||Character Info||
Jan. 31st, 2012 12:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
learnyourplaceCharacter: Rachel
Canon: Supernatural
Version: OU
Canon Point: just before death; 6x18 Frontierland
Age: Apparent age is mid-30s; Rachel herself is an entity millions of years old.
Gender: Female
History:
(As a note, since Rachel is such a minor character, her history contains a good bit of headcanon and is fairly long.)
[A brief canon history on the Supernatural Wiki.] note: This will be referenced near the end of the headcanoned history.
Rachel's history begins before recorded history. Created in service of God -- her Father -- she was not born; she simply came to be. Canon gives us little in regard to the structure of the garrisons in Heaven but it's assumed that she was assigned to the garrison with Castiel, Balthazar, Uriel, and Anna, which was a garrison based on Earth. Rachel made no waves in her time in Heaven's service up to the Apocalypse; if she ever felt a need to question, I don't believe she ever spoke up. Throughout history, she followed orders and fell into the pitfall that most angels seemed to: she grew somewhat jealous of humanity.
The angels had been their Father's sole creation with intelligence and self-awareness; for the most part, they gladly followed orders because there was little else they desired to do. It wasn't so much to please God that they did this; it was because it never occurred to them to do anything else. For what reason should they? Rachel fell into this line of thought easily. Then God, in wisdom that Rachel still cannot see, created humanity.
She watched them fumble their way through evolution. Watched wars break out, watching humanity's foolishness through increasingly jaded eyes. This was the creation that her Father loved so? They were so imperfect and yet they stole his attention. He praised them, loved them, called them his greatest creation. She was told to accept it and to love them as God Himself did. Her Father was omniscient; she had no right to question His love for them. Despite her disgust with humanity -- and ask her anytime about the grandiose effort behind the Tower of Babylon or any number of wars and atrocities she's seen -- she had faith in God. Blind faith, perhaps, but it sustained her. Even so, a hard kernel of jealousy grew in her heart and she buried it beneath her desire to carry out whatever order was given her.
But Lucifer fell and Gabriel disappeared and it seemed that things simply became more and more tense. (Unbeknownst to her at the time, God Himself had stopped speaking to the archangels.) Rachel struggled not to blame humanity completely for tearing apart the status quo. (She can't really say family; the only one she ever called a friend was Castiel. Uriel scared her, in many ways, and Anna, while her superior, asked too many questions for Rachel's comfort. They were all her siblings, yes, but some relationships were less comfortable than others. In fact, there were many angels she'd never met. The fact that they were called her brothers and sisters was usually enough for her to call them family. Did she love them? Perhaps some of them.)
Still watching humanity in an effort to find whatever it was that God saw in them, Rachel was hard-pressed to look beyond the horrible things that inundated the earth. After some time, it was the personal atrocities that hardened her against them more than any war or military action. Mob mentality, she could understand; she could see shades of that in her garrison. They all thought the same, in many ways: follow orders, don't question, and don't ever question. It was the murderers, the rapists, the con artists who were all willing to take advantage of those weaker than them that hardened her heart against humanity.
Rachel, in response, tried to compensate by growing closer to those siblings she liked. If they truly knew each other, then they couldn't fall into the same pitfalls that humanity did? Help the weaker of them to be strong. Counsel the strong to be wise. If more of humanity adopted this philosophy, she was sure she would have watch less brutality as they grew and (supposedly) evolved. She didn't realize, not until some time later, that helping the weak to some angels meant simply re-educating them by way of force. This, she never condoned. She'd seen humanity do this to each other too often and she refused to believe that the angels could fall into it.
Angels were infallible, as long as they followed orders. She truly believed that. This was why Uriel was dead: he stopped doing what he should and turned traitor. When news came of his death, Rachel honestly had no idea how to react. Learning that he'd tried to "convert" Castiel and was killed by Anna... There was so much there, in Castiel's developing doubt and Anna's return after falling, that Rachel simply defaulted to the simplest explanation: Uriel hadn't followed orders and that was why he was dead. She never found out the things that Castiel did -- if she had, it may have actually pushed her to more actively question -- but she did learn of some things that unsettled her. Rachel never spoke of them and she quietly followed the orders she was given because she believed she could do nothing else.
But Anna had fallen for some reason. Castiel rebelled, ostensibly because he saw something on earth that was worth rebelling for. Rachel's faith was once again shaken. They should be following their orders. It would all be so much simpler if they just followed orders. These were siblings she trusted.
Unable to deal with the changes around her after Uriel was killed, Anna was taken into custody and Castiel rebelled, Rachel faded into the background, doing nothing of note during that fight and content in that. If it meant that she never needed to confront these growing questions, then she would remain hidden forever. She didn't flee -- she couldn't. This was her home, these angels her family. She would not rebel, but she would silently question and silently wonder if questioning was enough fall. She grieved for what her family had been, grieved for her fallen friend, and prayed that it would all just go away. In the months leading up to the impending Apocalypse, Rachel did truly nothing of note. She would follow orders and if that order brought her close to Castiel, then so what if she was a little slow to react.
