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nine-gear crow posted:Michael Grant later confirmed either in a tweet or a Reddit AMA post, I can't exactly remember which, but he said that they all survived. Nope. Nuh-uh. None of that poo poo. If Applegate and Grant want to answer questions like that, they can write another book.
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Apr 7, 2023 22:23
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mind the walrus posted:Video Games are especially bad for trying to have their cake and eat it with "we'll let you simulate horrific acts and lives, but if your character feels bad or get told they feel bad, it's alright!" See my current red text.  I feel like video games in particular have a blind spot for the catastrophic and corrosive effect that war and battle have on people. I keep running into games and communities that are all "Think hard about this game's themes and characters and implications!" but then when you start criticizing their portrayal of war and how no one seems bothered that they've killed hundreds or thousands of people, the same communities yell just as loudly that you aren't supposed to take that part seriously. Which frustrates me. Am I supposed to be taking this seriously and thinking about it, or am I not?
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Apr 7, 2023 22:34
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Star Man posted:Nope. Nuh-uh. None of that poo poo. If Applegate and Grant want to answer questions like that, they can write another book. To be fair, Grant, having seen the poo poo bogs JK Rowling would often wade into with her various post-authorial proclamations even before she became a TERF and a literal Neo Nazi ally, has repeatedly said that all his answers to things are just his personal opinion on how things went down and you're free to accept them as canon or stick to your own interpretations if you wish. It's like how he said he always thought of Marco as bisexual but you shouldn't take that as canon because he didn't explicitly write him as bi, so just saying it after the fact and expecting readers to take it as gospel canon like Rowling does is authorial cowardice.
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Apr 7, 2023 22:35
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nine-gear crow posted:Michael Grant later confirmed either in a tweet or a Reddit AMA post, I can't exactly remember which, but he said that they all survived. I went and tracked down the post, and "It's a callback to Elfangor and so meant to be ambiguous" is a long way from "yes they survived" imo. 
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Apr 7, 2023 22:47
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The solution to a lot of that is to stay the gently caress off of Twitter. You're under no obligation to reply to your fans. All that does is create expectations or agitation.
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Apr 7, 2023 22:57
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Cythereal posted:See my current red text. Yeah I'm not a prude, purist, nor pretentious. It's a matter of consistency. If a medium needs to be partitioned so hard that you ignore core aspects of the whole to access any sort of thematic resonance, then it's not really examining those themes it just happens to contain them the same way it contains "crafting" or "open-world" or any of a dozen checklist items. That kind-of nuance is not something most people care to engage with because "gently caress you my paycheck is tied to that" and "that's an impossible standard don't you know how hard this game was to even get made?" and they're not wrong to feel that way, although they are wrong to try and suppress or dismiss. That's why I respect games that either don't try to do anything thematically sophisticated and achieve sophistication by other means, or use the medium to achieve more humble gestalts of theme and mechanic. I do think Animorphs could actually map mechanically pretty drat well to the lovely SquareEnix/Ubisoft/Sony AAA design, but who knows if they'd be able to translate the finer details. Ngl fighting Taxxons and strategically picking morph locations sounds pretty dope.
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Apr 7, 2023 23:06
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I think something like the Hitman series would be cool, but not murder focused obviously. There should be a lot of paths to complete the mission using different morphs. As you advance it gets harder because the Yeerks start getting suspicious of all animals just like they do in the books. Changing the camera to give you messed up fly vision or telescopic hawk vision based on your morph would be cool. Same with audio.
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Apr 8, 2023 06:27
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TCE posted:As someone who's really not into infection at all, I really liked this author: https://archiveofourown.org/series/151619. It's a series of stories that take place after the war, from the perspective of a surviving Tom. Normally I'd consider keeping him around a big narrative cheat, but I think it works here as a way of showing the characters from an outside but still familiar perspective. The stories are interconnected, but can be read in any order, and mostly focus on what it's like for former hosts to try and live their life, and integrate back into normalcy after everything that's happened. Like I said, normally not my thing, but I liked them. Goddamn, thanks for this recommendation. Between this and the one from way back about Tom getting a good Yeerk that joined the peace movement (which I lost track of, if anyone still remembers it/has the link?), apparently I find Tom's perspective fascinating for some reason. Anyone got any more fanfic recommendations?
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Apr 8, 2023 07:43
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CidGregor posted:Goddamn, thanks for this recommendation. Between this and the one from way back about Tom getting a good Yeerk that joined the peace movement (which I lost track of, if anyone still remembers it/has the link?), apparently I find Tom's perspective fascinating for some reason. I think the ones your looking for are either The Alternate or The Swap both by the same author.
