Parting the Clouds
is a Rational Fic rewrite of Animorphs in which Cassie is recast as a rationalist. It vaguely follows the plot of the original series with some new subplots, removed plotholes and tightened relationships between different aspects of the series, told from a rationalist perspective.
Unusually for a fanfic, except for one Gamebooks installment, no knowledge of the original series is presumed.
Parting the Clouds provides examples of:
- Badass Normal: In a world of mind-controlling slugs, auto-healing shapeshifters and ultra-strong alien robots, the Star Defenders survive by... being kinda good at gymnastics.
- And we get Capt. Torreli in The Endemic, who tussles with a hork-bajir, and body-flips her over. And this feat is enough for all other Controllers to be stunned in disbelief long enough for him to escape and for Ax to get between him and the enemy.
- Being Watched: Her time as an Animorph has given Cassie this sense, and likely so does everyone else in the team.
- Born Unlucky: The Aftran Cassie meets talks about her Pool and her kin experiencing misfortune that claimed much of them throughout the years, and that out of the under-hundred that survived their birth, only four made it to the Earth Yeerk Pool. And two of them were lost when the oatmeal formula contaminated the Pool, and as stated before one of them was killed by Cassie.
- Call-Back: The climax at The Chemotherapy ends with a mass breakout and escape from the Yeerk Pool, just like the first book. This time however, there are a lot more escapees, and it leads to a guard site disguised as a camping ground, and Aftran's brother (and Hork-Bajir host) getting killed by Cassie, leading to the events in the next book.
- Chekhov's Gun: Remember Rachel's shrew morph that she never used again in the original books? Well, she's forced to do it after pushing off the Kandrona device as an elephant and was running ragged. As a shrew, she doesn't need to fly and can be carried (by Tobias).
- Code Name: The Star Defenders have these: so far, there's Cat/Melissa, Liz(ard)/Amanda, and Crow.
- Colorblind Confusion: Cassie and Jake are revealed to have a case of this (and the same type, too) as they confuse the colors of Visser One's soldiers as white-and-black, and Visser Three's as mustard. Marco, who isn't colorblind and was the POV character in the original story being covered at the time, promptly realizes this and corrects them.
- The Confidant: Cassie starts building up a number of these, starting with Melissa (after urging Rachel), the cook who saw the lobsters (i.e. morphed Marco and Ax), Rachel's father (after confirming with Tobias—with Melissa's help—that he isn't a Controller) as a "waypoint" for ex-Controllers to escape to (and she eventually confesses this to Rachel after the crocodile incident, who doesn't take it well), Erek and the Chee King (to escort those ex-Controllers out), and goes on from there.
- Dwindling Party: In The Translocation, same as the book it's covering The Decision, except the first disappearance occurs only sometime after the Animorphs reach Galuit. And this time, the order is not only different, but has a logical pattern in the form of thought-speak range: shortest to longest, Rachel, Marco, Jake, Cassie, Tobias, Ax.
- Emotion Bomb: During one of Temrash's escape attempts, Cassie staggers him by emanating her negative emotions (he had beaned her with a rock moments ago). She considers the possible uses of this "thought-speak emotional blast" later on, and applies them in later books.
- Evil Gloating: Temrash does one of these against the Animorphs when he has Tobias held hostage. This leaves him open for Marco (who was the one pretending to be Jake this time rather than Ax) to come up from behind and grab him, free Tobias, and secure Jake for Cassie to sedate again.
- Foreshadowing: There's... there's a lot of it. Sometimes as a throwaway description 8 or 9 books ahead.
- Gamebooks: One of the books in the series is like this, putting the reader into the world with their current life experiences and no immediate explanation for their circumstances.
- Genre Savvy: Marco is aware of, and actively enforces with his banter, the roles that each member of the group plays.
- Hand Signals: According to Ax, andalites used this method to communicate before proceeding with thought-speak. Cassie's asked him to teach her this language.
- Hollywood Chameleons: Defied when Marco asks Cassie if she has chameleons available for acquiring.Cassie: Contrary to popular belief, the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center does not function solely as a source of DNA for shapeshifting guerilla warriors. And chameleons don't have nearly as good camoflage as the cartoons would have you believe. Now, cuttlefish, on the other hand…”
- It Gets Easier: Cassie fears this of her team, thus why she moralizes despite coming off as a hypocrite sometimes.
