Let's Read Animorphs! The Whole Series! Ch-ch-ch-chaaanges

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SardonicTyrant: Feb 26, 2016; BTICH IM A NEWT
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Gnoman posted:

Going by what we've seen before, Melissa's going to get ground to paste between the two sides, and Rachel will be extremely guilty about it for the remainder of the book.

Oh, man, we're not even up to the dark books yet.

# ? Apr 16, 2020 02:19

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# ? Apr 28, 2024 14:18

Radio Free Kobold: Aug 11, 2012; "Federal regulations mandate that at least 30% of our content must promote Reptilian or Draconic culture. This is DJ Scratch N' Sniff with the latest mermaid screeching on KBLD..."

Family members of notables are valid targets? Oh boy, we're playing by ~~mujaheddin~~ Wolverine rules now

# ? Apr 16, 2020 14:06

Avalerion: Oct 19, 2012

I'm predicting they'll decide to go through with it but find they can't morph humans because of some technicality, maybe you can't morph into another of your own species or something.

# ? Apr 16, 2020 14:53

Some Pinko Commie: Jun 9, 2009; CNC! Easy as 1️⃣2️⃣3️⃣!

Man I can't wait until this thread gets to the book where we find out Tobias was literally Elfangor's son because he hosed Tobias's mom and that's why our heroes were given the ability to morph to begin with--it was for Tobias but the rest of them also got it because they happened to be there and that's when Tobias is thankful he got morph-locked as a hawk because his inability to show facial expressions after years of being a hawk kept him from reacting in human form when he got the ability to morph into his former human shape for two hours at a time.

# ? Apr 16, 2020 14:55

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

The Visitor-Chapter 4

quote:

The next day after school I headed for my gymnastics class at the YMCA, which is just across from the mall. They have a big indoor pool, so the entire building always smells of chlorine. Except for the weight room, which just smells like sweat.

My class is taught in a smaller room, with blue mats covering the floor. We have balance beams and uneven parallel bars and a vaulting horse with a springboard. I'm okay at vaulting and the parallel bars, but I'm pretty lame at the balance beam. To be honest with you, it kind of scares me. It takes such total concentration.

It's not one of those real serious gymnastics classes. I mean, none of us is going to be going to the Olympics. When I started out, I had dreams of being the next Shannon Miller. But then I started to grow. I'm pretty tall now, for my age. People look at me now and say, "Oh, you're going to be a model," not "Oh, you could be a gymnast."

Shannon Miller is a gymnast who's won the most Olympic medals of any American gymnast, and, prior to Simone Biles, had won the most championships.

quote:

Most of us in the class are too tall or too heavy to ever be serious gymnasts. We do it for fun and for exercise. I do it because I've always thought of myself as kind of clumsy. My mom says I'm not, but that's how I feel anyway.

Besides, it's just cool, hitting the little spring board and flipping through the air to bounce off the vaulting horse and stick the landing. Not as cool as flying, maybe, but fun just the same.

Melissa Chapman was in the locker room changing into her leotard when I came in. She's the exception to the rule in our class. She does look like a gymnast. She's small and thin, even though she doesn't starve herself like some fools who want to get into gymnastics. She has pale gray eyes and pale blonde hair and pale skin. She looks like one of those solemn elves in a Tolkien book. At first glance she looks delicate, but when you look a little closer, you see strength there, too.

There's Tolkien again.

quote:

Melissa gave me the kind of not-very-warm smile she always gives me lately. Like she was distracted, or thinking about something more important.

"Hey, Melissa," I said. "How's it going?"

"Fine. How about you?"

"Oh, pretty much the same old thing." That was a lie, of course. But what was I going to say? Yeah, Melissa, same old same old. Been turning into animals and fighting aliens. You know, the usual.

Melissa didn't say anything else. She just adjusted her leotard and started to do a few little stretches. That's the way it was. We said hi, but not much more. It used to be we were very close. She was my second best friend, after Cassie.

"Melissa, I was thinking . . . maybe you'd like to walk over to the mall with me after class? I have to buy a new pair of sneakers."

"The mall?" She stammered a little, and then started blushing. "You mean, go shopping?"

"Yeah. You know -- walk around and look at stuff and check out the cute guys and diss the snotty women at the perfume counters."

I tried to sound casual, like it was no big deal. In the old days, it would have been totally nothing. But now Melissa looked like a trapped animal.

When had Melissa and I gotten to be such strangers?

"I'm, um, kind of busy," Melissa said.

"Oh. That's cool. I understand."

But I didn't understand. Not at all. She started to walk away. I was going to let it go, but then I remembered: This wasn't just about a friend who had drifted away. This was about her father, one of the leaders of the Controllers. One of our most dangerous enemies.

I grabbed her arm. "Melissa, look . . . I feel like we've kind of gone in different ways, you know? And I miss you."

She shrugged. "Okay, well, maybe we could get together sometime."

"Not sometime, Melissa, that's just you blowing me off. What's going on with you?"

"What's going on with me?" she echoed. For a moment a look of extraordinary sadness darkened her eyes and tugged downward at the corners of her mouth. "Nothing is going on with me," she said. "We'd better get out there or Coach Ellway will have a fit."

She pulled her arm away.

I just watched her go. I felt like a complete and total jerk. Something had happened to Melissa. And I hadn't even noticed. She was my friend and something had changed in her, and I hadn't seen it. I'd just gone my own way.

And now I was only acting like a concerned friend. The truth was, I was only paying attention for my own reasons.

I wasn't able to concentrate on the lesson. Not concentrating when you're doing gymnastics can be painful. I slipped on the balance beam and banged my knee so badly I cried.

Melissa was the first one to rush over. And for about ten seconds she was the old Melissa.

But by the time I'd gotten back up, she was off across the room in her own little world again.

It was right then that the terrible suspicion started.

Melissa had been acting very strangely. Her father was a Controller.

I looked at her from across the room and felt a chill.

Was she one, too? Was my old friend Melissa a Controller?

So, again, there's this fear...this, you can't trust anyone, even someone who's been your friend forever. And, like Rachel said, Melissa has changed. So is she a Controller? Or did they just drift apart? Because the other thing is, that's what happens when you get older. Your friends in one part of your life aren't necessarily your friends in another, and this sort of middle school age, in a lot of ways, is when you really start to experience this. I know that I had friends, really good friends, when I was in elementary school that I just stopped hanging out with...and then, of course, the same was true from middle school to high school, high school to college, college to now, and so on. You just grow apart, and then when you run into the people later, it can be awkward. You were good friends once, and now that's gone and you're living your separate lives, not a part of each other's anymore. So then what happens when you take that natural, aging experience, and add Yeerks to the mix? Did my old friend and I drift apart because we just naturally did, or is she being mind controlled by an alien slug?

quote:

I didn't go shopping after my lesson. I didn't really feel like it. Melissa's eyes, the way she had looked at me, kind of killed my urge to shop.

I was supposed to head over to the mall, then call my mom when I was done to come pick me up. That was the plan. But since I didn't feel like mall-crawling I just headed home. Alone.

With the sky growing dark as rain clouds moved in.

It was stupid and careless of me. But I guess I was preoccupied with other things. Although at least I had the sense to stay out of the construction site.

I was walking down the sidewalk that runs along the boulevard when suddenly I realized that a car had pulled up just a little way down the sidewalk from me.

