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May. 26th, 2026 07:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
samcybercatAfter just crawling out the other side of bank holiday during a heatwave, one of my co-workers informed me that this week is apparently also half-term, which I was unaware of now that my mam no longer works in a school and my niece isn't old enough to start school yet. So carry on I must. Spare a thought for people working in customer-facing jobs, well, all the time generally, but particularly during heatwaves when a massive chunk of the country's population are enjoying getting time off and being very vocal about that.
It's not all bad news though, as this weekend I'll be going to stay with my friends and former housemates in Leeds. While I had a pretty dreadful time in Leeds purely because of my work situation there (maybe more on that another time, though that'll definitely be a friend-locked entry...), this had nothing to do with my housemates, who remain two of my closest friends. I usually visit them for birthdays, but this time it's a "no particular reason" visit. They recently got a Switch 2, so I'm looking forward to getting to see the new Tomodachi Life and maybe Pokopia. The former I'm especially keen to see played by people who are into the same silly characters as I am, so we can put them into situations.
So basically, I've just got to make it to the weekend.
Got another Animorphs book ticked off my list as well. I can see why the main series directly said to read this one next, when it didn't do that for the other side-stories, since this one is so essential that I feel it's only classed as a side-story because the POV is that of one of the villains instead of the usual cast.
It was very good! I wish I could say "You could read this one as a standalone" but that's simply not the case. It's so tied up in the events of the series and I just don't think it would work without coming into it with the whole build-up of Marco's situation with his mother. Having said that, it serves its purpose very well. The title of "Visser" and even the cover itself are I assume intentionally misleading to make the reader think this will be a book about the main villain, Visser Three, when actually, although he does feature in the story heavily, it is instead about the life and journey of another villain, Visser One, who recounts her own tale while on trial for crimes she's been accused of (and in many cases committed) against her own people. She's been an intriguing source of mystery for a while now, so it was good to get some definite answers about her, many of which I didn't expect to turn out the way they did.
The thing about Visser One is that she's actually a genderless(?) alien slug parasite whose host body is the missing mother of one of the main cast, Marco. In the previous book, we see that after his wife has been assumed dead for over two years, Marco's father has moved on in a new relationship, which is affecting Marco, who knows that his mother isn't dead, but can't reveal this to his father. This book by no means resolves the situation, but Marco gets to talk to his mother, Eva, for the first time in the series.
In the end, Visser One remains in control of Eva and both characters are put on a bus for the time being. (They also accidentally made Marco's Mom and the alien slug possessing her very shippable, but I can find toxic yuri anywhere, I suppose.) I sincerely hope this isn't the last we'll see of them, but Marco's stories in the series have consistently been about his family, so I trust that it'll at least be addressed again at some point in the future.
But more importantly, with this book finished I've not hit my target to read 15 more Animorphs books this year! That target was always a minimum, because if I set my goals too high I end up procrastinating on them, so I intend to read more throughout the year, I'm just going to stop counting them now. Maybe. I've already started reading the next book in the series, which is unfortunately a Jake one, but it at least seems to be set mostly under the ocean, which always wins points with me as a theme.
It's not all bad news though, as this weekend I'll be going to stay with my friends and former housemates in Leeds. While I had a pretty dreadful time in Leeds purely because of my work situation there (maybe more on that another time, though that'll definitely be a friend-locked entry...), this had nothing to do with my housemates, who remain two of my closest friends. I usually visit them for birthdays, but this time it's a "no particular reason" visit. They recently got a Switch 2, so I'm looking forward to getting to see the new Tomodachi Life and maybe Pokopia. The former I'm especially keen to see played by people who are into the same silly characters as I am, so we can put them into situations.
So basically, I've just got to make it to the weekend.
Got another Animorphs book ticked off my list as well. I can see why the main series directly said to read this one next, when it didn't do that for the other side-stories, since this one is so essential that I feel it's only classed as a side-story because the POV is that of one of the villains instead of the usual cast.
It was very good! I wish I could say "You could read this one as a standalone" but that's simply not the case. It's so tied up in the events of the series and I just don't think it would work without coming into it with the whole build-up of Marco's situation with his mother. Having said that, it serves its purpose very well. The title of "Visser" and even the cover itself are I assume intentionally misleading to make the reader think this will be a book about the main villain, Visser Three, when actually, although he does feature in the story heavily, it is instead about the life and journey of another villain, Visser One, who recounts her own tale while on trial for crimes she's been accused of (and in many cases committed) against her own people. She's been an intriguing source of mystery for a while now, so it was good to get some definite answers about her, many of which I didn't expect to turn out the way they did.
The thing about Visser One is that she's actually a genderless(?) alien slug parasite whose host body is the missing mother of one of the main cast, Marco. In the previous book, we see that after his wife has been assumed dead for over two years, Marco's father has moved on in a new relationship, which is affecting Marco, who knows that his mother isn't dead, but can't reveal this to his father. This book by no means resolves the situation, but Marco gets to talk to his mother, Eva, for the first time in the series.
In the end, Visser One remains in control of Eva and both characters are put on a bus for the time being. (They also accidentally made Marco's Mom and the alien slug possessing her very shippable, but I can find toxic yuri anywhere, I suppose.) I sincerely hope this isn't the last we'll see of them, but Marco's stories in the series have consistently been about his family, so I trust that it'll at least be addressed again at some point in the future.
But more importantly, with this book finished I've not hit my target to read 15 more Animorphs books this year! That target was always a minimum, because if I set my goals too high I end up procrastinating on them, so I intend to read more throughout the year, I'm just going to stop counting them now. Maybe. I've already started reading the next book in the series, which is unfortunately a Jake one, but it at least seems to be set mostly under the ocean, which always wins points with me as a theme.
