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Gnoman posted:Did our hero just leave an innocent homeless man to be brutally murdered as a distraction? The 90s were a different time, man. Stuff that was ostensibly 'for kids' had some legit terrifying/disturbing parts. Even Disney poo poo. Hell, especially Disney poo poo. Looking at The Lion King through a modern lens, that kind of nazi-ish imagery and elaborate major character death scene would never fly with a G rating these days. Or the hot spicy racism of Pocahontas. Or the old man sexual predator vibes of Hunchback. So yeah, Animorphs REALLY didn't pull any punches.
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Mar 22, 2020 05:17
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It's not automated, no. Like it won't carry on independently once you push the mental start button. You have to actively maintain concentration on morphing or you WILL stop mid-morph. Which, yeah, Rachel does earlier and then quickly backs out of it. Cassie in particular abuses this a couple of times, since she has that natural talent/affinity for it and can make specific parts morph first/hold off specific parts for last. Kind of like at the beginning of this book where she held off the wings for last when coming out of bird morph. I feel like I remember her also using that trick with other morphs at least once or twice in more dire circumstances.
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Apr 24, 2020 15:31
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Should I know who that person is?
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May 16, 2020 00:52
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Avalerion posted:Probably because the book doesn't actually call out the suicide attempt explicitly. Like how when anime ran on kids networks none ever died, they "passed to another plane" or whatever. First-run Dragonball Z dub was really fond of "sent to the next dimension." Even as a kid I thought that was cheesy as hell. But yeah, drat, I forgot all about this whole "splat myself in the mall" sequence. And he specifically goes to where he knows Rachel is to do it, like he wants her to see it. That's way more unsettling to read now.
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May 19, 2020 08:55
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Epicurius posted:So, assuming this place is still here tomorrow, Well that's fuckin' ominous.
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Jun 25, 2020 04:17
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:And he would be absolutely in love with Rachel completely, if he wasn't so obviously terrified of her. NGL, the Marco/Rachel thing is legit my favorite subplot in Megamorphs 4.
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Jun 27, 2020 03:51
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McTimmy posted:Y'know, I don't actually remember bathrooms at my old mall. Like, I presume they existed for staff somewhere, but I, or anyone in my family, never had to use them. Dunno what kind of mall you went to but yes malls definitely have public bathrooms, and they are only surpassed by dive bar and freeway rest stop bathrooms on the grossness scale.
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Jun 28, 2020 13:53
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bones 4 beginners posted:Y'all gotta step up your public bathroom game...the Gucci malls have the nicest bathrooms. Like you can tell they had designer type people working on them cause the stalls look like waves or seashells or something like that and there's plants everywhere and the lighting is moody. When I'm out I keep bathrooms in mind cause I drink a lot of tea and you better believe I go to the rich people malls. I advise you to do the same It's less an issue of visual appeal and more an issue of "People are gross and they aren't cleaned often enough." But yeah I wouldn't mind if they were designed better in the first place. Anyway back to Animorphs content, are we gonna cover the Megamorphs books along the way or stick to the numbered books? I know they are kind of standalone but they do still sorta fit within the chronology. IIRC the first Megamorphs took place between books 7 and 8-ish (or at least was published around then), #2 was somewhere in the upper teens, and #3 happened in the late 20s? And #4 was pretty late but still before things kick into the endgame? Similar question for the other side books, e.g. Visser and the 'chronicles' series. They're pretty much all prequel stories, but at the same time they're framed within the context of events in the main chronology (especially Visser), and it would make sense to insert them along the way as they become relevant. So what's the approach? Release Order? Or is there some kind of 'official timeline' wiki I'm not geek enough to be aware of?
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Jun 28, 2020 16:15
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Khizan posted:I will say that having so much of this stuff focused around these random teenagers bothers me, though. Tom is one! Then the vice-principal! Then the Kandrona is located underneath their school. Then Marco’s mother is the host for Visser One! Just seems off, to me. I could be misremembering, but I think a big part of that is (maybe spoiler?) the Yeerk invasion actually began in their town, in their area, so the strongest concentration of controllers, and their main pool, ended up being there, even after they started spreading their tendrils out to the rest of the world.
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Jul 13, 2020 13:33
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This just makes me wonder why they didn't acquire Jesus whale at the time.