A guy got out. He looked like he was in high school or even college. He also looked like trouble.

I should have turned around and run back to ward the mall. But sometimes I don't always do the sensible thing. Sometimes I regret not doing the sensible thing. This was one of those times.

"Hey, baby," he said. "Want to go for a little ride?"

I shook my head and clutched my gym bag close. What an idiot I was to be so careless!

"Now, don't be stuck-up, sweet thing," he said. "I think you'd better get in the car."

The way he said it didn't sound like an invitation. It sounded like an order. Now I was reallyafraid.

I clutched my gym bag close as I passed him.

"Don't ignore me," he hissed.

He reached for me and missed. I walked faster.

He was behind me.

I broke into a run.

He ran after me.

"Hey. Hey, there! Come back here."

I had been stupid going out alone. But fortunately, unlike most people, I wasn't helpless. As I ran, I focused on something completely different. I concentrated on an image in my mind.

Then I felt the change begin. My legs grew thick. My arms grew big, bigger. I could feel myself growing large. Large and solid. I felt the squirmy sensation of my ears becoming thin and leathery.

But it wasn't enough to just look creepy. This guy had made me mad. I wanted to scare him half to death.

My nose suddenly began to sprout. Then, from my mouth, like two huge spears, the tusks began to appear.

I figured that was about enough. I broke my concentration, which stopped the morph.

I stopped suddenly. The creep barreled right into me.

He was not going to like what he was about to see.

I'll have more comments on this next chapter.

# ? Apr 16, 2020 22:34

Avalerion: Oct 19, 2012

Seems like she's about to expose herself to a controller, will probably have to kill him next. :ohdear:

Now I'm wondering what the plan for using Melissa actually is, I assumed they just want to grab her DNA for morphing but she just had an opportunity for that when she grabbed her arm but didn't. Were they planning to just ask her to spy on her dad instead?

# ? Apr 17, 2020 07:40

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

I think that is/was the plan; to get close to Melissa again and use her to try to figure out what her dad is up to.

# ? Apr 17, 2020 13:30

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

The Visitor-Chapter 5

quote:

I wanted to tell the jerk to step off. What I wanted to say to him was, "So, you still want to go for that ride?"

What I really said was "HhhohhHEEEEERRR."

The guy stopped dead. He just stared.

What he saw was me, halfway through morphing into an African elephant. I had about a third of a trunk and most of my huge fanlike elephant ears. My legs were like stumps. My arms looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger's, only gray. And my tusks stuck about a foot out of my mouth. Just to make things extra weird, I still had my normal hair and my normal eyes.

Suddenly, the guy wasn't interested in hassling me.

"AAAAAHHHH!"

He turned. He ran. For a minute he forgot he even had a car. Then he turned around and jumped in through an open window.

He started the car and took off.

He was definitely breaking the speed limit as he tore out of there.

I concentrated again and began to reverse the morphing process, going back to human shape. I had been wearing a loose sweater and leggings, which was good. They had both stretched. But my shoes had been split open by the sudden growth of my elephant feet.

It had started raining, so the trip home was going to be very unpleasant. "Oh, great!" I muttered. "I have got to remember to kick off my shoes before I morph into an elephant."

Just then, a second car pulled up and came to a stop. The window rolled down.

"Hey, Rachel." It was Melissa. I recognized the voice. "Do you want a ride home?" She didn't sound very excited by the idea.

I looked through the car window, past her. Chapman was behind the wheel.

I had seen somewhere the comment that this scene plays out differently now than when it would have originally when it was written, and I think that's right, because of different messages we send kids about the risk of danger and assault. Nowadays, the usual message focuses, "If anyone makes you nervous or tries to make you do something that makes you feel uncomfortable, you should say something.", whereas in the 80s and 90s, the message focused a lot more on "stranger danger", and the idea of like the creep in the van. So the irony in the original reading is that Chapman, who's an authority figure, the father of one of her classmates, and someone she should "trust", is more of a threat than the creepy guy who's trying to pick up young teens.

quote:

A wave of sick fear swept over me. Had he seen what I'd just done? If he had, then I was dead. My friends were dead.

"I'm ... I'm fine," I said. "I could use the exercise."

"Nonsense, young lady," Chapman said, sounding like his usual assistant-principal self. "It's beginning to rain. Get in."

What was I supposed to do? I forced a smile. It wasn't easy. "Thanks," I said.

Melissa was in the front with her father. I sat in the back. I tried not to shiver. I tried not to stare at the back of Chapman's head. That's how it is when you're around a Controller. You know that evil slug is right there in the Controller's head, attached to all his nerve endings. Controlling the human brain. Dominating it.

It's hard not to stare when you think of what is squeezed inside that skull.

"When we were stuck back at the red light it looked like some guy was bothering you," Melissa said. "Then he ran off. Was he bothering you?"

"Um . . . no," I lied. "He was . . . he was just picking up something he dropped by the side of the road."

Pathetic! I was such a lame liar.

I saw Chapman's eyes watching me in the rearview mirror. He looked like normal old Chapman. That's the problem with Controllers. There is no outward clue. They look so normal.

"He went running off like the hounds of Hades were after him," Chapman said.

"Did he?" I said in a squeaky voice. "I wasn't looking. I guess it was the rain. That's probably why he was running. There. You can turn left there."

"I know where you live," Chapman said.

I almost swallowed my tongue. Was that a threat? Did he suspect? Did he guess? Was he looking at me strangely?

Or was I just being paranoid?

He pulled up in front of my house. My heart was hammering, but I was determined to act casual. "Thanks for the ride, Mr. Chapman," I said. "Hey, Melissa, I was totally serious about us getting together, okay?"

She nodded. "Sure, Rachel. Absolutely."

I closed the car door behind me. I had escaped. I was alive. I'd probably just been imagining things.

Then I heard Melissa call out to me. "Hey. What happened to your shoes?"

I looked down. My shoes were in tatters, the result of my feet growing from a size six to a size three hundred in about five seconds flat.

"See?" I said, as lightly as I could. "I told you I needed to go shopping."

Melissa just looked puzzled. Her father stared at me with an expression I could not read.

There's not much more frightening than an expression you can't read.

quote:

I was shaking like a leaf when I walked into my house. I headed upstairs to my room and stuffed my ripped shoes into the trash. Only then did I go back downstairs and say hi to my mom.

She was at the kitchen table, half hidden by a pile of buff-colored books. My mother's a lawyer, and she brings work home a lot so she can be around me and my two little sisters. She and my dad are divorced. I only get to see my dad a few days a month, so mom feels guilty when she isn't there for us.

"Hi, honey," she said. Then she got her "suspicious mother" look. "How did you get home? You didn't walk, did you? You were supposed to call me."

"Melissa and her dad gave me a ride," I said. Well, it was the truth. Sort of.

She relaxed and made a point of closing her book. "Sorry. You know I worry about you."

"Where are Jordan and Sara?"

"They're in the family room watching another one of those scary shows. Of course, tonight Jordan will be sleeping with her night-light on and Sara will end up in my bed, no doubt. I don't know why they like things that frighten them. You were never that way."

It almost made me laugh. I felt like saying, well, Mom, I don't have to watch things that are scary, I am scary. Should have seen me a little while ago with tusks sticking out of my mouth and a three-foot-long nose.

