#saddler berenson

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

In Eleutherophobia-verse, what does Saddler’s family know about what actually happened to him?

So on paper, what happens during #21 - 22 is:

Saddler gets traumatic brain injury (TBI)

Doctors tell Saddler's family he's probably not going to make it; everyone says their goodbyes

There's an incident in an elevator? No one at the hospital seems to have good answers about this

Saddler wakes up, conscious and coordinated, albeit with no memory and some personality changes

Doctors go "this is not even the weirdest thing that's ever happened with a TBI" and send Saddler home

Saddler disappears from his room that night, is never seen again

Everyone else is operating with slightly different amounts of information. So I think that it really does depend on which family member we're talking about.

Jake and Rachel: Know that the "Saddler" who recovered then ran off was actually David, and that Saddler's dead while David's gone. However, don't know what actually happened to Saddler's body (eaten by lion? dropped down elevator shaft? slipped into morgue as John Doe?) and don't really have the means to find out.

Jean, Steve, Dan, Naomi: Have enough distance from the whole mess that they've talked and arrived at the not-unreasonable conclusion Saddler's "recovery" was temporary and that he died shortly after disappearing. They figure he had a burst of consciousness that concealed an ongoing brain bleed, but became disoriented that night and wandered into a river or road that got him killed. Given how weird TBIs are, Steve (an M.D.) might conclude this is 100% possible.

George and Ellen: Probably clinging to the possibility that their son is still alive out there somewhere. Since they know Saddler well enough to have noticed just how out-of-character his behavior was after he "regained consciousness", they're justified in assuming that he really might be wandering around somewhere with amnesia and unable to find his way back.

Brooke and Forrest: Were younger when all this went down, and so have more of an impression that everyone else thinks their brother's still alive.

Justin: Suspects that the yeerks infested Saddler for some reason, and that the Saddler who "woke up" was a yeerk who made temporary use of Saddler's body. Doesn't have any answers — he tried asking Tom about it and came up empty — but can't rule it out.

Tom: Knew the instant Saddler "woke up" that some type of alien bullshit was going down. To this day doesn't know what said bullshit was, since Essa 412 didn't know anything either. Deep down, Tom suspects that Jake and Rachel made Saddler an Animorph to save his life, only to have Saddler get killed on his first mission. But Tom does not want to know that. Given Jake's one indirect allusion to Rachel having killed a failed seventh Animorph, Tom does NOT want to know that.

#animorphs #animorphs meta #saddler berenson #tom berenson #david animorphs #jake berenson #rachel berenson #seriously tho 'guy goes into coma; guy regains consciousness for no discernable reason; guy seems fine until suddenly runs off' #is not actually THAT weird on the scale of weird-ass things that've been observed after a TBI #brains are weird and we don't actually know that much about how they work #anyone who says differently is selling something

[krakendra]

Honestly, Saddler Berenson is such a fun thing for us to forget about. I love David, we all know this. But I don't gloss over his foibles. And those that dislike David always bring up his apparent murder of Tobias, the murder attempt of Jake, him betraying the Animorphs...

Saddler was a dying kid who was in an elevator one moment and was missing the next. David replaced him. No matter what happened there, Saddler's dead. He's not found later, his body isn't even recovered. He's just gone. Whether David killed him or left him somewhere to die slowly, Saddler didn't make it.

Rachel and Jake don't really think about it ever again. He was an annoying, unpleasant cousin IIRC. Probably their trauma over David, what he did to them and what they did to him (especially our girl Rachel) eclipses it.

But. as the reader, we forget about Saddler too. Arguably, the biggest sin David committed, and he's left by the wayside. It's a little fascinating.

#poor george and ellen #we never hear from them again #animorphs #david jackson #what a dick #death cw

[princeseerow]

*plot relevance may vary

for the purposes of this poll i only want to consider characters with relatively little screen time, so no toms, evas, or ereks, but they may show up in a poll of their own depending on how this one goes

#animorphs #polls

[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

[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

[natcat5]

Headcanon about the Ellimist’s ‘Stacked Deck’

I’ve been thinking about Crayak and the Berensons. 

Mostly, I’ve been thinking about Drode’s accusation that the Ellimist ‘stacked the deck’ with Marco, Cassie, Tobias, and Ax, with both Rachel and Jake left out of the equation. And from there, I think it’s interesting that it’s Rachel and Jake that are targeted by Crayak.

