Rachel (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
theresnodoor) wrote2008-07-02 10:37 am
theresnodoor) wrote2008-07-02 10:37 am
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Shatter Info
There are a few things to remember, specifically, when thinking about Rachel in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
shatterverse.
1. If Animorphs had been a Greek myth, Rachel would be Achilles - furious, fierce, in love with the battle, and always at the forefront.
2. Rachel was an utterly normal girl before Elfangor. A little more snappish and angry than most, but completely normal - younger sisters to babysit, homework to do, gymnastics class to go to, parents' divorce to deal with.
3. Rachel is sixteen. Her body is about twenty-five, her mind is a warrior's, but for all social intents and purposes, she is a stunted sixteen year-old girl.
4. Rachel's idea of love and friendship has been completely warped by war - she is extremely particular about who she uses both those words to describe.
5. In war, trust is a precious commodity. Rachel uses it sparingly, if she uses it at all, and the term is always negotiable.
And with that...
Rachel's living with Jo Harvelle, which means she's interacting with the Winchesters a bit, too. Not so much Sam, Mary, Jess, and Dianne, though she'll probably meet and half-heartedly chat with each of them once in a while. But Dean keeps coming by Jo's house, so she does see a lot of him. She's already decided, through simple observation of her housemate and neighbor, that Jo and Dean are interested in each other and have decided it would be wiser not to pursue it. As #3 states, Rachel is sixteen - her idea of 'interest' is different from anyone else watching these two. She doesn't look at them and think 'sex,' she looks and thinks 'crush.' At this point, she secretly thinks they want to kiss and cuddle each other and don't want to be that vulnerable.
Which leads me to Tobias.
Here's Rachel's romantic experience: her first boyfriend was Tobias, who became a Nothlit in book ONE, so that's very telling of their relationship from the get-go. (Nothlit is a term for someone with a morphing capability who got stuck in a morph for more than two hours and became trapped. Tobias was trapped as a red-tailed hawk, who he eventually comes to identify as just as much a part of him as the human is - if not more) To begin with, Rachel is literally dating a hawk - they go flying together, he recruits her for help with certain situations that require morphing (saving a hawk being used in a car sales commercial by morphing elephant and stomping on all the cars while Tobias picked the lock and freed the hawk), he would come to her room every night to help her with her homework. It helped him stay human, that connection, and it helped Rachel a bit, too. As a human, Tobias was very gentle, very thoughtful, very quiet and though he's fierce as a hawk, he retains that same attitude - he's gentle and thoughtful, though not very quiet anymore. Eventually, he voices his opinions very strongly and that's part of feeling more powerful as the hawk than he ever did as a human. But, to begin with, Rachel finds herself spending more and more time and becoming closer and closer to a guy (because she always sees him as a human) who is gentle and sweet and good and likes her. It keeps her human, as much as her homework and her presence keep him.
Throughout the series, after Tobias has regained his morphing capability and (with the help of that Crazy Kid the Ellimist) is able to acquire his own human self as a morph, Rachel repeatedly asks him to trap himself as a Nothlit human. She wants him out of the war but another big part of it, I think, is that they're getting too deep into the war - Rachel is losing her humanity bit by bit and can see the fear and concern in the eyes of her friends, people fighting that very same war. And her sweet, gentle Tobias is getting more and more in touch with the hawk, less and less human. When he is human, he forgets basic thing - what things taste like, how to form expressions, how to use his voice in a certain tone, not to stare. It would have been odd to see them dating before Elfangor, when she would have been tall and blonde and gorgeous and he short and meek and geeky - now it's impossible. It draws too much attention to them, especially since, after he's trapped as a Nothlit, Tobias the Human literally disappears - he isn't supposed to be anywhere near the area that Rachel lives in, and if anyone recognized him and passed that information on, including who he was with... Lots of trouble.
So Rachel wants him out of the war, as much for his safety as her sanity. He's her grip on a normal life, on being close to what she looks like - a beautiful, normal girl. And when he starts to lose his humanity, she becomes afraid of doing the same. She loves the fight, lives and breathes it, but she doesn't like the way her friends and family come to look at her, doesn't like the way her friends rely on her to always be the first one to jump head-first into a battle.
