what gives?
His answer was that everything you will ever see on a celebrity’s body, including their outfits when they’re out and about and they just get caught by a paparazzo, has been tailored, and the same goes for everything on What Not To Wear. Jeans, blazers, dresses - everything right down to plain t-shirts and camisoles. He pointed out that historically, up until the last few generations, the vast majority of people either made their own clothing or had their clothing made by tailors and seamstresses. You had your clothing made to accommodate the measurements of your individual body, and then you moved the fuck on. Nothing on the show or in People magazine is off the rack and unaltered. He said that what they do is ignore the actual size numbers on the tags, find something that fits an individual’s widest place, and then have it completely altered to fit. That’s how celebrities have jeans that magically fit them all over, and the rest of us chumps can’t ever find a pair that doesn’t gape here or ride up or slouch down or have about four yards of extra fabric here and there.
I knew that having dresses and blazers altered was probably something they were doing, but to me, having alterations done generally means having my jeans hemmed and then simply living with the fact that I will always be adjusting my clothing while I’m wearing it because I have curves from here to ya-ya, some things don’t fit right, and the world is just unfair that way. I didn’t think that having everything tailored was something that people did.
It’s so obvious, I can’t believe I didn’t know this. But no one ever told me. I was told about bikini season and dieting and targeting your “problem areas” and avoiding horizontal stripes. No one told me that Jennifer Aniston is out there wearing a bigger size of Ralph Lauren t-shirt and having it altered to fit her.
I sat there after I was told this story, and I really thought about how hard I have worked not to care about the number or the letter on the tag of my clothes, how hard I have tried to just love my body the way it is, and where I’ve succeeded and failed. I thought about all the times I’ve stood in a fitting room and stared up at the lights and bit my lip so hard it bled, just to keep myself from crying about how nothing fits the way it’s supposed to. No one told me that it wasn’t supposed to. I guess I just didn’t know. I was too busy thinking that I was the one that didn’t fit.
I thought about that, and about all the other girls and women out there whose proportions are “wrong,” who can’t find a good pair of work trousers, who can’t fill a sweater, who feel excluded and freakish and sad and frustrated because they have to go up a size, when really the size doesn’t mean anything and it never, ever did, and this is just another bullshit thing thrown in your path to make you feel shitty about yourself.
I thought about all of that, and then I thought that in elementary school, there should be a class for girls where they sit you down and tell you this stuff before you waste years of your life feeling like someone put you together wrong.
So, I have to take that and sit with it for a while. But in the meantime, I thought perhaps I should post this, because maybe my friend, her friend, and I are the only clueless people who did not realise this, but maybe we’re not. Maybe some of you have tried to embrace the arbitrary size you are, but still couldn’t find a cute pair of jeans, and didn’t know why.
This post is one of those things that I will reblog every time it appears on my dash. This is so important, and no one ever tells you about it.
I almost didn’t read this but then I did and I’m really glad that I did.
Super important
Tldr: The reason clothes never “looked right on you” is because models and celebrities always had their clothes tailored to fit them perfectly.
I love this post but it always frustrated me just a little because I can’t even afford to buy new clothes let alone get the clothes I have tailored. But then I remembered that a lot of things are easier to do than you think they will be, so here’s some resources on how to alter your own clothes!
Please read this, it’s an opportunity to learn about yourself, possibly a new skill and why it isn’t you, it’s the industry.
I have a friend who is extremely short for a man. I’m talking, like, 5'3" tall. And unfortunately for him, he is ALSO built like a fucking tank. He is beyond stocky. He is beyond sturdy. He is, quite simply, built like Gimli, Son of Brick Shithouse. But he’s always able to look so put-together despite being such an uncommon size and shape. So one day I asked him how he always looks so fucking crisp when I can’t find anything that fits a moderately built 6’ dude. And that is how I learned that being a short king, in addition to the societal cost of everyone making Snow White jokes, also comes with an added cost of getting EVERYTHING tailored to fit you, because otherwise nothing will. He just buys clothes made for barrel-chested, broad-shouldered Viking warriors and has them cut down to size. And he looks impeccable.