And then it did. In one fell swoop, Michael and Lucifer were both gone and Castiel restored to Heaven -- after death, even. Canonically, when Castiel returned, she was the first of the angels to question him and, instead of anger, she expressed concern, confusion, and even faith. She, at least, felt a kinship to him. Indeed, they were siblings, but she called him a friend. She was the voice for a group of angels, presumably because she knew Castiel better than they, and questioned him about his role in stopping the Apocalypse. More to the point, she asked him what the angels' role is now that those orders no longer stand. After expressing her befuddlement over free will, she fell in line with him to stand against Raphael, believing that God had brought Castiel back for a reason. Shaken faith was restored and Rachel truly believed that God -- the Father who had seemed to abandon her -- had answered her heartfelt and grief-filled prayers. Castiel became a leader she could follow without question, because it was God who'd brought him back. Her questions could finally turn to action, if she stood with him to defeat Raphael.
Protect the weaker, counsel the strong. If, do to that, she had to stand against the remaining archangel, she would. So she fought with Castiel, a friend who'd somehow earned a trusted place alongside him. (And Balthazar and if Balthazar sometimes frustrated her or needled her, she accepted it with aplomb while in public and berated him while unobserved.) Her Father had deigned it. Free will was not something she understood, but she did know she felt as if she were in the right; that was a feeling she'd not had in a very long time. Perhaps this was what God had wanted for the angels: discover and use free will in a way that would bring honor to Him and His Creation.
When she uncovered rumor of Castiel dealing with darker forces through some chatty demon who'd tried to bargain his way out of death, her faith took another blow. This time, though, she took action. Castiel was a friend and she would not let him turn down dark pathways -- and she would not let him take other angels with him. He was following those steps Uriel had tempted him to take what seemed so long ago. He would die and he would take them all with him. She'd seen far too much of death and of betrayal; so help her, if she had to stand as one who betrayed Castiel, then so be it. If it saved the rest of them, so be it. She'd seen far too many of her siblings shaken and torn apart by the upheavals in Heaven. She could not let Castiel do it to them yet again. So, in her first real act of free will, she decided to question him, all the while hoping that the demon had simply been spouting whatever came to mind. Even after hearing of these rumors, she stood for Castiel when Dean summoned him and berated Dean for wasting his time.
In canon, Castiel, though, confirmed her suspicions and told her, not in so many words, that the rumors were true. Desperate or not to win the war, though, Rachel could not condone such actions; too much has led to this. It's a heart-wrenching decision that she makes, but she cannot let Castiel lead them into such darkness. She attacked him. Protect the weak and he wouldn't. The way he was going, he wouldn't. (There was a voice in the back of her mind: he's weak. He's weak and this is the only way he can be protected.)
As much as he cared for him -- in a way that she cannot express -- she could not let him take that road. His death would be better for the remaining angels. His death would be better for him. She makes her mark in the fight, nearly succeeding in killing Castiel; she hesitates when he's down and this costs her the fight. The injury she takes would prove to be fatal; for game purposes, her canon point is as she's stabbed, but before death.
Personality:
She's an angel and that means she's been created to follow orders, to be a warrior, and to never question. When it comes right down to it, that's Rachel's core. It's who she is and who she'll always be. She's a soldier first and nothing will every change that. Expected and happy to follow orders, Rachel is a follower, not a leader.
Not to say she isn't intelligent: she is. She's stayed alive through an Apocalypse and through turmoil in Heaven. (Though she couldn't though personal betrayal.) She's followed up on rumor and investigated quietly on her own. She's willing and able to ask the hard questions and keenly intelligent enough to detect uncover hidden truth.
Curiosity is also a defining force in her life. Instead of immediately dismissing her Father's love of humanity as folly, she watched them, curious as to what they had that the angels didn't. Though she didn't find much of value, that doesn't negate her initial reaction: she tried to learn. Even though her curiosity bred bitterness, she still tried to understand. She wants to understand and grows frustrated when understanding is denied her.
While her faith is shaken -- and what angel's isn't, in this time? -- it sometimes requires an act of God to get her to act on it. Rachel is prone to shutting down when she's overwhelmed; as a being who was created not to feel, she doesn't know how to act on emotion. Doubt is anathema to her. For her to experience it means that she's disobeying and to disobey means she's no longer in her Father's will. If she's not in her Father's will, she has no purpose. Rachel needs purpose, so when she finds herself shaken, she tries to withdraw, to forget what she's seen or heard. She knows what's right and she'll stand by that, even turning against the things she knows and loves for what she believes should be done, but it takes some time to get her to that point. She's still learning what it's like to have a purpose of her own.
It's emotion that can overwhelm her; in the face of a tangible threat, Rachel will rarely falter. Created to be a soldier, she handles problems of that nature with aplomb, never straying and taking the most efficient route to solve the problem. Emotional problems, however, will shake her to the core, to the point where she'll hesitate and withdraw. Put an enemy in front of her that she can see and give her a clear-cut objective and she will not stray. Rachel doesn't tolerate fear on the battlefield and is adept at following through on an objective there. Give her orders or give her an enemy she can destroy and she's at her best. Present her with an emotional dilemma and she's more prone to withdraw than give an answer.
She's single-minded in her pursuit of truth, holds honor in high respect, and will remain loyal -- to a point. She will make damned sure her friends and family don't go down paths they shouldn't. She's seen how it can destroy families. Protect the weak is something she lives by; it takes everything she has to tell someone they're wrong when she respects that person. It's a hard decision for her and full of grief to turn against Raphael (and later against Castiel) but she'll do what she has to to protect her family and she will stand by her decision. The fact that it took such extremes to get her to act only shows how much it grieved her to take those actions -- and how important it was to her that she do something this time. She's spent too long on the sidelines and she won't tolerate regret.