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Apr 8, 2023 22:29
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 The weird thing about that art style is, I didn't need to exaggerate the claws at all Tree Bucket fucked around with this message at 08:16 on Apr 9, 2023 |
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Apr 9, 2023 04:07
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pastor of muppets posted:I've rewatched BSG pretty recently. Yes, it has. BSG's ending still makes me mad with how slapped together it is. It's frustrating because when the show was good it was SO GOOD. It peaked at the end of the second season with the whole Pegasus arc, and then the writers' strike happened. It was clear though that the showrunners had no clear idea how the series would wrap up and that's what ultimately hurt it, not the strike. Animorphs OTOH, valid criticisms about pacing in the ending arc aside, at least ends in a way that is thematically coherent with the rest of the series imo. I just watched the last episode. Everything you wrote is wrong  The Pegasus arc was in the middle of season 2. It showing up was literally the season premiere of 2.5! The Pegasus itself sticks around until almost halfway through season three. (And, just on a personal note, the arc felt way less impactful on rewatch than it did back when it aired; maybe it was just knowing season 3 was coming.) The writers' strike happened after season 4.0 was filmed, hence 4.5 not getting made and getting to air until nearly a year after the first half. That ending was a thing, but I'm not sure I would say it wasn't thematically coherent with the rest of the series, either.
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Apr 9, 2023 06:58
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Fuschia tude posted:I just watched the last episode. Everything you wrote is wrong The ending of Battlestar Galactica is the end result of a chain reaction of poor decisions that started from the moment the show was picked up for a series--namely a failure to plan anything out ahead of time--and then booted into high gear with the decision to do New Caprica at the end of Season 2. The rot was there for a long while before the final episode, it's just the moment where the foundation fully gave out and the front of the house fell off.
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Apr 9, 2023 07:12
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Apr 9, 2023 13:39
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nine-gear crow posted:The ending of Battlestar Galactica is the end result of a chain reaction of poor decisions that started from the moment the show was picked up for a series--namely a failure to plan anything out ahead of time--and then booted into high gear with the decision to do New Caprica at the end of Season 2. The rot was there for a long while before the final episode, it's just the moment where the foundation fully gave out and the front of the house fell off.
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Apr 9, 2023 15:51
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TCE posted:As someone who's really not into infection at all, I really liked this author: https://archiveofourown.org/series/151619. It's a series of stories that take place after the war, from the perspective of a surviving Tom. Normally I'd consider keeping him around a big narrative cheat, but I think it works here as a way of showing the characters from an outside but still familiar perspective. The stories are interconnected, but can be read in any order, and mostly focus on what it's like for former hosts to try and live their life, and integrate back into normalcy after everything that's happened. Like I said, normally not my thing, but I liked them. Binged through this whole thing. Overall really good Tom has a unique voice, and the author does well with Jake and Marco. Cassie feels a little off, but overall solidly above average ghostwriter tier. The examination of post controller trauma is excellent, but this is very much The Better Timeline. Tom surviving makes Jake cope better, and Jake being more functional means that Marco doesn't get as lost in hedonism. I think it makes a mistake in having Rachel survive as well though. Makes things too clean, doesn't fit the Animorphs imo. Still a great fanfic, glad I read it
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Apr 10, 2023 14:47
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Kaza42 posted:Binged through this whole thing. Overall really good Tom has a unique voice, and the author does well with Jake and Marco. Cassie feels a little off, but overall solidly above average ghostwriter tier. The examination of post controller trauma is excellent, but this is very much The Better Timeline. Tom surviving makes Jake cope better, and Jake being more functional means that Marco doesn't get as lost in hedonism. I think it makes a mistake in having Rachel survive as well though. Makes things too clean, doesn't fit the Animorphs imo. Still a great fanfic, glad I read it I liked it a lot as well and had mostly the same overall reaction (I felt the way Tom survives is sensible enough that it didn't feel like a cheat, and I particularly enjoyed the Space Rabies arc), but also while I agree Rachel surviving kinda made it feel like more of a fix-fic, at least it wasn't until the final story arc. And on the plus side it made for a pretty great scene of how pissed off she was at the rest of the team, not for not rescuing her sooner, but for totally failing to support each other without her/in their post-war lives. It was pretty satisfying seeing her rip into them all with a whole 'goddamn you guys are lame without me' rant.
