#do not think of the berensons for more than 10 seconds

[lilacsolanum]

For your meme: if Jake's parents Cannot Deal with him after the war, what about Rachel's family? Saddler's family? Can Jordan or Sarah look at Jake in the eye? Does Dan want to punch something every time Jake's name is mentioned? Does Naomi flinch every time she hears the name Cassie (or any other Animorph's names)?

I THINK ABOUT POST WAR BERENSONS MORE THAN MOST PEOPLE.—Naomi Berenson had a begrudging affection for the Hork-Bajir, but Toby she would never be truly at ease with Toby. She was too dangerous. It was one thing to be eternally armed with sharp blades, but ultimately be too stupid to really know what to do with them. It was another to be a seven foot alien and also understand California zoning laws You couldn’t really tell the Hork-Bajir apart, not without really knowing them and picking out some inane detail, but you always knew which one was Toby. She walked with a heaviness and a purpose that the others just didn’t have.Naomi knew it was Toby walking toward her, and she tensed.Toby handed her four envelopes, all pink, all smelling of Rachel’s favorite perfume. Naomi recognized the scent. It was what she used to wear, before Rachel made it her signature.Naomi was too empty inside to cry. The loss of a child was a pain far beyond anything with which the body could react.“She gave this to me,” said Toby gently, “To give to you if she died.”Naomi took the envelops, her heart fluttering sickly against her numb emotions. “Thank you,” she said.Toby nodded, then left.There were four letters. Mom, dad, Jordan, Sara.Naomi put them in her purse, then into a suitcase, then into a dresser drawer in her new house. It took her ten months to open them. She read hers in a bathtub, soaked both in sweet smelling oils and Belvedere, and she cried in a screaming way while feeling entirely distant. It was a step toward healing, which was a scarred thing for a mother, but a possible thing.Rachel’s letter said many things. Big things, small things. Least of all, it said to not to hold it against Jake.She hadn’t spoken to her nephew since that day. There had been no time. Jake had ceased to be the too serious child her in-laws were in the process of spoiling, and had become a symbol and a legend far out her reach. It was all for the best. If she had seen Jake the day she finally understood what had happened above Earth that day, she would currently be in jail.When she did finally contact him, she thanked him, because without his guidance of her sadistic daughter, worse consequences than the loss of her life would have befell them all. Then, she requested that they never, ever speak again. Jake understood entirely.

—

Naomi sends Rachel’s letter to Dan in the mail. He receives it, reads it, and cries for the first time since he was a boy. The sensation was disturbing. He was disturbed to find he felt sick afterwards, almost hungover. There’s a reason he left tears up to the women.

Rachel’s letter specifically told him to never forget about Jordan and Sara. It was the last request she ever made of him, his poor daughter who had gone through so much while he slept with P.A.’s in Connecticut. That night, he promised himself and her memory that he would never forget about his other two daughters, no matter how busy his life got. Even if he was never quite sure what to do with Jordan and Sara. Even if the longer he spent away from his daughters, the less connected he felt to them.

He never kept his promise.

—

Jake had to wait a while to talk to George and Ellen.

Life was a dizzy affair after the war. There was this event and that medal, this conversation and that handshake. The Animorphs were much too busy learning how to find the right camera and how to attach a lav mic to tie up loose ends. There came a time, finally, after the three sent Ax back to his homeworld (an event that was shown on all networks simultaneously) that they finally had time to talk.

Marco pulled Jake from his hotel room. They went into Cassie’s. Cassie sat on her bed, Jake at the desk, and Marco remained standing. This elevated him, made him larger. In these matters, he was the new general.

He looked at the two of them. “David,” he said.

David’s parents were a liability. They Animorphs had a certain image to uphold, an image that was very important. Jake had to kiss babies, Cassie had to wear skirts, and Marco had to always smile. This was their life now. They couldn’t have a story leak about about the Andalite bandits clearly abducting, then losing, a child. Too many Yeerks knew it had happened, least of all the ones in David’s family.

