#Rachel Animorphs

[brothermouse-skeleton]

Yeah, about your boyfriend? Well you know how he's been unwanted and ostracized by everyone who ought to have cared about him? Wellllll he also just watched his secret alien dad die right before his alien dad gave him the morphing power an- you know what, actually, long story short: he's a bird now. He's just...stuck like that. Yeah I mean he's stuck stuck. We might be able to fix him if we got a space goose from the edge of time and space involved but, honestly? I wouldn't hold my breath.

[cobaltegg]

so like, what if you were the last surviving animorph but it's been canonically established that you still had your best friend's DNA in your body

[theabbythatstalksthenight]

Incredible. Truly Incredible.

[lettersfromaplatypus]

Rereading Animorphs #12 (The Reaction) for research purposes for the first time in YEARS and already by page 2 it’s reminding me why these books held me in a death grip back in middle school

[mooskobold]

When everything's made to be broken

I just want you to know who I am

[fanonical]

animorphs: when all you have is the power to morph into animals, it looks like everything can be solved by morphing into a fucking grizzly bear and fucking shit up

[halogenwarrior]

As an addendum to my previous post on Rachel – another way the other Animorphs misinterpret her that fans sometimes copy is this sense that she thinks her life is worthless because she has gone too far, there’s nothing for her beyond the war so what would she have to live for, that it’s fitting that she dies in the end in this way (see Jake in #22 being like “you are an addict, what would you be without this war?”) But the reality is I think even more tragic, especially in light of others misinterpreting it. The truth is that Rachel wants to live, so much that she doesn’t even understand how anyone could be suicidal (#17), there’s always something worth living for that’s better than death. She wants to live, and even so when she first meets Tobias who really does feel like his life is worth nothing, she is the first to say that he matters to her, even when none of them know him well – but there is always the inherent tension between them in their relationship that as compassionate as she is she really doesn’t comprehend the mindset of someone who doesn’t care much if he lives or dies. She wants to live, and that’s what makes her respect this ideal of a warrior so much, as in Megamorphs #3 where she narrates that those who fight in wars are the best and worst of humanity, with the best part being because they are willing to sacrifice themselves even though life is so valuable. And I think there’s a disconnect in that when Jake sends Rachel on the final suicide mission, he thinks it has to be her because she is always the one sent to fight on the frontlines and destroy herself, who will embrace the war in life and death because she is nothing without it and she would never be happy alive, when really yes it does have to be her, even though she is scared, even though she really does want the life of peace that will come at last if they just survive one more day, but the very knowledge she values life so much makes her push herself to be willing to put herself in front of the others, over and over again, as a sacrifice - physically, emotionally and morally.

[princeseerow]

don't believe everything you see

[aposematic-jessica]

it always felt right to me that rachel died in animorphs. that of all the animorphs she was the one who died. not that i wanted her to, i loved her. but because any of the other kids, there would have been a poetic nature to it. jake, the leader, the sacrificial lamb on the altar of wartime—wouldn’t his death have been a kind of mercy. cassie, the bleeding heart, the pacifist with bloody hands—her death a mercy too, a final refusal. marco, the child who would have laughed his way to the grave and who followed his commanders orders to it, too—no more back to the wall, no more dead eyes. aximili, starchild, lost child soldier still fighting his parents’ war—there’s a cruel irony in him dying without ever seeing his kinsmen again. tobias, the inhuman boy, boy with a hawk’s heart—he had no one to go home to, wouldn’t dying have cut his story neatly?

but rachel? rachel, the child soldier who was more at home on the battlefield than she ever was anyone else? rachel, one cousin’s attack dog, one cousin’s murderer? rachel with the filthy, filthy hands that no tears could wash clean? rachel who couldn’t have known what to do with herself after the war was over? there’s no poetry or irony in her dying. it just makes sense. cruel, cold, statistical sense. rachel fought and fought and killed and murdered and did things no child’s psyche could survive but hers, and she died because her violent tastes were useful. and they ended with the logical conclusion! of course rachel died. that’s the thesis of the damn series, isn’t it?

[whiteratnothlit]

animorphs is anti blonde propaganda and im thankful for it. no more please.

[peepmart]

I was just doodling and made this Rachel sketch! its not really in my style but its still cute,, I want to make all of the animorphs like this!

(this will get me over my hate for drawing animals...)

