Counted Stars Application
Player Information:
Name or Handle: Cali
LJ: Caliborn
Email: Carrier_of_solar@huttporn.com
AIM/ MSN / Plurk name: AIM: Calipso09, Ebon Hawk
Any current characters here?: Aqua
Character Information:
Character Name: Rachel (no last name)
Age: 16
Canon: Animorphs
Appearance: She is blonde, blue eyed, and tall. She's a young teenager, described as always having perfect hair and nails and skin even in the worst conditions. She is repeatedly mocked as being able to still look fabulous even after walking through a rainstorm, rolling through mud and surviving a hurricane, all at once. Rachel propagates this myth because she likes being thought of as constantly fabulous, even when she doesn't really feel it herself. She does have a fashion sense, and likes looking her best and thinks people who walk around in overalls with birdpoop on them need Help and Guidance. Sometimes she comes off as the airheaded valley-girl stereotype, but this is really only for the first second someone sees her. The next second is usually when you see her expression, her eyes, and realize that there is something dangerous and unwavering behind those baby blues.
Personality: Rachel is a warrior. Simple as that. Or not as simple, because until the end Rachel questioned her own darker nature. The very thing that gave her the bravery (and sometimes insanity) to rush fists-first into any fight and enjoy the mayhem was also the very thing that scared her most about herself. She was known as the brave one on the team, the confident one, but very rarely did anyone realize just how much bravado she displayed for the sake of the team. Oftentimes she realized that she was not *allowed* to be scared in front of the team, or show doubts, because if the Mighty Rachel was uneasy then everyone would be scared out of their minds.
The one time the team heards about her having cried, they nearly had a meltdown. Or at least Marco did. Such weakness was more unsettling than anything they had been through previous. Later they discovered she had merely been split in two, with the two aspects of her personality in different bodies, and this... was much more acceptable to them than her just randomly crying.
Speaking of which, Rachel does have two very distinct parts that make up her personality: One is the warrior, the bloodthirsty, the dark and sometimes twisted, the violent side which aides her in battle and scares her outside of it. She is the one the team calls on when they need insane bravery, brute force, intimidation, and raw destruction. She will happily lead the way against insane odds and revels in the adrenaline rush; more than once she is called an adrenaline junky, getting off on the high that comes during a bloody battle.
The other part of her is less destructive. She can be organized, sometimes snarky, and fabulous-- she loves shopping, loves the mall, loves hunting and gathering and coming hope triumphant over sales. She cares about her friends desperately, and would do anything to protect them. When they are hurt, her dark side rises, and she will do anything to avenge them. She worries about her family and has a close relationship with both her parents, even though they are divorced. She's a gymnast, and loves the grace and fluidity of gymnastics, but also believes she'll never be that great at it because she's too tall. She clings to normalcy and tries to pretend that it'll be easy to going back to an everyday life, once the yeerks are gone and the world returns back to normal. It's absolutely essential that she believes she go back to being normal, because to lose that belief is to lose all hope. And hope is about all the sanity she has going for her, lately.
Her best friend, Cassie, keeps her grounded; Despite how very different they are, Rachel badly needs her calming influence in her life. Cassie always brings up the moral quandry, and speaks as the conscience for the group; without her, Rachel often would barge ahead without any thought to the consequences, because they honestly never occured to her. Rachel tends to follow cassie's morality instead of trying to argue out her own. She trusts her best friend. Rarely agrees with her, but trusts her almost absolutely.
She's admittedly in love with a boy on their team, named Tobias. He also presents a dual-nature, and this appeals to her; as insane as their lives get, somehow she feels secure and almost right, being with a boy who's stuck as a hawk. He, also, must war to find a balance between the human and the animal, the nurturing side and the predator.
Marco represents a sort of foil to her character; unlike her, he is openly fearful and readily admits his insecurities, using humor as a weapon against misery. They clash in all the right ways, with him balancing her when she gets too aggressive and constantly mocking her bravado. She in turn pushes him forward when he would rather stay still and never lets him get away with any bullshit. Ironically they both usually end up on the same side when arugments between the group occur; they are both practical and interested in the end results, and both tend to be a ruthless when they feel it is required.
Jake is her cousin and her leader, and also the biggest pain in her ass. Rachel follows him and both wants and doesn't want him to be in charge. She hates, hates being told what to do, and hates being manipulated even more. Jake does both, and gets ever better at the latter as the series goes on. Serious friction builds up between them, sometimes so hot Rachel almost sees red. She, herself, is not the best leader, but regardless tries to take over and lead the team a few times in Jake's absence or when he is decomissioned. Almost inevitably this ends badly. Rachel is too hot and too emotional to give cool, logical orders in battle. It always gets her in trouble.
