111 Girls Who Kick Ass, Number 9: Rachel

Well, duh.

You know, honestly, trying to explain why Rachel kicks ass is a bit like trying to explain . . . um . . . well, the point is, she's so badass that I can't even think of a decent metaphor here.

Wait, I've got one! Trying to explain why Rachel the Animorph kicks ass is sort of like trying to explain why Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the character, not the show) kicks ass. Frankly, I think the fact that she was born in the wrong universe is the only reason Rachel wasn't the Vampire Slayer instead of Buffy. (That may not make all the sense in the world . . . but, if you're a fan of both series, just think about it for a second and tell me you don't see my point.)

The Animorphs are unusual, as the heroes of a kids' series, because they're not particularly qualified to save the world. Marco and Jake both have personal reasons for fighting; Tobias gets trapped as a red-tailed hawk on their very first mission; Ax is trapped on Earth, which is lightyears away from his home planet; and Cassie can't stand the thought of what'll happen to the planet and everyone on it if they don't fight the Yeerks.

But Rachel jumps into the war like it's her calling.

This may sound lame, but I can't talk about Rachel too much because her character development is probably my favorite part of the entire series and, on the off-chance that anyone reading this is just starting to read the books, I'd rather not spoil anything. I'll just say one thing more: The very first time she morphs, she turns into an elephant and, three seconds later, smashes a Hork-Bajir.

Also: "Earth is a tough neighborhood."*





*I kept thinking of this quote the entire time I was watching The Avengers.

111 Girls Who Kick Ass, Number 8: Cassie

Yes, Cassie.

If you're familiar with the series, you might have expected me to write about Rachel (and don't you worry; she's getting her own entry). If you're not familiar with the series, Animorphs is about six kids who get tossed into a war to save everyone on Earth from being enslaved by a bunch of mind-controlling parasitic aliens from outer space. They could be anyone: your pastor, your teacher, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, your big brother, your president . . .

And our only hope is six kids who can turn into any animal they touch. For two hours at a time.

Yeah, we're pretty much screwed.

Anyway! Cassie!

Despite the fact that the last book was published in May of 2001, you can find corners of the Internet where the fandom is still fairly active --- and, more often than not, whenever the discussion turns to the question of who's your favorite Animorph, Cassie is almost always always always picked dead last. Most fans don't outright hate her, but hardly anyone loves her.

Personally, I can only understand this on an intellectual level. These books were such an enormous part of my childhood that I love all six main characters pretty much equally. They all have fleshed-out personalities with their own believable strengths and weaknesses; picking one favorite would be like . . . well, frankly, it would be even more difficult than picking one favorite from the Mane Six of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

I think a big part of Cassie's status as the not-so-favorite comes from the moment in book nineteen where she briefly quits the group. And I get that, but if she hadn't quit none of the kids ever would've found out that there were some Yeerks who actually felt bad about enslaving other species. (Then again, it could be because she got saddled with The Hidden and The Unexpected, two of the dumbest books in the whole series.)


Alright, then. Here's why she's such a badass:

1. You know how, in the Harry Potter movies, it takes Professor McGonagall about three seconds to turn into a cat? And, in those three seconds, all of her is turning at exactly the same speed? And it's pretty cool to watch? Morphing in this series is absolutely nothing like that. It's DISGUSTING. It always takes at least a minute or so, and there's no controlling how it'll happen. Say you're turning into a fly. Chances are the first change will be your insect eyes just popping out of your human face --- they won't be the right size until the rest of you starts to shrink. But Cassie is special. She has enough control to, for example, look like an angel for a few seconds when she's demorphing from an osprey. When Ax joins the group, he explains that there are people on his planet who are so good at morphing that it's considered an art, and Cassie could be one of them.
2. As if that wasn't awesome enough, in Megamorphs 4 we find out that she was born with another power she didn't even know about. When the Drode (who is basically a harbinger for Krayak, the series' Big Bad) discovers this power, he gets downright livid with the Ellimist (Big Good). It's bad enough that the Animorphs include Elfangor's son, Elfangor's little brother, and the son of Visser One's host body --- but, by making sure that Cassie was also one of them, he basically cheated and gave good an unfair advantage.
3. From chapter one of book one, it is firmly established that Cassie is more sensitive than anyone else in the group. She always knows just what to say to diffuse an argument. Which is badass in its own way, of course . . . but not until book twenty does anyone realize that she is also really good at manipulating people. She masterminds every single detail of the plan to stop David without outright killing him (and you could make an argument that killing would have been more merciful).
4. As you can see in the picture, Cassie is black. This is only an issue one time in the entire series, when the kids are stuck in an alternate-history Princeton in the late 1930s (long story) and some racist asshole can't believe that a "colored" girl is, gasp, looking him in the eye and speaking to him like they're equals. So she very kindly tells him that she can of course turn white if that'll make him more comfortable. And then she morphs a polar bear.
5. Whenever she kisses Jake, it is always less of an "I like you because you're a boy and you make me feel all breathless" thing and more of an "I can't believe we're alive!" thing.
6. It may not seem like a particularly effective way to stop an alien invasion (and it's not), but just think about all the things you could do if you could turn into animals. You could fly, you could become a lot stronger than any human on the planet, you could gain superspeed . . . all of which Cassie points out in the very first book.
7. Can't believe I almost forgot this one! If you ever want proof that Cassie kicks just as much ass as anyone else on the team, read book twenty-nine. She singlehandedly completes a mission that could have left them all exposed to Visser Three, AND THEN she comes home and performs brain surgery on an alien.