Regret is the only thing she hates more than doubt. She regrets the times she allowed herself to fade into the background. She doesn't like how she let emotion overwhelm her. She regrets letting it get so bad, not raising a hand to help one faction or the other for so long. She won't let that happen again, and so she began to learn what free will is: it's fighting for the things you truly cherish. That fact that her first true act to follow in humanity's footsteps resulted in her death is something that she finds both foolish and somehow just. But she doesn't regret it. She grieves for her brother and finds bitterness in betrayal, but there is little regret, because she acted to save herself from it.
When she raised her weapon to Castiel, she thought she was set in her answer. To her mind, there is very little -- if any -- gray area. One is right or one is wrong; there is no leeway. Castiel was wrong in his decisions and she, as the one who was right, had to take whatever action necessary to stop him. That included killing him. It was a decision not lightly made, as stated before. Her world is black and white. In her mind, there are rarely second chances. She will protect her family even if it means raising a hand to them. In her mind, she was also protecting Castiel when she tried to kill him. Standing for others is paramount to her; she's never stood for herself.
Rachel tolerates no foolishness and values a straightforward answer. She has little patience for those who would dance around an issue or take advantage of her (or others') time. Her friends -- the few that there are -- are dear to her and she will defend them. She's quick to act and quick to react. She tends to think in extremes: you're either right or you're wrong. For her, shades of gray are nearly incomprehensible.
She can be abrasive and condescending. When she feels the need to inform someone of their stupidity, she will rarely hesitate. She's cold and blunt, often erring on the side of brutally honest. If someone takes advantage of or hurts someone she cares for, she will call them on it, sometimes even going out of her way to do so. Sometimes quiet and honest to a fault, she can be hard to get to know. She lacks patience and lacks understanding. She will make enemies and never understand why. On the other hand, she will also tell someone when she thinks they've done right -- even if this person only minutes before did something she berated them for. Rachel doesn't know how to relate to people; she cannot read body language and will probably never understand colloquial turns of phrase. She expects the people around her to be as honest as she and, so, when they aren't, whether through malignant or benign action or word, she often doesn't quite get it at first. She takes things at face value; she's not gullible so much as just honest to a fault.
Rachel is still learning what it is to feel. She's never had free will, never been without orders, and never known how to act for herself. She feels emotion; she simply doesn't know what to do with them or even what she's feeling half the time. She's happy to see family, relieved when appropriate, angry, exasperated. She knows these things. Anything more complex, though, she doesn't know how to explain.
Rachel's learning, though, and she wants to learn. She's naturally curious. She loves order, not chaos. She thrives when she can follow an order, not left to think on her feet. She's more comfortable behind the scenes, doing what needs done, even getting her hands dirty. That's who she is: the one who will reliably carry out another's order. The dependable one. The one who will carefully weigh her options, to a point. Easily overwhelmed by emotion but unshakeable on the battlefield, Rachel is somewhat of a walking contradiction. Curious and sometimes questioning, she has an insatiable need to know the truth. She has a narrow path she follows. If you're a fool, she won't tolerate. If you show some intelligence, she's curious. One will usually know where they stand with her.
At the core of who she is, Rachel is confused. Everything she knows has been upended in a very short amount of time. She's gone from cold-hearted warrior to one who cares very much about the people close to her. She does not understand free will and barely understands what it is to feel. She's changing and there's a bitterness there that she cannot quell. There's an emptiness she can't explain when she thinks of what her family is. There's something raw in her heart when she thinks of her brother gone astray. And when she thinks of her Father, she wonders and doubts and that tears at something deep inside of her. She is shaken and confused and very, very lonely -- and she can't articulate even an iota of that maelstrom of emotion.
Confused as she is, though, she does know one thing: she must keep doing something. Even if she doesn't know what to do, she refuses to be caught in that overwhelming limbo she fell into before. It's counter-intuitive, perhaps, to be both determined to a fault and confused over one's own emotional and mental state, but that is where Rachel stands.
For a better understanding of who she is, the following character relationships from canon are included:
Castiel: He is pretty much the Most Important Person in her life (aside from that gaping hole reserved for God.) Counted as a friend before he rebelled and a leader deserving of her respect after he came back, Rachel held Castiel in high esteem. He embodied the answer to her prayers. Since she respected him -- and even cared for him -- his decision to deal with Crowley, with Hell, hit her that much harder. There's a jaded bitterness she associates with him and to even think of him hurts her on a level she can't explain. Through it all, though, he's her brother and always will be. Come right down to it, she tried to kill him to protect him.
Anna: An enigma to her, as to most angels, Anna holds a place of reserved dubiousness, for lack of a better way to put it. Rachel respected her as a leader, looked down on her as a traitor, and now can only think that maybe -- just maybe -- Anna was on to something better far before Rachel ever thought of it. However, Anna is still viewed with a sort of cautious disregard: she rebelled. She turned her back on family and Rachel isn't sure she can forgive that.
Balthazar: Oh, dear Father in Heaven, Balthazar. He annoys her. Frustrates her to no end. He left them in the war and she's not sure she can forgive that. In the end, though, he came back and stood with them. She's not sure if she loves him, respects him, wants him to just go away, or wants to keep him near. He's a riddle wrapped up in an enigma and sometimes she just wants to punt him back out of Heaven and it's all because he grates on her nerves. In other words, he's a typical brother.