- La Résistance: This time around, the Animorphs (plus the Chee, the free Hork-Bajir, and the Yeerk Peace Movement later on) aren't the only groups resisting the Yeerk invasion. There's also the Star Defenders, and who knows who else the Animorphs don't know, and they made a point to not find out; if they ever get Controlled again, there's no point in bringing them all down with them.
- The Masquerade: Both the yeerks and the Animorphs have a vested interest in keeping the war for Earth a secret from the masses. The yeerks don't want an open war because it would destroy so many valuable host bodies, and the Animorphs don't want one because the yeerks would inevitably win, killing hundreds of thousands of people in the process.
- The Animorphs, knowing that the yeerks have a better capacity to cover up Masquerade breaches, occasionally use this to their advantage, either by leaving their own mess for the yeerks to clean up or deliberately pushing fights into populated areas, knowing that the yeerks will have to give up the chase to avoid far too many witnesses.
- The Needs of the Many: Early in the series, a recurring disagreement between Marco and the rest of the Animorphs on whether they were obligated to risk their lives for the chance to save the world was prominent. Since Marco found his reason for fighting, the argument has been between Cassie and the other Animorphs, over how many innocent lives it is acceptable to sacrifice to maximise their chances of saving the planet.
- No Biochemical Barriers: When on other planets, the Animorphs need to be studied for the locals to verify that they can eat their food, but there haven't been any real problems in any species sourcing food on other planets.
- Non-Powered Costumed Hero: The Star Defenders. They first debuted in The Reaction when one of their number, Melissa Chapman, alias Cat, rescued Rachel and Cassie from Controllers that almost spotted them. That said, Melissa only "knows" the Animorphs as Andalite bandits using human morphs.
- Saw It in a Movie Once: Despite claiming she doesn't know how to make fire, Karen/Aftran ends up doing so anyway later on to Cassie's surprise. The Controller invokes this trope and is surprised by how easy she pulled it off. Subverted in that she actually used a Dracon beam to light the firewood.
- The Shrink: Johnson, the school counselor recommended by the school to Cassie in The Incubation. Unfortunately, he supports the Sharing, if he isn't a non-Controller member already.
- Stable Time Loop: The Incubation, just like The Forgotten in the original, is about resolving a Sario Rip. The twist is, the Animorphs now know it's coming thanks to Cassie convincing Jake to share his visions to the group, and they have to figure out how to make sure they survive it. Ultimately, the problem resolved itself just like in canon, but in this version, the Animorphs get to take home a stripped Bug Fighter.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Jordan, one of Rachel's younger sisters.Jordan was a couple of years younger than Rachel, and looked like Rachel in miniature. I don't mean that she looked how Rachel had at her age; Rachel at her age had worn khaki shorts and had the lean muscles of an amateur gymnast and gone lizard-catching with me in the river. I mean that if you looked at Rachel now and tried to imagine her a couple of years younger, you'd have a pretty good picture of Jordan.
- Take a Third Option: In The Offer, on top of what they do in canon with what the Ellimist "provides", they accept his other offer…on the condition that the Animorphs remain to fight. What this means exactly is that it's other people who are taken to the Ellimist's refuge planet instead of the Animorphs.
- Team Dad: Jake, with Marco regularly teasing him with parent jokes.
- Tempting Fate: Marco discusses this when he heard Cassie drugged Jake/Temrash's sandwich with sedative. He said as he looked to the sky, “Oh, nothing. Just waiting for Tobias to come streaking across the sky screaming 'he's escaped!' That sort of thing always happens when somebody starts talking optimistically." No one streaked across the sky until lunch, and it was Ax who did rather than Tobias, who had been held hostage.
- What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: Averted. It's acknowledged that all species know what it is.Aftran: Everyone has love. I’m sure even andalites love each other, when they’re not busy running about killing everybody else in the galaxy and calling it a favour. Our emotions aren’t the same as yours, of course. You probably think your love is better. I think mine is better.
- What Measure Is a Non-Cute??: The Animorphs have a lot of sympathy for human and hork-bajir hosts, but as of yet, no thought at all has been given to the taxxons.
