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I always appreciated this chapter because I'd wondered, back in book 4, how the hell Ax managed to acquire a tiger shark when he was stuck in the dome.Epicurius posted:So much for Marco's attempt to be cool in front of Rachel. But what's his mom doing here in this timeline? If you remember, in the "real" timeline, she first shows up after the Animorphs are captured by Visser Three, to set them free to embarrass the Visser. Then, she shows up after that as part of the shark project, to control sharks so she can use them as shock weapons on Leera. In the real timeline, I think book 5 is only a month or so after they meet Elfangor, and she may have been on/around Earth for a bit before that. Plus I think in this book it's also been about the same length of time since they didn't go through the construction site, if Ax is only now taking it upon himself to escape the dome ship.
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# ? Apr 18, 2022 04:07 |
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# ? May 24, 2024 23:10 |
I just reread this book and it seriously loving rules.
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# ? Apr 18, 2022 04:19 |
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So is it AX-i-MIL-i or ax-IM-il-i?
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# ? Apr 18, 2022 04:41 |
Ax-ih-mee-lee
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# ? Apr 18, 2022 04:51 |
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It's really easy to make alternate-reality stories like this really dull when you know a reset button is going to be hit before the end, but I'm enjoying hope so far this acts as kind of a character study-who are these kids without the baggage of becoming the animorphs? It gels nicely with the overall series theme of how the war changes them, and as a refresher on where they each came from. Aximili being all alone and friendless on Earth while the yeerk invasion goes unopposed is really bleak.
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# ? Apr 18, 2022 07:06 |
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freebooter posted:I know we've been there before but the bubble of the Dome ship's landscape sitting there at the bottom of the ocean - with poor Ax trapped all alone inside it - is such a memorable, striking visual image. And yeah, that's always stuck with me
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# ? Apr 18, 2022 07:17 |
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Chapter 10-Rachelquote:I don’t know why I ran after Marco, but I did. So, totally by chance, Rachel and Marco have run into Visser One and her bodyguards, which is just unlucky. Chapter 11 - Aximili quote:I stood in the empty air lock. The Blue Blade was long gone. It was time for me to be long gone, too. I considered waiting. But I was waiting for nothing, and I knew it. Ax finally got out of the ship! And he's dealing with only having two eyes. Now he just has to get away from the Yeerks.
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# ? Apr 19, 2022 02:52 |
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wow, I am loving this Rachel Marco buddy cop team to, it's a synergy we don't really get to see like that in mainline animorphs some part of my brain finds this au really distressing, but I think feeling uneasy and distressed is kind of the entite tonal goal of this book so far
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# ? Apr 19, 2022 07:54 |
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FlocksOfMice posted:wow, I am loving this Rachel Marco buddy cop team to, it's a synergy we don't really get to see like that in mainline animorphs Yeah, remixing the characters like this is a lot of fun. (Except for Tobias, I skipped his chapters. Noooo thanks.)
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# ? Apr 19, 2022 07:58 |
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FlocksOfMice posted:wow, I am loving this Rachel Marco buddy cop team to, it's a synergy we don't really get to see like that in mainline animorphs I guess it's just the fact that they're, at least eventually, going to encounter that same war - only this time without any weapons.
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# ? Apr 19, 2022 11:49 |
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Sorry about this. Today has been a very long and stressful day for me. Chapters tomorrow.
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# ? Apr 20, 2022 03:54 |
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Epicurius posted:Sorry about this. Today has been a very long and stressful day for me. Chapters tomorrow. you've been disgustingly consistent for over two years now. Take whatever time you need.
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# ? Apr 20, 2022 06:45 |
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Speaking of consistency It must bug the Yeerks no end that their three-day pool cycle meshes so poorly with the seven-day cycle human society seems to be built around. (srsly though, as said above, thanks for a consistently excellent thread)
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# ? Apr 20, 2022 08:26 |
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I'd also like to say thanks, this has been a regularly enjoyable read/discussion through two very lovely cabin-fever years. We'll even let you have a full week off after Animorphs ends before you have to start posting The Remnants Tree Bucket posted:It must bug the Yeerks no end that their three-day pool cycle meshes so poorly with the seven-day cycle human society seems to be built around. Boon for the Animorphs, though, that the morphing time limit is exactly two hours, not one hour and forty-nine minutes and eight seconds. Though actually - how did the 24-hour clock become universal? Nations cannot agree on distance measurements or power sockets or even seasonal calendars, but no matter where you go an hour is always an hour and a minute is always a minute.
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# ? Apr 20, 2022 08:36 |
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freebooter posted:Though actually - how did the 24-hour clock become universal? Nations cannot agree on distance measurements or power sockets or even seasonal calendars, but no matter where you go an hour is always an hour and a minute is always a minute. They're everyone's minutes, Ax.