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Apr 11, 2023 13:45
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It begiiiiiiiiins   So hello and welcome this extended, some would say unwanted addendum to Epicurius’s Animorphs Let’s Read. For the foreseeable future we’re going to be going through the two Animorphs Choose Your Own Adventure spin off books, Alternamorphs. Divided into two volumes titled “The First Journey” and “The Next Passage”, the two books are second person narrated and star a character named “You”, though You is a different person in each book. For the purpose of this mini-OP we’re only going to focus on Book 1, The First Journey. The basic setup is that You are an otherwise inauspicious middle school student who lives in the same town as Jake, Marco, Rachel, Cassie and Tobias and attend the same school. You know of them, but aren’t really in the same social circle so the book is going to do some slight trading on the idea that you the reader know who all these characters are, while You the character is probably more like “Marco? Isn’t that that smarmy kid in first period social studies who really needs a fist to his mouth?” Anyway, inciting incidents happen and You find yourself in the same place at the same time as our favorite idiot teenagers with a deathwish on the night that Elfangor comes crashing down to earth with Visser Three hot on his tailblade and instead of five stupid human kids who gain the power to morph, it’s six and You are the official Sixth Animorph. We don’t talk about David. You now have to try and survive the plot of Book #1 The Invasion (and maybe a few other early-series books while we're at it) with the knowledge that Elfangor passes on to you, your new morphing super power, and the help of your newly minted friends. And I really do mean “survive” because like literally every option the books gives you ends in death except for one golden route… that also probably ends in death. Alternamorphs #1 The First Journey is credited to K.A. Applegate (aka Kathrine Applegate and Michael Grant) on the cover and allegedly ghostwritten by Tonya Alicia Martin, Applegate and Grant’s editor at Scholastic at the time, though Martin has since claimed in a Reddit AMA post that she actually didn’t write it. She only came up with the idea for Alternamorphs, so the actual author of the book is currently unknown. In terms of publication timeline, Alternamorphs #1 falls between Megamorphs #3 Elfangor’s Secret and Animorphs #30 The Reunion. The Game Rules So for this part of the thread we’re shifting from Let’s Read mode to Let’s Play mode. Given its nature as a Choose Your Own Adventure book, we’re gonna need to, well... make some choices. So that’s going to rely on a thread vote to get us through this. When we come to each decision point, I’ll present the options the book gives you and you can vote on which one you’d like to see and if you feel inclined, give your reasoning for it to see if you can say other people towards your choice or against other choices. If you don’t feel like voting, you can just keep posting normally and give your reactions to the goings on in both books. We’re going to alternate one day on and one day off for chapters/decision points. The off day will give us time to rack up votes and the most popular option wins. Make sure to put your choice IN BOLD so that I don’t miss it because I’m an idiot. If you choose poorly and get You killed, we’ll reset back to the previous decision point and you can vote on the remaining options until we find a path that doesn’t end in death. If you pick the correct option from the start, I’ll include the death routes later in an addendum post at the end of the book. So with that in mind, let’s get started then. The First Journey – Introduction quote:Okay, listen up. It’s Jake. You probably already know what’s going on around here. But just in case you don’t, here’s the deal: Rachel, Tobias, Cassie, Marco, Ax, and I are five kids and one alien out to save the world. Ha ha, yeah just because this is a COYA book that doesn’t mean you’re safe from the dreaded “My name is Jake…” introduction  So yeah, Jake lays out the ground rules of the game. This is the only chapter that’s not from the POV of You. Feel free to try an rationalize whatever Jake is trying to hint at with the “we need backup” and the “we’re going to try this again” bit, which is clearly alluding to how off the rails their little unintentional experiment with David went by the time those three books were over. Maybe it’s more Ellimist nonsense, who knows? Either way, now that we’re all done with the series thanks to Epicurius’s herculean efforts, we’re going right back to the beginning again. It’s early June 1996, and an alien space craft is about to crash-land in [REDACTED], California. The First Journey – Chapter 1 quote:You know you shouldn’t be doing it. You were supposed to be home at least twenty minutes ago. It’s getting dark. The smart thing to do, the only thing, really, is to ride your bike along the bike path like a law-abiding citizen. All the way home. Congratulations, You have met your first real live alien. Unfortunately, as we all know by not, it will not be the last, and it’s kind of all down hill from here in terms of how benevolent they are. The First Journey – Chapter 2 quote:You step out from behind the wall. So this is all just a compacted version of what goes down at the start of The Invasion, only told from second person POV and happening in front of you the reader live rather than being relayed to you post-facto by Jake. No sense treading the same ground twice for too long and a quick way to get a new reader up to speed on the formative incident of the series if they’ve had no frame of reference for the prior books somehow. The only real change and it’s a subtle one is the description of Elfangor’s last moments. In The Invasion, it’s described