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Aug 26, 2020 01:54
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SardonicTyrant posted:What got me to give the series a glance was that dumb Virgin Harry Potter / Chad Animorphs meme. QuickbreathFinisher posted:That meme may be dumb but it's also just the facts You can't just say that and then not share it.
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Oct 12, 2020 13:43
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nine-gear crow posted:Nope, it's a complete blank slate at this point in the series. There was so much potential to take Tom's new Yeerk in so many interesting directions, but ultimately it just wound up being a somehow even shitter and stupider version of Temrash. Well poo poo, now I want to see some of these "Tom with a good Yeerk" fanfics. I never really thought about it growing up but it does sound like an interesting concept.
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Oct 19, 2020 23:16
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quote:Right in front of me, not ten feet away, some dumb little boy was climbing up on the railing. “Hey! Hey! Get down off there, you -” Animorphs predicted Harambe.
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Oct 30, 2020 01:46
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GodFish posted:Additionally, the only time you can really ever kill a Yeerk without also killing a slave at the same time is when the Yeerk is entirely helpless (excluding the rare chance of capturing one and tying it down for 3 days until it starves to death, which seems like a worse moral act really, since you torture both the Yeerk and the host). I feel like this is the real crux of the dilemma here. The alternative to killing them en masse in their pool is to kill them while they're controlling a slave mind that will then also die. Killing just the Yeerk feels like the strictly-superior option, from the perspective of saving lives being your primary goal. The Yeerks being helpless in this scenario is misleading because a Yeerk is always helpless unless it is in a slave body trying to kill you.
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Nov 18, 2020 04:27
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Cythereal posted:Given how evasive she is about it all of a sudden, I'm guessing Applegate was referring to Loren having her period or going through sexual changes as she prematurely aged and her body matured. Without actually saying that because this was the 90s and a teenager talking about normal bodily functions wouldn't be considered appropriate for a YA book. Epicurius posted:Maybe, but Loren seemed like a high schooler who was like 16 before this and not prepubescent. My guess is (spoiler for the rest of the book) it's so Elfangor/Loren can marry/have a sexual relationship without it being too "technically, it's ephebophilia". I assumed that evasive line was her being embarrassed about/not sure how to communicate to an alien that her breasts had seen significant growth too, along with her hair and nails. Cuz yeah she's a bit old to just then be starting her reproductive cycle. The line about being 18 though, yeah, that was absolutely to dodge the squick factor about them going on to get married. CidGregor fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Dec 5, 2020 |
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Dec 5, 2020 00:26
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Epicurius posted:Sure, but I think a lot of that is ok. Slowing the Yeerks down or stopping one of their plans is still a win. So, in "The Capture" (the one where Jake gets taken over by Tom's Yeerk), they stop the Yeerks from taking over the governor who might become president. This doesn't weaken the Yeerks, but it maintains the status quo, and maintaining the status quo is a win for the Animorphs, because their goal is to stop the Yeerk plan for advancing until the Andalites show up and take over the situation. disaster pastor posted:Rescuing Ax, rescuing Jake, killing the Veleek, stealing the Pemalite crystal: none of these really hurt the Yeerks the way Tobias getting trapped in morph hurts the Animorphs, they just keep the Yeerks at the same strength they were at before the book. (And rescuing Ax and stealing the Pemalite crystal, as well as escaping the Blade ship in book 5 and destroying the Kandrona in book 7, all require non-Animorph intervention just to get them out alive.) The Veleek and the Pemalite crystal too are big wins for the animorphs, as both eliminate a major enemy superweapon, which, yeah, doesn't particularly hurt the Yeerks compared to where they were before that book, but it's still thwarting a major threat. tl;dr, Pushing back the enemy relative to their previous position isn't the only definition of a win! CidGregor fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Dec 11, 2020 |
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Dec 11, 2020 16:51
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I think my new favorite thing about this book right away that I only really appreciate thanks to this thread is how severely it breaks the pattern of the generic intro. Ax is talking to his own people here, he doesn't need to spend half a chapter every book explaining what yeerks are, which was starting to get repetitive as heck. Leading instead with promises of political intrigue, unthinkable betrayal, and rewriting an entire field of science was an immense breath of fresh air I think was sorely needed.
