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They approach those chimps pretty casually. I've read too many stories about chimp maulings to be comfortable with that. I like my eyes ungouged and my ears still attached. Then they go and release them into the city.
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# ? Aug 31, 2021 01:01 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 14:36 |
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OctaviusBeaver posted:They approach those chimps pretty casually. I've read too many stories about chimp maulings to be comfortable with that. I like my eyes ungouged and my ears still attached. Then they go and release them into the city. They have been repeatedly dismembered at this point in the series, albeit generally in morphs. The knowledge that they can morph into something and back again to heal, along with a healthy dose of mental trauma, might make them pretty numb to the idea of a simple chimp mauling.
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# ? Aug 31, 2021 01:34 |
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Chapter 9quote:The truck slowed and then came to a stop. So in this chapter, Ax gets a cookie and Marco doesn't get an attorney. Chapter 10 quote:<The big question is still: What are we doing here?> Cassie said, when at last all of us had been brought together. So we've descended to poop jokes.
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# ? Aug 31, 2021 03:33 |
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This book is great.
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# ? Aug 31, 2021 04:37 |
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Epicurius posted:So we've descended to poop jokes. Descended? #14 was one long poop joke.
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# ? Aug 31, 2021 05:21 |
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Feels kinda odd this one isn't a Cassie book. It's also, unless I'm misremembering, the only Ax book that doesn't involve other Andalites in some way
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# ? Aug 31, 2021 09:08 |
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Fuschia tude posted:Descended? #14 was one long poop joke. 14 was a toilet joke. Totally different.
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# ? Sep 1, 2021 03:54 |
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Chapter 11quote:The six of us hurled biological waste product. Then the genuine chimpanzees, sensing a game, joined in. I'm telling you. He's a bad leader. One tip for successful supervision is not cutting the hands off people who disagree with you (although to be fair, he's giving the Taxxons a free lunch). The only thing I can think of is that Visser Three has been in the body of an Andalite so long he's forgotten other people can't just morph to automatically regrow lost limbs. So now, this guy's going to have to walk into the medical bay, carrying his own hand, and the attendant is going to look at him, roll his eyes, and say, "So, piss off Visser Three?" One of these days, somebody's going to have to count all the lost limbs in the series, because it seems like somebody's always losing an arm or something. Chapter 12 quote:<That’s our signal to get outta here,> Marco said. "Low creature" is just a really weird phrasing here, I think. Also, note, Jake handled a disagreement and even being overruled without cutting off any hands. I'm also probably the only one, but I still feel sorry for the Taxxons. Yes, they're all a bunch of cannibalistic murderers, but there's something so pitiful about them. They're so trapped by their impulses that even Taxxon controllers can barely keep them under control.
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# ? Sep 1, 2021 04:07 |
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quote:Taxxons are cruel but not strong. Perhaps they would have been able to attack and kill disunited, essentially peaceful chimpanzees. Tragic even, to impose such cruel human instincts on the gentle chimp, who'd never tear each others genitals off in a fight for territory and then eat the others young.
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# ? Sep 1, 2021 05:46 |
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Crespolini posted:Tragic even, to impose such cruel human instincts on the gentle chimp, who'd never tear each others genitals off in a fight for territory and then eat the others young. What!! Next you'll be telling me that, I dunno, ducks and dolphins are gross monsters.
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# ? Sep 1, 2021 06:59 |
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Crespolini posted:Tragic even, to impose such cruel human instincts on the gentle chimp, who'd never tear each others genitals off in a fight for territory and then eat the others young. I read this a while ago and it's absolutely fascinating/horrifying: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasakela_chimpanzee_community Especially the notoriously aggressive alpha chimp nicknamed Frodo, which once attacked Far Side cartoonist Gary Larson (funny!) but also snatched and killed a human baby (not so funny).
