App for Trans_9
Your name: Triple C
Your LJ: Kitty_Chan_86@yahoo.com
Your email: Kitty_Chan_86@yahoo.com
Your AIM, MSN, or Yahoo handle: Tripleceee or Triplecooc
Character's name: Tom Berenson/Iniss 335
Character's LJ: echoofaperson
Character's canon: Animorphs
Brief (around 300 words) personality outline of your character: As a Yeerk (and I use the name for the yeerk from the TV series, though I will not use anything else from that in my app, simply because it is not given in the books) Iniss 335 is incredibly confident. He is a fast climber of the internal hierarchy and is extremely convinced of his own importance. That is not to say that he is as cocky as some of his brother Yeerks, instead he seems to be capable of dissembling and pulling the wool over the eyes of even his superiors. This Yeerk is taken from just a few months post book 31, and is very apparently coldly capable of killing or infesting Tom’s father, despite the utter anguish his host must have been felt at the thought of harming or killing his family so the Yeerk wouldn’t starve. There is nothing to show that he pays the slightest heed to any of his host’s wishes. The Yeerk, as shown later on in the books, has no trouble allowing his own fellows to be killed if it will suit his own advancement. He is cold, calculating, and will do whatever it takes to get ahead. He cares nothing for his host’s emotional involvement in any situation they are pushed into. This brutality, but capacity for subtlety, put him on a higher level than many of his cocksure brother Yeerks. He has caution, and the ability to pretend, even among those who should have been allies. Ironically, for a race of space aliens whose primary ability is to take over the bodies of others, and whose need for sustenance is their greatest weakness, the vast majority appear to be egotistical to the point of retarded. Iniss seems to have a bit more sense than his brother Yeerks.
Tom on the other hand is a normal teenager. He was a basketball star and very popular in school. On the fast track to scholarships and college, he was involved in most after school activities and was apparently a bit of a flirt. He is described personality wise as being very similar to Jake, except with more confidence and the greater success of being the older child. This is also shown in the one invasion to the pool to try to save him, where he is more than willing to fight his way out, a controller of only a few months and still hopeful for freedom. When he is next shown, only a few books later, he is sobbing and begging, willing to promise anything to keep Jake protected. While it is obvious that Tom broke, and broke hard under the Yeerk, his adaptability that allowed him to stay sane and coherent speaks of the strength of the mind buried beneath the control of the Yeerk. The last time he is seen is at the end of 23, the Yeerk withdrawing from the pain of the leg. Though he must have been in excruciating pain from a compound fracture, and in great amounts of mental distress as he had just come within a few seconds of stabbing his father in the back, Tom’s first inclination was to send his brother away, just to try to protect him from the Yeerk and all of the trouble he didn’t want them to bring to Jake’s life. He is, at heart, a big brother who just wants his baby brother to be safe. Not knowing that his own imprisonment has drawn his little brother into a war. He was sixteen when he was infested, and likely little of the surety and confidence that dominated his life pre infestation remains after almost two full years as a host with seemingly no one noticing.
Brief (around 500 words) history and background of your character OR link to a really good wiki page with their history. In either case, explain where they cut off from the timeline:
Tom started off life fairly normal. His family is apparently Jewish, though doesn’t seem very devout, and he and his younger brother spent much of their childhood competing with each other and being normal children. They grew up with their cousin Rachel and in every way were just normal kids. He played basketball in middle and high school and was good enough that he likely could have gotten a scholarship to a good university with his talent. He joined the Sharing because a girl he liked was a member; unknown to him, the girl was a controller. At some point he became convinced that the girl was seeing another guy and followed her into a meeting, where he saw Visser Three in his true form, not the human Morph he normally used for meetings.
He was quickly infested to keep knowledge of the invasion from becoming public.
His first Yeerk was Temrash 114, a rather overconfident and prime example of the cockiness of his species, but a high ranking one, somewhere just below a sub-visser. He was the sort that gloried in cruelty, a host breaker, in essence. During his infestations by Temrash, Tom would meet the Andalite Bandits for the first time and nearly manage to escape from the pool with their help. When it became apparent that they were cornered, Tom was willing to risk his own life and take matters into his own hands, attacking Visser Three with bare fists, a foolishly brave move that could have easily lost him his head, instead he was simply knocked unconscious and tossed down a set of stairs and then re-infested. It is unknown if Tom shares some of his fellow hosts wishes to be dead rather than a slave. Temrash would soon be assigned out of Tom to infest the Governor. Something the Yeerk would never accomplish, though he died a little later than his fellow Yeerks might have thought.