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# ? Apr 20, 2022 09:20 |
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freebooter posted:
the time limit seems fairly flexible. there's a few occasions where they came up against it and had difficulty turning back, like it was a more gradual solidification rather than an instant wall. I think Cassie talked Marco through in one of the David books when they'd gone past the limit? also ellimist did it
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# ? Apr 20, 2022 09:36 |
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freebooter posted:Though actually - how did the 24-hour clock become universal? Nations cannot agree on distance measurements or power sockets or even seasonal calendars, but no matter where you go an hour is always an hour and a minute is always a minute. Looks like various cultures originally divided days into 12 hours each, and nights into a different set of 12 hours each. This has the obvious problem of making daylight and nighttime hours different lengths, which vary from day to day over the course of a year and from place to place, unless you happen to be precisely at the equator. Eventually they decided to divide a full day-night cycle into 24 equal-length hours, instead. Minutes and seconds are 1:60 because the Babylonians, like their Sumerian predecessors, loved the number 60; it has a bunch of factors, and counting on your finger joints lets you count to 12 or 60 easily, a practice still used in Asia today. The number 12 was apparently chosen because there are roughly 12 lunar cycles in a year, each of which was numbered and called a month; and the number of months then carried over when these cultures all transitioned from using lunar to solar based calendars, necessary because the lunar year is 11 days shorter than the solar. This wasn't quite universal, though; pre-Imperial China had a decimal system with days divided into 100 marks, but they eventually went over to a 24-hour system, apparently also inspired by the lunar year as well as the Chinese zodiac. India started with days 60 hours long, each of them divided into 24 minutes, or 30 hours of 48 minutes each; eventually when they went to a solar calendar they too adopted first a 12-hour day and 12-hour night system, then eventually a 24-hour day. And Southeast Asia traditionally divided days into four equal-length periods of 6 hours each, which is just a 24-hour clock by different names. Napoleon, and other imperialism generally, spread the 24-hour clock with them in places that weren't using it already. Fuschia tude fucked around with this message at 10:02 on Apr 20, 2022 |
# ? Apr 20, 2022 10:00 |
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This might be my favourite thing about these forums; you can say "hmm, I wonder why--" about any given topic and a helpful goon will immediately emerge to supply concise, well-researched and entertaining answers. It's like being an ancient monarch, able to clap your hands to summon court scholars and poets as needed.
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# ? Apr 21, 2022 02:54 |
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Chapter 12-Aximiliquote:I kicked my tail and surged into the water. It's a recurring theme in the books just how dangerous Earth is compared to other inhabited planets, which is kind of interesting, I guess, because sort of take Earth for granted, so the fact that aliens tend to see it as some sort of dangerous hell world kind of amuses me.. Also, good timing Ax got out when he did. [b]Chapter 13-Jake Day 31/b] quote:“Aren’t you coming?” We're going to meet the mysterious Mr. Visser himself. I hope he's nice. Epicurius fucked around with this message at 04:01 on Apr 22, 2022 |
# ? Apr 21, 2022 03:59 |
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Epicurius posted:Chapter 12-Aximili Eh, it's just Dutch. Means "Fisher." No big deal.
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# ? Apr 21, 2022 06:24 |
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Please, Mr. Visser was my father. Call me Yolandi.
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# ? Apr 21, 2022 16:06 |
Fuschia tude posted:Eh, it's just Dutch. Means "Fisher." No big deal. Ever met a Dutch fisherman? They are the exact opposite of "no big deal." quote:And I had learned one thing: If the rest of Earth’s species were anything like this Blue Blade, the Yeerks had picked the wrong planet. Ax is smart and perceptive.
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# ? Apr 21, 2022 21:46 |
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I like the confirmation that Rachel and Marco's clashing is the kind of energy that toes the line between anger and attraction and in a timeline where she never gets closer to Tobias, the two date
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# ? Apr 22, 2022 02:32 |
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Chapter 14-Tobiasquote:I was used to the place now. I felt comfortable there. Weird feeling. Weird to be comfortable. I’d been to several meetings of The Sharing. Once some new kids started teasing me, but the real members shut them down fast. The fundamental difference between Jake and Tobias is, because of their experiences, Jake knows who he is in himself. He'll be a part of a team, but he doesn't need to be, because he's secure in who and what he is. Chapter 15-Tobias quote:There were four of us slated to become full members. There was a police officer named Edward. There was a newspaper reporter named Kiko. There was a guy who managed local bands. His name was Barry. It's done.
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# ? Apr 22, 2022 04:11 |
Poor Tobias. Just wanted to escape from his life.