It was decided, by Cassie, that they would tell David’s parents that he had been a hero. That he had tried to fight, and had failed. That he died in battle, wrapped in the body of a golden lion.

It was decided, by Marco, that he was the one who would track down the family and speak to them. Marco was the only one who could swallow it all down, and truly stomach the lie.

Marco told them it went well. He said the story he made up held weight. Surpisingly-unsurprisingly, David’s parents wrote a book about him. It was called The Seventh Animorph. People spoke of his heroics more than they did of Tobias. 

After the book’s release, Jake drove to his aunt and uncle’s. They hadn’t been in much contact. Ellen and George had isolated themselves and their family over the years. It wasn’t a sudden shut down, or a finality of events, but a slow freeze that crept through the family like lips turning blue. There was Ellen and George, with wet faces and red eyes, mourning their son and their sanity. Then, there was less of them. Then, there was nothing.

They let Jake in with solemn faces. They offered him dry scones and weak tea. Jake waved it all away. He was in no position to accept even the humblest of offerings.

He explained what truly happened with David, leaving out David’s unsavory ending. He told them that it was David’s morphing Saddler that created the miracle, and that David’s murder of the half-dead shell-boy solved the mystery of the elevator.

Ellen stood up, pushed her shoulders back, and spat on him.

Jake didn’t know what to do. He had rehearsed every angle of this conversation, but had never anticipated that particular reaction. It was animal, uncouth and undignified, and on some level, Jake knew he deserved it.

“I know it’s hard to understand,” Jake said calmly, using his firmest tone, “But it is the truth.”

That’s when the screaming began. Jake said nothing. This outcome, he had expected. He bore it as best he could and, an hour later, when it hadn’t subsided, he quietly excused himself, and left.

He never saw Ellen and George again, and he never would.

—-

There should be a word for the friends of a sibling, Jordan thought. It’s not that they’re important to you, not really, but they’re consistent and comforting. Cassie had slept over at Rachel’s house so many times that she had her own toothbrush in the bathroom. Every summer, Naomi organized a late-July visit to The Gardens, and while Jordan and Sara had a rotating cast of friends, Rachel always brought Cassie. Cassie was a sort of family member, in her own little way. Berenson-adjunct.

Jordan never knew Cassie that well, but she knew enough to see the changes in her. She wore make-up, now, and pantyhose. She had to, to get people to listen. Jordan was eighteen, and she had already learned that lesson.

Cassie was on the TV, rambling about this, that, or the other. Yellowstone, Hork-Bajir, Brazil, who cared. Jordan didn’t. She turned off the TV, relishing in her ability to do so.

Jordan had been living on her own for six months. She’d moved out while her mom was at work. She lived alone in a nice, new apartment, one that was just a few blocks from the Santa Barbara Andalite tourist center. This suited Jordan. She worked at the Cinnabon. She liked Andalites a lot, and was always especially patient with them, even when they were arrogant and frustrating. She made the staff keep it a secret that she was Rachel Berenson’s sister. She missed her big sister terribly, but she’d been young and malleable when it happened, and she survived, and she didn’t want the shadow to hang over her any more.

That’s why she left her mother’s house as soon as she could. She needed to be in complete control of her life. She needed to decide what to watch, when she wanted to watch it, even if that meant Cassie was on the screen.She couldn’t have done it without Jake. He’d helped her load everything into a truck, and went shopping with her to buy the sort of things a freshly eighteen-year-old didn’t have. He paid for the apartment, actually. She never could afford to live here, not on a Cinnabon salary.

Jordan stretched out on her brand new couch, very specifically not caring that she was still wearing shoes. She turned the TV back on, just to see Cassie’s face.

—

Sara never moves out. Sara lives with her mother for so long that, eventually, her mother lives with her. Sara marries half-heartedly, and he moves into the house that Rachel’s reward money built. He’s a nice boy, attractive and simple, and he doesn’t mind the attachment Sara and her mom have for one another. Sara likes to be needed, and her mother needs to have Sara. It it up to eldest daughters to challenge their mothers, while the youngest daughters provide stability and comfort. Sara does her job well.

