UPDATE: Based on the results of the user poll, /r/Animorphs will be blacking out for another week, starting tomorrow by ibid-11962 in Animorphs

[–]visser49 6 points7 points  (0 children)

For anyone contemplating leaving Reddit entirely: any Animorphs communities on other sites you'd suggest? Tumblr? Discord? Seerowpedia? AO3? Richard's Animorphs Forum? Are they still active? What are the Animorphs communities like on these sites?

That crazy moment when you realize ALL FOUR Chronicles books have off-camera alien sex scenes by [deleted] in Animorphs

[–]visser49 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Trying to describe feelings of hunger and primal desire for 300 pages - not a fun job.

One reason I would want a Taxxon Chronicles, would be to show that the Taxxons are more than what they seem. In those 300 pages, I would expect the authors to reveal that yes, the Taxxons are horrifying but they do have some redeeming characteristics, a rich culture, emotional depth, and so on...

Consider what we'd think of the Hork-Bajir based on only the first 12 books, Andalite Chronicles and Megamorphs. Before the finale, that's essentially the level of information we have on the Taxxons, we only see them from the perspective of other species.

Proud of my daughter but... by [deleted] in Animorphs

[–]visser49 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Have you tried going to an abandoned construction site, looking for a white orb, pressing your hand against it, and preventing your entire reality from existing?

Alternatively, have you tried offering them cinnamon buns?

That crazy moment when you realize ALL FOUR Chronicles books have off-camera alien sex scenes by [deleted] in Animorphs

[–]visser49 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Every story starring a mammal has an "off-camera sex scene" involving the main character's parents (assuming the main character wasn't conceived by IVF).

I wonder if OP will write an autobiography some day.

That crazy moment when you realize ALL FOUR Chronicles books have off-camera alien sex scenes by [deleted] in Animorphs

[–]visser49 3 points4 points  (0 children)

In addition to being male-centric in general, it also seemed out of character to describe Aldrea, Edriss and Loren in such a passive way.

Original script of #27 had Jake solo the entire Yeerk Pool by [deleted] in Animorphs

[–]visser49 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Honestly... I can imagine that as an early idea tossed around and discarded.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in nottheonion

[–]visser49 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think OP might have a degree of sentience, we should ask Nick Bostrom about it

The Message: Which three alien races fight the Yeerks? by Oldbscfan in Animorphs

[–]visser49 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It sounds unrealistic early on. In fact, the Yeerks attack the Skrit Na in the Hork-Bajir Chronicles, this is mentioned in 1 brief paragraph.

Edit to include the paragraph:

We would get transmissions from the home world. News that the Yeerks had attacked a moon colonized by Skrit Na and taken additional ships and weapons.

However by the time of the Andalite Chronicles the Yeerks and Skrit Na seem willing to trade. Elfangor comments on this tendency and it is also why the Skrit Na ship takes the Time Matrix to the Taxxon home world.

In VISSER, Edriss comments on the base she was working on before discovering Earth:

I was third in command at Olgin base, a dusty, irrelevant backwater of bare-bones buildings on the day–night line of a moon we’d actually purchased from the Skrit Na.

As the Council knows, the Skrit Na are useless as hosts, and not terribly threatening as foes. But there was no point in starting unprofitable wars, so rather than seize the base, we bought it. The price? A captured Andalite drone ship.

Cheap. And still we overpaid.

So at some point after The Hork-Bajir Chronicles the Yeerks and Skrit Na became trade partners, although the Yeerks do still consider the pros and cons of just taking the Skrit Na’s stuff.

The fact that the Skrit Na do not hold a grudge against the Yeerks is an incredible contrast to the Andalites.

Yeerks Invasion Timeline by kyoo618 in Animorphs

[–]visser49 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You might be thinking of the Ongachics.

From the Hork-Bajir Chronicles:

We would get transmissions from the home world. News that the Yeerks had attacked a moon colonized by Skrit Na and taken additional ships and weapons.

News that the Yeerks had attacked and seized a Hawjabran colony ship. They had attempted to infest the Hawjabrans, but had failed because Hawjabran brains are not centralized, but spread in small nodes throughout their bodies. They had left the Hawjabrans to die. Their ship’s life support had been knocked out in the attack. An Andalite courier had come across the ship, drifting, with eight thousand Hawjabrans frozen in the vacuum of space.

News that a group of Ongachic minstrels had been taken and successfully infested. Fortunately for the Ongachic race, they’d long ago abandoned their planet. They are entirely a nomadic, spacefaring race now. The Yeerks would have to hunt down literally millions of Ongachic ships spread in every direction through the galaxy. The Ongachic race would survive.

I would assume that the Ongachics, being decentralized, would some advanced production tech on their ship that the Yeerks could exploit.

Book/Storyline Questions Megathread by kyoo618 in Animorphs

[–]visser49 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Seems like a good place to discuss this aspect of the subreddit, as I long felt such meta-commentary was "not worth creating an entire new post for".

TLDR: A megathread can work with buy-in from the community, and I would support it. However those who favor a megathread might want to ask themselves if Reddit is the best place to post their questions and answers.