What I really said was, "So, what's for dinner?"

My mother winced. "Pizza? Chinese? Any thing else you can order over the phone? I'm sorry, but I have this brief and I have court in the morning."

"Mom," I told her for maybe the thousandth time, "I don't mind pizza. Sorry, but your cooking isn't all that great, so it's no big deal ordering pizza."

"Well, at least get some veggies on it," she said.

See, health food.

quote:

After dinner I called Jake.

"Do you want to come over?" I said. "I got that new CD, if you want to listen to it."

There was no CD, of course. It's just that we always have to be careful. Like I said, Jake's brother, Tom, is a Controller. He could be listening on the extension. Then I called Cassie and Marco and told them the same cover story.

When they arrived I told them about Melissa, and then I told them about my little run-in with the creep. I did not tell them about Chapman driving me home. I don't know why. But when I saw the way Marco exploded, I was glad I hadn't told them the whole story.

"Oh, that was dumb! Dumb! DUMB!" Marco said. "What if that guy is a Controller?"

"He wasn't a Controller," I said\ scornfully. "Why would the Yeerks want to make a Controller out of a punk? They want people in positions of power."

"We don't know that for sure," Jake said. "Tom isn't in a position of power."

"And how about people driving by in their cars, or looking out of the windows of their homes?" Marco asked. "And what if he runs and tells someone about this girl who suddenly sprouted a trunk and tusks?"

"No one is going to believe a lowlife like that," I said.

"His friends won't believe him," Marco said poisonously, "but a Controller would believe him. A Controller would know what it meant."

Yes. A Controller would know what it meant. A Controller like Chapman. Or even Melissa, if she was one of them.

I felt sick. It was like my whole life was nothing but lies. Lies to Melissa. Lies to my mother. Now I was lying by not telling the others the whole truth.

"Okay, I screwed up," I muttered.

"You sure did!" Marco crowed. "You screwed up so --"

"Marco, let it drop," Jake said. "Rachel knows she made a mistake. We all make mistakes."

Marco rolled his eyes.

Cassie gave me an encouraging smile. "It was dumb putting yourself in that position, Rachel. You need to be more careful. But still, I'd have paid my next ten allowances to see the look on that guy's face."

I honestly think they're being much too hard on her here.

quote:

"The important thing is that it doesn't sound like Rachel can use Melissa to get close to Chapman," Jake said. "Not if she's a Controller herself. And not if she's going to continue being weird to Rachel."

"I guess we'll have to find another way," I said quickly. "I mean, we know where Chapman's office is. We know where his house is. Maybe we could just morph into some small animals and hide out."

"Small animals like what?" Marco asked. "When Jake turned into a lizard he got stepped on. He lost his tail. Besides, what are you going to morph into? A cockroach?"

We all shuddered at the thought. The smallest, strangest thing anyone had morphed so far was when Jake had done the lizard. It creeped him out big time. A roach would be even worse.

"The problem with being a cockroach," I said, "aside from the fact that it is too gross to believe, is that roach senses might not even be useful to us. Can a roach "hear" in a way that would make it possible for us to understand what we're hearing?"

We all looked at Cassie. She's sort of our expert on animals.

Cassie held up her hands. "Oh, come on. Like I know how a cockroach sees and hears? We don't take care of roaches at the rehab clinic."

We all sat there feeling glum for a few minutes. But I wasn't going to let it drop. This was about more than just striking a blow at the Yeerks. I had to find out if Chapman suspected me. If he did, we were all in terrible danger.

I happened to glance over at my desk. There was my math homework, still not done. That didn't make me feel any better. But then I looked at the photos I had mounted in one of those big frames with six different holes. One was of me with my mom and dad on a whitewater rafting trip we took. One was of me visiting my dad at his job -- he's a weatherman on TV. We were grinning in front of a map of storms. Another picture was of Cassie and me riding horses side by side, with Cassie, as usual, looking like she'd spent her entire life in the saddle, and me looking like a total dweeb.

But the picture that got my attention was one taken a couple of years ago of Melissa and me.

I got up and went over to take the frame down.

I stared hard at the picture.

"What?" Jake asked. "What is it?"

"It's me and Melissa," I said. "It was like her twelfth birthday, or some birthday, anyway, and we were out on her lawn playing with the present her dad gave her."

"So what?" Marco asked.

"So ..." I passed him the photograph. It showed me and Melissa in shorts. And between us a small black-and-white kitten. "So her present was a cat."

We can see where this is going. Also, Rachel has a lot of self doubt here.

# ? Apr 17, 2020 22:33

Avalerion: Oct 19, 2012

I�m actually curious about the �how well does a bug hear� thing.

# ? Apr 18, 2020 07:02

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

They are being hard on her, yes, but... she took an unbelievably stupid risk that could have resulted in all of them going down. It'd be bad enough if she got wasted, but if she'd been captured instead, welp, series ends on book two.

# ? Apr 18, 2020 13:54

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

I'd also like to point out that Chapman and Tom are completely useless. Chapman saw something that clearly raised his eyebrows, and Tom brought Jake AND Rachel to a Sharing meeting with the intention of wasting them if necessary... and they fail to act on the obvious connection.

It probably wouldn't hold up in court, but the pieces are all there. They're known associates, they were in the area (if not identified), and known to go through the construction site...

Just gank them and be done with it.
You ~~muppets~~ dips

# ? Apr 18, 2020 13:59

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

The Visitor-Chapter 6

quote:

"Look! A kitty door!" Jake pointed.

"Where?" Marco asked.

"See the lines of light? At the bottom of the regular door?"

"Oh, yeah," Marco said. "I wish the moon were out. I can't see a thing."

The four of us were cowering behind a hedge that bordered the Chapmans' lawn. They lived in a pretty normal-looking suburban home. You know: two stories, a garage, a lawn. Nothing to make you think that the person who lived there was part of a huge alien conspiracy to take over the world.

"Let me just ask you this," Marco whispered. "Why did it have to be Chapman? I was afraid of Chapman even before we found out he was a Controller."

"You're not still upset over that detention he gave you?" I asked. "Look, if you're going to listen to your CD player in math class with an earphone hidden under your hair, you have to remember not to start singing along."

"Yeah, that was only slightly stupid, Marco," Jake agreed.

"I still say Chapman never would have given me a whole week's detention if he was totally human."

"I have a question," Cassie said. "How do we get Melissa's cat to come outside?"

We all looked at her.

"Good question," I admitted.

"I mean, we could hide here in the bushes for a long time. But sooner or later the neighbors are going to notice."

<What does the cat look like?>

Tobias was sitting perched on a nearby tree branch. He was close enough to hear us.

I tried to remember. "It's name is Fluffer, I remember that much. Fluffer McKitty."

Fluffer McKitty is the best name for a cat.

quote:

"You've got to be kidding." Marco, of course.

I tried to remember back to when I used to hang out with Melissa. "It's black and white. You know, in patches."

<l'll look around. Maybe it's already outside. >

Tobias spread his wings, swooped silently down over our heads, and flapped away into the night.

You know what we need?" I said. "We need another kitty. We should have thought of that. Then we could have the second cat call out to Fluffer."

Marco turned to stare at me. "Meowfluffer, comeoutmeow, meow come and play meow?"

"Tobias morphed a cat very early on, didn't he?" I asked.