In one book, we discover that Tobias' only living family has finally noticed that he's missing. Rachel asks Tobias to come meet her and he's worried that she's going to call him on something personal (he'd been having trouble feeding in his territory, wasn't able to chase away an intruding hawk, and was starving - Rachel had seen him feeding on carrion on the street). She doesn't even bring up what he was thinking about, just tells him that people are looking for him. We discover that there is apparently a cousin that has just popped out of the woodwork, just found out about Tobias, and wants to tak him in, give him a real home and a family. Tobias grew up being shuttled between an aunt and an uncle that hated each other, and him, too - his mother was supposedly a junkie and his father a deadbeat that took off on them both. The draw of a real family is incredibly strong, and Rachel encourages it. This book is interesting, because Rachel gets extremely emotional with him.
(paraphrased)
This isn't Romeo and Juliet, this isn't feuding families, this isn't like you're black and I'm white, like Cassie and Jake, nobody cares about that, it's... we can't hold hands. We can't go on a real date, I can't introduce you to my parents. What am I supposed to do? You're a bird, I'm a girl - what is this?
The book ends with Tobias choosing not to live with his cousin, for extremely understandable reasons - he had no choice. Rachel never says a word with it, but when he comes over one night, she has a birthday cake for him - a big theme in this book was that he'd forgotten when his birthday was, he was losing his humanity.
In another book, Rachel morphs a starfish and is accidentally cut in half. Because of the regenerative nature of starfish, she is able to morph out into two identical Rachels, both with different personalities. One is angry and violent and obsessed with only short-term action. The other is meek and frightened but able to see the long-term. Rachel is disgusted and terrified of these halves and when she is finally put back together, is deeply troubled to know that both of these halves exist inside of her. She's vicious and cruel and ruthless... but she's also scared. These two halves keep the other in check, but only barely, and all too often, vicious and cruel beats out the other. Part of Rachel's terror is knowing that one day she could completely lose it and curl up in a ball, terrified, and the other part is fear that the part of her that is scared will disappear, and all she'll be is a killing machine.
Tobias' line, after she's been joined back together and is looking to him for guidance:
(paraphrased)
Let's go, Rachel. The two of you, and the two of me.
To be fair, I'm at a disadvantage as it's been years since I read the series. But as I recall, there was never any actual written-out description of any physical affection between Rachel and Tobias, other than her petting him in hawk form. We can assume that there have been small kisses, and there's certainly been hugging - Rachel dragged him to a school dance once. But it is highly unlikely that they ever did anything more heated than kissing, and I would be stunned if they'd managed to find the time and excuse for making out. Tobias has his own troubles and concerns, and Rachel was stunted from the get-go - it may not have ever even occurred to her. Had she been older when she joined the war, it might have, but by the time it may have occurred to her, she was already in the habit of getting out her energy and aggression and desperation through morphs and violence. Some therapeutic, angry sex just never would have occurred to her.
To sum up: Rachel is in love with Tobias in a way that 99% of the real and fictional population of any world probably never manages. She doesn't need a physically relationship with him because, as far as she's concerned, there isn't anything more that either of them need. "The two of you and the two of me" is an excellent statement to make between them, as they reall are just two halves of a single person. Rachel keeps Tobias in check and he keeps her. And when she dies, Tobias is sent into a serious depression, living as a hawk for years. That double life, that Rachel really made possible, just isn't worth it any more without her.
And I think, in Shatter, that's where she's leading now. She doesn't need to be scared, she doesn't need to be meek. She was taken away from Tobias, away from her tie to humanity, which means she must not need to be human in this world.
It'll be interesting.