I mean, most probably, they’re targeted because they’re the supposed ‘outliers’ to the Ellimist’s greater machinations. Allegedly, Crayak might target them because the Ellimist didn’t handpick them, meaning they’re less likely to be fixed points, more likely to go astray from any carefully laid Ellimist plans. That makes the most sense.

But I also sort of like the idea that Jake and Rachel, and actually, the Berensons as a whole, are cards in Crayak’s deck. 

I won’t pretend it’s not a little far-fetched, but it’s just interesting the way they’re all such central players. Rachel, Jake, Tom. Saddler, not so much, but enough to make it an interesting coincidence. 

I think for me it’s that...each of the Berensons embodied potential turning points. Jake as the leader, each and every one of his decisions could have made or broke the war. Tom is both Jake’s reason to fight, and the reason they’re able to defeat the Visser at the end, and Rachel saves them all at the end of the war. She’s also a key fighter, and probably turns the tides of many battles the Animorphs otherwise would have lost. The fact that Tom and Jake live in the same house, meaning one wrong move from Jake could tip Tom’s Yeerk off and give him and the entire team away? That tightrope walk should have fallen apart within a year and I bet Crayak tosses back whiskey wondering how the hell putting a Controller and an Animorph in the same house worked out in the Ellimist’s favour. 

Saddler, for me, represents a potential turning point, in that if David had succeeded in impersonating him, things would have gone a LOT differently, and it could very well have been an entirely new turning point in the war. 

So...for me, I’m toying with the idea that the Berensons are cards in Crayak’s deck, in that they each represent potential points where the Ellimist’s plans could fall apart. They’re almost like extra gears that Crayak threw into the Ellimist’s machine, hoping he’d be able to get them to stick and jam the mechanisms, but instead, they slid in perfectly and made the Ellimists’ machine run smoother. The Berensons were supposed to be cards in Crayak’s deck, and while they did serve their function as orchestrators of turning points, they just consistently did it in the Ellimists’ favor. It’s no wonder Crayak is so, well, obsessed with them. Constantly trying to push them into decisions and actions that would undo the Ellimist’s plans. 

Far-fetched? Yes. Tragically fun to consider? Also yes! 

This was partially inspired by Happy is What Happens by mademoisellePlume, specifically the phrase ‘Crayak’s creatures’ in reference to Rachel and Jake. 

#animorphs #the animorphs #natchat5 #jake berenson #rachel berenson #tom berenson #nat avoids writing a fanfiction idea by making it a tumblr headcanon post #this idea is partially what inspired me to make a jake and rachel playlist #arguably why the playlist is so dark

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

oh my god, that most recent ask shook me, i didnt even process that tom might think that saddler was the seventh animorph. also makes his frustration with marco and jakes caginess in ghost in the shell during that scene hit different. but now im so curious; what do u think it would take for jake to come clean about david to tom? or like, in eleutherophobia, how much has jake discussed ab the more fucked up stuff the animorphs did during the war? (also its ok if u dont want to answer this!)

Yeah, I think Tom doesn't want to know so hard that he successfully doesn't know that the most logical conclusion — given the data he has — would be that Saddler was the brief seventh Animorph who got killed by Rachel. If he's asked what happened to Saddler, he'll say "I don't know." If he's asked what happened to Saddler with a gun to his head, he'll say "I don't know, but I'm pretty sure Jake does know." If you put a yeerk in his brain and then asked that yeerk what Tom thinks happened to Saddler, then the yeerk would go "He's pretty Rachel killed Saddler."

Anyway, Tom would never ask Jake about Saddler. Ever. He knows he could never un-know Jake's response, even if that response is just Jake going wide-eyed in shock and refusing to answer. So he doesn't know, and he never will.

#animorphs #animorphs meta #tom berenson #jake berenson #saddler berenson #eleutherophobia #22 #the solution

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

So given your recent "If you put a yeerk in his brain and then asked that yeerk what Tom thinks happened to Saddler," and given your most recent fic... Does this mean Cassie now knows that Tom thinks Rachel killed Saddler? And if so, what's she going to do about it?

I don't think Cassie knows, because I think Cassie is a very polite yeerk who doesn't go digging in her hosts' brains without permission. And to be clear, it would take a lot of digging and actively putting memory pieces together for any given yeerk in Tom's brain to understand that he's got reason to make that conclusion.