as a “cry of despair”. Here, Elfangor dies screaming. The First Journey – Chapter 3 quote:You wake up the next morning feeling groggy. It was a dream, of course. A totally freaky dream that felt totally real. The worst nightmare you ever had. If you told your mom about it, she’d probably suggest counseling. So this chapter outlines the mildly frustrating conceit of the Alternamorphs books; rather than just rewrite the entire book/books each one is based around only with the player character inserted into the pivotal scenes, there’s going to be a lot of “One of the other Animorphs recounts what happened to You off screen” while You get to deal with your own somewhat self-contained plotline. In this case, oh poo poo, You’s mom might be a Controller. Wouldn’t that suck, eh Marco? Anyway, we’ve reached our first decision point of the book and the end of our first update. We have three choices ahead of us for what You can decide to be their first morph:
What will it be? nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Apr 11, 2023 |
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Apr 11, 2023 17:34
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...somehow I still remember the results to this question decades later so I'm disqualified from this round. Have fun, people! :P
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Apr 11, 2023 17:40
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Fly is the most useful morph, but maybe too gross for our first one. Let's go with hamster 'cause it's easiest I guess?
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Apr 11, 2023 17:55
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Nothing bad has ever happened to an Animorph as a fly, right?
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Apr 11, 2023 18:46
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Ferret
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Apr 11, 2023 19:15
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Surely the weird neighbour is trustworthy, let's go find his Ferret
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Apr 11, 2023 21:41
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Ferret!
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Apr 11, 2023 21:41
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I've always wanted to fly like an annoying bug.
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Apr 11, 2023 21:45
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I say we go fer it I'm halfway sure that Hamster is the only choice that doesn't lead to immediate death, but the pun, it spoke to me Kazzah fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Apr 12, 2023 |
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Apr 12, 2023 00:39
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Got to with ferret
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Apr 12, 2023 01:02
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CidGregor posted:I liked it a lot as well and had mostly the same overall reaction (I felt the way Tom survives is sensible enough that it didn't feel like a cheat, and I particularly enjoyed the Space Rabies arc), but[/spoiler] I agree with both of you, spoiled part as well. I think I was particularly appreciative of the more slice of life, quieter moments that I always wished we had more of in the books, and Tom had a good perspective for it. Things like the Berenson family reunion, or Tom flipping through post-War tv channels really resonated with me
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Apr 12, 2023 01:04
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Voting Ferret. Fly has bad vision and won't be a useful morph, the hamster lives there, but may also get trapped in his cage in full view of everyone and get us turned into a nothlit. Ferret has good senses, is squirmy, good mobility, and stealthy.
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Apr 12, 2023 02:35
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Just a quick apology that we haven't started tge new book yet. Expect it soon
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Apr 12, 2023 04:41
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Finally caught up with this thread today after starting it on Christmas. Massive thanks to Epicurius for his efforts the past 3 years. The books are fantastic, and I've enjoyed the discussion throughout the thread. I never read the ending as a kid, but I was obsessed with Animorphs for a few years before falling off after book 33. I went back and read the whole series around 2010, and the ending hits just as hard now as it did the first time, if not more so. Especially this line: quote:Then he killed me with a single blow. This simple sentence carries so much emotion for me; I had to sit and stare at this for a minute and just let it wash over me. I'm mixed on the cliffhanger ending, but ultimately, I just appreciate that they ended the series on their own terms and stuck with it. I was surprised to relearn that Ax's TV doesn't appear until book 28. In my memory, he had it as early as book 8, but I guess that aspect of his character stuck with me as much as the rest. I never read any of Applegate or Grant's other work, but I'm excited to follow the thread wherever it goes.
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Apr 12, 2023 05:00
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I definitely remember that I read this Alternamorphs (clearing out a stunt course for sweet tricks rings a bell) but I don't remember any of the results so let's go... Ferret, why not. Also it's interesting that 'you' is not a complete blank-slate audience cypher. 'You' likes off-road cycling, has a good throwing arm, is good enough friends with Marco he knows where 'you' live and can waltz in without fear or being suspicious, but otherwise has no friends. 'You' likes X-files.
