#brad pitt sucks; i think some dracula post but i don't remember which one; why rachel/tobias from animorphs is the OTP of all time

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

the thing about rachel animorphs being terribly characterized in all her ghostwritten books but one (and even that one is like. it's not amazing rachel narration but it DOES have the most romantic plot of all time so i forgive it*) to a degree that none of the other characters are plagued by is that to me it feels very revealing about us as a Culture bc it's like. the thing about rachel is that she is a hot blonde who kicks ass. and she's also a complex individual with many sides to her, including (i think if you read her non ghost written books and even just the slice of her narration we get before she dies in the last book this really jumps out undeniably) an extremely real and tender strain of sweetness. and this comes out in some of her scenes in books narrated by other characters. but in her own books, where she's narrating, it's like, they simply cannot understand the assignment, when the assignment is "hot kickass blonde but make her also a real person." it's like that old toast essay about getting insanely obsessed with ophelia because the alternative was admitting that a man needs to be as talented as shakespeare to write a sad girl who's also a human being except it's you have to be as good as k. a. applegate (the shakespeare of monthly mass market paperback children series) to write a girl who is hot and awesome and a human being.

*the most romantic plot of all time is that they have to acquire a beached sperm whale to go down under the water and attempt to subdue a giant squid so that the whole squad can acquire it so they can go deal with the problem on the ancient submerged spacecraft that's fucking up their allies the chee (androids created by the now extinct race of aliens who invented dogs). anyway so rachel hates water because she hates things she can't control and her coping mechanism for dealing with fear is walking into it head on so she wants to be one of the whales precisely because of how badly she doesn't want to be one of the whales (overall her characterization in this book i do think is solid, just the Tone is not quite 100% in her voice IMO), so when they're drawing straws she makes eyes at tobias to use his hawk vision to tell her what's the short straw, and he's like "no i am not going to help you drown yourself on purpose" and she makes eyes at him harder and then he's like "ugh fine" and tells her, and then he draws the other short straw on purpose even though he hates water more than anything but not for rachel control freak reasons, it's because he's a bird and the containment of water freaks him the hell out and also when he demorphs out in the ocean it's not into a shape that can, like, doggie paddle. which first of all is soooo funny and also good rachel characterization because rachel is like constitutionally incapable of thinking ahead for 5 seconds to "obviously the boy who loves me who would love me anyway but for whom i am like literally his primary tie to humanity because he lives as a red tailed hawk and spends his days perched in his trees hunting small mammals is going to insist on coming with me on the scary underwater squid mission just like every other time i have done anything ever" and also because jake gets super fucking mad at her about it which is like getting mad at a fish for swimming. but then the best part is they're down there and both spooked to hell about it because the deep sea is crazy scary and because, again, THEY BOTH HATE THIS CONCEPT SO BAD and are only here because of rachel's psychological problems and true love. and while trying to get their minds off the skin-crawling nightmare of it rachel lets it slip that some dude asked her out and they have this AMAAAZING back and forth where they're both being incredibly snotty because of how they are totally in love and also little babies who have just barely started acknowledging this to themselves much less each other which means that even though they can go on a terrifying deep sea adventure alien war side quest date they are still insanely awkward about like-liking each other. tobias learns the guy's name is T. T. and asks if that stands for total trauma and rachel's like idk what it stands for and he's like well you should find out his name if you're going out with him and rachel's like well i'm not and tobias is like oh. and then they find a squid. it's incredible. then at the end of the book T. T. comes around while rachel's at gymnastics and flirts with her again and rachel basically tells him to fuck off and he calls her "a name i've been called before" because swearing between the lines was an important part of animorphs and then tobias who is watching this whole thing from the sky is like "hey he was cute. and i heard what he called you. cute AND perceptive" and rachel's like "oh shut up (affectionate)" and they go have a flying date together. like literally when will your faves. they ARE the blueprint. sometimes i feel insane for as an adult still finding something genuinely romantic in a pairing from a 90s monthly mass market series for children, but like what other kidlit saga has ever included a tragic dreamboat boyfriend affectionately teasing his girlfriend about what a total bitch she is in a way that genuinely works as a cute thing to do because she and we both know that he literally loves her partly BECAUSE she has no problem being an asshole to people who deserve it and also is so good at killing people? like hello!!!!!!!!!

#topics on which i've hit tumblr paragraph limit: #brad pitt sucks; i think some dracula post but i don't remember which one; why rachel/tobias from animorphs is the OTP of all time #sure. yeah. whatever. #animorphs