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I’m very glad to hear that you’re reconsidering your negative opinions on Yeerks and starting to consider being a host! You have nothing to fear from us, especially if you do become a voluntary host; you’d be very well treated.

There’s a lot to address in your message, anon. Let me break down my response into a couple of parts.

First of all, disliking your human host body. I think you might be coming at this issue from the wrong angle. Yes, humans can be disgusting at times, but are other host options really that much better? Right now, you’re romanticizing how it was when you were living as a Taxxon because you’re thinking about all the pains of living as a human, but is the endless unstoppable hunger and the bodily fragility really worth it? To use a human phrase, anon, I think you’re making the mistake of thinking that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

Secondly, the specific issue of the human menstrual cycle. Both of this blog’s mods have female human hosts and have to deal with that as well, so I know your pain on this one. Maybe try talking to your host’s parents about hormonal birth control? It prevents humans from having a child, which is something I highly doubt you’ll be needing, but also has the side effect of reducing the frequency and/or effects of menstruation in most humans. (Oh, and also, there can be a convenient silver lining -- male humans are usually ready to blame any irregularity in a female human’s behavior on “that time of the month” and not ask any more questions. If you slip up in your control or in imitating your host’s behavior and do something that a host’s male acquaintance thinks is weird, just blame it on pre-menstrual hormones and he’s almost guaranteed to drop it. Just a helpful tip!)

But really, the thing that sticks out to me here is that you asked for advice on being promoted quickly. I will say, I’m not a sub-visser or anything so I have to admit this blog isn’t going to be able to give great advice on improving your rank. However, I think the fact that you’re only thinking of promotion as a way to change your host body is a bad sign! You should focus on carrying out your duties and serving the Empire effectively, first of all, and if promotion comes it’ll be as a reward for that. Also, why do you think that promotion will get you out of a human host anyways? You might be transferred to a different human host, but there’s a reason that humans are currently considered the optimal species for infestation. Generally the higher in rank you go, the more likely you’ll be assigned to a human, unless you get picked to be part of testing some newly discovered experimental host species or something like that.

All in all, I think my advice for you would be to try to be rational about this, and that it’s almost certainly easier to change your way of thinking than it would be to get a different host. You could even make a list of the pros and cons of different host species and use that to try and convince yourself that humans aren’t so bad an option. When you see a Taxxon around at the pool, draw on your host’s human instincts and think about how gross they look, to try and get yourself out of the habit of wishing you were still living as a Taxxon.

I’d say it’s definitely too risky to let your host talk to his sister. Even if he promises he won’t say anything, who’s to know that he won’t let something slip, or that once you drop your control over him, you wouldn’t be able to reassert it in time to prevent him spilling his secret to his sister?

If he’s getting too irritating and you don’t think you can put up with his complaints until after his sister’s left, definitely don’t abandon your host over an issue like this! I hate to say it, but... You simply have to be better at asserting control than that.

You did the right thing in coming to us for advice, anon. You’re in a pretty tricky situation, but I’m sure that you’ll be able to convince your Yeerk to see reason!

Often, when Yeerks start taking the questionable ideologies of terrorist or resistance groups seriously, it’s out of some kind of misguided concern for their hosts. These Yeerks might have come across YPM or HYPA propoganda about the dignity of all human beings and the need for a third way, and become convinced that just by existing as a Yeerk, they’re inherently some sort of oppressor. Burdened by “Yeerk guilt” (as the counter-terrorist training manuals have dubbed this ridiculous concept), they then try to “make up for it” by joining extremist organizations devoted to overthrowing the Yeerk Empire and setting our species back by millenia.

You shouldn’t have to be in this position, but it’s up to you to make your Yeerk see reason. Remind them of how ridiculous it is for them to risk your life out of some kind of misguided and condescending concern for you and other humans. After all, your life isn’t so bad--the Sharing has given you a sense of purpose and a life-long community. You’re living proof that infestation isn’t the problem. The problem is human, Yeerk, and Andalite resistance, which slow the takeover of Earth and cause bloody conflicts that put Yeerks and humans in harm’s way for no real reason. 

If your Yeerk truly cares for these abstract ideals of human autonomy and “human rights” they wouldn’t be putting you in this situation. They would respect that you are committed to the Sharing and the Yeerk Empire, and that to use your body to carry out acts of treason would be a dangerous and unforgivable betrayal of the very things they profess to believe. Both in their methods and their end results, Yeerk resistance movements are harming both Yeerks and humans.

This is a pretty common problem, believe it or not. Once humans realize that their screaming is having no effect on your emotional state and their attempts to regain their minds are fruitless, they tend to just spitefully attempt to cause their Yeerk discomfort in any way possible. Since songs and other rhythmic cultural melodies are easy for them to remember and replay on autopilot, but excessively irritating for you to hear over and over, humans like to think they’ve found the perfect strategy for making your life miserable, and maybe even distracting you enough for you to get a message out.

In my experience, the only solution is to fight fire with fire. Because of their subpar mental processing abilities, many humans can’t simultaneously listen to a song and thing about another tune. Try figuring out what music they find most obnoxious, grating, or humiliating, and focus on it when your host starts their shenanigans again (I recommend this song to start, but there are lots of options). All music is equally irritating to you, but if they realize their petty annoyance strategy will cause them irritation too, they might actually stop.

Since it would be impossible for a Yeerk to actually impersonate another Yeerk in the pool to anyone who knows them, that’s a non-issue in the Yeerk military code of conduct. We might all look the same to you humans, but I assure you, we can tell each other apart.

I assume, then, that you’re talking about the issue of a Yeerk stealing another Yeerk’s host for purposes of impersonation, recreation, or vengeance. That usually falls under one of two categories

If the Yeerk whose host was stolen is alive and in the pool, the falsehood is generally uncovered fairly quickly, as they are able to communicate to other Yeerks that their host has been stolen. The other Yeerk is then generally apprehended for questioning. If they resist, they may be killed in the process of the arrest. If they successfully escape, they have condemned themselves to Kandrona starvation. The official punishment, however, is somewhere in the range of demotion and loss of host privileges. Such Yeerks may have been misled by avarice, but they can still be useful to the empire as long as they’re not in a position to repeat their crimes. And while their crime is heinous, the Yeerk Empire believes punishing theft and theft with murder similarly would just lead more Yeerks to commit murder in an attempt to cover their crimes.

If the criminal Yeerk kills another Yeerk and steals their host, it can take quite a bit longer to uncover the crime, as there’s no one to report the theft of a host. However, such Yeerks are generally found out by the underlings or supervisors of the Yeerk they’re impersonating. The officially designated punishment in that case ranges from quick death by execution to slow death by Kandrona starvation, depending mainly on the size of the rank difference between them and their victim.