Also, to clarify the later chapters of How I Live Now: I don't think that 15 minutes in Tom's brain gives Cassie the ability to know every thought he's ever had or every thought he's ever going to have. He's just majorly icked out by her having gotten even a handful of scattered memories and thoughts, and mega-paranoid as a result. She probably doesn't know anything he didn't tell her (plus a few memories he accidentally dumped on her at first) and he'll probably realize that once he calms down and stops feeling skin-crawly over the whole thing.

#animorphs #animorphs fic #eleutherophobia #tom berenson #cassie animorphs #saddler berenson

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Do you have any headcanons for Jake and Rachel’s relationship as kids?

So I put this in a fic, but [Tom's narration]:

Not being that old or responsible myself at the time, I would order Jake not to cause trouble and run off on my own, usually to shoot baskets in the tiny hoop they had nailed above the garage door.  What happened as soon as I left was as regular as clockwork: Saddler would start harassing one of the younger kids, Jake would tell him to cut it out, Saddler would start beating up Jake instead, Rachel would either decide that Jake needed defending or that any fight was worth having and start attacking Saddler, and I would have to come running back over to wade in and pull them all apart.  The only aspect of the whole scene that varied from year to year was whether Saddler decided to tattle, which, when it happened, resulted in Aunt Ellen yelling at Rachel while my own parents yelled at me for not keeping a closer eye on them, as if I'd had anything to do with anything.

After the drama of the scene ended and the adults determined that Rachel had not yet succeeded in permanently damaging Saddler, and that Saddler had not done anything to Jake that Jake couldn't shrug off with an eight-year-old’s version of stoicism, they would go back inside.  And then just as I'd be making my exit, Saddler (pissed off about being beaten up by a girl) would decide to take out his feelings by punching Jordan.  And the whole cycle would start again.

#animorphs #berenson feels #in other words: jake and rachel describing saddler as 'a huge jerk' are blissfully unaware that saddler is only 50% of the problem #put too many berenson kids in one place for more than 15 minutes and violence WILL ensue #let's not pretend it's all or even mostly saddler's fault

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Saw your tags about making the Eleutherophobia series as complete so I went back to reread the last chapter of How I Live Now and one, you really missed the opportunity of naming the cameo after the missing Denbrough brother instead of the one you did lol but also two, really appreciate that one of the last themes in the entire series is that suicide is not worth it, also appreciate that the very last line of the whole series was "Let’s live a little." Very appropriately inspiring. Kudos!

Oh yeah, but the problem is that there's already a George Berenson (Saddler's dad), a George Edelman (the guy they save in #17), a George Washington (cameo in MM3), the George Washington (the boat from #46), and then I stupidly named another guy George (Day the Earth Stood Still). So the madness had to end somewhere.

#animorphs #george denbrough #i mean bill nolastname *is* a canon character #he's in mm4 and mentors/lovebombs tobias into becoming a full member of the sharing #i just called him bill denbrough because my oc names are all allusions

[krakendra]

(two different screenshots, first of jean telling tom/jake about saddler's hospitalization, second of jake telling rachel about it)

What the actual fuck, Jean and Steve? You didn't call Naomi? I can forgive Ellen and George, their kid is in the hospital, but you two know better. Rachel, Jordan and Sarah deserved to know.

The real villains of the David trilogy: the piss poor communication of the Berenson family.

#animorphs #for SHAME steve and jean #can you tell i've got six first cousins and I'm the oldest? #i'd lose my shit if i wasn't told one of them was in the hospital #cw injured kids

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

I wonder if David was a setup for Tom's Yeerk in the finale? Gets away with the morphing cube, has golden eagle and king cobra morphs, Rachel gets rid of him...

I've mentioned on the podcast, but I think Saddler is foreshadowing for Tom. He's Rachel's cousin who is approximately the same age as Tom, he's someone she doesn't necessarily like but does still care about, and he ends up forcing her to confront a lot of her own ethics.

When she visits Saddler in the hospital, she thinks "Okay, I believe in mercy killing. No one should have to be so ... helpless" (#22). I don't necessarily agree with that conclusion — and I think that Pedro would have words with her if he ever heard — but it is still important because it shows Rachel's thought process. Especially with regard to Tom.

