#rachias

[kicking-gul-dukat-in-the-dick]

fucking hilarious

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Hi! I just finished reading #27 and I have all the feels about Rachel and Tobias. Could you give some of your excellent insight into their relationship?

I love them. So much. One thing that stands out to me in #27 is how much they sacrifice for each other. I'm not talking about the literal "I'd give my life for you" stuff, because honestly they're both the type to give up their lives for anyone. I'm talking more about the long-term stuff, the kind of life-changing sacrifice you have to make again and again every single day.

Rachel, more than anyone except maybe Marco, wants balance. She wants her life to still be there at the end of the war. She wants to go on dates, with "a ninety-minute movie, and pizza afterward" (#27). She wants "someone to hold my hand" (#13). She wants to have a life outside of the war, "college and stuff" (#7).

And Tobias lives in the war twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. He wakes up with last night's blood still in his feathers, spends all day following controllers, beds down miles from civilization. He doesn't get to eat lunch across from Rachel like Jake and Cassie do. He chose, however indirectly, to give up every molecule of normal life during their first battle. And when the Ellimist gives him an out in #13, he chooses to go right back in.

And then Rachel chooses him. She chooses, again and again, to go for the "mouse-eating freak" who knows every part of an "unrepeatable word" like her (#27), and loves her anyway. This, even though she knows she's giving up her afternoons and her civilian friends and some of her chance to hold hands now or go to college later. Because she weighs her options, and knows that T.T. isn't right for her. He might be cute, he might be charming, but he's not what she needs.

What Tobias chooses to give up for Rachel is much the opposite, and much the same. He values the ability to "fly free" (#3), he values "being left alone" (#13), he values "you can't lock me up" and "I can't be pinned down" (#23) so much so that he's willing to give up beds and warm meals and all connection to humanity to achieve those things. Only Rachel keeps pulling him back. She's his kite string, ensuring that no matter how far he flies he'll never entirely lose sight of the ground, and he'll never be so free he's out of control. In #3, in #33, even in #54 after she's gone, she keeps pulling him back in, keeps getting him to care about humanity in spite of his own best interests.

That's part of why — much as I hate most classic romance tropes — a part of me really likes love triangles. Because they involve choice, and choosing one's true love from among viable options. If Rachel is actively choosing between Marco and Tobias (MM4), between Bailey and Tobias (#32), between T.T. and Tobias (#27), then she's actively choosing Tobias. If we get to see Tobias be less happy with Melissa (MM3), if Tobias wonders what it would be like to just be a hawk with a fellow hawk (#3), then he's actively choosing Rachel. They're not soul mates bound together by the narrative; they're fiercely independent young adults who have options, and yet they choose to sacrifice for each other.

[mysterious-corpse]

Tobias/Rachel animorphs

come in with t

EDIT: this has been in my drafts for literally a year and i have no idea what that last bit was supposed to say

[insert-cleverurl]

leave me and my bird son and his insane-warrior girlfriend and her would-die-for-a-caterpillar best friend and her supposed-to-be-responsible-but-just-wants-to-play-video-games boyfriend and his hates-his-dog-stepbrother best friend and his alien boyfriend alone

[dorkbajirchronicles]

Rachel+Tobias=<333

[the-anchorless-moon]

Animorphs October day 2: Flowers @miraculoussparrow

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Got into a friendly debate with a friend -- do you have any thoughts on if the series' pairings were sexually active? I like to think Jake and Cassie's awkward roundaboutness to their relationship always peaked to glorious hand holding. Not sure about our bird boy and Xena.

Yep! That's my read of Jake and Cassie too. I don't think they get beyond a few kisses. I don't know if Rachel and Tobias go (*gasp*) all the way, but I agree that their relationship seems a lot more physical whereas Jake and Cassie's is more emotional. Plus, it is canon that Rachel leaves her window open at night in case Tobias feels like stopping by, so I'm thinking there was a little more nookie between those two.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Soft headcanon: I like to think that if Tobias was trans or genderfluid and told Rachel, Rachel would just be like "ok." And when Tobias asked abt her lack of reaction she'd be like "I've been in love w/ you all this time and you're a bird. This changes nothing. You being a human trans girl would actually make it easier for us to go on dates." Bonus: the next time Tobias visits her, she has bought cute girl clothes for Tobias to morph human and try on.

I love the idea of Rachel being SO ENTHUSIASTIC about transgirl Tobias.  She would probably go wild with taking her shopping, picking out makeup and hair ornaments for her, trying to get her to develop a “personal style.”  Also knowing Tobias, she’d probably be like “I live in a tree, I so do not have the space to store a twelfth sundress and I don’t care how good the sale was.”