Another question for you Otis, are you now or have you ever been a communist. Oh wait. She’s not Oppenheimer and I’m not Joe McCarthy. No I’m much meaner and no amount of loyalty pledges or flag waving could appease me. I want her placed in the Alaskan gulag.
Otis, you have been called before this closed door authors hearing to answer charges of verbosity and dry characterizations not fitting Saturday morning cartoons. How do you answer, keeping in mind that this will direct the course of this investigation? ‘I like sparkles. I buy makeup that has them in it.’ I think we’ve established the route this panel will be taking, forced euthanasia.
Tell me Otis, why in the name of all that is grey, have the aliens come to earth in the first place? Why do they go around conquering planets in the first place? I’d settle for the cliché resource plot because at the rate they multiply it’d have to be a consideration. I’d even go for the old alien empire out to conquer every planet because, like pokemon, they’re just got to catch them all.
I have a feeling her explanation is more mundane and ‘family friendly’ like there just aren’t a lot of nice places to vacation at on Bug Prime and they too wanted to be able to send postcards with picturesque landscapes on them to their relatives back home. ‘Lovely weather on earth near “Grand Canyon”. Wish you were here.’
I just haven’t figured out the alien’s collective purpose. They’re supposed to be benevolent like a Mister Rogers armed with a scalpel and super medicine but Mister Rogers would ram alien material into your body and work you like meat puppet. That’s more for the serial killer who’s been inspired by Jeff Dunham and Ed Gein.
This chapter is called ‘worried’ and that I certainly am. Is this ‘book’ ever going to get near a plot or are we just going to lounge about the house. I imagine this is what it’d be like if To Kill A Mocking Bird was told entirely from Boo Radley’s point of view. At least it’d be told in a non-threatening folksy southern manner which would make a good read by Morgan Freeman. Oh and something would eventually happen like Boo would jump and kill someone. Maybe Boo is watching Jeeve right now and planning her demise.
It’s been a week since the events in the last chapter and it feels a hell of a lot longer. It turns out, people don’t like to be boiled alive in the superheated water of the hot springs. Oh man, those crazy misunderstandings of human physiology that Eve has. What’re you going to do.
Operation Get in Eve’s Pants isn’t going so well for Ian. Eve and Jackie Otis are still cross with each other. Um, who cares? Eve can do whatever she wants no matter how Jackie Otis feels. It’s like when your car starts telling you the door is ajar. Yes I know, maybe I want it open so I can dump out my coffee and then get stopped for being a moron. So sue me car, I’m still going to do it.
Jamie’s out on a raid so Jeeve is worried. It’s okay though because it’s not his first time. Oh, Jamie you raid whore. Been getting around have you and you’re not even partying with eight yet. Are you going for a mount or a particular piece of equip? Cause you’ll never make it with only five people, even is Jared is level seventy.
I still don’t understand how Jamie and Jared can live with Eve. Jared, I suppose, is trying to get Jackie Otis to come out. Jamie is happy to have her around and that doesn’t gel with me. I have a sister and if some alien possessed her I’d do everything in my power to get it out. At minimum I wouldn’t be able to look at her and ever forget that she’s mentally tied to a chair and gagged because some alien wanted to take a tour of my planet. I’d resent that.
Ian drags Eve over to play soccer. She’s loses four to one though the jeers are being drowned out by some obnoxious alien instrument that sounds like a cow being probed by a city bus.
Otis spends more time telling us how Eve stretches for the match than she does the actual soccer. Was this because all that action done tuckered your fat, flaking claws out Otis? Go rest them in a nice hot bath. Once you’ve settled in I’ll bring you a toaster so you can have a nice crispy bagel…in hell!
This is a perfect time to show us that Wes and Lily are together. You know I don’t know who these characters are, they’re just so distinct that I label them, exposition device number two sixty four to give them more depth. Ian uses this opportunity to tell Eve to move on and quick, fall in love with him before the chance of a lifetime passes her by.
Eve taunts Ian by offering to sleep in the same room if he wins a one on one which he does. It also seems Ian can casually remark that the actual owner of the body doesn’t like him and would heartily object to sleeping with him and how unconcerned he is. This feels like impending rape or is it just me?
And suddenly the raiders are back. Good thing Eve invested in Action Girl for those extra point. Aim for the head and hope you get a critical, kid. Jamie’s hurt because he fell with a knife in his hand. Apparently he’s descended from Curly or Shemp to accomplish that.
Finally, because it’s important to what I shall jokingly call the plot, Eve figures can tell when someone is lying. Gee, did somebody get seriously injured nay killed on this raid? We won’t know until the next chapter. I’m hoping it was Eve and that it involves a time machine. That’s one of the few things that could save the pile of fetid dingo’s kidneys.
Vivisector's Writ 
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You may need to sit down when I tell you this little nugget of information; Otis will be doing something in the next few chapters. GASP! So if you need me to send you a paper bag to breathe into do let me know.
Okay, now I can kind of see where Meyer was going with this, but why didn’t she introduce the complication a lot sooner? I mean like, maybe, at the very beginning? Because the way I’m reading it, it’s just in the last couple of chapters that the parasite’s host is suddenly expressing her own free will.
And then you have to think Ian should be concerned with the psychological aspect of being in love with an alien parasite, personality or no. Frankly if I were in the story, her storytelling wouldn’t impress me given that she’s inhabited the body of someone I once knew. I’d hate her and want the human back. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate the idea of aliens. However, I think Meyer should’ve skipped on the parasites and just went down the Star Trek Humanoid Alien path. Aliens could still replace humans and probably wouldn’t even be noticed at first, and then she wouldn’t have to worry about explaining the whole “but these parasitic aliens that are basically taking over entire worlds and possibly committing mass genocide against a variety of other sapient beings are really benevolent and nonviolent and they’d never lie and genocide isn’t bad if you’re this perfect” bullcrap.
But I digress. Looks like something’s finally happening. There’s some arguing between Ian and Jared, and between the parasite and host. The conflict could’ve been worked into a plot if it had been introduced much sooner. How about the host finding ways to take control and sabotage the relationships the parasite is trying to form to save her own sorry exoskeleton? How about underhanded dealings between the two guys? What if Ian were really an alien sympathizer and ended up trying to turn over the survivors to the aliens? It could happen. Or what if Jared manned up and tried to get the doc to extract the parasite from his girlfriend? These things alone don’t really make for a plot, but they could have resulted or contributed to a much more interesting plot about someone betraying them all, getting them discovered by the aliens, and then having to find a way to either fight back or somehow escape. Or else the foolishness of trusting an alien in the first place rather than just killing her would result in everyone dying except for the one who did it, who’d then be possessed by an alien for his troubles–after a brief period of time in which he wallowed in guilt and misery because he knows he’s responsible for the doom of the last few human beings on Earth who still had free will.
But that’s just me.
For any of that to happen, Otis would have had to step out of the box she built for her characters.
Also it might have worked if it had been much shorter.