I enjoyed it. Such a Rachel thing to do.
But
How could the dog smell fear if they were suppressing sweat glands and all facial emotions? Would mean that no Yeerk could be around a dog and if someone with a pet was infested then the dog would start acting weird and have to be put out. (Do you have a pet dog by any chance?)

And Melissa was let free so that the Chapman couples would cooperate with Yeerks (and not fight against the yeerks mind, which could impact them enough to "loose control " for a few secs or so)

Hi its me again. I loved so many parts of it. Marco's rationalising, establishing an alibi
Oh even Elfangor giving them the chance to acquire him. That was brilliant. Though I can't see Elfangor harshly saying that he came to destroy all humans. (He came to find the time matrix right?)
Parts I found odd: Marco's dad was still grieving. He must likely wouldn't have called his dad for a ride. Marco may not have morphed while all the others jumped the truck - but I think Marco would have focused on one thing the moment he got home. How to check if his dad was a controller or not.

Once again loved reading it. Hope you take my comments positively.

Hi. I really liked it as an avid animorphs fan who knows the characters well. But few things I felt were out of character
Marco is shorter than Tobias. He is more likely to grab Tobias's elbow than his shoulder.
Tobias is unlikely to punch Marco. He has never fought against his bullies to date.
I also don't think Rachel would laugh first. She only started enjoying the battle later. I also wondered if Jake is more likely a reason for Marco to be stopped rather than Cassie. And while Jake could read the others well, to that point Tobias was not a friend just a classmate they sometimes helped, and he was seen as an enigma. Ergo, Jake couldn't have read Tobias that well yet.
And "waiting for my orders" would have been better written as "waiting for my decision" (Because that's what Jake felt, that the burden of deciding for everyone was on him, not the burden of ordering others, atleast, not yet)

Sorry for the long list. But I've re-read animorphs more times than I can count and feel I know the characters very well. These were my thoughts as I read your chapter. I did enjoy the difference in Elfangors speech and the other creative differences bought (injection, link to cube, disappearance of their original body in Z space, etc)

This is an excellently-written story. The use of the many different points of view (including atypical viewpoints like Garrett's or the Pemalite Oe's), the creative exploration of the consequences of the morphing technology as presented (Marclones, etc.), the ramping up of the stakes, the clever ways in which elements from canon were incorporated and modified, your respect for your readers' intelligence...there's a lot to love in this fic. Even the general writing quality is quite "literary," and elevates it quite impressively.

That said, this is probably one of the darkest pieces of sci-fi/fantasy fiction I've ever read, even more so than the works of Peter Watts and R.S. Bakker. Everything was just truly sad and depressing, and I found myself perpetually bummed out for the majority of my reading time. I don't know if this is a flaw, precisely-you've successfully conveyed a measure of the sheer despondency experienced by the characters themselves, so in this the story is very "true"-but at the same time, I can definitely say that it'll be years before I ever feel like rereading this fic, if ever, due to the sheer emotional weight of it.

My subjective impression as merely one reader is that there could have been more bright spots along the way, to relieve the heaviness of the tone a bit. Cassie's reunion with her parents, for example, assuming it was a happy one, might have been written to alleviate some of the overwhelming darkness (that's not the greatest example, since it comes so close to the end where Vissel Berenthree's ascension provides the necessary light at the end of the tunnel anyway, but you get the idea).

Regardless of my quibbles, thank you for the thought and effort you put into writing this, and I did truly enjoy the story.

Two things:

1. I'm enjoying the story so far, and appreciate the tweaks to the way the morphing tech works that make it more self-consistent and open to strategic exploitation. At first glance, features like being able to absorb large foreign bodies into the morphing process seem kind of broken, but against a competent Visser 3, the Animorphs definitely need some upgrades compared to canon to even stand a ghost of a chance.