"Yeah," Jake said. "His first morph. The first morph any of us did."

"Rachel, you need to remember if you go in there tonight that you have to stay in cat character," Cassie said.

"Most people would just think it was weird if a cat acted strangely. But Chapman may be able to guess what's going on if Fluffer suddenly starts acting un-catlike."

"So you're saying I shouldn't try eating with a fork or changing the channels on the TV?"

Everyone laughed -- quietly and nervously, but it was laughter just the same.

Suddenly Tobias dropped out of the sky, then drifted over us in a lazy circle and called down, <Got him. >

He settled back on the branch. He was really an amazing animal, when you just looked at him as a bird and didn't think about him being a boy trapped in there. I mean, the gaze of a hawk when it is looking right at you is incredibly intimidating.

"He really was an amazing animal when you didn't think of him as a boy trapped in a bird's body" is very much one of those "Except for that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?" kind of lines. Also, you're sort of seeing more of a relationship here between the two of them.

quote:

Gentle Tobias now had an expression that looked totally ferocious.

"You're kidding. You found Fluffer?" I asked.

<Hey, it's easy. Spotting prey is what I do. Or what a hawk does, anyway. Actually, there are maybe six or eight cats running around the neighborhood. Also, three dogs and an amazing amount of rats and mice.>

"Rats?" That got Marco's attention. "Rats? Here? This is suburbia. I mean, it's a lot better than where I live. They have rats?"

<There are rats everywhere,> Tobias said. <Rats and mice and all kinds of plump, juicy . . .> He fell silent, embarrassed.

"Get a grip, Tobias," Marco said. "Don't start eating rats, all right? I don't know if I can have someone who eats rats for a friend."

Sometimes Marco is funny. Sometimes he goes too far. This was one of those times. "Shut up, Marco," I growled.

"I ate a live spider," Jake pointed out. "Does that mean you and I can't be friends?" From his tone of voice I could tell he was angry, too.

None of us knew what Tobias was going through.

None of us had ever been in morph for more than two hours. Tobias had been a hawk for more than a week.

Marco realized he'd been a jerk. "Well, yeah, I guess you're right," he muttered. "Besides, I've been known to eat eggplant. So I guess I can't criticize."

That was an apology, or as close as Marco could get to an actual apology.

Fair, I think. That was a pretty nasty blow. Marco has, if you haven't noticed, a tendency to shoot off his mouth without so much tact.

quote:

<The cat we're looking for is just a half block away,> Tobias said. <Follow me. >

He flew off, but kept low. We took off after him. Even flying at minimum speed, Tobias was too fast for us to keep up with, so he had to circle back again and again. We had a hard time keeping him in sight.

"This doesn't look too strange," Cassie joked. "The four of us running down the street looking up in the sky."

<There,> Tobias called down. <See that yard with the two trees?>

"Yeah. Just to our left?"

<That's the one. The cat you're looking for is stalking a mouse, right behind the trunk of the nearest tree. >

"Okay, we can't all go traipsing over some stranger's yard," I pointed out. "I'll go with Cassie. "

Marco held up the kitty carrier we had brought along. "Don't you need this?"

"Not yet. I'll grab Flutter and bring him back over here. You two guys just stand here, looking casual."

Cassie and I stepped onto the lawn. The house was dark. Maybe no one was home. That would be good.

"Go left," I suggested to Cassie. We circled the tree.

"Hey, Flutter," I said in a high, talking-to- animals voice. "Here, kitty kitty. Remember me?"

"There he is."

"I see him." I squatted down and held my hand out toward the cat. "Hey, Fluffer Fluffer. It's me, Rachel."

Flutter flattened his ears back along his skull. He looked from me to Cassie and back again.

"Come on, Flutter, it's me. Come on, boy."

"He's a male? He's a tomcat?" Cassie asked.

"Yeah, I think so."

"Oh, wonderful," Cassie moaned. "Please tell me he's been fixed, at least."

"Have you been fixed, Flutter McKitty?" I cooed. "Why do we care?" I asked Cassie.

"Because pound for pound, a tomcat is like one of the toughest, most dangerous little things around."

"Who, Flutter? My little kitty friend Flutter?"

"Even if he is fixed, a male cat, out at night in hunting mode?" Cassie shook her head. "We should have worn gloves."

This is true. My cat is the sweetest thing in the world, but you get on his bad side, and you won't be happy/

quote:

"Oh, come on. He's a sweet kitty cat." To demonstrate just how sweet Flutter was, I reached a hand for him.

"Hhhhhhssssss!"

In a movement too fast for my human eyes to see, Fluffer swiped out with one paw. Three bloody scratches appeared on the back of my hand and Fluffer shot straight up the tree.

"Owww!" I stuck my injured hand to my mouth.

"Gloves would definitely have been a good idea," Cassie said.

"How are you guys doing?" Jake whispered, just loudly enough for me to hear him.

"Wonderful," I said through gritted teeth. "I'm bleeding and Fluffer is up the tree."

I heard Marco giggle. I expected that. But then I heard Jake giggling, too.

I looked up and saw two glittering yellow- green eyes glaring down from the dark tree.

"This was supposed to be the easy part," I said. "I figured, okay, we go and acquire Flutter's DNA, and then the hard stuff begins."

"We have a cat up a tree," Cassie said dolefully. "You know how hard it is to get a cat down out of a tree?"

"I have a plan," I said. "Tobias, are you up there?"

<Right above you. But I'm not going to try and snatch an angry tomcat down out of a tree. >

"That's not what I was going to ask," I said. I took a deep breath. This night was turning weird real fast. "What I need is a mouse."

So "This night was turning weird real fast." should probably be this series's motto.

# ? Apr 19, 2020 00:03

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

Thanks much for this thread. Its been kind of delightful to read the series I devoured about 10 books of before moving on as a kid and coming back to it with fresh, older eyes.

# ? Apr 19, 2020 01:55

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Ravenfood posted:

Thanks much for this thread. Its been kind of delightful to read the series I devoured about 10 books of before moving on as a kid and coming back to it with fresh, older eyes.

Sure. I know a lot of people have nostalgic memories of it as a kid, so I wanted to see how people thought it held up as an adult.

# ? Apr 19, 2020 02:25

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

The Visitor-Chapter 7

quote:

<Got something for you. A baby mouse. A mean baby mouse. It keeps trying to bite me.>

Tobias flew in a low, tight circle overhead, disappearing behind the tree branches, then reappearing. <Are you ready?>

I took a deep breath. I gave him a wave. Sure, I was ready. Why wouldn't I be ready to have a hawk hand me a mouse? Just your normal kind of thing to deal with.

Tobias flew low and slow. I held out my hands, cupped together. With amazing precision and perfect timing, he deposited the mouse in my hands.

"Don't let it bite you!" Cassie warned. "Rabies."

"Wonderful," I muttered. "Just one more fun aspect of this night." Actually, I was glad for the warning. The mouse was squirming in terror, trying to get away. I could feel its tiny little mouse legs scrabbling against my palms.

"You should all get rabies shots," Cassie said. "Seriously. I already have mine. But if we're going to be handling wild animals ... In the mean time, be careful to keep his teeth away from you."

"I wasn't planning on feeding him my finger," I said.