Okay, moving on. Here's a very quick sum-up of her relationship with the others of Team Animorph, because I spent WAAAAY too much time on Toby:
Cassie: is Rachel's best friend, has been since they were both toddlers. Cassie is short, black, a little stocky, and her passion is caring for animals. She ends up being the morphing resource they all use when deciding what to acquire for what mission, etc. She is a "peace-loving, tree-hugging hippie" as per Marco, and this causes she and Rachel to clash frequently in the series. By the end of it, they're both too disgusted with each other and themselves to be called anything but teammates - Rachel doesn't feel she can rely on her anymore, and Cassie is honestly scared of Rachel.
Jake: is Rachel's cousin on her father's side and the leader of the Animorphs. They weren't exactly friends before all of this happened, but they liked each other and were probably closer to each other than most other family members. That's to be somewhat expected since they lived near each other and went to the same school. Also, Jake and Cassie had huge crushes on each other from the get-go, which Rachel was long used to. As the series went on, Rachel and Jake began to clash - the choices he was forced to make as a leader disrupted the choices she wanted to make as the warrior. Her only concern was to get the job done but, as the leader, Jake also had to consider the results of their actions in regards to the war itself, their personal safety, and the safety of those around them. In the end, Rachel's death is ultimately caused by Jake, as he is forced to figure out a way to take out a high-ranking Controller, who also happens to be his brother. He knows, and Rachel knows too, that she is the only one who can accomplish the job. They both know that they are sending her to her death. It's easy to feel sorry for Rachel with this, but as the leader, I feel worse for Jake.
Marco: is Jake's best friend and Rachel's thorn in her side. He is short, cute, sarcastic, and a huge flirt. He nicknames Rachel Xena from the get-go and is constantly goading her into personally meeting Lucy Lawless (Xena actress) or dressing up in letter. This earns him many death threats/promises. Despite Rachel's annoyance toward his personality, they end up on the same side of many arguments - Marco is a brilliant strategist and he and Rachel tend to side together on the most efficient way to finish a job, even if it's ruthless and cruel and includes quite a bit of violence. Still, Marco is unnerved by Rachel's thrill in the fight and doesn't quite know what to make of her. It seems like they both make a point of never speaking to each other outside of a mission.
Aximili: is the Animorph's resident Andalite. Rachel doesn't seem to have much of an opinion of him, other than to respect his fighting ability. She does occasionally bang heads with him, resenting the Andalites for giving them this war, for starting the whole trouble with the Yeerks in the first place (long story), and for not coming to their aid more quickly. Ax tends to choose the path that's most logical in regards to all aspects while, as noted, Rachel prefers efficient. However, Tobias and Ax are best friends and actually nephew-and-uncle (another long story), which I think keeps Rachel from making too much of a fuss, most of the time.
Her Family: is pretty standard. She has two little sisters, Jordan and Sara, who are mostly ignored. Jordan notices her sister changing but Sara is too little - there's some interaction between Rachel and Jordan but, for the most part, Rachel has a job to do and doesn't have time to actually listen. Her parents are divorced, her dad moved to another state early on in the series. He offered to have her come live with him and fly back to her mother's every weekend, and Rachel was sorely tempted - to get away from the war, to live a fairytale out in a new city with her rich father who had already gotten her an Olympic gymnastics coach to train with. In the end, she chooses to stay and continue fighting. This decision is all Rachel's, and has absolutely nothing to do with Tobias - more than a thirst for violence, a warrior is loyal to the cause.
What does this mean for Shatter?
Basically, Rachel trusts Jo until she gets a reason not to anymore. She's still not entirely certain that Yeerks aren't involved but while she places very little trust in the Ellimist, she's fairly certain he wouldn't have put her in a new world without mentioning the presence of them. Her slip with Jo about morphing is attributed to a couple of things: one, she isn't used to being around people who love the fight and got a little too comfortable and two, a part of her wants to be comfortable and fighting again. The Ellimist told her there were no rules in this world and she's looking to test that.
People Rachel Will Immediately Lose Respect For:
-Anyone that hits on her
-Anyone that belittles her, anyone she likes, or anyone she just doesn't think deserves it
-Anyone who can't/won't fight
-Anyone shallow, specifically those who remind her of other, normal high school kids
-Anyone who trusts easily
Basically, anyone ever for a number of reasons.