“In Sacramento, California, an estimated 6,615 people are experiencing homelessness, a number that — while still heartbreakingly high — has declined 29% since 2023, according to the latest Point In Time counts.
But a new project, which has been in the works since 2022, might bring that number down even lower.
The county broke ground on the mixed-use service center this week, which will provide shelter, emergency respite, safe parking, health services, and more to community members who are unsheltered — meaning they don’t have a place to safely sleep at night.
“We wanted to do something that is not only larger, but a large-scale campus to provide more than just the shelter,” Janna Haynes, of the county’s Department of Homeless Services and Housing, told KCRA3 News.
The Watt Service Center will have amenities to help meet the needs of anyone staying there, including bathrooms, showers, laundry, and food, as well as mental health, treatment, and employment services.
“You can also meet with your case manager, get behavior health services, look for a job, get rehousing services, a place for your dog,” Jaynes added. “It’s really everything you need, not only for your day-to-day life, but to hopefully end your homelessness.”
While the center is a costly offering, the city explained that it is ultimately less expensive than allowing the homelessness crisis to go unmitigated.
The land was purchased for $22 million and will cost an estimated $42 million to construct the center. According to ABC10 News it will be mostly funded by the American Rescue Plan Act.
While the center will have the capacity to host 225 beds in Safe Stay cabins, 50-person capacity in Safe Parking, and 75-person capacity for emergency/weather respite beds, it will serve countless others outside of the 350 total people it can house at any given time.
ALT
According to a press release from the county, “conservative estimates” have found that over the course of 15 years, the center will serve 18,000 people.
In 2017, the city found that the average cost for an “unsheltered individual” was about $45,000 a year, considering public systems like county jail, shelters, behavioral health, and more.
With the projected impact of the shelter, that cost lowers to less than $3,600 per person.
“If you break down the funding, it’s actually not that expensive,” Rich Desmond, county supervisor for District 3, told ABC10.
“It’s a heck of a lot cheaper than letting someone stay out in the community, unsheltered where they are extremely expensive in terms of the emergency response from fire, our emergency rooms, our law enforcement response.”
Providing what the county calls “wraparound services” not only brings down costs but truly helps people meet their basic needs.
“The really great thing about this site in particular, that we don’t have at any other shelters, is the sheer size and the ability to really wrap everything people need,” Emily Halcon, director of the Department of Homeless Services and Housing with Sacramento County, told ABC10.
One notable feature is the center’s Safe Parking spaces, which are the first of their kind in the city. People living in their cars will now have a safe place to park, monitored by security.
“We know a lot of people who are unsheltered actually are living out of their cars,” Desmond said, “maybe a family that’s barely hanging on but they still need that vital transportation to get their kids to school or get to work.”
This support is especially helpful for those who are newly homeless, Halcon added, building on the amenities provided in the county’s two other “safe stay” facilities.
While Sacramento County just broke ground on the Watt Service Center, officials say they hope to begin moving people into the facility in January 2026.
“Our staff is putting in extra time and attention to this campus, ensuring that it houses everything we need to end homelessness for people,” Desmond said in a statement.
Once it’s up and running, Jaynes told KCRA3, they plan to onboard formerly unhoused community members as part of the staff at the facility.
“When you have a conversation with someone who understands where you’ve been, and you see the success they’re having now,” Jaynes said, “it really does give you hope something could be different.”
me seeing this book cover: ah, clearly this memoir is about a lesbian’s journey to identifying as a Stone Butch ! this I am interpreting from the context clues of the title and the carabiner on the cover, a lesbian dogwhistle ! what an interesting read this will be !
*looking at someone clearly killed by a huge club*
Hmm…. detecting faint traces of ogre magic here….
Idea: play a wizard/barbarian who spent several years living with a group of ogres to learn their magic. Sometimes they use metaphors or quotes that they learned in their Giant immersion experience.
“Magic is like an onion”
Magic is like an onion because it comes from the earth, it can keep you alive, and you can throw it at someone pretty hard and bonk them. - Ogre Sorcerer Gurrek
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