Uriel: He scares her. For her, Uriel is all the things an angel should never be. He commanded them with an iron first, he betrayed them, and he murdered his kin. In her eyes, his death was deserved. There is no room in her heart for fond thoughts of Uriel. (There is, however, sorrow: no angel should ever fall that far and she sometimes wonders what it would have taken to keep him from that path.)
Dean: In short: human and, as such, demanding, entitled, and arrogant. He's less than she is and less than any angel. The way he demands Castiel's time only grates on her and she's more than willing to let him know exactly how little she thinks of him and his demands. Hate is too strong a word. He frustrates her -- and she only met him once.
God: In one word: Complicated. He's the Father she reveres and the God she worships. It's very difficult to reconcile the God who can do no wrong with the Father who has seemingly abandoned all of His children. She held hope that He'd come back and when Castiel did, that hope flared into something real. However, it crashed once again near the end, when she confronted Castiel. She doesn't know what to make of a God who claims to love His children, claims to be omniscient and omnipresent... and is never there. There's hope and bitterness all wrapped up together, but most of all, there's simply hurt. She's a child who has been abandoned in her greatest hour of need.
Raphael: It's never insinuated in canon that Rachel has met Raphael, but she fights a war against him. She thinks he's dangerous and finds his arrogance an affront to what an archangel should be. Raphael, she believes, has no desire to serve; he'd rather rule. In her mind, that makes him just as dangerous as any of the fallen angels. Perhaps he is even as dangerous as Lucifer.
Other Angels: Some she's met; some she hasn't. As a whole, though, she tries to think of them as family, though it's hard when she hears of angels who have fallen and angels who turn on their own brethren. She's caught in the very epitome of a civil war: brother against brother, sister against sister. It strikes at her deeply to fight any of them but she truly believes that, once they find the peace they are fighting for, they can become a family again. And perhaps one day the stronger of them can once again serve the weaker.
Fears:
Above all, Rachel fears being abandoned and left alone again. She's learned to appreciate her family and everything she's done in the recent past has been to preserve what little peace the angels have hope for. She tends to fight for other people and desperately wants her siblings to find some semblance of peace and stability. This isn't all out of the goodness of her heart; there's a selfish reason underneath it all. She is afraid of abandonment. She's terrified of finding who she is alone; she doesn't think she can do it. Free will scares her but facing her own choices alone terrifies her. The fact that she'll be coming into the came on the heels of her first real act of free will -- which killed her -- will only intensify this. She isn't so scared of becoming her own person or making her own choices. She's afraid of doing it alone. She's afraid that everyone she knows and perhaps even loves will leave her to her own devices.
Not much scares Rachel: she knows too well the things in Hell and Earth that go bump in the night. Darkness won't unsettle her and creatures aren't to be feared. However, when faced with making her own decisions or cataloging her own emotions, there is always a thrill of fear. She's seen so many angels take the wrong paths that she's afraid she's just as infallible. What if she makes the wrong choice? What if she fails? These questions plague her and, while it doesn't quite terrify her as much as being abandoned does, they do scare her. She'll be caught in indecision when faced with choices with greater implications and that is born of fear.
Weaknesses:
Most of Rachel's more debilitating weaknesses stem from an emotional state that can be easily manipulated, should one know which buttons need to be pushed in which order. As stated elsewhere, Rachel doesn't know how to deal with emotion. She doesn't know how to relate to people, doesn't know how to read tone or body language, and will find herself easily overwhelmed in situations which are emotionally taxing. She's coming from a point where war and betrayal have shaped her recent life; she's hurt and confused and her mental state reflects that. Given that she doesn't know quite how to express herself or deal with that, she will be somewhat prone to withdrawing or indecision if the situation touches on her emotional state, free will, or betrayal.
Physically, she is weak to the same things that angels in canon are: sigils and wards can hide things and people from her presence and she can be banished should the right sigil be activated. She can be killed by an angelic weapon and there are spells that can weaken her or separate her from her vessel. If injured enough, she can be slowed down. I realize she is somewhat godmode, but I am willing to work with other muns re: powers and abilities in other canons that could trump hers. She is one of the more powerful beings in her canon, but that doesn't mean she's invincible. (And, of course, the house itself will mess with her normal set of abilities.)
Mundane Strengths/Abilities:
Rachel is shown to have some skill with her angelic sword: it's a short sword and used in close combat. Because she's survived this long in war and was trained to be a soldier, one can assume she's fairly good with her weapon and with hand-to-hand combat. She is steadfast and reliable when given an order and, while not the most brilliant of tacticians, she can quickly assess a situation and offer a solution. (So long as this situation involves a tangible enemy.) She can read, speak, and translate a number of languages. She's intelligent and, even if not armed and without access to her arcane abilities, can be formidable.
Sensitivity/Magical Ability:
Canonically, Rachel is shown to teleport. (In the strictest sense, it can be describes as flying, as long as one doesn't apply any rules of physics to it. She disappears and appears as if teleporting, but there is an accompanying sound of wingbeats and a rush of air.) One can also assume she possesses the powers of other angels in canon: telepathy, visiting people in dreams, enhanced endurance and strength, accelerated healing, telekinesis, and pyrokinesis. Angels in canon seem to possess a "think it and you can do it" skillset. One can also assume that she has some knowledge of arcane spells. There will, however, be no exorcising demons/ghosts in-game and ghosts/demons/monsters will be, in many cases, more powerful than she.
