Move over Pokemon Go, there's a new reason why college students are wandering around campus.  It's the newest craze in colleges all over the country, and it's most commonly called 'Squish and Seek.'  The rules are simple: catch your target when they least expect it, transform their body into whatever you want, and try to hide them in plain sight.  With the newly released Squish Rater app, the whoever finds the transformed person can take and upload a picture of the person they found and others can rate how clever the hiding place was  Though people say it started as early as in the 1970's, the advent of this new app has caused the practice to skyrocket, especially among women.
    It may sound like it's all fun and games, and while almost all the transformees appreciate the fun, campus officials are getting angry.  Some people have missed multiple days of class due to being so well hidden, and the perpetrators prefer to remain anonymous.  Many professors are upset that they have to do more work in order to help students catch up, as days spent transformed are deemed 'excused absences.'  These professors recommend quick, easy to spot transformations so that the students can quickly be restored and get back to class.  Here, we'll list some popular, easy to find transformations that school officials recommend.
  1. Decal: Probably the most common type.  Just pick your favorite squishing tool and smash whoever you chose.  Of course, if you've been on a campus you probably already know about this.  One would be hard pressed, pardon the pun, to find a single building on a college campus that doesn't have at least one unfortunate woman who was chosen to be splayed out along a wall or across the floor.
  2. Flag: This one is fairly straightforward.  Firstly, flatten your victim using whatever you want.  Then, spread their flattened form out into the shape of a rectangle (rolling pins are recommended for this one, though applying any force over their body repeatedly should work).  Once they are nice and flag shaped, wait until no one is around, pull of whatever flag is on the pole, and replace it with your new flag.  Of course, the flag you take down will probably be another person due to how popular this particular transformation is.
  3. Butt Bongos:  A great and quick option if you want to embarrass someone.  Simply find a small container and quickly slam their head into it.  After that, push them to about their shoulders, but stop there.  At this point, grab their legs and push their feet into the container at the same time as their torso.  If you've done it right, their posterior should be pointing into the air.  Simply continue pushing until nothing but their butt is sticking out, give it a good smack if you want, and place them wherever you wish.
  4. Frisbee:  Seeing as how much college students like to throw a frisbee around, this TF should come as no shock.  Squishing the victim vertically from above by dropping something heavy on them usually gets the job done.  For a more precise circular shape, try slamming a bucket open side down over their head.  They'll take the shape of the bucket, and from there just flatten them out to a more frisbee-like shape.
  5. Clothing:  Very popular with sorority girls.  Start by flattening the person using whatever method you want.  If you don't have any skill with a sewing machine, fret not.  Just ask around for a tailor and you'll surely find someone on campus willing to help you make your fresh prey into whatever article of clothing you want (depending on the tailor's skill, of course).  Sometimes, this one is done between sorority sisters as a bonding experience.  Make sure to ask the tailor to hide the face if you don't want to be noticed wearing a person right away.



    While these are fun and common TFs, they aren't the ones that get the highest ratings.  Now, we'll be discussing some of the top rated transformation-hiding-spot combinations on the Squish Rater app.
    The first we'll be discussing is a classic taken to the extreme.  Diane was walking along a wall, taking a path that most people don't take.  Suddenly a group of masked people jumped out at her and flattened her to an extreme degree.  We interviewed her about her experience:

    "So there I was, walking along, minding my own business, when suddenly this group of like, 5 people in masks jump outta nowhere.  At first I was scared for my life, until I noticed they were carrying a bunch of stuff that I had seen other people use to squish people with and I just thought, 'aw crap, I'm gonna get squished or something.'  I looked behind me to see the wall I was in front of was covered in graffiti, and when I turned around they were on me.  It didn't  take long until I was flat as cardboard, but they just kept going and going and going.  I felt myself get thinner and thinner, and when I thought I couldn't get thinner I got thinner.  I thought they were just goin' crazy, but I noticed during the whole thing that they were methodically squishing me in certain places.  Anyway, they eventually left, leaving me wider and a lot thinner.  I figured, hey, someone's bound to see me soon like this, but a bunch of people went by me without even giving me a second glance.  I only figured out after I saw the picture of me why no one was noticing that I was a person."

    It was clear to anyone who has seen the picture of Diane's flattened form that the TF-ers had put some thought into this one.  Diane was so obviously there, but the perpetrators made her look exactly like the graffiti she had been squished against.  They had smushed her so thoroughly that she had become like a layer of paint on the wall.  She was even made to look like a cartoon character, with her features smoothed out as though there had been outlines around parts of her and someone had used the 'fill' command in Microsoft Paint.  Diane wasn't noticed until five days later, when one of her friends recognized her after walking by a few times.  After that, it took two days to power wash her off the wall and restore her.  Diane was not too upset by what happened:

    "I mean, it was pretty inconvenient to make up the work I missed, but I felt super hot getting stared at by all the guys passing by.  I've gotten so many dudes' numbers out of this."