AND THAT'S IT FOR NOW.
shatterverse.1. If Animorphs had been a Greek myth, Rachel would be Achilles - furious, fierce, in love with the battle, and always at the forefront.
2. Rachel was an utterly normal girl before Elfangor. A little more snappish and angry than most, but completely normal - younger sisters to babysit, homework to do, gymnastics class to go to, parents' divorce to deal with.
3. Rachel is sixteen. Her body is about twenty-five, her mind is a warrior's, but for all social intents and purposes, she is a stunted sixteen year-old girl.
4. Rachel's idea of love and friendship has been completely warped by war - she is extremely particular about who she uses both those words to describe.
5. In war, trust is a precious commodity. Rachel uses it sparingly, if she uses it at all, and the term is always negotiable.
And with that...
Rachel's living with Jo Harvelle, which means she's interacting with the Winchesters a bit, too. Not so much Sam, Mary, Jess, and Dianne, though she'll probably meet and half-heartedly chat with each of them once in a while. But Dean keeps coming by Jo's house, so she does see a lot of him. She's already decided, through simple observation of her housemate and neighbor, that Jo and Dean are interested in each other and have decided it would be wiser not to pursue it. As #3 states, Rachel is sixteen - her idea of 'interest' is different from anyone else watching these two. She doesn't look at them and think 'sex,' she looks and thinks 'crush.' At this point, she secretly thinks they want to kiss and cuddle each other and don't want to be that vulnerable.
Which leads me to Tobias.
Here's Rachel's romantic experience: her first boyfriend was Tobias, who became a Nothlit in book ONE, so that's very telling of their relationship from the get-go. (Nothlit is a term for someone with a morphing capability who got stuck in a morph for more than two hours and became trapped. Tobias was trapped as a red-tailed hawk, who he eventually comes to identify as just as much a part of him as the human is - if not more) To begin with, Rachel is literally dating a hawk - they go flying together, he recruits her for help with certain situations that require morphing (saving a hawk being used in a car sales commercial by morphing elephant and stomping on all the cars while Tobias picked the lock and freed the hawk), he would come to her room every night to help her with her homework. It helped him stay human, that connection, and it helped Rachel a bit, too. As a human, Tobias was very gentle, very thoughtful, very quiet and though he's fierce as a hawk, he retains that same attitude - he's gentle and thoughtful, though not very quiet anymore. Eventually, he voices his opinions very strongly and that's part of feeling more powerful as the hawk than he ever did as a human. But, to begin with, Rachel finds herself spending more and more time and becoming closer and closer to a guy (because she always sees him as a human) who is gentle and sweet and good and likes her. It keeps her human, as much as her homework and her presence keep him.
Throughout the series, after Tobias has regained his morphing capability and (with the help of that Crazy Kid the Ellimist) is able to acquire his own human self as a morph, Rachel repeatedly asks him to trap himself as a Nothlit human. She wants him out of the war but another big part of it, I think, is that they're getting too deep into the war - Rachel is losing her humanity bit by bit and can see the fear and concern in the eyes of her friends, people fighting that very same war. And her sweet, gentle Tobias is getting more and more in touch with the hawk, less and less human. When he is human, he forgets basic thing - what things taste like, how to form expressions, how to use his voice in a certain tone, not to stare. It would have been odd to see them dating before Elfangor, when she would have been tall and blonde and gorgeous and he short and meek and geeky - now it's impossible. It draws too much attention to them, especially since, after he's trapped as a Nothlit, Tobias the Human literally disappears - he isn't supposed to be anywhere near the area that Rachel lives in, and if anyone recognized him and passed that information on, including who he was with... Lots of trouble.
So Rachel wants him out of the war, as much for his safety as her sanity. He's her grip on a normal life, on being close to what she looks like - a beautiful, normal girl. And when he starts to lose his humanity, she becomes afraid of doing the same. She loves the fight, lives and breathes it, but she doesn't like the way her friends and family come to look at her, doesn't like the way her friends rely on her to always be the first one to jump head-first into a battle.