Stupid Dreams I've Had Lately

• Sailor Moon and her friends discover the Thunderzords and use them to defeat someone or other. Someone particularly unpleasant.*
• I don't know, something about my dad.
• My little sister dies. (I've had this dream at least six times since New Year's.)
• Tiffany Aching visits Bonnie Bennett and explains that, when you're a young witch with an ancient evil you need to defeat, duh, sometimes the very best thing you can do is ask older witches for help. And then, in a moment of uncharacteristic snark, she teases her because her "ancient evil" is only a thousand years old.**
• I'm in a strange city and desperately need a cab. I'm holding a page from a phone book that's full of nothing but numbers for cab companies, but none of them work. I begin to get really frantic, and then I remember that I have the number for a reliable cab company in my phone already. THIS IS ONE OF THE DUMBEST DREAMS I HAVE EVER HAD.
• One of my best friends marries her boyfriend, has three daughters, and kills somebody who tries to hurt one of them (and by "hurt," I mean "rape"). She kills him with a kitchen knife. A really big, really shiny kitchen knife. This one was interesting because all I actually saw in the dream was this image of her standing there holding the knife and letting the blood drip down all over her hands and onto the floor; then I sort of asked her what had happened and just kind of knew everything.
• Storm of the X-Men - who, by the way, is rocking her leather and mohawk look from the eighties - saves a little girl who's been stuffed in a trunk.
• The Animorphs have superpowers related to their personalities - Cassie's an empath, Rachel is superstrong, etc. - and they can all teleport, but nobody can morph. There's basically no point to this dream (although it is obviously pretty cool), which I have now had about three times in about six years.
• My mom calls me and initiates a screaming match that ends with me getting really quiet and throwing this at her: "So, Mother, since you're throwing so many stones around today, I guess you're 'without sin,' huh? Golly, you're like the second sinless person in history. Why aren't you famous?"

You can analyze any or all of these if you want, but I am really not in the mood.




*Okay, that one was less "stupid" and more "made of awesome."

**Tiffany's foes tend to be so old that trying to figure out their exact age would require the sort of math that makes a normal person's head explode. For example, when she's thirteen (and therefore at least four years younger than Bonnie is when she fails to kill "the oldest vampire in the history of time") she butts heads with THE PERSONIFICATION OF WINTER.

"Helpful" Quotes

This morning was very special and somewhat stressful (we don't need to get into the details). To help deal with it, I thought I'd spend the last half of my walk to work thinking up quotes that were, well, helpful. This is what I came up with:

"Please let me get what I want." - The Smiths
==> Another quote by them that was suggested by my friend Kiki (who is one-third of the entire reason I have a Twitter): "You know where you came from, you know where you're going and you know where you belong."

"I hate that there's evil in the world. I hate that I was chosen to fight it." - Buffy Summers

"Make your choice. Are you ready to be strong?" - Buffy Summers

"People say I'm pretty, and I guess I'm okay. People say I'm confident, and I know that's true." - Rachel the Animorph

"Maybe you die, but you never surrender." - Marco the Animorph


ANGELUS: Take all that away, and what's left?
BUFFY: Me.

". . . I know you love me, baby." - Lady Gaga

"It's not too late." - Aang

"You already have all the weapons you need. Now fight." - various characters from Sucker Punch

"The truth is important, but so are your friends. And if you can have them both . . . then it's a good life." - Harriet M. Welsch

"The end will justify the pain it took to get us there." - Relient K

"The beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair." - Relient K

"You are now at the hard part of getting better. But keep your head up, kid - you got this." - my friend Emily

(Sooo I clearly need to get my ass to the library sometime soon. Even when I quoted the main character of my favorite book of all time, I lifted a line from the movie.)

I may or may not have more to say about this later, but my whole experience with Depression has made me just slightly jealous of Buffy. Sure, every demon in the world eventually comes after her and her friends, whereas I only have the one to deal with . . . but, when she kills a monster, it (almost always) stays dead.

Depression never goes away forever.

At least, not so far.

But I've only been fighting him for about two and a half months. That's somewhat less than the seventeen years he's been trying to ruin my life.

I guess, when you look at it that way, it's sort of a mixed blessing that he doesn't stay dead.

Because killing him feels good.