Canon: Supernatural
Version: OU
Canon Point: just before death; 6x18 Frontierland
Age: Apparent age is mid-30s; Rachel herself is an entity millions of years old.
Gender: Female
History:
(As a note, since Rachel is such a minor character, her history contains a good bit of headcanon and is fairly long.)
[A brief canon history on the Supernatural Wiki.] note: This will be referenced near the end of the headcanoned history.
Rachel's history begins before recorded history. Created in service of God -- her Father -- she was not born; she simply came to be. Canon gives us little in regard to the structure of the garrisons in Heaven but it's assumed that she was assigned to the garrison with Castiel, Balthazar, Uriel, and Anna, which was a garrison based on Earth. Rachel made no waves in her time in Heaven's service up to the Apocalypse; if she ever felt a need to question, I don't believe she ever spoke up. Throughout history, she followed orders and fell into the pitfall that most angels seemed to: she grew somewhat jealous of humanity.
The angels had been their Father's sole creation with intelligence and self-awareness; for the most part, they gladly followed orders because there was little else they desired to do. It wasn't so much to please God that they did this; it was because it never occurred to them to do anything else. For what reason should they? Rachel fell into this line of thought easily. Then God, in wisdom that Rachel still cannot see, created humanity.
She watched them fumble their way through evolution. Watched wars break out, watching humanity's foolishness through increasingly jaded eyes. This was the creation that her Father loved so? They were so imperfect and yet they stole his attention. He praised them, loved them, called them his greatest creation. She was told to accept it and to love them as God Himself did. Her Father was omniscient; she had no right to question His love for them. Despite her disgust with humanity -- and ask her anytime about the grandiose effort behind the Tower of Babylon or any number of wars and atrocities she's seen -- she had faith in God. Blind faith, perhaps, but it sustained her. Even so, a hard kernel of jealousy grew in her heart and she buried it beneath her desire to carry out whatever order was given her.
But Lucifer fell and Gabriel disappeared and it seemed that things simply became more and more tense. (Unbeknownst to her at the time, God Himself had stopped speaking to the archangels.) Rachel struggled not to blame humanity completely for tearing apart the status quo. (She can't really say family; the only one she ever called a friend was Castiel. Uriel scared her, in many ways, and Anna, while her superior, asked too many questions for Rachel's comfort. They were all her siblings, yes, but some relationships were less comfortable than others. In fact, there were many angels she'd never met. The fact that they were called her brothers and sisters was usually enough for her to call them family. Did she love them? Perhaps some of them.)
Still watching humanity in an effort to find whatever it was that God saw in them, Rachel was hard-pressed to look beyond the horrible things that inundated the earth. After some time, it was the personal atrocities that hardened her against them more than any war or military action. Mob mentality, she could understand; she could see shades of that in her garrison. They all thought the same, in many ways: follow orders, don't question, and don't ever question. It was the murderers, the rapists, the con artists who were all willing to take advantage of those weaker than them that hardened her heart against humanity.
Rachel, in response, tried to compensate by growing closer to those siblings she liked. If they truly knew each other, then they couldn't fall into the same pitfalls that humanity did? Help the weaker of them to be strong. Counsel the strong to be wise. If more of humanity adopted this philosophy, she was sure she would have watch less brutality as they grew and (supposedly) evolved. She didn't realize, not until some time later, that helping the weak to some angels meant simply re-educating them by way of force. This, she never condoned. She'd seen humanity do this to each other too often and she refused to believe that the angels could fall into it.
Angels were infallible, as long as they followed orders. She truly believed that. This was why Uriel was dead: he stopped doing what he should and turned traitor. When news came of his death, Rachel honestly had no idea how to react. Learning that he'd tried to "convert" Castiel and was killed by Anna... There was so much there, in Castiel's developing doubt and Anna's return after falling, that Rachel simply defaulted to the simplest explanation: Uriel hadn't followed orders and that was why he was dead. She never found out the things that Castiel did -- if she had, it may have actually pushed her to more actively question -- but she did learn of some things that unsettled her. Rachel never spoke of them and she quietly followed the orders she was given because she believed she could do nothing else.
But Anna had fallen for some reason. Castiel rebelled, ostensibly because he saw something on earth that was worth rebelling for. Rachel's faith was once again shaken. They should be following their orders. It would all be so much simpler if they just followed orders. These were siblings she trusted.
Unable to deal with the changes around her after Uriel was killed, Anna was taken into custody and Castiel rebelled, Rachel faded into the background, doing nothing of note during that fight and content in that. If it meant that she never needed to confront these growing questions, then she would remain hidden forever. She didn't flee -- she couldn't. This was her home, these angels her family. She would not rebel, but she would silently question and silently wonder if questioning was enough fall. She grieved for what her family had been, grieved for her fallen friend, and prayed that it would all just go away. In the months leading up to the impending Apocalypse, Rachel did truly nothing of note. She would follow orders and if that order brought her close to Castiel, then so what if she was a little slow to react.