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Apr 12, 2023 07:55
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They way their encounter with Elfangor is shortened makes it sound like he's reading our mind. It also makes him sound snarkier than what we've seen of him. Also I noticed that the Taxxons are described as "spidery" which is probably gonna confuse a new reader when see them later. Ferret sounds like a great first morph. A mammal which is relatable and not much of a perception shock. Not a prey species so you don't have to deal an frantic mind alongside getting comfortable with your body changing. And a predator so there's a certain confidence it has with taking on the world.
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Apr 12, 2023 09:56
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A fly is easily swatted, and soonmot pointed out that the hamster will get caught and thrown back in prison, so I vote ferret
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Apr 12, 2023 17:40
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I hated these stupid books so much that I read them multiple times, so I also know the answer and will recuse myself. BUT wanted to drop off this tweet I just came across: https://twitter.com/MichaelGrantBks/status/1645932691697827840?s=20
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Apr 12, 2023 18:03
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Out of all reasonable first morphs, fly has got to be the dumbest. So, let's do it.
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Apr 12, 2023 18:37
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Fake double post: Also, it looks like my original message got eaten, and while I mostly said that 13 year old me was pissed at the cliffhanger, I'm much more mellow on it now. I think the general idea of the remnants of the Yeerks empire throwing in with a new maniac is believable, and everyone riding off into the sunset was never going to happen. But most importantly, huge thanks to Epicurius for doing all this. It was great to re-read this series with a more critical eye, and it only increased my fondness for it.
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Apr 12, 2023 18:53
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And we’re back with more Alternamorphs! First up, congratulations. Ferret won by a huge margin over the other morphs and as it happens, choosing the ferret morph is the correct choice for the first decision point of the book. Picking either the hamster or the fly ends in immediate death for You. I’ll post the dead-end chapters when we’re done, but neither end is particularly dignified. Oh who am I kidding, NO end in this book is “dignified”, at least in the “go down fighting” sense, You goes out like a tool every time you pick a bad morph. Anyway, let’s continue from where we left off, with You deciding to do the smart…? thing and break into their weird neighbor's house, kidnap their pet ferret, acquire and morph it, and use it to spy on their possibly alien-infested mother and/or sister. The First Journey – Chapter 6 quote:You’ve always like ferrets. And it’s pretty cool being one. You can’t see very well, but your hearing is quite excellent. And you feel so … happy. Playful as a kitten, but friendly, like a dog. So where would we say this one ranks in terms of “embarrassing first morphs”? I mean, You’s still alive, so it’s not THAT bad, and they bumbled back into the plot of The Invasion still already in progress around and in spite of them. Still, You is on to something, that dogs and cats and ferrets and horses aren’t going to cut it in a fight against Visser Three. They need morphs that can rip and tear and kill. A shame that we had to steal Rachel’s original idea of collecting a set of dedicated battle morphs from her like she comes up with in The Invasion, but them’s the breaks I guess. You is only here to do three things: NOT go on cool adventures with the Animorphs, poo poo up their pre-existing narrative when they do interact with them, and die. A lot. The First Journey – Chapter 7 quote:Things happen way fast after the meeting at the beach. Too fast. Jake morphs into a lizard and spies on Mr. Chapman, the assistant principal. He finds out that one of the entrances to the Yeerk pool is in your very own school. Every Yeerk has to visit the pool every three days in order to soak up Kandrona rays. So once again, the plot of The Invasion mainly plays out without You’s involvement but they ARE invited to come along with the actual Animorphs on their trip to The Gardens to acquire battle morphs, and then are immediately ditched and have to fend for themselves again. In rapid succession You picks up a giraffe morph and a hyena morph. Both of which will probably be useful depending on the situation. Right now though, You’s gonna run their rear end outta there to avoid getting detained by security and possibly certain things much worse than that. The First Journey – Chapter 8 quote:You sprint around a corner - straight into a security guard. gently caress the police, am I right folks? Well, with that we’ve come to Decision Point #2. We’ve got three morph options to chose from to try and lose the cops with:
What are we feeling?
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Apr 14, 2023 02:42
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Giraffe seems like the most impractical morph for any situation, what the heck. Let's go dog.
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Apr 14, 2023 03:16
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The Hyena can totally kill those two dogs, but I'm not willing to kill a dog. Giraffe will get all hosed up by morphing inside a car, I need to vote for GSD. I'm hoping they'll be weirded out by morphing into one of them, even though the hyena would be a better combatant .
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Apr 14, 2023 03:20
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Giraffe seems like the most impractical morph for any situation, what the heck. Let's go giraffe
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Apr 14, 2023 04:58
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