— 

Jean and Steve Berenson felt sick with how much had slipped past them. But who could blame them?

The Sharing was a healthy, helpful organization, they thought, and they were proud that Tom had taken such a strong interest. Jake spent entirely too much time with Marco, but little Marco clearly needed Jake’s influence. Their boy was good, and Marco was without a mother and had much too much freedom. Their boys were both so, so good.

A childless house meant they could discuss what needed to be discussed. They discussed Jean not bringing in any more money, relying on Steve to take on clients he had no time for. They discussed Steve using his long office hours as an excuse to just not come home. They discussed Steve’s shirts smelling like his secretary’s perfume, and his secretary avoiding Jean’s eyes whenever she visited. “You’re doing exactly what Naomi did to Dan,” Jean would say, tear choked and desperate, and Steve would scream, “You’re not! Fucking! Listening!”

It was hard to notice that they were fighting in a war when Jean and Steve were locked in one themselves.

It was a well known fact that a child’s death often dissolves a marriage, but Steve and Jean survived against all odds. There was no such blueprint for couples that lost one child, who was an imposter the entire time, because their other child sent their niece to kill him in a kamikaze mission. Steve and Jean had been through more than they could sort through, and the only people they had were each other.

When the war ended, Jean and Steve renewed their vows. They invited Jake, but he was not in the ceremony.

They were as relieved as they were horrified that he had left Earth in a rogue Yeerk vehicle. They never spoke of it, but all three knew that a love without like was all the family had these days. They loved Jake, really and truly, but it so hard to look at him and not see their eldest. Jake would never say it, but it was just as hard for him to see the two people who had been so close, and had noticed nothing.

Every year, Steve invites Dan and George for Rosh Hashanah. They never come.

#animorphs #overzelos #zelos u da mvp #berensons #do not think of the berensons for more than 10 seconds #it is very sad

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

David's actual return was... bad. What would a good return have been like? As a kid I always expected someone to find him and for him to end up in Yeerk custody and that'd be how they found out who the Animorphs were. I do kind of like Crayak using him but just to get to Rachel, because it'd be a bad idea to give any power to David.

I really like that idea of David finding a way to tell the yeerks about the Animorphs!  It even fits with the existing structure of the series – he returns in #48, and the yeerks find the Animorphs in #49.  

My own suggestion for how to make The Return better?

Make it not a dream.

I have a peeve about dream plots, I’ll acknowledge.  I think that at best they can be an opportunity for an eensy bit of characterization, a heapton of setting, and exactly zero plot.  That said, there are also many scenes in #48 that are potentially scary/cool/interesting, if they just happened for realsies.

If the events of #48 really did occur in canon, then:

Jake and Rachel do what they’ve been threatening since #7, and have an argument that escalates into physical violence.

This helps set up Rachel going full Blood Knight in #52, and Jake doing the same in #53, because these two keep each other ethical-ish any time they butt heads over morality and are forced to defend their decisions to each other.  If the Berensons’ bond has fractured to the point where they’re brawling in morph, then each of them is lacking the other as a check on their behavior.

Marco and Ax’s intelligence analysis determines that (even though they didn’t know it at the time) the events of #46 were the final straw for the yeerks’ secrecy.

The conversation between Rachel and Marco at Ax’s scoop helps sell the idea that the Animorphs’ world is slowly coming to an end.  Too many humans witnessed too much on that aircraft carrier, too many hosts have escaped the yeerks, and the invasion is becoming an open secret.  It’s ominous as hell, because the Animorphs have an inkling that the start of open war will be the end of their ability to live at home with their families, and it’s highly effective at setting up the events of the next several books.

Rachel kicks the elephant in the room by pointing out that Marco and Ax get away with bloodthirstiness while she doesn’t, because gender.

Rachel basically comes out and tells Tobias that Marco is every bit as ruthless as she is, and that Ax is just as quick to kill.  And she’s not wrong.  But Marco and Ax kill coldly, they kill rationally, they kill from a distance, and they kill as boys.  Rachel kills quickly, she kills angrily, she kills up close, and she kills as a girl.  Therefore, their friends don’t tell Marco he’s “worrying” (#22), “terrifying” (#35), “out of control” (#37) or “psycho” (#52).  Their friends don’t get into screaming matches with Ax or act frightened of him.

