As our lovely fandom has a plethora of these...

[natural-blue-26.livejournal.com]

...and we all have our own 'pet' favorite characters, be they extended family members of the Animorphs or the less utilized Villains/Monsters of the Week, and I'm curious to (hopefully) see some discussion over which 'minor' players everyone had they relate to/stuck with them/think deserved their own spin-off or Chronicles/etc.

Five minor or one-off characters that you wish could have gotten more face time. (Or would show up again)

(Originally posted by iceshade at fannish5 here.)

Comments

[rena-librarian.livejournal.com]

Hmm...
1. Loren. Loren Loren Loren! She got so cheated all the way around. I wanted more development of her from the minute I finished TAC and then even when I got it toward the end of the series, it wasn't enough.

2. Melissa. Because there was that glimmer of hope when Rachel left her that note, and then we don't hear from her again until they drive a tank into her house. Wut? Wouldn't getting that note and then still basically losing your best friend be super depressing? If Rachel had maintained the connection with Melissa, might it have slowed her descent into madness?

3. Mertil/Gafinilan. (Though 14-year-old me would be horrified to know that I'm a slash fan nowadays.) I would love to know how homosexuality is regarded in Andalite culture, it's something that could really go either way based on canon. I've read fic where it was total acceptance and other fic where it was frowned upon and I thought both were equally believable. And yes, I do believe KAA was trying to imply they were a couple, insofar as one could get away with that in a kid's book in the 90's.

4. Cassie's parents. They were the only set of families that really didn't have other drama going on to distract them (Rachel's family had the divorce, Jake's family was dealing with Tom and his obsession with the Sharing, Marco's dad had, well, Marco's mom), so how did they miss this giant change in their daughter's life? They were written like they were fairly calm, level-headed, and competent otherwise.

5. Pemalite Chronicles, anybody?

[natural-blue-26.livejournal.com]

2. Melissa. Because there was that glimmer of hope when Rachel left her that note, and then we don't hear from her again until they drive a tank into her house. Wut? Wouldn't getting that note and then still basically losing your best friend be super depressing? If Rachel had maintained the connection with Melissa, might it have slowed her descent into madness?

YES. I have always been convinced it was possible to have non-Animorphs friend interactions (because aside from possibly Tobias, there is no way they didn't all have larger social circles) without them having to be Mary!Sues etc.

[rena-librarian.livejournal.com]

Cassie I can kind of see as being kind to everyone but Rachel being her only close friend, and not getting invited to group things unless she was invited as part of a set with Rachel--but Rachel probably knew everyone in school. I highly doubt that Jake would've had that "leader" reputation if he hadn't been a fairly popular guy, also. Marco, obviously, as class clown, would've had a lot of friends but it's also possible that Jake was the only one that was really close to. (I have a friend who was the class clown in high school and that was how she described it, anyway.)

And while I can see them all kind of cooling off a lot of casual friendships in the interest of keeping each other and said casual friends safe, it struck me as weird that they wouldn't, to an extent, keep up a pretense with their closer friends. Like, they avoided hanging out as a group at school but Rachel cuts ties with Melissa, who was a fairly close friend? Where is the logic there?

(I recently watched the TV series and while it DID have lots of flaws, and I need to make a post about it, they actually did bring Melissa back later in the series and it worked very well.)

[with-rainfall.livejournal.com]

jdfiajfjsjs I would adore a Pemalite Chronicles.