Tom was then assigned to Iniss 335, a far more subtle yeerk, and far lower ranking one, who would see Tom through the continuation of the series and a very important phone call. He was nearly the cause of a very personal tragedy for Tom. His great grandfather had died, and he was required to attend the funeral. This would likely be well within the Yeerk’s ability to fake emotion, but the funeral would require four days spent in the wilderness, something the Yeerk could not allow. The first thought was simply to infest Jake and Tom’s father, and judging by Tom’s pleading at the thought of Jake being infested, this was something he would have rejected very strongly. Though it’s probably better than the backup plan the Yeerks devised to keep Tom’s Yeerk alive. Which was to kill his father. This was interrupted first seemingly accidently by Jake and then further plans were interrupted by the kidnapping of Mr. Chapmen, one of their most important human controllers.
Iniss 335 was on his own.
But in this the Yeerk had no problem doing his own dirty work, stealing a Nazi dagger and luring Jake’s father outside where he could be dealt with. It’s unknown what the Yeerk would have done after this, it’s possible that Tom would have simply vanished, much like other host bodies taken from their family, under mysterious circumstances and been assumed dead. But he wasn’t allowed to complete the act, shoddy construction causing the dock to break and pulled Tom under the water, shattering his leg.
Though neither Tom or the Yeerk knew it, but it was Jake’s friends, the so called ‘Andalite Bandits’ who had saved both the host’s mind and his father.
Tom was unconscious and in the water, and would have drowned if not for the fact that Jake had pulled him free, letting him clear his lungs of the lake water and saving his life. At this moment, due to either pain or the fact that he had only recently been unconscious, Tom was in control of himself. There were likely a million thoughts running through his head at this moment, words he must have wanted to give Jake, warnings he had been unable to voice, but caution needed to be taken. Even in shock from the leg, even with the no doubt lingering mental agony of nearly killing his father, the warning Jake was given was a simple one, Tom ordered his brother away from him. Either out of fear that the Yeerk would seize back control and hurt Jake, or just out of general fear of Jake being anywhere near him, of the fact that something might slip and Jake would be infested.
Jake refused, and sat with him until the med-evac helicopter came and took him back to home and safety, for both the Yeerk and Tom’s family.
It is only a few months after this, with his leg almost completely healed, that Tom and the yeerk are pulled from canon.
Sample post (just a general, everyday, puttering-around-the-ship post; please include a snippet of dialogue):
Iniss was uncertain what he thought of this spaceship. For the moment he was reserving judgment, unable to really stretch his mind to encompass a living, breathing spaceship. He supposed it made sense, if such things made any sense, but really. What in the worlds said it was a good idea to grow a spaceship organically?
You’d have to wait for the things to breed before you stood a chance of getting another one.
Now *that* was a disturbing thought and he’d rather not have had it.
“Well, what can you do, really? I’m here now, this ship seems to like the idea of keeping me here, need to just make the best of it.” The words were a thoughtful mumble, directed internally.
< Talking to yourself in an early sign of insanity. >
The smile that stretched his lips wasn’t a nice one.
The door was locked, or he would never have done this, arms behind his head, pose casual. Most Yeerks directed all of the abuse internally, and that was all fine and good.
But it bothered the host more to hear his voice speak the words, and the more it bothered Tom, the more enjoyment he got out of it. “I was talking to you, not to myself. And at the rate things are currently going, you’ll never be rid of me, so I’ll never need to worry about talking to myself and going insane.”
There was a pause, and had Tom been in his body, he would likely have shifted uncomfortably while gathering his thoughts. The host was confused, was half home sick and half glad that he, and therefore the Yeerks, were as far away from his family as he could manage. He was too easy, really, sentimental and weak. Iniss took great delight in it, the boy might try to hide his weaknesses, but considering all it took was a threat directed at the tiny plastic folder of photographs in his wallet to get Tom to completely shut down, it wasn’t that hard.
< Why bother, are you that bored? >
“Why not stop clinging to the lingering dregs of self and just let yourself fade away?”
There was a snippet of memory; a host rocking slowly in the cage, not speaking, not even making any noise, just rocking slowly with its arms around its legs. It hadn’t even fought when the guards came for it.
< I’ll pass thanks. >
He snorted; it was an old, but still amusing argument. Tom would sooner stop breathing than lose that last tiny kernel of hope he had squirreled away. “Then, my host, you should thank me for the kindness of speaking to you, rather than question it. You’ll hardly find conversation elsewhere. There’s not even the opportunity for your little meetings in the cages, the food here provides what I need to survive.”
And that had been both a joy to discover and a pleasure to smash that foolish notion of hope out of the host’s brain.
There was an almost grudging pause while the host weighed the benefits of refusing. < Thank you, master, for agreeing to speak to me. >
“That’s better, you’re learning.”
< Surviving, adapting. Keep it up and you might make it. >
He smiled again, hearing the internal monologue and deciding not to comment. Tom would take no pleasure in knowing it, but he did enjoy this host. Tom was far too interesting to break completely.
Though the next time the host took to repeating multiplication tables or singing weird human music to be annoying, he was going to kill something small and cute.
Non-human Skill: He’s a parasite.