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# ? Sep 1, 2021 11:20 |
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I really like how strongly Cassie and Rachel's friendship is portrayed. They're ostensibly on opposite ends of the aggression spectrum -- Rachel is of course the first to charge into a fight, while Cassie often takes these kind of strategically disadvantageous moral stands (though of course we've seen her go Pro Ice when some ruthless calls have needed to be made). But as Marco points out, Rachel always backs Cassie up in these situations. She's always willing to support a big idealistic stand, and Marco is always the one taking the pragmatic, ruthless stand. Despite being characterized as the most warlike, Rachel is not uncaring. In fact, it's her passion for her friends and desire to protect them that often pisses her off and prompts her to charge in. And I've noticed that she seems to go hardest on the righteous anger and protective instincts when it's Cassie in trouble. Jake's her cousin, but she seems to trust leaving him to his own devices. She also clearly cares for, and is protective of, Tobias, but their relationship seems to be based more on what this war has made of them (in his case, literally) -- Tobias and Rachel would likely never get together if they just stayed regular humans. Their relationship is inherently kind of tragic, and they bond over the gradual loss of their humanity. But Cassie and Rachel have been friends forever, and no matter how the war changes them, Rachel still loves and wants to protect her friend. I think it's really nice, and really humanizes her in a way even her other relationships don't. As the series goes on, it's sort of implied that Rachel's "protective warrior" angle gets lost to her "berserker"/adrenaline junkie instincts, but I'm not sure how well that holds up -- as others have pointed out, from here on her books get a lot weaker. I admit it's been a while since I've read some of them, and I dropped off the series at some point before coming back for the end, so I'm interested to see how things go from here.
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# ? Sep 1, 2021 17:27 |
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Chapter 13quote:We escaped. The genuine chimpanzees followed us. For a while. But they proved impossible to organize. Cassie did all she could. We all did. But the chimpanzees, while intelligent by the standards of non-human animals, are still limited. I like Ax and Tobias hanging out. As for the animal testing and Ax's observations, well....wow. Chapter 14 quote:Once again, while the others were in school learning history, mouth sounds, the simpler forms of mathematics, and largely incorrect science, Tobias and I flew in the skies above the meatpacking plant. It's Molotov and von Ribbentrop (although von Ribbentrop wasn't originally von Ribbentrop. But he was a snob and got an aunt, who was von Ribbentrop to adopt him). More to the point, they're becoming cattle and going into a slaughterhouse, something that can never go wrong.
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# ? Sep 2, 2021 03:34 |
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Flies in the nostrils is going to end up with people being sneezed out at high speed. Also I'm oddly happy to have the mystery of Ax's tv power supply solved!
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# ? Sep 2, 2021 04:20 |
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I feel like this ghostwriter has a good handle on the kids. I like it when we see them bantering, doing their homework and stuff.quote:Useful, no doubt. Medically justifiable, most likely. And it is not my business to judge humans. But this behavior of theirs did trouble me. It'd be great if it turns out in the Spartan Andalite warrior culture they conduct their medical experiments on Andalites who've committed minor misdemeanours
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# ? Sep 2, 2021 05:22 |
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freebooter posted:I feel like this ghostwriter has a good handle on the kids. I like it when we see them bantering, doing their homework and stuff. Wasn't Marco always the one who called him "Ax-man", though, not Tobias?
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# ? Sep 2, 2021 05:33 |
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Marco might have coined it but Tobias uses it too I'm pretty sure. The three of them become a sub-group of tight friends within the broader group (IIRC this is only like 50% my headcanon)
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# ? Sep 2, 2021 07:20 |
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freebooter posted:Marco might have coined it but Tobias uses it too I'm pretty sure. The three of them become a sub-group of tight friends within the broader group (IIRC this is only like 50% my headcanon) Huh, no, I was way off. It was exclusively Tobias starting from Book 8, then Marco eventually starts using it. It just feels like such a Marco name and thing to do.
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# ? Sep 2, 2021 07:47 |
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Hm, is there a reason they can't go as flies in nose of real cows? Sneezes, I suppose?
