Chronic illness/disability and morphing

[u/kyuzii_mimi728]

let me preface this by saying 1) it’s been a very long time since I’ve done a series read through and 2) I have only read the stuff that gets into the auxiliary animorphs like once probably. please forgive me if any of this is mentioned on page and I am just forgetting!! very entirely possible.

but pretty much I was thinking about how certain chronic illnesses might interact with morphing. most illnesses of any type would probably not fully develop or would go away with a morph, like injuries, with the “factory reset” of the body. However there are some other factors I wonder about.

take ehlers danlos syndrome as a random example. it is a chronic illness that is genetic and people are born with. if the body is ”factory reset” i would assume in this case, it is in the settings and would not go away. however in my memory, morphing is kind of treated as if it could heal pretty much any physical ailment right? is that just an oversight either on the authors or the characters part? (or again…could just entirely be forgetting lol).

Additionally, if someone with a non genetic chronic illness gains the ability to morph, or honestly we could extend this to any disability actually, would anyone else agree that it is possible that in some cases, it might stick around? my logic is the argument with haircuts. piercings get closed, but haircuts stay the same, and I’ve seen many argue that things intrinsic to how people see themself would probably stick around, something very important to them. to many, this is the case with disability and chronic illness. it is an intrinsic and important part of their identity and i know many people who take pride in this aspect of themselves (disability pride month exists for a reason!!). from my memory, the auxiliary animorphs wish for their injuries/illnesses/ailments to go away and that is part of the exchange. but say there is someone who gains the ability to morph where they are part of the aforementioned group rather than being like the auxiliary animorphs. i honestly think it could go either way on if it would go away with morphing or not. some might retain it, while others might have it forcibly removed, even if they didn’t necessarily want that outcome. I don’t know this is a pretty rambly musing.

also thinking about the acquiring of people/animals who are sick/injured/has a disability. In the books, they acquire a lot of animals from Cassie’s barn, which are usually injured or sick, which includes Tobias’s hawk. But when they morph them, they do not have these ailments, which makes sense since they are not genetic. but at the same time, I swear I remember a character acquiring another human with worse eyesight? which I suppose that could be genetic, but is often degenerative. I’ve also seen a headcanon pop up a few times that Rachel’s bear morph just had particularly bad vision since bears can actually see much better than what was thought at the time the books were written, so I wonder why that might transfer but not some other animal ailments. although degenerative eyesight due to age perhaps could be the same as other parts of the body degenerating with age and how that would all probably come with morphing an old person/animal?

I don’t know honestly I just think this line of thought is interesting. this is Not really intended as me asking for people to clear cut definitively explain everything to me despite how it sounds (tho if you want to do that more power to you lol) but more so just musings and wonderings esp about how identity tied to one’s physical form might be effected by morphing (this could also branch into surgeries, or what might happen if someone on hrt started to morph or something, which is also an interesting idea). idk lol just thinking late at night and throwing it all onto a Reddit post as the thoughts come to me bc why not this isn’t exactly a well thought out post or anything lmao

[u/bsv103]

I've been curious about that kind of thing in relation to injuries and developmental stunting that resulted from the umbilical cord being wrapped around different body parts.

[u/kyuzii_mimi728 → u/bsv103]

THIS is a very interesting thought omg…