Because in many ways Rachel's more scared of being helpless than anything else. Marco's frightened of dying, Jake's frightened of failing, Tobias is frightened of cages, Cassie is frightened of callousness, Ax is frightened of becoming Seerow... But Rachel is more scared than anything of becoming unable to fight back. Her worst fear is being unable to stop someone from hurting her or the people she loves. That comes out as a fear of being buried, as a fear of permanent injury, and as a fear of being a controller. More than anyone else, Rachel can't handle the idea of being a controller.

Jake doesn't like being a controller, but he finds ways to cope (#6). Same goes for Cassie (#19, #34), and to an extent for Tobias (MM4). Ax and Marco tend not to wonder what would happen if they were infested, because both approach controllers as "that's a yeerk, yeerks are bad, so that's a monster, so I should kill the monster", dodging around any question of what the host must feel. For Ax it's the way he's been taught to think (andalite-controllers are an impossibility! Pay no attention to the Alloran behind the curtain!). For Marco it's a way of hating Visser One and planning Visser One's murder while pretending that the floor is lava and the lava is his feeling affection or empathy for his mom.

But Saddler's fate scares Rachel. And Tom's fate scares her. So much so that — as she confesses to Jordan — she really does want to blame the victim in order to make it better (#22). Saddler was stupid enough to ride a bike without a helmet, so if Rachel is smart then she can be safe. Tom was stupid to barge into a private meeting at the Sharing, so if Rachel is smart then she can be safe. If Tom is helpless and Rachel would rather be dead than helpless, maybe Rachel really is helping when she kills him. If she can feel compassion and annoyance and support and frustration with Saddler all at once, then she can feel the same for Tom.

However, just to bring it full circle: David does become Saddler. And Rachel defeats David not by killing him, but by rendering him helpless. An act that Rachel will consider to be her greatest sin (#37, #48), far beyond any of her battle kills of civilian hosts. So yeah, helplessness really is worse than death in Rachel's mind. It's something that Saddler and David and David-as-Saddler force her to confront. And that's what makes her willing to kill Tom.

#animorphs #animorphs spoilers #rachel berenson #tom berenson #david animorphs #saddler berenson #(shhh let's pretend his last name is berenson) #22 #54 #xena: warrior princess #berenson feels

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

First of all, congrats Dr! That's a super big deal. Also I tottally commented this on your more recent David and Rachel meta but I am really curious. What if Saddler a direct result in the battle for the blue box? David needed it, and they had it. Instead of injury ex Machina, what if David sought him out and injured him badly enough that he assumed Jake and Rachel would pull the box out of its hiding spot to trade for his parents? Tom/Yeerks would definitely notice a big cat attack on a random.

I think that exact scenario, where David tries to force Jake and Rachel to recruit Saddler to save his life, wouldn’t work.  In canon, Rachel is already prepared to let Saddler die rather than risk giving the morphing power to him, and I think it’s safe to assume Jake feels the same way.  If David tried to force the issue through harming Saddler then the Berensons would probably be even more opposed to letting Saddler morph.  In that case, David would be right there as an object lesson about the dangers of letting non-vetted people morph.  Also, it’s Saddler, whom both Jake and Rachel describe as being a huge jerk.  Saddler is one of the few people the Berensons know in advance might make an even WORSE teammate than David.

But there’s an interesting question then: what would it take for the pre-David Animorphs to whip out the morphing power for a civilian?

We know the post-David Animorphs’ decision point — i.e. that even immediate danger to loved ones isn’t enough to risk it — but the David catastrophe is a big part of the reason the Animorphs are so reluctant to recruit.  What about a world in which they get the morphing cube but not David?  Or at the very least one in which they have the cube but don’t yet realize what a spectacularly bad idea it was to recruit him?

It’d be a massive risk, no matter what.  In canon, the kids have a 100% guarantee that David isn’t a controller (and can keep him from blabbing to any controllers) and even then they consider leaving him to die rather than recruiting him.  If they weren’t that certain, they’d probably never even try it.  So it’d have to be somebody they know for sure isn’t yeerk-controlled, which is almost no one who isn’t already on their team.