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Feb 20, 2021 14:44
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WrightOfWay posted:Also, I'm pretty sure David has figured out that the red tailed hawk that saved Rachel was probably Tobias, I'm not sure why they think that's a secret. He got hit out of nowhere in the back of the head, he probably legitimately never saw what hit him and decided to bail immediately. 'Cuz, you know, coward.
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May 10, 2021 04:59
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Pwnstar posted:There is also the fact that they are hung up on their outdated human ideals of "morality" and "fairness" because they could easily murder this motherfucker but chasing him off 20 times is sustainable for sure. Also known as the Batman Paradox
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May 15, 2021 20:03
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quote:“You ask me to kill my own people today and to lead my people in killing their brothers,” Dak said. “You say they are not Hork-Bajir, but Yeerks. But when the dead have given up their souls to Mother Sky, there will be Hork-Bajir bodies lying dead.” Kind of tangental, but this is pretty much word for word the exact reason why the whole "we can't kill helpless yeerks in their pool" debate always fell flat for me. It's literally the only time you CAN kill them without also killing another (usually innocent) creature. It's a tragedy that never really seems to get enough focus and I'm glad Dak really draws attention to it here.
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Jun 3, 2021 06:17
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Fuschia tude posted:A lot of the resolutions of these books just kind of force us to accept the Yeerks immediately abandoned their plan just as the Animorphs stopped worrying about it. e X posted:The books do employ a certain Saturday morning cartoon logic, so any plan once thwarted isn’t going to be tried again. I mean, it's not the WORST logic on the part of the Yeerks. They can reasonably (and accurately!) assume the "Andalite bandits" have some sort of spy network deployed among their ranks compromising the integrity of their plans that makes the Yeerks wary of simply 're-trying' plans that are clearly infiltrated by and known to enemy spies. A little overestimation of/paranoia about the actual reach of the "Andalite bandits" can do the rest of the work and make them go "gently caress it, let's try something else." And in the case of the Venber specifically, that level of bio-engineering cannot possibly be cheap, or particularly quick. It would take months, at least, to re-clone/re-engineer more Venber from scratch. And after such a blatant and massive weakness being so easily and efficiently exploited, throwing months of work and who knows what kind of material/financial cost out the window on top of losing a couple of Bug Fighters, all in the course of about half an hour, the whole project might easily get axed as Not Worth It Anymore.
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Jul 25, 2021 12:52
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Piell posted:Goosebumps was the other series I was getting from the scholastic book fairs/catalog at the time Yeah pretty sure Goosebumps and Animorphs were like the #1 and #2 sellers from those catalogues and anything else was a distant third. At least, those were the only things I ever looked for. But my tastes are disgustingly mainstream, so.
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Aug 7, 2021 04:25
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quote:Humans do a great deal with their mouths, most of it rather pointless. I mean he's not wrong
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Aug 27, 2021 06:53
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quote:Jake lifted his head. “Not if we started from the water tower. Then we’d go with the pressure all the way.” He started to sound a little excited. His eyes glittered. “Erek, can you tap into the city water department computers? Combine it with …” Jake sighed and wiped his mouth. “Combine it, with, um, with all you know about the Yeerk pool and … you know …” This is a weird little brain fart moment for Jake of all people to have and no one really makes any mention of it. Is he getting sick too?
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Sep 13, 2021 04:23
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Ravenfood posted:I feel like it should, yeah. His bone/skin will definitely be healed too. I mean he's already screaming, so
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Sep 23, 2021 14:50
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Epicurius posted:There goes Jake. Also, it's a good look at the reality of the crossing of the Delaware vs the painting. I sort of got the impression that history was already a little effed up at this point by their collective meddling and that it wasn't actually *quite* this bad? But yeah I'm sure the historical perspective is a lot more idealized than the reality.
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Oct 4, 2021 04:31
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Epicurius posted:Chapter 23 Is this just a desperation play here on the part of Tom's Yeerk? Like, I'm honestly not grasping how killing his dad is supposed to get him out of this situation. I don't think him suddenly dying there from a knife in the back is gonna do anything except keep the whole family there through a lengthy murder investigation.