And, finally, Ax, the alien-- he plays the logical, intelligent warrior next to her berserker. Outside of battle, Rachel loves to tease him, often finding it hilarious how Ax tries to translate human culture in his head. During battle, Rachel will try to lead when she might better be served by listening to cool logic. Ax never rarely pushes his points, though, preferring to follow the human's lead even when it gets them into trouble.
Outside of the group dynamic, Rachel often feels lost and has a hard time knowing what to do. She will simply charge in and make a mess of things if not stopped; she relies heavily on the group to balance her impulses and help her. She can be stubborn as hell, and near the end of the series tries to pretend she needs no one; but the truth is this is when she is the most self-destructive and at the lowest point in her life. She needs other people around her or she begins to devolve, the warrior side of her personality taking over and turning things for the worse.
Background: I am taking Rachel from directly after the events in book #32, The Separation.
This is her background wiki!
Special Abilities or Weapons: Rachel is a normal human except for one tiny thing: She has the ability to morph into any animal she touches.
No, really. Anything with DNA, she can touch it, absorb a bit of it, and then become it whenever she wants. Of course, there are drawbacks: She has to be human when she aquires any animal's DNA, which makes it very difficult to aquire anything that's trying to kill her. Morphing is not instantaneous and usually takes a couple minutes to completely the change, during which she is vulnerable. Morphing takes physical energy, and too many morphs in a row without rest or sleep inbetween tires her out very fast. When she tries out a new morph for the first time, there is always the chance she will get swept up in the animal instincts that appear with the change. Some animals have very strong instincts and habits and they can temporarily overwhelm her human mind.
Also, there's the tiny problem of a two-hour time limit: stay in a morph for over two hours, and she doesn't get to change back. Ever. She would be stuck in that form until she died.
While in morph, she has access to all the strengths and weaknesses of that particular animal. She also gains the ability of thought-speak, a kind of psychic way of talking so she can still communicate with her team members even if the animal doesn't have a useful voicebox, which is pretty often.
I'm not sure how to translate this into the Star Wars world, except that it *is* an alien technology, and not magic. It has a detailed lengthy scientific explanation on how it works and Rachel doesn't know a word of it, but she could get Ax to explain, if you like.
Sect: Guerrilla Warfare Civilian.
Job: She goes to highschool :|
Samples:
First Person:
[Pause. There is the usual shuffle of confused fingers and button-pushing, and then a young female voice speaks, a bit too casually. Video is turned off.]
Oh-kaaaay. This is a bit weird, even for me.
So, I've been listening in and I see I'm not the only innocent kid to suddenly wake up here-- Anyone have an explanation or, I don't know, a guidebook or something? Random space cities and talking robots is so not my thing. I never realized brushing up on nerd culture would be anything I'd need to use, you know, later in life.
[Another pause, and her voice gains an edge of steel, although it's still forcibly upbeat.] So no, really. What's going on?
Third Person:
Seriously? This was not happening.
Put her in front of a Hork Bajir, a squad of Taxxons, even Visser Three himself-- Rachel would know what to do. She would, as Marco so often put it, hulk out and rip their ugly slug-infested heads off. Dive into the battle head-first, score up some mayhem and damage before they took her down. Hey, she might die, but at least she would know what she was supposed to do. Battle was terrifying, nerve-wracking, but invariably easy. You killed or you got killed, end of story. It was simple and straightforward.
Put her on a hard bed and have her wake up in her underwear, now, that was unsettling.
This was not her house. Not her home. When she woke up and realized the situation, she was immediately treated to a nice, cold sweat and the thought that it's over. They found me. They found us. We're done.
But no, no, that didn't make any sense. She could still control her own eyes, her mouth, her hands. She wasn't a controller. If the yeerks had found them, wouldn't they have infested her before the creepy undressing and the relocating? And, as a quick glance outside her room door showed, there were no guards standing by.
No seven-foot-tall bladed salad slicers to make sure that if her head made it out of her room, her body would not follow.
There was nothing, nothing else in the room besides a bed and a window and an empty closet. No radios. No cameras, that she could find.
No witnesses.
Rachel decided to risk it. Even though a very loud part of her demanded she go grizzly and wreak havoc through the building until she managed to hit the people responsible, a logical part of her argued that smaller was smarter. Spy out the place out, figure what was going on, find the others.
Then wreak havoc.
Insect morph would never not-disgust her, but she couldn't think of another option. A bald eagle might get noticed, flying around indoors. The window wouldn't open, so she had to go out the front door.
Or bust open the window. Rachel considered it a moment, then realized she had nothing to throw at the glass. Besides a pillow, which, as hard as it had been, still probably wouldn't be all that helpful.
Alright. Insect. Something that could move around, something tiny enough to miss being seen. Her options were limited, but she decided something with wings might be best.
Moments later, a tiny fly buzzed out the door, leaving an empty room and touselled sheets behind.
Anything Else: Unedited awful app, I AM SO SORRY. ALSO UH Roomates with Marco? :3