"Hey, wait." Cassie pried open my hands to get a better look. "That's not a mouse. That's a shrew. See the eyes? They're too small. And the tail is wrong. That's not a baby mouse, Tobias, it's a full-grown shrew."

<Sorry. Is that bad?>

Cassie shrugged. "I don't know. I just know it isn't a mouse."

For context, this is a shrew

and this is a mouse

quote:

"Wait a minute," Marco said, beginning to grin. "Rachel is going to become a shrew?

How will we know when she's changed? How do you become what you already are?"

Everyone was too nervous to find the joke very funny. We felt kind of stupid, standing around on some stranger's lawn playing with rodents. I mean, there are times when the whole thing just seems so utterly insane, you know?

"Okay, I have to concentrate on acquiring, so everyone shut up," I said.

Acquiring is what we call it when we absorb a sample of the animal's DNA. The DNA is the stuff inside the cells that sort of serves like a how-to manual for making the animal.

When you acquire, you have to think hard about the animal, focusing on it and blocking everything else out. Then the animal kind of goes limp, like it's in a trance. It takes just about a minute.

It was easy to focus on the shrew, what with it squealing in terror and squirming to get out of my hand.

But it was gross, definitely gross. I know there's nothing really wrong with shrews, but still. They freak me out a little.

When I was done, I opened my eyes. "Okay, little shrew, thanks for your help. You can go now."

"I'm not sure this is a good idea," Jake said doubtfully.

"Really?" Marco was sarcastic. "You're not sure it's a good idea for Rachel to turn into a shrew in order to lure a vicious cat down from a tree so she can morph into that cat and sneak into the assistant principal's house? What worries you about that plan?"

I agree wwith Marco.

quote:

Cassie looked worried, too. "You know, Rachel, usually a cat will play with a mouse a little bit.

But sometimes they don't. Sometimes they go right for the neck bite. The mouse -- or the shrew -- dies instantly."

<Be careful, Rachel,> Tobias said. <I'll be watching, but be careful. I don't want anything to happen to you.>

He "said" it so only I could hear. I could tell, because nobody else reacted.

I looked up at Tobias and winked. I knew he would see it. I rubbed my hands together. "Okay, let's do this."

They're really pretty cute together.

quote:

I concentrated once more on the shrew. The shrew was now a part of me. I don't know how it works, but it does. Somehow, thanks to the Andalite technology, the DNA of that shrew was stored away inside me. It was like having a map to guide me as I transformed. Not that I had a clue how I was able to do it.

The first sensation was of shrinking. It's a long, long trip down from being five feet tall to being less than an inch tall. It's like falling. Except that you can feel the ground under your feet the whole time.

One minute I was looking Jake and Marco and Cassie in the face. The next minute their faces seemed to be zooming high up above me. I was falling down the length of their bodies. It was like they were huge skyscrapers and I had jumped off the roof or something.
My outer clothing fell around me like a big, collapsing circus tent.

It made a slight grinding noise as my backbone collapsed into a size smaller than my little finger. There was the disturbing, not-quite-pain sensation that goes along with some morphs. Like you knew it should hurt, but it didn't quite.

I could feel the tail sprout from my tailbone. A long, hairless tail. Not at all attractive.

My legs practically disappeared, they were so small. I was a chubby little ball of fur no more than two inches long, with four tiny feet.

Then the fear kicked in. The shrew's fear.

It hit me so hard I began to shake. I rattled with terror. I quaked with terror.

I was surrounded! Predators everywhere! I could smell them. I could see them -- huge, looming, slow-moving creatures standing over me.

"Rachel? You okay down there?" It was Cassie . She lifted the folds of my clothing off of me.

I heard the voice and sort of understood it, but it was more like distant thunder. It didn't really mean anything. At least not to the shrew.

It was looking for a way out. Its brain might have been terrified, but it was also amazingly smart. It was evaluating every possible escape route. It was measuring the distance between the three sets of legs. One set of legs moved slightly. I was off like a shot.

Running! Running!

Blades of grass seemed six feet tall. Twigs were like fallen trees that I had to scramble over. My little feet moved with incredible speed. I scooted past a beetle that seemed to me to be as big as a dog.

"Rachel, you have to get control!"

I knew they were right. I even sort of understood what they meant. But the terror was so strong. The urge to survive was so powerful.

And at the same time there were other feelings. Hunger. I smelled nuts. I smelled dead flesh. I even smelled the maggots squirming on the dead flesh.

And I wanted them. I know it's too gross, but I wanted to eat those maggots.

Heavy pounding footsteps behind me! I turned sharply and ducked under a bush. The steps went barreling by before stopping and turning back toward me.

They were faster than I was, but not as agile. I could get away. I could get away and find that dead smell and gorge!

<Rachel, it's Tobias. The shrew is in control. You have to assert yourself! Tell it to stop running.>

Fear! Hunger!

<Rachel, listen to me. You're getting away from us. You have to take charge. >

Fear! Hunger! Run!

Grass and twigs and dirt. Low scratchy branches over my head. The smell of food. The smell of a dog that had urinated on this bush.

More loud footsteps and far-off rumbling voices yelling. They were trying to catch me. But I was fast!

I was clever!

But not clever enough. I ran out from under the bush.

Like a shadow inside of a shadow, I felt it descend on me. Terror like nothing I'd felt before swept over me. Something deep, deep inside my shrew brain cried out.

It was the ultimate fear! The ultimate horror! It was the enemy I could not defeat!

And it was coming for me!

So to be clear, their plan to get the cat down from the tree and catchable was to lure it with a mouse as bait. But, instead of Tobias catching a mouse and dropping it by the tree for the cat to hunt, the plan was to turn Rachel into a mouse, and risk her life? I'm not believing this is the smartest choice.

# ? Apr 19, 2020 23:18

cptn_dr: Sep 7, 2011; Seven for beauty that blossoms and dies

The great thing about the Animorphs being a bunch of idiot children is that it's perfectly realistic they'd make all these terrible decisions. Because they sure do manage to come up with a lot of bad plans.

# ? Apr 19, 2020 23:28

Kchama: Jul 25, 2007

cptn_dr posted:

The great thing about the Animorphs being a bunch of idiot children is that it's perfectly realistic they'd make all these terrible decisions. Because they sure do manage to come up with a lot of bad plans.

And they all work about as well as you'd expect, which is why the books are so great.

# ? Apr 20, 2020 00:21

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Kchama posted:

And they all work about as well as you'd expect, which is why the books are so great.

Really is kind of entertaining that where your standard YA books would have the heroes nevertheless prevail in these situations, Applegate has them straight up fail horribly and people get killed.

# ? Apr 20, 2020 01:36

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Turns out maybe 13 year olds aren't the ones you want running the resistance. They do get better at it.

# ? Apr 20, 2020 02:42

cptn_dr: Sep 7, 2011; Seven for beauty that blossoms and dies

I can't remember if it's something you said or if it's a thought I had independently when I was reading (I'm rereading the series now thanks to your thread), but I thought it was interesting to note that that the first Animorph to wilfully go out of their way to kill someone was Cassie (who killed the cop who brought her to the Yeerk pool).

# ? Apr 20, 2020 03:24

nine-gear crow: Aug 10, 2013

cptn_dr posted:

I can't remember if it's something you said or if it's a thought I had independently when I was reading (I'm rereading the series now thanks to your thread), but I thought it was interesting to note that that the first Animorph to wilfully go out of their way to kill someone was Cassie (who killed the cop who brought her to the Yeerk pool).