But Rachel’s a girl, and nice girls are supposed to control their emotions.  Nice girls aren’t supposed to enjoy growing into big strong creatures who can rip their enemies apart.  Nice girls should never be aggressive, and if they are it’s probably because they’re too emotional.  It’s a good point, one I wish came up more often.

Crayak’s deal with Rachel comes due in a way that none of the Animorphs could’ve predicted.

If everything with David is canon, then there’s a fascinating follow-up to Crayak’s offer in #27.  Crayak isn’t just drawing on Rachel’s violent side, he’s drawing on her Achilles heel: that David gets under her skin.  It’s a great wrap-up to the Crayak plot.  It shows that Rachel’s the Ellimist’s favorite not because of her natural-born gifts, but because of her choices.  She’s capable of ruthless violence, but whenever possible she chooses compassion.

There’s also the fascinating ambiguity in the line “kill your cousin,” and the fact that Rachel interprets it to mean Jake — and of course she’s about to kill Tom.  Dozens of fandalites have expended gallons of ink on the question of how to interpret that motif, but it has far more impact if Rachel truly is talking to Crayak in this book as well as in #27.

Cassie’s forced to confront what they did to David.

Leaving aside Rachel for a second, there’s a ton of potential for how this book could change Cassie going into her Big Character Moment in #50.  She never feels the level of guilt over David that Rachel and even Jake do, I think partially because Cassie’s morality isn’t nearly as human-centric and therefore not nearly as horrified by the idea of making a human into a rat.  But if Cassie’s confronted with the reality that she designed and executed a plan that ended with a kid her age trapped in what he considers to be a fate worse than death, then the implications for her character development are almost infinite.

Rachel embraces an unpretty female power fantasy.

I love mecha-Rachel.  Mecha-Rachel is big and ugly and strong, capable of ripping her enemies limb from limb while still being fundamentally Rachel-shaped.

Rachel, maybe more than any other Animorph, has to put up with society telling her that her body is wrong.  Everyone from Marco to her gymnastics coach feels entitled to tell her that she’s too big and tall for a girl.  Everyone from random guys on the street to her own classmates feels entitled to sexualize her body because she’s female.  Rachel doesn’t feel mismatched or dysmorphic the way Tobias does, but she is aware of (and fed up by) the expectations of what her body “should” be.

Mecha-Rachel is unfeminine to the extent that she takes up space — a lot of space — and takes no prisoners.  But she’s still got the aspects of femininity that Rachel loves, from flowing hair to long nails.  Mecha-Rachel is exactly the kind of shape that makes morphing so fun to fantasize about, especially for little girls.

Rachel kills David.

This is maybe what I want most out of #48: for Rachel to kill David for real.  Because, as she tells Cassie, somebody has to do it.  Because she’s strong enough.  Because she’s compassionate enough.  Because she understands David.  Because she understands herself.  Because she’s been a rat, and she’s been just like David in lots of less literal ways.  Because she doesn’t know what the right answer is, so she’s willing to respect David’s wishes for lack of a better way out.

Visser Three gets kidnapped and thrown out of a pokéball and beheaded and then gets better and yet also mysteriously thinks that it’s not suspicious at all one of the andalite bandits looks like a giant human, oh and also there are sentient rats who speak their own rat language.

On second thought, we can leave out all of this nonsense.

Honestly, 99% of my frustration with this book comes from the fact that I can’t tell how seriously to take it.  If it’s just a dream, then a fat lot of nothing happens in the war between #47 and #49, and Rachel’s last book before her death also contains a fat lot of nothing.  If it was something that happened in canon, then I think I’d really enjoy everything in this book except the (non-David) sentient rats.  With only a few tweaks — the first scene taking place in California not D.C., the fight with Visser Three getting cut, the sentient rats getting swapped for more human minions — it works pretty well as a real Animorphs plot, one that helps smooth the transition in both tactics and morality that occurs in the last ~10 books.  This book has some genuinely cool stuff in it, and I want that cool stuff to be part of the real events of the story.