2. I'm currently reading this in 2024, and my immediate instinct was that this chapter must have been written before the 2016 election of Donald Trump (and yes, it turns out it was published around June 2016). Can anyone actually imagine Trump writing messages in cipher or holding up one end of a conversation like the one that occurs in this chapter? What if President Tyagi in this fic had been President Trump instead? I'm sure Crayak, at least, would be pleased.

Honestly like the fact that they found a smart way to stay morphed for more than 2 hours

I was hooked by the beginning of the story, but this development isn't my cup of tea. I think rational-fics are best when they stick to the "spirit of the canon" and have the characters act more reasonably within that. I think retconning the Yeerks into a hive-mind race breaks the spirit of the canon setting, which is that Yeerk society is a fascist analogue where individual ambition is systemically incentivized, and thus resulting in Yeerk individual characters that are selfish in personality. Making them semi-hive-mind not only introduces plot holes (visser ranking system, and individual Yeerk's extreme fear of death doesn't make sense) but more importantly it breaks the spirit of all Yeerk characters and their role in the story; now they're less individual characters and more like fragments of a hive-mind character.

Your a fucking faggot nigger

Ohhhh nooooo...

Oh, clever, clever Visser Three.

The best part is, I even kind of believe his intent. Imagine if the Ellimist and the other guy (can't remember its name right this second) ended up being the big bads, which, considering all they've done...

Excellent writing. I'm feeling the emotional impact of the Visser's words, and Tobias's doubts. This story is amazing, and I'm so glad I chanced upon it by accident.

This was an interesting chapter.
I honestly don’t think I have much to say about it. I’ve decided that I might not review every chapter, just that I might review the ones that I especially have something to say about.
But this was still really interesting. I’m going to keep reading.

This is a very interesting idea.
I feel like your portrayal of Elfangor was more realistic than in the books. Whereas in the books he landed on the planet to specifically find Tobias and get the time matrix, in your story he came to earth after failing to destroy it. It makes a bit more sense given what we know of the Andalite military and their arrogant attitude towards other species.
The way the kids dealt with the aftermath of the construction site event seems a bit more realistic. In the books they were just like “let’s just sleep it off and it will all blow over by the morning“, but in your story they know that this is all too real and they know that they’re in real danger, so they immediately start to plan.
The way the morphing power works makes it seem less like a children’s superhero story. When you are injured in your true body, you can just morph away the damage. I feel like that doesn’t show the fact that there can be consequences because you can just heal immediately. The morphing time limit being used to kill people is certainly a darker element that you brought to the story, but seeing as how I’ve already read this story before, it kind of makes sense to bring that in for future plot points.
I kind of had a problem with Marco having the idea to take out Cassie, Rachel, and Tobias. I feel like that would be something that he would’ve done in the later books of the series, but they haven’t been severely hardened by war and they’re still just kids. That part seems a little out of character, but for the most part you did keep them a little more in character.
I am really enjoying this story.

Hello.
It’s been a while since I’ve read this story and I’ve decided to re-read it. I think I’m going to review every chapter with my thoughts about it.
The first chapter was a little bit confusing, but good. Elfangor is my favourite character, and I wonder if the part where he says he spent several years in human form means he’s still Tobias‘s father?
Would he have to morph back every hour or so, or does it work differently with morphs combining DNA?
I can’t remember all the specifics of the morphing technology.
I’m going to continue reading and review the next chapter at some point.

i think it lessens the impact to take away melissa not being controlled because instead of a kid being neglected from her parents because they are being controlled by alien slugs its just another kid being controlled like tom rachel wasnt that close with melissa before the visitor either way so the impact wouldnt be the same as tom plus how does some 5 or 6 year old convince their parents to go to some club with random grown ass men and teenagers in it im not even sure if they explained what the yeerks say the sharing does in full detail but still why would they join chapman had a deal with the yeerk so i assume he knew and its not like once they are there they would be forced in instantly because unless they went into the pool itself there would have to be some ordinary non human controllers i assume right?

Now that is scary