My name is Concernedalien11780. Despite sharing my real name in my bio on my talk page here, I won't use it in this blog. I also won't talk about where I live either, despite having done the same thing for where I live as my real name. I mean, screennames protect us from the Yeerks, right? Or worse, trolls? Because, like Controllers, trolls are also controlled by their environment to do things that they wouldn't do otherwise and try to manipulate others into joining them in trying to spread tyranny. Eh, just kidding. I have been a fan of Animorphs ever since I started reading the books in 2nd grade and reading many different titles in the franchise throughout elementary and middle school. I wasn't able to read them anymore after 6th grade because starting in 7th grade when I went to the school meant for grades 7-12 in my district, they were no longer considered on par with the reading level expected for us. I encountered them again in 9th and 10th grade when I went to the Little Keswick School, which, being a theraputic boarding school for boys ages 8-18, most of which had social differences that made themselves dangers to themselves and those around them. I didn't have problems like that, I just wasn't socially ready for the demands of real high school due to an Asperger's Syndrome diagnosis. My parents believed that the school would help me work on social issues and make me a better person, but they didn't expect the school to have as many issues as they did. The restrictions of what students were allowed to read, listen to, watch, and play bordered on restricting freedom of thought, and were not what I needed at ages fifteen and sixteen. At one point, they even explicitly stated that the Bill of Rights and freedom of speech don't apply to those under the age of eighteen. As a result, teenagers had to read books meant for middle-schoolers. This was made extra hypocritical by how they also tried to force older students to outgrow liking things appearing to be only for kids. Thanks to changing sensibilities in the modern world, in which creators of children's media aren't underestimating children and acknowledging that they can handle allusions to violence, profanity, suggestive themes, and other darker themes and how many shows with TV-Y7 ratings or TV-PG ratings on kids' networks have equal to or larger fanbases of teens and adults thantheir kids' fanbases, this is an extremely regressive thing for boys going through puberty to be subjected to. Fortunately, Animorphs books were some of the books that were there. They were donated by a kid who said that as long as he was still a student there (we would both leave after 2013), they were still his property, so he would only allow me to read some of his books and got really butthurt about when I read one that he wanted to read, but at least it was Animorphs. Rereading most of the series as an older teenager allowed me to appreciate the darker themes the books had to offer more, such as war, dehumanization, sanity, morality, innocence, leadership, freedom, and growing up. While the writing is a little grating for someone who has passed the initial demographic age at times, and it's hard to see the Yeerks as the villains when they don't have any clear evil plot besides find host bodies that they need to survive (yes, I know this theme is touched on in the later books and whether the Andalites are really good or not, but it makes it hard to read some of the earlier and even mid-series books with the mindset of the Yeerks as absolute bad guys when you know of things like the Yeerk Peace Movement, and even without that, it almost reinforces the "evil because it's gross" trope for no good reason), I think that most of the ideas that Katherine Applegate put forward with the Animorphs series are original, smart, and could make for a really cool reboot in movie or TV form. Maybe something like that will happen, but probably not. Thank you for letting me into this community, and never forget the value of cinnamon bun-zuh.