#animorphs #david animorphs #the return #48 #animorphs spoilers #rachel berenson #animorphs meta #joysweeper #asks

[ramblings-of-a-mad-cat]

Here The Remembrance anon!

Before I continue reading, I'll tell two Facts

So, since my HP Games Oc's are normally based in Zodiac Signs Jacob Is not an Exception, I Like to think about him as a Capricorn. Because What Best to fight The Fire Of a Leo that an Earth Sign Like Capricorn? He's More focused in actual sucess and Is Usually More Of Thinking about The Family reputation and needs than Other things and Like yeah, He's The calm and collected type and that's What he wants Other People to think about him. he Will Never show Himself weak in front Of Others because he fears Others Think “How are we suppose to follow This guy? He doesn't even know What He's doing” and Like, sees Arthur too Selfless for His own Good and that's The reason he wants him to stay Out Of His way to Fight R.

Also, The reason Why I make Arthur based in Leo Is because Rakepick's Lioness Patronus, I Actually Liked Some Of The Parallels between Rakepick and MC. I Like to think Arthur really looked up at Rakepick and... Kinda see her as a Mother figure. The worst Is, Arthur hates using The Patronus Charm now because His Patronus Is a lion Cub and that always remind him Of His Relationship with rakepick

Welcome back!

So, speaking as a Capricorn myself, (something Luca and Gail inherit) I love this. I’ve never really been into the whole zodiac calender beyond just kind of treating it as a fun game, but it can be an interesting thing to determine for characters. I like being a Capricorn - earth has always been the element that I align myself with the most, and I adore goats. Probably not as much as Aberforth, but they are still cool and cute. 10/10, would pet. It’s so interesting that you mention the clashing of fire and earth as well, because my Jacob is 100% fire. But for this Jacob, I love what you’ve done with the whole concept of him being focused on trying to be, and appear, the role of a leader. Almost gives me Jake Berenson vibes...

Also, you didn’t need to absolutely destroy me with that second idea but here we are. Like, damn, that’s amazing. Rakepick is absolutely the problematic mentor and all of those Year 5 memories are tainted in hindsight, especially if MC projected an unconventional motherly role onto her. The Lioness being a maternal symbol only makes this worse. It’s almost like a twist on the typical theme of how a mother’s love always wins in the Potterverse. And for Arthur’s Patronus to be a lion cub...well first of all, I like it because it reminds me of Regulus, but beyond that it so works this concept. I love it when characters hate/don’t want to cast their Patronuses because of what they reveal about their souls, like Snape and Remus. Can you imagine Arthur coming back to the dormitory and throwing out the Rakepick robes? (Which I still want...) 

#HPHM Jacob #Patricia Rakepick #HPHM Headcanons #The Remembrance Anon

[words-writ-in-starlight]

Jake Berenson

Jesus, my poor boy, yeah, okay.

Send me a character and I’ll write 10 headcanons!

Jake is surprised to discover it, but he genuinely likes history.  Not so much the context he’s studying it in--thinking God, okay, if I’d known that a year ago then the Yeerk pool would have gone differently or Okay, if we had to hold our ground then this would be a good reference--but it’s satisfying, being able to see all of it laid out neatly in front of him.

Relatedly, most history nerds have favorite and least favorite periods of history.  Jake doesn’t really have the luxury of that, but the wars he learns about the most are WWII and Vietnam, for obvious reasons.  One went down in history as a case of obvious moral wrong with massive civilian casualties, the other as a relatively small force turning back a far larger, more heavily armed, and generally more formidable tide.  Jake doesn’t need to be a genius to gather that those wars are going to have helpful reference points for him.  He also reads a lot about the American Revolution, because he recognizes some of the Animorphs’ own tactics in the Continental Army.