There’d also probably have to be some kind of mitigating circumstance.  A major injury might work, as might an immediate threat of harm, and it’d probably have to affect someone the kids have at least some connection with.  Again, I think the issue of letting Saddler morph never even comes up because Jake and Rachel think he’s an ass (whether or not they’re right is a different question).  But someone they know and like might be a good candidate.

There’s also the issue of age.  If they pick someone even a few years older, the person’s never going to defer to Jake as a leader.  If they pick someone even a few years younger, then the person’s not necessarily going to be mature enough to deal with the godawfulness of being an Animorph.  David’s in their same grade, James and Collette (and presumably other Auximorphs) are within a year or two of their age, and that’s probably the right call.

So all of that leaves... I’m not sure.  Obviously James fits all those criteria, so if it occurs to them that disabled humans are “unfit” and therefore safe in a pre-Loren universe, then that works.  Other than that, I’m not sure anyone is safe.

#animorphs #animorphs meta #david animorphs #saddler berenson #22 #the solution #consistent chaos corporation #asks

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

I always wondered. What did Tom think happened to Saddler?

I assume you mean in Eleutherophobia?

My headcanon there is that Tom is deliberately incurious about the whole thing.  He’s the kind of guy who tends not to believe anything he hasn’t seen with his own eyes, and he’s got enough Hufflepuff mixed in with all that Gryffindor that he understands the value of letting other people have their privacy.

Not only that, but seeking out answers no matter the cost hasn’t tended to work out for him.  Sneaking into the back room of a Sharing meeting didn’t exactly go the way he planned, of course, but there are answers about the war he’d rather not have.  He feels like he was better off not knowing that Rachel was willing, when pushed far enough, to trap and later kill a fellow Animorph, especially because with Rachel dead it’s not like knowing that does anyone any good.

However, if he was forced to come up with an answer...

He knows that Saddler died during the war under weird-ass circumstances, ones that almost certainly involved morphing.  He knows that there was a seventh Animorph, and that Rachel killed said Animorph.  He also knows that Rachel and Jake were two of the last people to see Saddler alive.  

... so I’m pretty sure that he’d put two and two together and get five.

#animorphs #anonymous #asks #tom berenson #saddler berenson #berenson feels #david animorphs #tom my darling #badger pride #also ominous as fuck #Anonymous

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

I was reading that story in Eleutherophobia where the Berenson extended family all gather and I'm wondering, do you have any thoughts/headcanons about the Berenson brothers' relationship? No, not Tom and Jake, but the generation before them: Steve, Dan, and George.

I do.  So much.

We don't know a ton about George (Saddler's dad) but the contrast between Dan (Rachel's dad) and Steve (Jake's dad) has always been striking to me.

Steve seems like this incredibly balanced guy: "Always nice. Always gentle. Joking with the kids and reassuring the moms and dads. Staying calm while the littler kids screamed bloody murder and vibrated the very walls" (#31). And it's not just sick kids he's that nice toward; when there's some guy screaming in his face and threatening to hit him over a parking spot, Steve remains level-headed and even comforts the dude when he gets upset over getting attacked by a cockroach (AKA Jake). Sure, Steve can be a clueless at times, tolerating some Weird Shit from Tom especially without showing any sign of worry that his kids are acting so erratic, but he's this responsible and steady dude.

Dan, on the other hand, is... flaky. Rachel says "My dad does these little outings where we all get together every second weekend. Sometimes it's just me and my dad... I don't get to see him as much as I wish I could" because "he cancels sometimes” (#7). We also find out that he talks openly about Rachel being his favorite child, which suggests the reason he doesn't always bring Jordan and Sara on his twice-a-month visits. Dan will buy Rachel room service (#12), but when she calls to say she's "not doing good", Dan responds "Have you talked to your mom? She's pretty good with this kind of stuff" (#32). He'll take her to the circus, but he expects her to cater to his emotional needs ("No, it wasn't pity or guilt... my dad was feeling lonely") without considering hers (#7). He puts the hard conversations on Naomi, letting her be the one to tell their kids about the divorce (#2), give them The Talk (#32), and announce that he's moving away (#7). Frankly, no wonder Naomi dumped him.

Also, look at their jobs. Steve's in a career that requires 12+ years of post-secondary education, and highly active in the lives of his own kids. Dan apparently spent years pursuing a gymnastics career that went nowhere ("almost made the Olympic team," #7) before pivoting to become a "hotshot" reporter, and still can only carve out two afternoons a month for his girls. Reporters are heckin useful to society, but it's also not a career that requires the same selfless consistency of effort as being a pediatrician.