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Nov 14, 2021 05:13
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Fuschia tude posted:Did a tunnel turn into a bridge and then... back into a tunnel, in the previous chapter? I honestly read this as just part of Jake's deception with the hazard not actually being there and him being unable to keep his lie consistent in the heat of the moment.
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Dec 1, 2021 01:59
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Fuschia tude posted:Actually, do yeerks even have genders? I was wondering exactly this myself. It seems like we always refer to V1 as female just because of being in marco's mom and V3 as male because of Alloran and so on for simplicity's sake, but I legit don't remember if Yeerk genders are addressed as a thing. Part of me actually wants to say "no." If their reproduction process involves three Yeerks, it's kind of a lot harder to conceptualize a species having three genders instead of one/genderless, and it's far easier to extrapolate that they just kind of assume the gendered pronouns of their hosts for convenience. CidGregor fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Feb 5, 2022 |
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Feb 5, 2022 16:51
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"Kinda skanky for Atlantis" Hahahahahahaha okay that legit made me laugh. This book is ridiculous and somehow I do not remember one bit of it but I'm fascinated now.
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Feb 13, 2022 05:21
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Also wouldn't polar bears overheat like hell outside of the arctic climate they're evolved to handle?
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Feb 27, 2022 17:46
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Epicurius posted:So, I might have mentioned this in an earlier book, but the Marco-Rachel relationship will never not be interesting to me, because they're very different people and have this rivalry going on, but also this strange respect for each other, and they'll put up with comments from the other one that they won't put up with from anybody else. This is exactly why I loved the poo poo out of Megamorphs #4. (well, one of the reasons.) It's the only remaining book I still remember anything substantial about, because the Marco & Rachel storyline in that book cracks me up every time.
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Mar 1, 2022 05:21
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Oh god did the buffalo somehow trigger the morphing cube? And then acquire Chapman while rampaging through him? What the actual gently caress
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Mar 22, 2022 03:32
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gently caress yeah it's AU time! Love this book, it's the last one I remember with any clarity.
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Apr 14, 2022 09:14
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nine-gear crow posted:Esplin's going to carve his name into the Moon with a giant dracon beam, but Jake is going to stop him just in time, so the infested population of Earth gets to look up every night from there onward and wonder what the hell "ESP" means. ok Chairface
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May 11, 2022 20:52
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As long as we're extrapolating the lore of this scenario, how did Cassie know Visser Three/Esplin is the emperor now? Isn't it supposed to be such a massive secret that even the entire Yeerk empire doesn't know who's emperor outside of the Council of Thirteen? Are they so deep into victory conditions that they feel they don't need the secrecy anymore? Is someone else on the council actually feeding the rebels intel, XCOM 2 style? Or did Esplin just announce it himself because he's such an ego-load that he couldn't stand the idea of NOT bragging about being Supreme Yeerk Overlord? I'm betting on that last one, honestly.
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May 13, 2022 14:47
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Lol Cassie with the random NPR mention. I mean I love NPR now in my adult years but I sure as hell never knew about it as a 90s teen. That feels like a weirdly deep cut for high schoolers.
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May 28, 2022 06:32
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Capfalcon posted:As a side note, it looks like Visser One messed things up on her assignment. I thought that name sounded familiar. I guess her earth tactical expertise did not translate very well to a completely new alien species. Who'd have thunk.
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Jun 6, 2022 20:57
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I'm still firmly on the line of "killing yeerks in the pool is actually the MORE ethical play because you deplete the enemy WITHOUT killing an innocent/enslaved host too." Granted in this particular case blowing up the entire complex with a gas explosion kind of defeats that purpose, but still. Never bought into the "Yeerks in the pool are defenseless therefore it's wrong to kill them" angle, not even a little.
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Jun 9, 2022 06:45
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Capfalcon posted:Yeah, they keep talking about how Andalites only use morphing for spying and it's becoming clear how powerful that is. It already was with just animals, really, even as the Yeerks increasingly got wise to/paranoid of any animal ever, but yeah, blending in as other humans is a whole other tier of usefulness. Shame about all those pesky morals getting in the way til now. I wonder what past adventures, if any, would have been improved/gone better for the animorphs if they'd been more willing to stuff people in closets and take their places in a critical moment.
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Jul 28, 2022 13:58
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