In one book, we discover that Tobias' only living family has finally noticed that he's missing. Rachel asks Tobias to come meet her and he's worried that she's going to call him on something personal (he'd been having trouble feeding in his territory, wasn't able to chase away an intruding hawk, and was starving - Rachel had seen him feeding on carrion on the street). She doesn't even bring up what he was thinking about, just tells him that people are looking for him. We discover that there is apparently a cousin that has just popped out of the woodwork, just found out about Tobias, and wants to tak him in, give him a real home and a family. Tobias grew up being shuttled between an aunt and an uncle that hated each other, and him, too - his mother was supposedly a junkie and his father a deadbeat that took off on them both. The draw of a real family is incredibly strong, and Rachel encourages it. This book is interesting, because Rachel gets extremely emotional with him.
(paraphrased)
This isn't Romeo and Juliet, this isn't feuding families, this isn't like you're black and I'm white, like Cassie and Jake, nobody cares about that, it's... we can't hold hands. We can't go on a real date, I can't introduce you to my parents. What am I supposed to do? You're a bird, I'm a girl - what is this?
The book ends with Tobias choosing not to live with his cousin, for extremely understandable reasons - he had no choice. Rachel never says a word with it, but when he comes over one night, she has a birthday cake for him - a big theme in this book was that he'd forgotten when his birthday was, he was losing his humanity.
In another book, Rachel morphs a starfish and is accidentally cut in half. Because of the regenerative nature of starfish, she is able to morph out into two identical Rachels, both with different personalities. One is angry and violent and obsessed with only short-term action. The other is meek and frightened but able to see the long-term. Rachel is disgusted and terrified of these halves and when she is finally put back together, is deeply troubled to know that both of these halves exist inside of her. She's vicious and cruel and ruthless... but she's also scared. These two halves keep the other in check, but only barely, and all too often, vicious and cruel beats out the other. Part of Rachel's terror is knowing that one day she could completely lose it and curl up in a ball, terrified, and the other part is fear that the part of her that is scared will disappear, and all she'll be is a killing machine.
Tobias' line, after she's been joined back together and is looking to him for guidance:
(paraphrased)
Let's go, Rachel. The two of you, and the two of me.
To be fair, I'm at a disadvantage as it's been years since I read the series. But as I recall, there was never any actual written-out description of any physical affection between Rachel and Tobias, other than her petting him in hawk form. We can assume that there have been small kisses, and there's certainly been hugging - Rachel dragged him to a school dance once. But it is highly unlikely that they ever did anything more heated than kissing, and I would be stunned if they'd managed to find the time and excuse for making out. Tobias has his own troubles and concerns, and Rachel was stunted from the get-go - it may not have ever even occurred to her. Had she been older when she joined the war, it might have, but by the time it may have occurred to her, she was already in the habit of getting out her energy and aggression and desperation through morphs and violence. Some therapeutic, angry sex just never would have occurred to her.
To sum up: Rachel is in love with Tobias in a way that 99% of the real and fictional population of any world probably never manages. She doesn't need a physically relationship with him because, as far as she's concerned, there isn't anything more that either of them need. "The two of you and the two of me" is an excellent statement to make between them, as they reall are just two halves of a single person. Rachel keeps Tobias in check and he keeps her. And when she dies, Tobias is sent into a serious depression, living as a hawk for years. That double life, that Rachel really made possible, just isn't worth it any more without her.
And I think, in Shatter, that's where she's leading now. She doesn't need to be scared, she doesn't need to be meek. She was taken away from Tobias, away from her tie to humanity, which means she must not need to be human in this world.
It'll be interesting.
Okay, moving on. Here's a very quick sum-up of her relationship with the others of Team Animorph, because I spent WAAAAY too much time on Toby:
Cassie: is Rachel's best friend, has been since they were both toddlers. Cassie is short, black, a little stocky, and her passion is caring for animals. She ends up being the morphing resource they all use when deciding what to acquire for what mission, etc. She is a "peace-loving, tree-hugging hippie" as per Marco, and this causes she and Rachel to clash frequently in the series. By the end of it, they're both too disgusted with each other and themselves to be called anything but teammates - Rachel doesn't feel she can rely on her anymore, and Cassie is honestly scared of Rachel.