    Next up is Katie, who become the life of the party for a night last year.  Katie's roommate called her from the bathroom, telling her that there was an emergency, and when Katie ran in her roommate and some friends all turned their hair dryers on her.  Katie was quickly melted down into a puddle.  Later that night, the friends hosted a party at their sorority house.  Little did the guests know, they and Katie were about to get very well acquainted.
    Katie's friends poured parts of her melted form into the kegs of alcohol they had bought for the party.  As for the rest of Katie, each friend kept a small vial of her to pour into the drinks of the guests when they weren't looking.  The friends made sure to leave a couple drops of Katie behind for restoration, but other than that the other 99% of her body was drunk by the party goers.  She had this to say about it:

    "Yeah, that was pretty crazy right?  It was so weird, I was in so many different places at once, it felt like I was being touched everywhere at the same time...  At first it kinda sucked because of how cold the beer was, but every time I felt myself go into to someone's mouth, the warmth... and the intimacy... when I met their lips it was like being kissed all over all at once...  Anyway, a lot of people told me that I should be mad at them for turning me into everyone's drink, but really it was such a unique and cool experience that I'm not mad at all!"

    Katie went on to mention that she wouldn't mind experiencing more TF's before she graduated from college.  It was reported that many of the people at that party commented on how the beer tasted oddly sweet.

    Lastly, this TF was fairly recent, but has shot up in popularity to be the highest rated, both for the transformation and the cleverness of the hiding spot.  We interviewed Taitum's roommate Stephanie to learn about how Taitum broke the record on the app for longest time unnoticed:
    
    "So Taitum had told me about how she and some random girl got into this big fight about something, and I wish she had told me her name or else I was kick her ass myself.  Anyway, I woke up the morning after and I sorta felt this little itch on my face and I thought it was a zit so I went in the mirror.  I look, but all I see is my usual, freckled face.  I noticed Taitum was missing but I thought she just went to class or something.  The day goes by, she's still not back, so I figure she might have gotten transformed.  Next day, still not there, so I look around the room and can't find her anywhere.  Next day I double checked the room and smiled to myself, thinking about how she would probably end up on the front page of Squish Rater despite how stupid she thinks this whole thing is.  As each day goes by, I think that the next day they'll surely find her.  By the end of the first week, I was starting to get worried, so I gathered up a bunch of people and told them to go searching.  We kept our eyes peeled for the next week, and we still couldn't find her.  By now I thought maybe she was being kept somewhere by some weirdo, so I was super worried.  Week after that, I found out I was kinda right.  I was missing her, so I had a picture of the both of us together on my computer while I was putting on makeup.  Suddenly, I noticed something was kinda off.  I looked at my face in the mirror, then looked at my picture, then put them up side by side next to each other.  I noticed that my face had the same exact freckles as the old picture, except for one kinda big one.  Well, big for a freckle.  So, just out of some weird desire, I go in the bathroom and scrub my face really, really hard, like, to the point where it was hurting.  I pulled the wash cloth away from my face when I was done and saw that the freckle had come off.  'That's really weird,' I said to myself, and where I felt my face where it used to be it felt like some kind of glue had been there.  I thought about it for a second, then I realized what had happened.  Some bitch had squashed Taitum down to the size of that tiny little freckle and glued her onto my face while I was sleeping!  I was so f---ing angry- I'm still so f---ing angry- that I almost lost Taitum down the drain when I was throwing a fit about it."

    Yes, you read that write readers; Taitum spent an entire three weeks as nothing more than a freckle on her own best friends face.  Though this TF has been criticized by some commenters on the Squish Rater app for it's going out of hand, few can deny that in terms of the 'hiding in plain sight' aspect of the Squish and Seek game, it is the most impression TF yet.  Though she was found, Taitum is not out of the woods yet.  A week after the incident, poor Taitum is still a tiny little dot due to various factors.  The campus restoration clinic is understaffed and is overflowing with people waiting to be restored.  Not only that, the intense nature of Taitum's entire body being squished to a size smaller than a dime for so long makes it hard for the clinic to even work on restoring her.  Taitum even got lost for a few hours because of how small she was!  In any case, the campus authorities have assured everything that they'll make sure to get Taitum back to normal, and that they're granting her a $10,000 scholarship to avoid a lawsuit... or maybe they said it was to show how sorry they were about the ordeal.
    Fortunately for everyone else, most people participate in Squish and Seek for fun, and Taitum's ordeal has caused campuses all over to post warning signs and guidelines on how to play.  These universities hope to reduce unfortunate incidents everywhere by asking people to stay alert.  Some wealthier campuses have even started giving out almost microscopic trackers that can sense intense pressure for those who are afraid of not being found immediately.  
    So remember, watch out for rolling pins and transform responsibly!