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# ? Sep 2, 2021 07:50 |
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GodFish posted:Hm, is there a reason they can't go as flies in nose of real cows? Sneezes, I suppose? there's been a couple times where insects lack of vision has screwed them over, hasn't it? so having a few people in a morph with better senses is good buuuut you're right, kind of seems like they decided (ie. the writer's needed the book's morph) on having cows, and then didn't really go back to reconsider that idea
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# ? Sep 2, 2021 10:28 |
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Chapter 15quote:In the afternoon there was a break in the rain. But by the time darkness fell, a new weather front had moved in. Rain and lightning and thunder. It interfered with my television reception. There was a very simple technological fix for the problem. But I would have to go to the mall. To Radio Shack. Can't Ax just, I dunno, head into a crowd of cattle or something? Or he's still a bird, right? Can't he just fly away and come back when this is over? Also, if you don't remember, Radio Shack had the weirdest stuff. Chapter 16 quote:We waited, frozen. My friends peered through the darkness. A bolt of lightning split the sky and illuminated the approaching vehicle. This is the closest the book comes to saying shitfaced, btw. I doubt it could get past the Scholastic censors. Also, apparently cowtipping is a myth. Everybody's heard about it, including the idea that a cow on its side can't get up, but it's not true. Cows are pretty strong, and unless you have help, you're not going to push the cow over unless it wants to be pushed over. Plus, the cow can just get up, and then you have an annoyed cow on your hands.
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# ? Sep 3, 2021 03:05 |
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Chapter 17quote:The next day I performed the morning ritual solemnly. I repeated the words that spoke of freedom, duty, and obedience, spreading my arms and bowing at the appropriate times. There's the necessary thermal talk. This is an official Animorphs book. In more seriousness, I feel like there's something I want to say about Ax and the ritual (which we've seen before), but I don't know what. Maybe in this case it's actually about Tobias and his desire for rituals. The forming of rituals is something that pretty much every human culture has, and it would make sense that the Andalites would have it too. The idea behind it is setting apart a moment or area that you sanctify, that's made holy through the ritual, even if it means you miss part of the Today Show. While Ax is right that human cultures in general don't have the same sort of morning ritual that he does. He's wrong that humans don't have morning rituals. Muslims pray at dawn. Jews pray in the morning as soon as they get up. Christianity has the Liturgy of the Hours, which includes a dawn and a midmorning prayer. For that matter, as much as Tobias dismisses the idea of drinking coffee in the morning as a ritual, I think for some people it very much is. Rituals don't have to be explicitly religious, and I know people who every morning at the same time without fail drink their morning cup of coffee. i know I do. How about you? If you feel like sharing, what rituals are important in your life? What do you "set apart" from your ordinary life? What do you do that gives you strength of purpose? Chapter 18 quote:Tobias and I had the easy part, really. We picked out a cluster of steer and landed in the mud between them. The steer showed no interest in us. Prince Jake stayed in the air overhead, keeping watch. Cassie and Rachel and Marco landed in various areas outside the lot, fairly distant from one another so that we didn’t look like a suspicious collection of birds of prey. So any guesses why they're acting like that? We'll find out in the next chapter, but what did the Animorphs do wrong?
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# ? Sep 4, 2021 05:52 |
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I'm guessing the morphing process gave them bull testicles and they are not gelded like steer. Wrt my morning rituals, I don't really have any. I do have a night time ritual where I consider the people I met today and try to beam good vibes to them before turning in.
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# ? Sep 4, 2021 06:00 |
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Chapter 19quote:“Ax! Tobias!” Cassie hissed. “Chill!” Yep. As HIJK figured, morphing gave them testicles. When you acquire an animal, you get its DNA, which means you don't get any injuries they have. Also, we might be getting Marco driving, which is always a bad idea. Chapter 20 quote:The truck came. It rolled right out into the mud. Two humans climbed down. All a remarkable bad idea.
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# ? Sep 5, 2021 04:51 |
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Epicurius posted:
Huh. I think that's the first time a side book has been referenced in the main series. Even the Chronicles books' connections have been more elliptical and implied (and their revelations duplicated) in their respective connected main-series books.