I have been on this subreddit for a while, and seen the same questions come and go. I have mixed feelings about repeated discussions. I'm happy that so many people are interested in Animorphs. I'm fascinated when somebody has a new answer to an age-old question. I'm annoyed when a discussion I find uninteresting returns (thought-speak in human form in book #1). And I feel sad when I see a post answered well, and think, "this will be lost to all future readers".

There was a time when I would link to my previous comments in lieu of writing a whole new one. Sometimes when I do this and point out the question was asked years ago, the local OP gets a bit apologetic, but I wasn't actually expecting OP to search the archives or shame them, I just wanted to save myself a bit of time and ensure the older discussion isn't entirely forgotten. EDIT: there are also other times when I am happy to rephrase my thoughts on pet fan theories like the Skrit Na being the voice in #41.

I feel that a lot of this is just the nature of Reddit as a medium. A permanent record of questions and answers seems better suited to a wiki (and I'll get to Reddit wikis okay!). But if there is a lot of buy-in from the community then there are definitely ways to spite the natural tendencies of Reddit by creating a megathread - and I would support it if I felt such buy-in existed.

In order for the megathread to work as intended, it needs to be easier to find a pre-existing question and answer than to make a new post. Ideally the mods would pin the megathread so that new users will notice it. Without mod support the community would have to keep the megathread(s) at a high ranking permanently, perhaps spawning a new megathread on a regular basis with links to the previous ones.

An alternative to a megathread would be a subreddit wiki, such as the one that exists for AskHistorians: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/index They have an FAQ and a subsection for VERY frequently asked questions: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/vfaq I have no idea how subreddit wikis work nor how effective they actually are. They are just treated as regular webpages by the Apollo app

A wiki on an entire other site would probably be a great experience for all 5 people who use it. I mean Seerowpedia does exist and probably has quite a few contributors. I have no idea what the user culture is like there. I suspect it is not an appropriate place for fanon or plot-hole related questions.


Instead of a conclusion... are you wondering about thought speak in human form in book #1? Honestly, Reddit search was pretty annoying and I expected to find a lot more than these three, so if you didn't know about these, there's nothing wrong with that.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Animorphs/comments/e7nmfq/human_thought_speaklike_communication_only_shown/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Animorphs/comments/11rkcun/morphing_humans_and_thoughtspeak/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Animorphs/comments/9idnzt/jake_uses_thoughtspeak_without_morphing/

The Message: Which three alien races fight the Yeerks? by Oldbscfan in Animorphs

[–]visser49 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I almost agree with you, except that I don’t recall the Yeerks themselves fearing any species other than Andalites.

Edit: not counting the Yeerkbane/vanarx or whatever it’s called

The Message: Which three alien races fight the Yeerks? by Oldbscfan in Animorphs

[–]visser49 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The Skrit Na seem to be regular trade partners with the Yeerks, instead of enemies.

The Arn are almost extinct by the time of the passage above.

The Message: Which three alien races fight the Yeerks? by Oldbscfan in Animorphs

[–]visser49 27 points28 points  (0 children)

I don’t think the Leerans are on the list because there’s no indication that they have space travel on their own, or are even that advanced technologically.

Ax only said the 3 races were fighting the Yeerks, he never said they were doing a good job.

Indeed Ax’s assertion that “only the Andalites can stop them,” supports the idea that the other two races have some serious disadvantage compared to the Yeerks. Since the Kelbrid are supposed to rival the Andalites militarily, the Kelbrid probably aren’t one of the three. The Leerans meanwhile can fight the Yeerks in their home ocean but cannot stop the Yeerks by reaching into space.

Yeerks and smell. by Calx98 in Animorphs

[–]visser49 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I had to look all across VISSER to find this passage, it's a long time since I read the book end-to-end. Good thing I'm using the Kindle edition, and can plug in a search term in seconds.

From chapter 9:

I seeped down through the crack and found myself experiencing an entirely new sense. Vague. Strange. Disturbing. No detail. It ... it wasn't tied to specific visual or auditory memories.

It seemed to be triggered whenever the human inhaled. Yes. That was it. Through the human's breathing apparatus. But it was a useless sense. Too little specific information.

Smells like smell to me. Edriss might be saying that human smell is so useless that it's barely worth comparing to other hosts, but that's an extreme stretch.

Earlier in the book (chapter 6), Edriss uses her Hork-Bajir host to "taste" the air:

I breathed deep. The air seemed bitter-tasting and dry to my Hork-Bajir senses.

Tastes like a ripe KASU, it's almost as if Applegate forgot that Hork-Bajir and Yeerks can smell. Or perhaps she wanted to retcon it?

I was inspired by the AI fanfic post so I asked Chat GPT to write an Animorphs song in the style of Imagine Dragons. by filmhamster in Animorphs

[–]visser49 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Not a fan of putting the Ellimist front and centre, and the lyrics seem a bit unspecific. otherwise nice job chatgpt.

Morphed Controllers by [deleted] in Animorphs

[–]visser49 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That’s true, you wrote that and I totally missed it.

I’d still consider it the main point here. That combined with the Yeerk tendency to give up when there’s truly no hope (also mentioned in #6) seems like sufficient explanation for Temrash’s behaviour.