And then it did. In one fell swoop, Michael and Lucifer were both gone and Castiel restored to Heaven -- after death, even. Canonically, when Castiel returned, she was the first of the angels to question him and, instead of anger, she expressed concern, confusion, and even faith. She, at least, felt a kinship to him. Indeed, they were siblings, but she called him a friend. She was the voice for a group of angels, presumably because she knew Castiel better than they, and questioned him about his role in stopping the Apocalypse. More to the point, she asked him what the angels' role is now that those orders no longer stand. After expressing her befuddlement over free will, she fell in line with him to stand against Raphael, believing that God had brought Castiel back for a reason. Shaken faith was restored and Rachel truly believed that God -- the Father who had seemed to abandon her -- had answered her heartfelt and grief-filled prayers. Castiel became a leader she could follow without question, because it was God who'd brought him back. Her questions could finally turn to action, if she stood with him to defeat Raphael.
Protect the weaker, counsel the strong. If, do to that, she had to stand against the remaining archangel, she would. So she fought with Castiel, a friend who'd somehow earned a trusted place alongside him. (And Balthazar and if Balthazar sometimes frustrated her or needled her, she accepted it with aplomb while in public and berated him while unobserved.) Her Father had deigned it. Free will was not something she understood, but she did know she felt as if she were in the right; that was a feeling she'd not had in a very long time. Perhaps this was what God had wanted for the angels: discover and use free will in a way that would bring honor to Him and His Creation.
When she uncovered rumor of Castiel dealing with darker forces through some chatty demon who'd tried to bargain his way out of death, her faith took another blow. This time, though, she took action. Castiel was a friend and she would not let him turn down dark pathways -- and she would not let him take other angels with him. He was following those steps Uriel had tempted him to take what seemed so long ago. He would die and he would take them all with him. She'd seen far too much of death and of betrayal; so help her, if she had to stand as one who betrayed Castiel, then so be it. If it saved the rest of them, so be it. She'd seen far too many of her siblings shaken and torn apart by the upheavals in Heaven. She could not let Castiel do it to them yet again. So, in her first real act of free will, she decided to question him, all the while hoping that the demon had simply been spouting whatever came to mind. Even after hearing of these rumors, she stood for Castiel when Dean summoned him and berated Dean for wasting his time.
In canon, Castiel, though, confirmed her suspicions and told her, not in so many words, that the rumors were true. Desperate or not to win the war, though, Rachel could not condone such actions; too much has led to this. It's a heart-wrenching decision that she makes, but she cannot let Castiel lead them into such darkness. She attacked him. Protect the weak and he wouldn't. The way he was going, he wouldn't. (There was a voice in the back of her mind: he's weak. He's weak and this is the only way he can be protected.)
As much as he cared for him -- in a way that she cannot express -- she could not let him take that road. His death would be better for the remaining angels. His death would be better for him. She makes her mark in the fight, nearly succeeding in killing Castiel; she hesitates when he's down and this costs her the fight. The injury she takes would prove to be fatal; for game purposes, her canon point is as she's stabbed, but before death.
Personality:
She's an angel and that means she's been created to follow orders, to be a warrior, and to never question. When it comes right down to it, that's Rachel's core. It's who she is and who she'll always be. She's a soldier first and nothing will every change that. Expected and happy to follow orders, Rachel is a follower, not a leader.
Not to say she isn't intelligent: she is. She's stayed alive through an Apocalypse and through turmoil in Heaven. (Though she couldn't though personal betrayal.) She's followed up on rumor and investigated quietly on her own. She's willing and able to ask the hard questions and keenly intelligent enough to detect uncover hidden truth.
Curiosity is also a defining force in her life. Instead of immediately dismissing her Father's love of humanity as folly, she watched them, curious as to what they had that the angels didn't. Though she didn't find much of value, that doesn't negate her initial reaction: she tried to learn. Even though her curiosity bred bitterness, she still tried to understand. She wants to understand and grows frustrated when understanding is denied her.
While her faith is shaken -- and what angel's isn't, in this time? -- it sometimes requires an act of God to get her to act on it. Rachel is prone to shutting down when she's overwhelmed; as a being who was created not to feel, she doesn't know how to act on emotion. Doubt is anathema to her. For her to experience it means that she's disobeying and to disobey means she's no longer in her Father's will. If she's not in her Father's will, she has no purpose. Rachel needs purpose, so when she finds herself shaken, she tries to withdraw, to forget what she's seen or heard. She knows what's right and she'll stand by that, even turning against the things she knows and loves for what she believes should be done, but it takes some time to get her to that point. She's still learning what it's like to have a purpose of her own.
It's emotion that can overwhelm her; in the face of a tangible threat, Rachel will rarely falter. Created to be a soldier, she handles problems of that nature with aplomb, never straying and taking the most efficient route to solve the problem. Emotional problems, however, will shake her to the core, to the point where she'll hesitate and withdraw. Put an enemy in front of her that she can see and give her a clear-cut objective and she will not stray. Rachel doesn't tolerate fear on the battlefield and is adept at following through on an objective there. Give her orders or give her an enemy she can destroy and she's at her best. Present her with an emotional dilemma and she's more prone to withdraw than give an answer.
She's single-minded in her pursuit of truth, holds honor in high respect, and will remain loyal -- to a point. She will make damned sure her friends and family don't go down paths they shouldn't. She's seen how it can destroy families. Protect the weak is something she lives by; it takes everything she has to tell someone they're wrong when she respects that person. It's a hard decision for her and full of grief to turn against Raphael (and later against Castiel) but she'll do what she has to to protect her family and she will stand by her decision. The fact that it took such extremes to get her to act only shows how much it grieved her to take those actions -- and how important it was to her that she do something this time. She's spent too long on the sidelines and she won't tolerate regret.
