chavaniac | rachel for haven

Name: Christy
Contact Info:

swagu
Other Characters Played: Diva (

rubin)
Preferred Apartment: None!

Character Name: Rachel Benning
Canon: Red Garden
Canon Point: Episode 14
Background/History: Here is the wiki!

Personality:
In almost every sense, Rachel is That Girl that you knew from high school. She's pretty, fashion conscious, and popular. She spreads rumors and hates following rules. She's Regina George from Mean Girls, complete with her clique of Plastics. However, Rachel is the mean girl that has been forced to reevaluate her priorities after a truly life-changing event.

She was murdered.

Becoming an Animus is something that Rachel has the most trouble accepting out of the girls. Before she was killed, she was a very emotional person, and this doesn't change at first afterwards. Having to fight and kill in this new world of violence deeply traumatizes Rachel, and we see her go through various stages of severe psychological trauma, paramount to PTSD-like symptoms early in the series. She's taken by her emotions and they almost destroy not only her, but the other girls.

But Rachel starts to grow from the trendy and carefree socialite into a better person overall. While they weren't friends before their collective murders brought them together, Rachel gradually learns to open up to the other girls and become their friends, which would have been an impossibility before. She even comments on it, saying that she would have never spent time with them before. Rachel begins to value less material things in life more, truly valuing life because she realizes how fragile and how precious it is.

Which brings us to the person Rachel is at her canonpoint. While she grows more during the series, at the halfway point, she's considerably more calm than earlier in the series. Rachel takes solace in the fact that they're not fighting the Doral alone, and she is able to be stronger because of it. While she would have insulted her teammates earlier in the series, now she's able to provide support to them, even to Rose, who she gets along the worst with out of the girls. She's still prone to harsh words and some sometimes too-sarcastic teasing, but she's not as mean-spirited.

That said, she's hardly to be underestimated either. While her perspective on life has mellowed her out from her materialistic ways, it's also given her a strong resolve to fight for the hope she can return to her normal body. She's a strong fighter and doesn't hesitate to brutally kill the Doral. She separates them from being human, so she feels very little remorse about killing them. In her eyes, it's either they die, or she does, so it's self-preservation. In that sense, her selfishness does still show, though she's at least grown enough to help her teammates and even protect them.

Though she has trouble reconciling this new, violent part of herself with her "old" self at times, it's not like that Rachel has completely disappeared either. She comes from a rich family, so she prefers nice things and hates working hard. She loves partying and shopping, and she has a popular and handsome boyfriend, though they're starting to have some problems at this canonpoint. She still dresses fashionably all the time too, even when fighting the Doral, to the point of beating them with her (designer) handbags. That part of Rachel isn't completely gone by any sense, but at the halfway point of the series, she's trying to combine this with her new perspective in life.

Overall, the person that most people see in Rachel is the somewhat bitchy, popular stereotype of a high school girl. She's callous and abrasive to a lot of people, but still has the capacity to care for others once they "prove" themselves to her, of course. But through a deeply traumatic set of experiences, Rachel is starting to reevaluate her life and what she wants from it. She's maturing and growing distant from her peers because with her new perspective, the things she enjoyed before seem somewhat trivial in comparison. Rachel is a girl who's having to abruptly grow up, because she's realized how precious her life truly is, since she's literally having to earn it back.

Abilities/Powers:
Rachel is a being called an "Animus," which is essentially a puppet given life and some heightened abilities. Animus are much stronger than a human, able to lift fairly heavy objects, but also to jump great distances, and can also move very quickly. They heal at an accelerated rate, with minor to moderate injuries taking a few hours to heal. However, Animus are just as fragile as humans, and can be killed just like a human would. Upon their death, the body turns into an ash-like substance.

Items/Weapons:

1. Her handbag (full of normal handbag things like makeup/her wallet/etc)
2. A metal baseball bat
3. A bottle of perfume

Sample Entry: a bakerstreet thread
Sample Entry Two:
When the alarm goes off, Rachel blearily reaches out from under her sheets to smack her hand against it. God, it wasn't like she wasn't used to staying out until 3AM and going to school the next day, but it was totally different when you were going to bed after a party. After going to fight those things, sleep always felt short, but especially today. With how tired she felt, she might as well not slept at all.

She lays there with her face buried in the pillow, strongly considering being late to school, but when her hand settles on the phone, she realizes that something is off. She turns her head in a sleepy confusion to look at phone in her hand.

"...What the hell is this piece of junk?"

This was not her phone, and as her eyes focus in a slight panic, she further realizes that this isn't her bedroom either. Her eyes fall on the other beds, the other people in them, and she shudders in a motion she can't hold back. She makes a choking noise, wanting to scream, but her throat feels tight, and a sound doesn't really come out.

Oh god. Oh god.

She pulls the sheet that feels way too thin now back over her head, clutching the phone that isn't hers to her chest as she closes her eyes tightly.

It's just another nightmare or something, and she just has to force herself to wake up.

"Wake the fuck up, Rachel," she whispers to herself as an almost whimper, but as the minutes pass by—

—Nothing happens.

And maybe that's the scariest feeling of all.