It kind of becomes a throughline for her character as the series goes on. Rachel gets all the attention because she turns into a bloodthirsty murder enthusiast but Cassie is much more subtly ruthless despite her role as the mother hen and peacemaker of the group. This is not going to be the last time she up and murders someone off-screen because it's what had to be done.

# ? Apr 20, 2020 03:28

Soup du Jour: Sep 8, 2011; I always knew I'd die with a headache.

nine-gear crow posted:

It kind of becomes a throughline for her character as the series goes on. Rachel gets all the attention because she turns into a bloodthirsty murder enthusiast but Cassie is much more subtly ruthless despite her role as the mother hen and peacemaker of the group. This is not going to be the last time she up and murders someone off-screen because it's what had to be done.

And don�t forget how she designs the plan to lure and trap David in morph. Cassie is drat ruthless when she wants to be. It just so happens that it�s a lot less than the other Animorphs want to be.

# ? Apr 20, 2020 04:06

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

nine-gear crow posted:

. This is not going to be the last time she up and murders someone off-screen because it's what had to be done.

Are you talking about the time she burns down the house of the cannibal Human-controller who runs AOL?

# ? Apr 20, 2020 04:14

nine-gear crow: Aug 10, 2013

Epicurius posted:

Are you talking about the time she burns down the house of the cannibal Human-controller who runs AOL?

Yep

# ? Apr 20, 2020 04:27

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

I remember there's a line in book 15 where this yet-unintroduced character points out how odd it is the Andalite bandits have never killed a human, which I found really jarring. They might try not to, but there's no way they haven't done it accidentally by then.

# ? Apr 20, 2020 05:54

MonsterEnvy: Feb 4, 2012; Shocked I tell you

Krazyface posted:

I remember there's a line in book 15 where this yet-unintroduced character points out how odd it is the Andalite bandits have never killed a human, which I found really jarring. They might try not to, but there's no way they haven't done it accidentally by then.

I thought it was avoided killing humans.

# ? Apr 20, 2020 19:31

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

MonsterEnvy posted:

I thought it was avoided killing humans.

I guess we'll see in thirteen books.

# ? Apr 20, 2020 19:40

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

The Visitor-Chapter 8

quote:

I dodged, but too slowly. Huge talons closed around me and suddenly my little feet were running in air.

<Okay, Rachel. It's okay. It's just me. I have you. >

The voice was in my head. I understood the words. It cut through the terror at last. I held onto that voice.

<Relax, Rachel. >

I looked down and with my dim shrew eyesight saw the shadows shooting past down below.

<I have you, Rachel. Try to be calm. Think about something human. Think about school. Remember school?>

School? Yes. I remembered school.

Quite suddenly the shrew mind lost the battle for control. It was like a switch had been flipped. I was in charge. I knew what I was. I knew who I was.

<I'm okay, Tobias,> I said. <You can set me down.>

He circled around and landed with perfect gentleness on the ground.

<Did my talons hurt you?>

<No. I don't think so. I'm fine. >

So this is maybe the third time we've seen an animorph get overwhelmed by the mind of the animal they morphed into...Jake's dog, the lizard and now this.

quote:

"You okay, Rachel?" Jake's voice.

<Yes. Boy, that was totally different than the elephant brain. Or the eagle. They're both so calm and mellow compared to this mind. >

"It's like Jake's lizard," Cassie suggested. "He had a panic reaction, too. The other animals we morphed were all kind of big, dominant animals -- gorilla, tiger. My horse was skittish, though."

<Look, let's just do this and get it over with, okay?> I said. <I'm not enjoying the shrew experience.> That was the understatement of all time. I could still smell death and hear the thousands of feasting maggots. And to me those things still meant dinner. I was horribly hungry.

"Are you sure you're going to be able to maintain down there?" Marco asked. I saw him peering down at me from a million miles up. "You still look a little nervous. Your tail is twitching and your little nose is sniffing like crazy."

<Yeah, I know. I'm still nervous. Let's just do this. You'll have to take me back to the tree where Fluffer is. I don't know what direction it is. >

Before I could object, Marco reached down and scooped me into his hands. He held me up and looked into my eyes. "I've never seen you look lovelier, Rachel. Very cover girl."

We walked down the block. Marco set me down at the bottom of the tree where Fluffer was still hiding out on a high branch.

<You guys had better back off a little.> I said.

"Not too far," Jake said. "We have to be able to get between you and Fluffer fast."

<Oh, I can kick Fluffer's butt,> I said, joking. I guess I felt a little embarrassed about having let the shrew take control of me.

"Uh-huh," Marco said dryly. "Cat versus mouse. Who would you bet on?"

"Haven't you ever seen Itchy and Scratchy?" Cassie asked. "Mouse, definitely. Besides, she's not a mouse."

Let me tell you something: It is no fun sitting around in a shrew's tiny body, waiting to see whether a huge cat is going to decide to climb down and kill you. It is one of the least fun things I've ever done. I had the shrew brain under control, but that didn't change the fact that the shrew was about as scared as a shrew can be. Between being snatched up by a hawk and now waiting to see if the shrew's other deadly enemy was going to attack ... I mean, the shrew was definitely in a state of panic.

She was not a happy shrew.

I was so preoccupied thinking about the shrew's hunger that I missed what happened next. I didn't even notice until I heard the sound of scraping tree bark just an inch over my head. Fluffer was dropping through the air right on top of me!

I froze!

Jake and Marco did not freeze.

Marco grabbed Fluffer in mid-pounce. Fluffer rewarded him with a nasty slash of his claws. Marco yelled and almost dropped the cat. Jake grabbed Fluffer by the nape of the neck and Cassie ran up with the animal carrier.

The three of them managed to stuff the squalling, hissing, slashing Fluffer into the carrier and close the door.

I was already morphing out of the shrew body as fast as I could.

"I'm bleeding!" Marco cried.

"We're all bleeding," Cassie said matter-of-factly. "I told you guys: Kitties can be nasty when you get on their nerves."

That's cats for you.

quote:

I was shooting up from the ground, regaining my normal body.

"Ugh! Ugh! I'm never doing that morph again," I said, as soon as I had a normal tongue and lips. I looked over my shoulder to make sure I didn't still have that creepy tail. Nothing. I was me again. I was in my morphing outfit and with no shoes on, but I was human again.

I shuddered. The memory of the shrew's brain and its fear and hunger made my flesh creep. I was fighting a powerful urge to throw up. I felt sick in a way that is mostly in your head.

Jake looked at me and shook his head. "I should have done it. I should have used my lizard morph to lure the cat down from the tree."

I shook my head. "No. That freaked you out."

"And now you're the one who's freaked out," Jake said. "But don't worry, you'll get over it. Mostly. At least you didn't eat a spider."

"Yeah. Look, I'm just tired, okay? Let me acquire this pain-in-the-butt cat and get on with this."

"Are you still up for it?" Cassie asked. "Acquiring two new morphs in one night?"

"I shouldn't have let you do the mouse. Shrew. Whatever," Jake said. He was still looking guilty.

"Look, it was my idea, right? Besides, since when do you let me do things? What are you, my master? I don't think so. Come on." I squared my shoulders and put on a brave smile. "Let me see how Fluffer likes me, now that I'm bigger than he is."