Regret is the only thing she hates more than doubt. She regrets the times she allowed herself to fade into the background. She doesn't like how she let emotion overwhelm her. She regrets letting it get so bad, not raising a hand to help one faction or the other for so long. She won't let that happen again, and so she began to learn what free will is: it's fighting for the things you truly cherish. That fact that her first true act to follow in humanity's footsteps resulted in her death is something that she finds both foolish and somehow just. But she doesn't regret it. She grieves for her brother and finds bitterness in betrayal, but there is little regret, because she acted to save herself from it.
When she raised her weapon to Castiel, she thought she was set in her answer. To her mind, there is very little -- if any -- gray area. One is right or one is wrong; there is no leeway. Castiel was wrong in his decisions and she, as the one who was right, had to take whatever action necessary to stop him. That included killing him. It was a decision not lightly made, as stated before. Her world is black and white. In her mind, there are rarely second chances. She will protect her family even if it means raising a hand to them. In her mind, she was also protecting Castiel when she tried to kill him. Standing for others is paramount to her; she's never stood for herself.
Rachel tolerates no foolishness and values a straightforward answer. She has little patience for those who would dance around an issue or take advantage of her (or others') time. Her friends -- the few that there are -- are dear to her and she will defend them. She's quick to act and quick to react. She tends to think in extremes: you're either right or you're wrong. For her, shades of gray are nearly incomprehensible.
She can be abrasive and condescending. When she feels the need to inform someone of their stupidity, she will rarely hesitate. She's cold and blunt, often erring on the side of brutally honest. If someone takes advantage of or hurts someone she cares for, she will call them on it, sometimes even going out of her way to do so. Sometimes quiet and honest to a fault, she can be hard to get to know. She lacks patience and lacks understanding. She will make enemies and never understand why. On the other hand, she will also tell someone when she thinks they've done right -- even if this person only minutes before did something she berated them for. Rachel doesn't know how to relate to people; she cannot read body language and will probably never understand colloquial turns of phrase. She expects the people around her to be as honest as she and, so, when they aren't, whether through malignant or benign action or word, she often doesn't quite get it at first. She takes things at face value; she's not gullible so much as just honest to a fault.
Rachel is still learning what it is to feel. She's never had free will, never been without orders, and never known how to act for herself. She feels emotion; she simply doesn't know what to do with them or even what she's feeling half the time. She's happy to see family, relieved when appropriate, angry, exasperated. She knows these things. Anything more complex, though, she doesn't know how to explain.
Rachel's learning, though, and she wants to learn. She's naturally curious. She loves order, not chaos. She thrives when she can follow an order, not left to think on her feet. She's more comfortable behind the scenes, doing what needs done, even getting her hands dirty. That's who she is: the one who will reliably carry out another's order. The dependable one. The one who will carefully weigh her options, to a point. Easily overwhelmed by emotion but unshakeable on the battlefield, Rachel is somewhat of a walking contradiction. Curious and sometimes questioning, she has an insatiable need to know the truth. She has a narrow path she follows. If you're a fool, she won't tolerate. If you show some intelligence, she's curious. One will usually know where they stand with her.
At the core of who she is, Rachel is confused. Everything she knows has been upended in a very short amount of time. She's gone from cold-hearted warrior to one who cares very much about the people close to her. She does not understand free will and barely understands what it is to feel. She's changing and there's a bitterness there that she cannot quell. There's an emptiness she can't explain when she thinks of what her family is. There's something raw in her heart when she thinks of her brother gone astray. And when she thinks of her Father, she wonders and doubts and that tears at something deep inside of her. She is shaken and confused and very, very lonely -- and she can't articulate even an iota of that maelstrom of emotion.
Confused as she is, though, she does know one thing: she must keep doing something. Even if she doesn't know what to do, she refuses to be caught in that overwhelming limbo she fell into before. It's counter-intuitive, perhaps, to be both determined to a fault and confused over one's own emotional and mental state, but that is where Rachel stands.
For a better understanding of who she is, the following character relationships from canon are included:
Castiel: He is pretty much the Most Important Person in her life (aside from that gaping hole reserved for God.) Counted as a friend before he rebelled and a leader deserving of her respect after he came back, Rachel held Castiel in high esteem. He embodied the answer to her prayers. Since she respected him -- and even cared for him -- his decision to deal with Crowley, with Hell, hit her that much harder. There's a jaded bitterness she associates with him and to even think of him hurts her on a level she can't explain. Through it all, though, he's her brother and always will be. Come right down to it, she tried to kill him to protect him.
Anna: An enigma to her, as to most angels, Anna holds a place of reserved dubiousness, for lack of a better way to put it. Rachel respected her as a leader, looked down on her as a traitor, and now can only think that maybe -- just maybe -- Anna was on to something better far before Rachel ever thought of it. However, Anna is still viewed with a sort of cautious disregard: she rebelled. She turned her back on family and Rachel isn't sure she can forgive that.
Balthazar: Oh, dear Father in Heaven, Balthazar. He annoys her. Frustrates her to no end. He left them in the war and she's not sure she can forgive that. In the end, though, he came back and stood with them. She's not sure if she loves him, respects him, wants him to just go away, or wants to keep him near. He's a riddle wrapped up in an enigma and sometimes she just wants to punt him back out of Heaven and it's all because he grates on her nerves. In other words, he's a typical brother.