(im also currently on book 27 and SPOILERS she got her hair cut as a bob... so its not as long anymore...but wtvr)

[brothermouse-skeleton]

Just thinking about an alternate Animorphs universe where Rachel survives, wins the war, gets therapy and is sitting in a doctor's office for a checkup.

Doctor: Any allergies?

Rachel: Yeah. Crocodiles.

Doctor: *sensible chuckle*

Rachel: No, I'm serious. If I even touch a crocodile, we're gonna have a huge problem.

Doctor (with dawning horror): W-what kind of problem?

Rachel (deadly serious): TWO crocodiles. Maybe an elephant.

[morkaischosen]

you gotta explain the rachel squid thing. i mean, i get it on some level but i'd go with the rachel bear or rachel crocodile covers

Gladly!

It's not just the squid, is the first thing- really it's about the Squid Book. But it's the squid on the cover, and that stands in for all of this.

In Animorphs book 27, The Exposed, the crew acquire the form of a beached whale in order to get deep enough to acquire the giant squid form they'll need to survive the crushing depths of the sea and reach their objective. It's a Rachel POV book and I'm a Rachel girlie, so of course I was ready to do some deep dives (so to speak). So was Morgan, whom I was reading along with - this was a few years back, picking the series up as an adult after the half-dozen of them that I read (and reread) as a kid made such a strong impression on me.

The thing that really stuck out to me in the Squid Book was the way it seemed to be using its descriptions of the whale and the squid to echo something about Rachel.

My instincts were sure. Calm. Confident. I had no fear. No questions. I asked for nothing. I explained nothing.

The whale is bigger than all the anxieties she tries to be faster than or strong enough to endure; bigger than the fear of failure.

The whale did not fear what was going to happen. It hunted to eat every day. Someone would win the battle, someone would lose. The whale had accepted this fact since birth. I had not. Losing was not something I wanted to think about. This was not a situation where I could simply demorph if the whale was hurt. To demorph was to die.

That's something we see in a lot of Rachel's morph choices - in her own body she's all grace and elegance, a gymnast and a model, but rather than the liquid danger of Jake's tiger morph she chooses the size and power of a grizzly or an elephant; animals that are big and tough enough that they don't have to care about opposition for longer than it takes to push past it.

The squid was smaller, much lighter, basically weaker. But it had agility. And it had arms. I had a mouth. Imagine a fight between a gymnast, small but with full use of arms and legs, and a three-hundred-pound linebacker who can only use his mouth.

Gymnast, huh?

Someone was turned away from me. Another giant squid, floating, arms extended like some vile flower. I saw the mantle. My meat. I drew in water and expelled it like a jet blowing exhaust. I jetted forward! I drew my long arms up from the depths, coiling them and extending them toward my prey, moving them in what felt to the human part of me like slow motion. The other squid was unaware! Cassie? Was it Cassie? Who cared? Cassie would feed my hunger just as well as -

Rachel almost loses herself in that gymnast's violent urges, but manages to come back to herself when Cassie speaks.

Everything here comes back to Rachel's urges. There's a moment after Cassie's morphed Rachel in the crocodile book where she talks about Rachel being hardwired for recklessness; here we see the magnificent calm of being something too big to be reckless set against the swift gymnastic violence of something that kills without thinking.

And when Rachel takes that vast imperturbable shape and takes the battle to this animal mirror of her most violent self, she loses. She has to retreat or be lost, but Tobias - here despite his terror of the water, because he wants to be with her - has her back, beats the squid, and saves the mission.

The whole thing reads as metaphor for the battle between who Rachel wants to be - so self-assured that the anxieties she opens the book with roll off her - and who she's afraid she is, and it became my chosen shorthand for that internal struggle.

As the series goes on, Rachel loses herself to motion and violence, and it destroys her.

That's why, after I finished reading the series, this was the last message I sent to Morgan right before I went to bed:

That's why he gave me a print of the Squid Book cover; and that's why it's hanging on my wall.

[nodosauriday]

the animorpherrrrrs

i drew the boys on the opposite page but they didn't come out as well so i'm just posting the girls. I'm reading the separation right now and it's by far the most batshit insane/stupid book in a while, it's awesome.

[juspart]

mighty morphin' sadness kiddos

[thelesbianthespianposts]

bored, have some of my favorite animorphs quotes