"Do you have any idea what would be the thing?"

"I like this one but I didn't have any I didn't like to compare with. Sometimes people say their hosts are 'comfy' but that's really just a metaphor, the brains are all the same texture more or less. - except humans have the two-part kind and it's weird, most species don't."

<That's why I have excessively specific preferences about what kind of stone I'd rather be forced to kneel on. If she has thoughts on cartoons instead then - do you think - does that prove she spent time watching cartoons, does it prove something about how likely people she works for are to torture people or...?>

"I think most Earth animals have brains like humans but I hadn't thought about aliens. Do you know if it's very different?"

<I think it proves she watched Avatar. It might be really popular, maybe she's only seen one cartoon and it was that one. No idea how it relates to torture.>

"Well, I haven't been to any other brains but the warning helped, I think the first Yeerks to try humans weren't expecting it and wrapped around one half and were confused about how poorly this worked."

"Oh no. So can you, like, imagine things that could be different that would make you like this host more or less than you do?"

<Can we check if she's seen other cartoons without having seen them ourselves?>

"Yeah, probably. He hates eating and it would be convenient if he didn't, for instance. I think probably a lot of people don't care about what their hosts like because it would be sort of impossible but this one it doesn't seem properly impossible so I'm working on it. Except I do insist that we eat. Yeerks by ourselves don't get to do that at all. He also hated Steven Universe but that wasn't a big deal, we just didn't watch any more Steven Universe, there's lots of other stuff on there."

"Yeah. I'd recommend you stuff but everyone likes Avatar: the Last Airbender, it doesn't really narrow it down at all - now, if you liked Avatar with the blue people, that would narrow it down - not that you asked for recs, I guess."

"There's Avatar with blue people? What's the point of having Avatar but also they're blue?"

"It has nothing to do with the series, it just has the same name. It was really popular for a couple weeks and then everyone basically stopped caring."

"Huh, why?"

"I think it's because it had a lot of innovative effects that made it really pretty, but the plot wasn't really deep or interesting and the thing that was so cool about all the effects was that they were possible at all? The reviews were all like 'it's this detailed picture of an alien planet', I guess, not about what the alien planet was like?"

"Huh. Maybe I should see if they were right about anything on alien planets. I guess I don't know what those literally look like visually."

"I've only seen pictures of planets in this solar system and now I'm curious if you think Mars and Jupiter are cool."

"Never seen them. I have heard Jupiter is unusually large, matters for piloting."

"I guess. Oh, I should be all responsible and ask you - you were saying something about some Yeerks not bothering with what their hosts like, but yours is easy, or something - can you tell me more about that?"

"...well, I think most of them object more to just having a Yeerk at all."

"How much does that matter to you?"

"I think they mostly tune it out. I haven't tried it to know if I'm different."

"There's this stupid problem. The whole thing isn't necessary, we can bring you all out of reach of the Andalites and offer you, man, I bet we could find hundreds of thousands of people who'd be into your whole deal. And being okay with slavery is going to be a dealbreaker for like ninety percent of them."

"There are millions of Yeerks."

"Wouldn't surprise me if there were millions who'd do it for a while if you paid them enough. Wouldn't actually surprise me if there were billions. I haven't thought about that much, I was working on getting a list of people who'd do it for free, since that's already kind of a lot of people for me to sift through."

"And ninety percent of these people only want us to have eyes and hands if we'd be revolted at the thought of taking them without asking?"

"I can reconsider people who'd do it for the good person points while not particularly liking you. I would personally find that even worse than someone scheming against me, but you're not me, of course. And I worry it wouldn't be very sustainable in the longer term, even most people here are only finitely good and there's not a clear end date after which you'll stop wanting eyes and hands."