Anyway, my headcanon to explain all that: their parents have traditional ideas about traditional roles. I'm thinking these are upper-class Yugoslavians who immigrated as teens, then were caught up in the assimilationist zeitgeist once in the U.S. The ‘rents emphasize the traditional role for the oldest child, AKA Steve. He's to provide for them in their old age, and therefore they need him to go the doctor-or-lawyer route. Steve is (like Jake) a rule-follower and a people-leader, never rebellious unless he has a good cause. Steve's also a nurturer who loves kids, so he goes along with his parents' plans... until it comes time to choose a specialization, at which point he quietly shunts from surgery into pediatrics. He fails to mention this fact to his parents until it's already been a done deal for a few years and there's nothing they can do about it.

Dan, meanwhile, has Steve and George sheltering him from the slings and arrows of his parents' good intentions. The first two sons turned out okay (I headcanon George being a marketing manager) and so the parental units will let their baby indulge his dreams in a non-lucrative sport for a while. And then pay for him to get a degree in media studies. And then still approve of him, since he brought them grandchildren, even if he supports them less than Steve.

#animorphs #animorphs meta #steve berenson #dan berenson #aniparents #animorphs headcanon #at some point i'll have to post the entire eleutherophobia ficlet i did with steve and tom talking about all this #because it was literally JUST subtext in Back to the Future #but i headcanon steve as estranged from his parents after the war #on account of his parents being Not Happy that he let jake drop out of high school #and steve bluntly telling them that they're not entitled to an opinion on his kids' personal choices or mental health

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

What thoughts did you have on Jordan Berenson?

My thoughts, much like Jordan herself, are uncertain and deeply contradictory.

The Jordan we get in #7, #12, #22, and #27?  I like that girl.

That Jordan takes no crap from anyone, most notably her dad.  I love her unwillingness to play Dan’s game in #7.  Jordan lets herself be angry at him in a way that Rachel is hesitant to do (because Rachel gets along better with him than Naomi) and Sara is too young to know that she should be.  Jordan is perfectly willing to shout right back at Rachel when she’s at her scariest in #12 and #32.  Jordan’s prickly and awkward and feels like a real preteen trying to figure out who she is.  I love her crushing on Marco, her throwing a temper tantrum when Rachel implies she needs babysitting, and her delight at getting away with things her mom wouldn’t approve of.

Ugh, and I love that conversation between her and Rachel after Saddler is hospitalized in #22.  Jordan demanding that Rachel “solve” the complex messy wad of emotions it brings up to have their not-well-liked cousin dying on them.  Rachel realizing that Jordan does exactly the same “when I get scared I get angry” thing that she herself does.  Jordan fully recognizing that her knee-jerk instinct to blame the victim is a load of crap, but also recognizing that she wants some kind of comfort and victim-blaming at least offers that much.  Rachel taking away a lot of Jordan’s sense of safety and certainty, but then not knowing how to replace it with anything because she’s just a lost kid herself.  I love that whole conversation so very much, and I love the hints of Jordan becoming more like Rachel as she grows up throughout those early books.

The Jordan we get in #49, #50, and #52?  Uhhhh...

That Jordan rides around on Ax’s back and thinks he’s a “pokey-man.”  That Jordan giggles, she cries, and she does nothing in between.  That Jordan is literally “clinging to her mother’s skirt” in response to Naomi’s fight with Toby.  That Jordan is apparently incapable of figuring out, in spite of Jake’s endless yeerk-attack drills and Eva’s real talk, “what happened to Daddy”.  That Jordan isn’t even fully a plot moppet, because literally her only appearances involve her crying and whining and doing nothing.  That Jordan is, let it be noted, OLDER THAN RACHEL WAS WHEN THE SERIES BEGAN, because #7 tells us that the age gap between them is less than two years.

So, let’s just assume there was a miscommunication with the ghostwriters that accidentally changed Jordan’s age from 14 to 4 somewhere in the notes.  But that’s the biggest reason that I’m pretty conflicted on her as a character, because I really don’t know what to make of her in those later books.

#animorphs #jordan berenson #animorphs meta #animorphs negativity #animorphs' imperfect continuity #anonymous #asks