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# ? Apr 22, 2022 04:41 |
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:Poor Tobias. Just wanted to escape from his life. And he succeeded.
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# ? Apr 22, 2022 05:25 |
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I love how thoroughly unenjoyable Visser Three finds voluntary or semi-voluntary infestation to be.
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# ? Apr 22, 2022 07:50 |
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I'm wondering whether it would be have been the more interesting choice for Tobias, in this alternate timeline, to actually willingly go through with it and be a voluntary host. The Tobias we know of course would never do that, but on paper the pre-Animorph Tobias is (at least outwardly) a prime candidate for it. In a sense it's a nature/nurture thing: how much was Tobias always a strong person on the inside even if he was a dweeb at school, and how much did becoming one of the Animorphs make him a strong person? Which is even more arguable when the character in question is thirteen. (Better Call Saul has just started its final season, and that fundamental element of change exists for both Saul in BCS and Walt in Breaking Bad: did the person actually fundamentally change, or were they always really that person deep down and only their circumstances changed? I'm inclined to believe the latter for Walt, but Jimmy/Saul is way more greyscale.) It's also really interesting how driven Tobias is to belong, to be accepted, to be part of something, when - despite his the sense of belonging he finds with the Animorphs - being a bird of prey (as opposed to any other animal he could have been trapped as) is very much about being solitary, both literally and symbolically. quote:“You trade a little bit of freedom for a lot of belonging to something bigger than yourself.” He moved closer and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Bigger than you can imagine.” If they weren't a front for a covert alien invasion, this would be the red flag that this life pathway ultimately ends when FBI agents storm your secluded desert compound.
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# ? Apr 22, 2022 08:18 |
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Not very voluntary compared to the first example we got a few books back, where the recruit was told explicitly what was going to happen beforehand. Tricking them into "Surrendering themselves to the sharing" might be a fun prank, but it doesn't seem that different from just grabbing them.
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# ? Apr 22, 2022 15:34 |
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Crespolini posted:Not very voluntary compared to the first example we got a few books back, where the recruit was told explicitly what was going to happen beforehand. Tricking them into "Surrendering themselves to the sharing" might be a fun prank, but it doesn't seem that different from just grabbing them. I'm assuming the "Let us implant a parasite into your brain and turn you into a meat puppet" pitch was a harder sell than originally anticipated. But, especially looking at Chapman's numbers,. the type of person who honestly believes their life isn't important compared to the greater good and is willing to let themselves be chained to a chair and have their head dipped into a Yeerk pool probably is more likely to be ok with being infested than the general public.
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# ? Apr 22, 2022 16:24 |
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Crespolini posted:Not very voluntary compared to the first example we got a few books back, where the recruit was told explicitly what was going to happen beforehand. Tricking them into "Surrendering themselves to the sharing" might be a fun prank, but it doesn't seem that different from just grabbing them. I think that's exactly what Visser Three is talking about when he's frustrated with the charade. Though to be fair he's also running it differently from Visser One.
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# ? Apr 22, 2022 16:49 |
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I still say if the yeerks weren't cartoonishly evil (that isn't a complaint they have a real hosed up society that self perpetuates itself believably like that, they are a believable cartoon evil) but if they weren't cartoonishly evil they could probably go open and go gangbusters with willing hosts if they weren't dicks about it. Get a cool alien in your head! Yes, it controls your actions, but that way you learn how to do weird alien science hands-on! Having trouble with executive dysfunction, with drug addiction, with this or that? Get a yeerk! Our one-step-program will get your life in gear! Never be alone again! And like, we've seen yeerks CAN give up control while remaining inside? You can do online yeerk dating, find the right yeerk for you, share a life together! But like you know Animorphs is a realistic setting because like in real life it'd be great if we also solved homelessness with the same kind of "we can do this, why don't we just do this?" but since Applegate is a good writer it's a bureaucracy of assholes where you have to be an even bigger rear end in a top hat to survive so it generates infinite jerk yeerks (jyeerks) and the obvious easy solution is never really easy or viable because the system that would allow it to work is instead a system of jyeerks.
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# ? Apr 22, 2022 17:08 |
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ANOTHER SCORCHER posted:I love how thoroughly unenjoyable Visser Three finds voluntary or semi-voluntary infestation to be. Why is he even here? What made him show up for this routine infestation? Just to mess with his subordinates? Maybe they found Elfangor's letter to Tobias? Not that it's really important.