Uriel: He scares her. For her, Uriel is all the things an angel should never be. He commanded them with an iron first, he betrayed them, and he murdered his kin. In her eyes, his death was deserved. There is no room in her heart for fond thoughts of Uriel. (There is, however, sorrow: no angel should ever fall that far and she sometimes wonders what it would have taken to keep him from that path.)
Dean: In short: human and, as such, demanding, entitled, and arrogant. He's less than she is and less than any angel. The way he demands Castiel's time only grates on her and she's more than willing to let him know exactly how little she thinks of him and his demands. Hate is too strong a word. He frustrates her -- and she only met him once.
God: In one word: Complicated. He's the Father she reveres and the God she worships. It's very difficult to reconcile the God who can do no wrong with the Father who has seemingly abandoned all of His children. She held hope that He'd come back and when Castiel did, that hope flared into something real. However, it crashed once again near the end, when she confronted Castiel. She doesn't know what to make of a God who claims to love His children, claims to be omniscient and omnipresent... and is never there. There's hope and bitterness all wrapped up together, but most of all, there's simply hurt. She's a child who has been abandoned in her greatest hour of need.
Raphael: It's never insinuated in canon that Rachel has met Raphael, but she fights a war against him. She thinks he's dangerous and finds his arrogance an affront to what an archangel should be. Raphael, she believes, has no desire to serve; he'd rather rule. In her mind, that makes him just as dangerous as any of the fallen angels. Perhaps he is even as dangerous as Lucifer.
Other Angels: Some she's met; some she hasn't. As a whole, though, she tries to think of them as family, though it's hard when she hears of angels who have fallen and angels who turn on their own brethren. She's caught in the very epitome of a civil war: brother against brother, sister against sister. It strikes at her deeply to fight any of them but she truly believes that, once they find the peace they are fighting for, they can become a family again. And perhaps one day the stronger of them can once again serve the weaker.
Fears:
Above all, Rachel fears being abandoned and left alone again. She's learned to appreciate her family and everything she's done in the recent past has been to preserve what little peace the angels have hope for. She tends to fight for other people and desperately wants her siblings to find some semblance of peace and stability. This isn't all out of the goodness of her heart; there's a selfish reason underneath it all. She is afraid of abandonment. She's terrified of finding who she is alone; she doesn't think she can do it. Free will scares her but facing her own choices alone terrifies her. The fact that she'll be coming into the came on the heels of her first real act of free will -- which killed her -- will only intensify this. She isn't so scared of becoming her own person or making her own choices. She's afraid of doing it alone. She's afraid that everyone she knows and perhaps even loves will leave her to her own devices.
Not much scares Rachel: she knows too well the things in Hell and Earth that go bump in the night. Darkness won't unsettle her and creatures aren't to be feared. However, when faced with making her own decisions or cataloging her own emotions, there is always a thrill of fear. She's seen so many angels take the wrong paths that she's afraid she's just as infallible. What if she makes the wrong choice? What if she fails? These questions plague her and, while it doesn't quite terrify her as much as being abandoned does, they do scare her. She'll be caught in indecision when faced with choices with greater implications and that is born of fear.
Weaknesses:
Most of Rachel's more debilitating weaknesses stem from an emotional state that can be easily manipulated, should one know which buttons need to be pushed in which order. As stated elsewhere, Rachel doesn't know how to deal with emotion. She doesn't know how to relate to people, doesn't know how to read tone or body language, and will find herself easily overwhelmed in situations which are emotionally taxing. She's coming from a point where war and betrayal have shaped her recent life; she's hurt and confused and her mental state reflects that. Given that she doesn't know quite how to express herself or deal with that, she will be somewhat prone to withdrawing or indecision if the situation touches on her emotional state, free will, or betrayal.
Physically, she is weak to the same things that angels in canon are: sigils and wards can hide things and people from her presence and she can be banished should the right sigil be activated. She can be killed by an angelic weapon and there are spells that can weaken her or separate her from her vessel. If injured enough, she can be slowed down. I realize she is somewhat godmode, but I am willing to work with other muns re: powers and abilities in other canons that could trump hers. She is one of the more powerful beings in her canon, but that doesn't mean she's invincible. (And, of course, the house itself will mess with her normal set of abilities.)
Mundane Strengths/Abilities:
Rachel is shown to have some skill with her angelic sword: it's a short sword and used in close combat. Because she's survived this long in war and was trained to be a soldier, one can assume she's fairly good with her weapon and with hand-to-hand combat. She is steadfast and reliable when given an order and, while not the most brilliant of tacticians, she can quickly assess a situation and offer a solution. (So long as this situation involves a tangible enemy.) She can read, speak, and translate a number of languages. She's intelligent and, even if not armed and without access to her arcane abilities, can be formidable.
Sensitivity/Magical Ability:
Canonically, Rachel is shown to teleport. (In the strictest sense, it can be describes as flying, as long as one doesn't apply any rules of physics to it. She disappears and appears as if teleporting, but there is an accompanying sound of wingbeats and a rush of air.) One can also assume she possesses the powers of other angels in canon: telepathy, visiting people in dreams, enhanced endurance and strength, accelerated healing, telekinesis, and pyrokinesis. Angels in canon seem to possess a "think it and you can do it" skillset. One can also assume that she has some knowledge of arcane spells. There will, however, be no exorcising demons/ghosts in-game and ghosts/demons/monsters will be, in many cases, more powerful than she.