I guess Fluffer was tired of causing trouble. He was actually asleep in the cat carrier. Sleeping like nothing at all was going on.

A typical cat. He even purred as I acquired him.

That's also cats for you.

quote:

When I was done, I noticed Cassie smiling at me.

"What?" I asked her.

"I was just thinking how you look like the same old Rachel, but now you also have an elephant, a shrew, an eagle, and a cat inside you. That's four morphs. That's more than any of us." She looked thoughtful. "We don't really know very much about this morphing thing still. I wonder if there is a limit to how many morphs you can do."

So, this is a mistake, and I don't know if the author got it wrong, or Cassie is just meant to be wrong here, because we know that Jake also has four morphs....his dog, the lizard, the tiger, and the peregrine falcon he was in the shape of at the beginning of the book.

quote:

"I guess we'll find out," Marco said darkly. "Probably at the worst possible time."

I wondered if they were right. It was definitely a strange, powerful feeling, knowing that I could become four very different animals. Strange and powerful and disturbing. Inside of me I had animals that ate each other. It wasn't a good image.

Suddenly I felt exhausted. "Look, guys. . . I've acquired Flutter now. But maybe we should do the rest of this tomorrow night. I'm ... I don't know if I'm at my best right now."

"Another night," Jake agreed. He looked relieved. I think he was worried about me. That's the way Jake is.

"I guess we can let Fluffer go now," Cassie said. She opened the carrier and the cat climbed out cautiously.

I watched him run off into the night.

"Probably going off to kill your shrew," Marco speculated.

The idea made me shudder all over again.

# ? Apr 20, 2020 21:57

SardonicTyrant: Feb 26, 2016; BTICH IM A NEWT
熱くなれ夢みた明日を
必ずいつかつかまえる
走り出せ振り向くことなく
&

That punchline from Marco was when I got hooked to the series. Perfect dark humor.

# ? Apr 20, 2020 22:15

Avalerion: Oct 19, 2012

MonsterEnvy posted:

I thought it was avoided killing humans.

Didn't they kill that one policeman already.

# ? Apr 21, 2020 07:15

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Avalerion posted:

Didn't they kill that one policeman already.

So we're led to understand from Cassie's comment.

# ? Apr 21, 2020 07:32

Kchama: Jul 25, 2007

I'm pretty sure it's specifically that the number of human casualties was much lower than Hork-Bajir and Taxxons, which didn't make sense as there's no reason for Andalites to be more hesitant to harm humans over Hork-Bajir and Taxxons. Especially since Andalites on the whole had more of a relationship with the Hork-Bajir and Taxxons than they did with humanity, so there's no reason why they'd favor humans so much.

# ? Apr 21, 2020 09:26

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

The Visitor-Chapter 9

quote:

"Aaaaaaaahhh! Aaaaah! Aaaaaaaaaah!"

"Wake up. Rachel, wake up!"

"Aaah!" "Oh. Oh. Oh." I sat up. I was gasping for air. It was dark, but I could just make out Jordan's face. She was shaking me awake.

I felt my face. Lips. Eyes. Nose.

I patted myself down frantically. Human. I was human. No fur. No tail. Human.

The details of the dream came rushing up to my consciousness.

"Oh, no," I moaned. I threw back the covers and stumbled to my feet. I staggered toward the bathroom door. The bathroom connects my room and the room Jordan and Sara share. I tried to turn on the light but missed the switch. I dropped to my knees in front of the toilet and threw up.

Jordan kept saying, "Are you all right, Rachel? Are you all right? I better get Mom."

"No," I said, as soon as I could talk.

"No, I'm fine. Don't wake Mom up."

Fortunately, little Sara can sleep through anything.

I brushed my teeth and drank some water. I looked sheepishly at Jordan. She looks nothing like me. I guess I look more like my dad, and Jordan is like this smaller version of my mom, dark hair and dark eyes. She looked pretty scared.

"I'm okay," I said again. "Just a bad dream. I guess it made me kind of sick, is all. But I'm fine now."

Jordan relaxed a little. "Must have been some dream."

"I guess so. I can't even remember it now. You know how it is. Dreams fade away so you can't even remember them."

"I can't believe you would just forget a dream that made you scream and hurl."

I shrugged. "I've never been very good at remembering dreams. You better get back to bed."

She looked at me solemnly. "I know I'm just your little sister by two years, but you would tell me if something bad was happening to you, right? I mean, I wouldn't tell Mom or anyone. You could trust me."

I smiled and drew her into a hug. "I know I can trust you. If anything bad was going on, I'd tell you." It was a lie, of course, and the lie made me feel even worse. I trusted Jordan. I knew in my heart that she was not a Controller.

Of course, that's just what Jake had said about Tom.

I hugged my sister a little closer. I hated the way suspicion had crept into every part of my mind. I hated the way I wasn't sure, not really, to tally sure, that I could trust her.

There's that theme again.

quote:

"Good night," I said. "Thanks for rescuing me from that nightmare. Whatever it was."

She started to walk away. Then she turned, lit from behind by the garish bathroom light. "Before you started screaming, you were yelling something."

"What?" I asked, afraid of the answer.

She looked puzzled. "I think it was "maggots." Something like that."

I forced a shaky smile. "Good night, Jordan."

I crawled back into my bed. The pillow was soaked with sweat. The sheets were clammy.

Maggots. Squirming, crawling, busy little white maggots. They were all over a piece of rotting meat and fur. In my dream it was a dead cat. A dead cat covered with vermin eating the decayed flesh.

A shrew was getting in on the feast, eating the dead flesh and the living maggots with equal enjoyment.

In my dream I knew: I was that shrew.

You sort of have to wonder what morphing psychologically does to you. What must it be like to deal with having to not just taking on an animal's shape but also its psyche? I'd assume it can't be easy.

This is a short chapter, but it works, I think.

# ? Apr 21, 2020 23:46

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Epicurius posted:

What must it be like to deal with having to not just taking on an animal's shape but also its psyche? I'd assume it can't be easy.

I'd assume that this is also the obstacle to morphing into another human. It would probably be like deliberately inviting an extremely nasty form of disassocative identity disorder on yourself.

# ? Apr 22, 2020 02:16

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Cythereal posted:

I'd assume that this is also the obstacle to morphing into another human. It would probably be like deliberately inviting an extremely nasty form of disassocative identity disorder on yourself.

Well, when you morph into something, you don't gain its memories (with the exception of the first morph where Jake morphed into his dog and knew the smell of the neighbor dog, but I'm thinking that was just first book weirdness) You get the animal's instincts and reactions. So, if I were to morph into you, I don't know how different I'd feel. We're both people, we both have the same innate instincts and such.

# ? Apr 22, 2020 02:27

OctaviusBeaver: Apr 30, 2009; Say what now?

They do morph people later on but I don't think they address any psychological effects. Ax morphs a human and it's kind of a running joke that he has trouble controlling instincts that we don't even notice we have

# ? Apr 22, 2020 05:39

Daikloktos: Jan 1, 2020; by Cyrano4747

Cythereal posted:

I'd assume that this is also the obstacle to morphing into another human. It would probably be like deliberately inviting an extremely nasty form of disassocative identity disorder on yourself.