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# ? Apr 22, 2022 17:11 |
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Epicurius posted:I'm assuming the "Let us implant a parasite into your brain and turn you into a meat puppet" pitch was a harder sell than originally anticipated. But, especially looking at Chapman's numbers,. the type of person who honestly believes their life isn't important compared to the greater good and is willing to let themselves be chained to a chair and have their head dipped into a Yeerk pool probably is more likely to be ok with being infested than the general public. It just seems like half-assing the concept, to the point where I probably wouldn't feel like bothering if I was in charge. Though if those statistics given were true, I guess it's more useful than not.
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# ? Apr 22, 2022 18:58 |
gourdcaptain posted:Why is he even here? What made him show up for this routine infestation? Just to mess with his subordinates? It makes sense later.
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# ? Apr 22, 2022 20:31 |
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Crespolini posted:It just seems like half-assing the concept, to the point where I probably wouldn't feel like bothering if I was in charge. Though if those statistics given were true, I guess it's more useful than not. To be fair, if Visser Three is half-assing anything in the invasion, it's definitely the touchy-feely "Let us become one with you for mutual gain!" garbage that only an experienced human-knower like Visser One could actually pull off.
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# ? Apr 22, 2022 21:11 |
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FlocksOfMice posted:I still say if the yeerks weren't cartoonishly evil (that isn't a complaint they have a real hosed up society that self perpetuates itself believably like that, they are a believable cartoon evil) but if they weren't cartoonishly evil they could probably go open and go gangbusters with willing hosts if they weren't dicks about it. Especially if you lean into the whole "The Sharing is a kooky New Age alien cult" or "Scientology meets the Boys & Girls Club of America" thing an enterprising Yeerk and/or PR mind could very easily sell the idea of the Yeerks as "Your new alien companion." Presenting it to the public as a symbiosis thing because you don't know you're a meat puppet until the Yeerk actually takes the wheel and you become a meat puppet. If the Yeerks had but a little more patience and a lot more capacity for forward thinking and playing the long game, you could pull off a V 2009-style situation where you implant a fuckton of people with essentially sleeper agent Yeerks ordered to stay in "read only" mode, because it's been established that a Yeerk can read a host's mind by default, but the host can't read the Yeerk's thoughts. And then just wait until enough people have been Yeerked and put out a signal for everyone to go active and spring the trap on humanity. Like the Reapers in Mass Effect waiting until galactic civilization has becoming cripplingly dependent on their technology before they shut the power off and harvest everyone. At that point all you need to worry about largely is just maintaining OPSEC and troop discipline to make sure none of the sleeper Yeerks start blabbing to anyone "ha ha! You stupid humans, we're actually here to invade you, and you've fallen into our trap!" like dipshit Yeerks have been known to do quite liberally.
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# ? Apr 22, 2022 21:28 |
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The one problem with the Yeerks playing the long game, from the Yeerk perspective, is that they're in the middle of a war with an enemy that wants to wipe them out. The Yeerks are suffering from a massive host shortage now, and they're worried that at any time, the Andalites can discover Earth and the Yeerk presence on Earth, and wipe them out or wipe humanity out. So time is their enemy here. They have to get Earth Yeerk controlled and defended ASAP. Publically revealing themselves and hoping they can get enough people who would voluntarily agree to get a Yeerk implanted in their head is pretty risky, because it requires them to assume 1. There are no Andalites on earth undercover, 2. Humanity won't consider them a threat and wipe them out, and 3. They'll actually be able to convince people to put Yeerks in their heads. Really the two safest plans are Visser One's or Visser Three's. Either you do this entirely through innocent looking front organizations that shuffle people into an infestation path, or you do a massive surprise attack to wipe out human resistance and force people into the pools and hope you can do it fast enough so that it's done before the Andalites find you.
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# ? Apr 22, 2022 21:51 |
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You could probably buy some time, on that front at least, by again putting that PR brain to use and just lie with the truth. Sell humanity on the idea that the Yeerks are a desperate refugee species with something to offer humanity and they're being hunted across the galaxy by an evil empire run by a xenophobic warlike race known as the Andalites who are bent on the extermination of the Yeerks and anyone who would dare harbor and aide them, even tangentially, which now includes humanity by default. The prospect of painting the Andalites up front as basically the Covenant, an empire of alien monsters coming to glass Earth if they ever find its location could do wonders for uniting a bunch of people not just together against a common enemy, but in solidarity with their new "ally". But then again, humanity couldn't even come together to face the global threat of a loving virus before people started actively working on behalf of the virus through madness and stupidity, so who really knows at this point.
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# ? Apr 22, 2022 22:00 |
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# ? May 24, 2024 23:10 |
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I think that kind of approach requires more gumption than Yeerks are capable of when dealing with a relatively sophisticated and hostile species as humans. e: a worf HIJK fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Apr 22, 2022 |
# ? Apr 22, 2022 22:07 |