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# ? Sep 5, 2021 08:35 |
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Fuschia tude posted:Huh. I think that's the first time a side book has been referenced in the main series. Even the Chronicles books' connections have been more elliptical and implied (and their revelations duplicated) in their respective connected main-series books. Toby the Hork-Bajir seer is first introduced in the Hork-Bajir Chronicles (although without playing a major role there), and I think dinosaur morphing was mentioned in the Cassie book following In the Time of the Dinosaurs, but other than maybe that, you're right.
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# ? Sep 5, 2021 16:02 |
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Chapter 21quote:<Aaaahhhhh!> Honestly, I agree with the Yeerks here. This is way too dumb to be enemy actions. Besides, we know from the Andalite Chronicles that Andalites can learn how to drive. Chapter 22 quote:Down a narrow chute we went. Three steers moved ahead. Then me. Tobias was behind me. Yep, really dumb plan.
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# ? Sep 6, 2021 05:16 |
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In fairness Elfangor had a big wide alien desert to burn around in. He'd probably also suck at reversing a truck up to a loading dock. I would suck at that.
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# ? Sep 6, 2021 05:24 |
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oh boy here we go drums on the table top e: oh yeah I had a dream last night about this thread. I dreamed that I was watching Ax in bull morph wander around a saloon for some reason, trying to walk through the halls and not get his horns stuck on anything. He was arguing with Marco because there was a human girl that had figured him out but wasn't a Controller. Followed him like it was a tv show and I know he got into some hijinks but I don't recall what they were now. When he was finished he declared the mission over and climbed into the back of a horse trailer. The entire time I was thinking "but this isn't how it went in the book." Everything was brown colored, including the dust in the air. I was confused when I woke up and for a few minutes I was second guessing my own memory of this installment. HIJK fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Sep 6, 2021 |
# ? Sep 6, 2021 05:35 |
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Oh my God this is the worst plan they've ever had
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# ? Sep 6, 2021 07:30 |
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Epicurius posted:Yep, really dumb plan. Huh. This is another one of those books that I don't remember any of these events from, and can't believe I read it, since you'd think some of this stuff would stick in the brain, but nope... and yet I own it. Maybe I was put off by the agenda other people here have mentioned, which while not quite explicit in the book is pretty clearly extant, yeah. I kinda see what that one poster said, about this feeling more like a Cassie book. But I don't really mind having one of her books from a different character's POV, especially the extreme outsider character's viewpoint. It's good sometimes to have an analysis of a character from the outside rather than the inside.
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# ? Sep 6, 2021 07:39 |
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Chapter 23quote:I began to demorph. One thing Ax is good at is cutting off limbs. He's an expert there. Honestly, how could they even think this was a good idea? Chapter 24 quote:<Come on, follow me,> Rachel said. <The others are in trouble. I just came to get you guys.> I honestly don't even know at this point.
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# ? Sep 7, 2021 02:41 |
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Epicurius posted:Chapter 23
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# ? Sep 7, 2021 09:43 |
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e X posted:That try is doing the heavy lifting here. I try to lose weight, I can tell you more when I'm done with this doughnut.
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# ? Sep 7, 2021 13:02 |
Oh man, Visser wants him some bandit burgers
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# ? Sep 7, 2021 13:28 |
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I wonder if that human controller with the knife is a former Hork Bajir controller who is used to solving problems with arm blades.
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# ? Sep 7, 2021 16:15 |
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Bobulus posted:I wonder if that human controller with the knife is a former Hork Bajir controller who is used to solving problems with arm blades. Not impossible. It is, however, a slaughterhouse, so men with knives isn't a rare sight there.
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# ? Sep 7, 2021 21:10 |
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It's also great that Visser 3 is on the scene, for some reason. I wonder if he supervises every single Yeerk operation, on the off chance that the Andalite bandits show up.
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# ? Sep 7, 2021 21:17 |
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I think he just shouts "fools! I have you now" at more or less random intervals just in case a nemesis happens to be nearby. The underlings know better than to mention it.
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# ? Sep 8, 2021 01:32 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 14:36 |
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I also like the detail that he's just blasting thought-speak in all directions constantly rather than directing it to certain recipients, just a boss reply-alling and sending emails to the entire company all day long
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# ? Sep 8, 2021 02:06 |