When Visser One first infests a human she's amazed to find that each brain hemisphere is a different personality communicating across a bundle of nerves no thicker than her own true body

# ? Apr 22, 2020 08:36

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

Daikloktos posted:

When Visser One first infests a human she's amazed to find that each brain hemisphere is a different personality communicating across a bundle of nerves no thicker than her own true body

I'm actually reading the Visser book at the moment. Ax is right when he refers to her as brilliant and dangerous. If she had been leading the invasion, it would have been over before they knew what had hit them. She is an absolute monster.

# ? Apr 22, 2020 11:00

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

The Visitor-Chapter 10

quote:

"You look tired," Jake said the next morning. We took the same bus to school.

"Thanks," I said grumpily.

"Didn't get enough sleep last night?"

"I guess not, if I look as bad as you say."

"I didn't say you looked bad, I just said you looked tired." He hesitated. He glanced over his shoulder, checking to see whether anyone was listening. Fortunately, the noise level was pretty high in the bus. Jake lowered his voice and leaned close to my ear. "You didn't get creeped out by the shrew, did you?"

"Why? Just because I'm a girl, you think the shrew bothered me more than it would have bothered you or Marco?"

"No, that's not it at all," he said earnestly. "It's just . . . see, when I did the lizard morph, that bothered me. I had nightmares -- "

"Nightmares?" I said it too loudly. Then I lowered my voice back to a whisper. "Nightmares? "

"Oh, yeah. Definitely. When I morphed the tiger I had dreams, too, but not nightmares."

"What kind of dreams?"

He smiled. "Kind of cool, really. Stalking through a dark forest at night. I was hunting something. It was like I wanted to catch it, but at the same time it was like if I didn't catch it that would be okay, too. Because just running and creeping and then running some more through the woods was the best thing in the world."

I nodded. "I felt like that after the elephant morph. It was this incredible feeling of being huge and invincible. Like I could never even possibly be afraid of anything."

"But the shrew was different, wasn't it? Same with the lizard."

"I guess it's the different characters of the animals. Maybe some are good matches for our human brains. Maybe others aren't." I looked out the window for a while. Then I said, "You know what scares me?"

To my surprise, Jake nodded. "Yeah. You're afraid that someday we might have to morph into bugs."

I shuddered. "I don't think I'll be willing to do that. I think that may be too much."

"Well, your next assignment is a cat. Tobias was a cat. He said it was amazingly cool. He liked it. Just like I really enjoy being a dog. Sometimes when I'm feeling depressed, I really wish I could just morph. Dogs know how to have fun."

The bus pulled up in front of the school. "Another day of school. Normal life." I looked over the crowd of kids milling around on the lawn and on the steps. I spotted Melissa.

"See you later, Jake," I said. "Thanks."

"No problem. We're all in this together."

For all the problems that Rachel's got, and all the psychological strain of morphing, and the need to keep secrets, and the fact that she knows she's the front line of defense against an alien infiltration, at least she has Jake and the other animorphs who are in the same situation and know what it's like. Which, you know, is important.

quote:

I made my way down the bus aisle and ran to catch up to Melissa. But when I got close I saw that her eyes were red and swollen. She'd been crying.

I didn't know what to do. In the old days I would have just run right up to her and asked what was the matter.

"Hey, Melissa, how's it going?"

She looked at me, confused. "What?"

"I said, how's it going?"

She shook her head slowly, like she couldn't believe I was even talking to her. "What do you care?"

"Melissa. Of course I care. What's wrong?" Her eyes went kind of blank. She seemed to be looking at nothing but the air right in front of her face.

"What's wrong? Everything is wrong. And nothing is wrong. But just the same, every thing is wrong."

"Melissa, what are you talking about?" "Forget it," she said. She started to walk away.

I grabbed her arm. "Look, you can talk to me. I'm still your friend. Nothing has changed."

"Leave me alone," she said grimly. "Everything has changed. Everyone has changed. You stopped being my friend. And my mom and dad ... "

"What?" I pressed her.

The bell rang loud and shrill.

"I have to go." She pulled her arm away.

What could I do? I let her go. I wondered what she had started to say about her father. Had she discovered what her father was? What her father had become?

Melissa, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have anybody at all.

quote:

I walked up the steps of the school with my head lowered in thought. As I opened the school door, I ran right into someone.

"Hey, hey, watch where you're going, young lady."

"Mr. Chapman!" I recoiled in fear.

See, you have to realize that this was the man who had once directed a Hork-Bajir soldier to kill us all if he caught us. Kill us and only save our heads for identification.

That kind of thing sticks in your mind.

He peered at me. "What's the matter with you, Rachel? A little jumpy this morning?"

I nodded. "Yes, sir. I guess I didn't sleep too well."

"Bad dreams?" he asked.

My mouth was dry. "I guess so, Mr. Chapman.

He smiled. A normal, human smile. His eyes even crinkled up a little as he grinned down at me. "Well, shake it off. Nightmares aren't real, you know."

"At least not most of the time," I said to myself.

We were talking a little bit last time about the mental and psychological strain of being an animorph, but it occurs to me that there must be a bunch of psychological strain in being a Controller too. The Yeerk controlling Chapman is also trying to suppress a mind not entirely under his (her? its? Do Yeerks even have genders?) control with different instincts and impulses, who knows nothing of the simple pleasures of swimming in a pool of sludge with his fellow Yeers, absorbing and synthesizing nutrition from kandrona rays. And, for Chapman in particular, he's got to deal with humans all the time, every day. He can't let himself slip, or let his guard down, or surrender control at all to the mind of the body he's controlling. It's hard to be a Yeerk in the city.

This is the sort of chapter that, honestly, I think I didn't pay attention to when I first read it. It doesn't really have to be there. It doesn't add a lot to the plot of the book or the lore of the universe. It's just Rachel interacting with three people. But reading it now, and thinking about it and what to write, I realize that it works for me as a great chapter. All three characters that Rachel meets are isolated from the people around them. First, Jake, because like Rachel, he's an animorph and bearing this terrible secret that he can't let anyone know about. But, what saves him from cracking up under the strain is his friends. He's able to say "We're all in this together." On the other hand, Chapman, who has his own terrible secret that isolates him from the people around him, which is that he's really an alien infiltrator working to take over the Earth. But, what keeps him going is his sense of his mission and also knowing that he's part of a larger force. And stuck in the middle of Melissa, who's also isolated, but doesn't know why, has neither friends or a cause to fall back on, and has nothing to keep her going. It's a much better chapter than it looks like at first reading, I think.

# ? Apr 23, 2020 01:28

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# ? Apr 28, 2024 14:18

Grammarchist: Jan 28, 2013

I remember these books being huge at book fairs back in the day, but I never actually got into them. I feel like the sense of social alienation and mistrust would have really done a number on me. The Howling, Salem's Lot and a few vampire-centric episodes of "Are You Afraid of the Dark" really drilled a fear into me of a threat permeating innocuously until suddenly you're alone.

I definitely had that sense that "something has changed, everyone's changed" when I was young, so that's pretty evocative. Admittedly, it's usual economic concerns, alcohol and "friends growing apart" that all kids experience, but drat if it doesn't fit seamlessly with the themes here.

# ? Apr 23, 2020 21:24

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > Let's Read Animorphs! The Whole Series! Ch-ch-ch-chaaanges

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