If Jake were fighting the war today, after Hamilton was released, his tactical byline would be outrun, outlast, hit ‘em quick, get out fast, because there’s just no other way to stay alive.

Jake’s least favorite war to read about is World War I.  It’s so senseless.  He can never read about it without thinking about the battle for the Iskoort.  An entire species on the line and for what?  A game?  Someone’s pride?  And in order to win, they forced the execution of the Howlers, put every Howlers’ life on the line with Crayak.  On a bigger scale, their war is nothing if not trench warfare, and Jake feels a kind of sick fascination reading about chemical weapons (oat-freaking-meal) and no man’s land (the untouchable Sharing members) and the innocents caught in the line of fire (Tom, Tom, Jake’s brother the prisoner).

Be the end of the second year of the war, history is the only class Jake has higher than a C in.  He’s only maintaining that C in algebra because Ax does his homework.  His grades in everything else (except things like art or gym, where you get credit for showing up) are flat out terrible.  He’s permanently grounded by his parents, and he sits and listens to the lectures and does what he has to do.

Jake has nightmares about that first Sario Rip.  He has nightmares a lot, these days.  It’s usually about people dying, about his people dying, and there’s something indefinably worse about the Sario Rip dreams, because they’re not dreams.  They’re memories.

Jake doesn’t do it on purpose, but it has to be done--he learns to sleep through his nightmares and wake up silently.  Those first few weeks and months of the war, Jake woke up maybe three nights a week screaming.  Once the paranoia gets bad enough, he stops screaming.  His parents, at the time, think it’s an improvement, these strange night terrors that Jake can’t remember stopping and disappearing.  Later, they remember the way that Jake seemed to age overnight, a time lapse of a teenager turning into a general.

Jake used to be terrified of horror movies, which he knew because Tom loved horror movies and liked to make his little brother watch them.  Tom--the Yeerk in Tom’s head--keeps up the illusion and needles Jake into watching one with him, some six months after the start of the war, and Jake sees the serial killer on the screen, and he laughs.  It’s not a happy laugh, it’s cold and a little ragged, like someone trying not to cry, but it bursts out of him before he can stop it.

“Finally got over it?” the Yeerk asks with Tom’s mouth, making just the right smirk with Tom’s eyes.

“Dunno,” Jake says once he stops laughing.  “I guess there are scarier things in the world than some guy with a chainsaw, you know?”

Jake goes to school one day, a year and change into the war, and one of his old friends, one of the guys who tried out for the basketball team with him, comes up and hesitantly starts talking to him.  Jake wonders, for a moment, why the guy seems so tentative, and then--and then Jake realizes he can’t remember the last time they spoke.  He can’t even remember the guy’s name.

Jake and Rachel attend Saddler’s funeral.  Their families make them go, but don’t question it when the two of them stand side-by-side in silence the entire time.  They spend the entire service staring at the coffin like they’re waiting for him to rise from the dead.  Hard for someone who was thrown down an elevator shaft to manage it, though, or so Jake thinks to himself when he finally slips away to throw up.

After it all.  After everything.  Jake goes to his aunt and uncle and sits down quietly at their dining room table.  He tells them everything.  He tells them how their son was a casualty in his war, and how their miracle was an attempt to take his team out of commission, and how their son’s murderer was a child not much older, and how that child died at the hands of his dead cousin, his bruiser, his enforcer, his weapon.

They never speak to Jake again.  This does not surprise him.

#jake berenson #prince jake #animorphs #headcanon meme #ask meme #LITERALLY NO ONE ELSE MAKES MORE THAN A ONE-SENTENCE APPEARANCE HERE #i THINK tom gets mentioned twice #talk to me for infinity about jake and his thing for history #about jake having to have THAT conversation with his aunt and uncle #cassie might take it upon herself to talk to david's parents (out of responsibility) or even marco (because he's ruthless enough to do it) #but jake would have the one with saddler's parents #his family was killed and his family became a killer and it was HIS CALL (a vote but still his call) to bring david into the fold #this is his duty #he burns that bridge himself #idiot teenagers with a queue #anonymous #asked and answered