Jake: is Rachel's cousin on her father's side and the leader of the Animorphs. They weren't exactly friends before all of this happened, but they liked each other and were probably closer to each other than most other family members. That's to be somewhat expected since they lived near each other and went to the same school. Also, Jake and Cassie had huge crushes on each other from the get-go, which Rachel was long used to. As the series went on, Rachel and Jake began to clash - the choices he was forced to make as a leader disrupted the choices she wanted to make as the warrior. Her only concern was to get the job done but, as the leader, Jake also had to consider the results of their actions in regards to the war itself, their personal safety, and the safety of those around them. In the end, Rachel's death is ultimately caused by Jake, as he is forced to figure out a way to take out a high-ranking Controller, who also happens to be his brother. He knows, and Rachel knows too, that she is the only one who can accomplish the job. They both know that they are sending her to her death. It's easy to feel sorry for Rachel with this, but as the leader, I feel worse for Jake.
Marco: is Jake's best friend and Rachel's thorn in her side. He is short, cute, sarcastic, and a huge flirt. He nicknames Rachel Xena from the get-go and is constantly goading her into personally meeting Lucy Lawless (Xena actress) or dressing up in letter. This earns him many death threats/promises. Despite Rachel's annoyance toward his personality, they end up on the same side of many arguments - Marco is a brilliant strategist and he and Rachel tend to side together on the most efficient way to finish a job, even if it's ruthless and cruel and includes quite a bit of violence. Still, Marco is unnerved by Rachel's thrill in the fight and doesn't quite know what to make of her. It seems like they both make a point of never speaking to each other outside of a mission.
Aximili: is the Animorph's resident Andalite. Rachel doesn't seem to have much of an opinion of him, other than to respect his fighting ability. She does occasionally bang heads with him, resenting the Andalites for giving them this war, for starting the whole trouble with the Yeerks in the first place (long story), and for not coming to their aid more quickly. Ax tends to choose the path that's most logical in regards to all aspects while, as noted, Rachel prefers efficient. However, Tobias and Ax are best friends and actually nephew-and-uncle (another long story), which I think keeps Rachel from making too much of a fuss, most of the time.
Her Family: is pretty standard. She has two little sisters, Jordan and Sara, who are mostly ignored. Jordan notices her sister changing but Sara is too little - there's some interaction between Rachel and Jordan but, for the most part, Rachel has a job to do and doesn't have time to actually listen. Her parents are divorced, her dad moved to another state early on in the series. He offered to have her come live with him and fly back to her mother's every weekend, and Rachel was sorely tempted - to get away from the war, to live a fairytale out in a new city with her rich father who had already gotten her an Olympic gymnastics coach to train with. In the end, she chooses to stay and continue fighting. This decision is all Rachel's, and has absolutely nothing to do with Tobias - more than a thirst for violence, a warrior is loyal to the cause.
What does this mean for Shatter?
Basically, Rachel trusts Jo until she gets a reason not to anymore. She's still not entirely certain that Yeerks aren't involved but while she places very little trust in the Ellimist, she's fairly certain he wouldn't have put her in a new world without mentioning the presence of them. Her slip with Jo about morphing is attributed to a couple of things: one, she isn't used to being around people who love the fight and got a little too comfortable and two, a part of her wants to be comfortable and fighting again. The Ellimist told her there were no rules in this world and she's looking to test that.
People Rachel Will Immediately Lose Respect For:
-Anyone that hits on her
-Anyone that belittles her, anyone she likes, or anyone she just doesn't think deserves it
-Anyone who can't/won't fight
-Anyone shallow, specifically those who remind her of other, normal high school kids
-Anyone who trusts easily
Basically, anyone ever for a number of reasons.
AND THAT'S IT FOR NOW.