Rachel The Vampire Slayer
is a Transplanted Character Fic by gengarbagecan that takes the characters of Animorphs and puts them in another piece of iconic late 90s media — Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Rachel Berenson has just been kicked out of another high school for fighting, and her recently-divorced mom has decided to move her and her little sisters to Sunnydale, where Rachel's cousin Jake already lives. She already knows Marco through Jake, and soon meets Cassie and a mysterious loner named Tobias. But Principal Chapman has secrets he's hiding, and the mysterious librarian Mr. Fangor is taking a worrying interest in her — something about her being the Slayer and saving her species?
Contains the following tropes:
- Alpha Bitch: Melissa is much more of a mean girl in this, as she's filling Cordelia's role.
- Animorphism: Tobias can turn into a red-tailed hawk.
- Brits Love Tea: When Elfangor decided his human persona Alan Fangor was British, he reasoned that he had to drink tea. Unfortunately, he didn't know the heat tolerance of human mouths yet and burned his tongue.
- Celebrity Paradox: K. A. Applegate is mentioned to exist. Of course, she could be famous for something other than Animorphs here.
- Disguised in Drag: Rachel, Cassie, and Marco try to sneak into a 21+ club disguised as 19-year-old girls and bribing the bouncer.
- Fusion Fic: The settings of Animorphs and Buffy are merged.
- Yeerks are replaced with vampires, but these vampires have several Yeerkish aspects (they have to feed every three days—except in this case on blood, they have a substance called Kandrona in their bodies, and they take over a (dead) host body, retaining the host's memories but completely replacing its mind).
- Other aliens from Animorphs, like Hork-Bajir, Taxxons, and Howlers appear, but are demons from Another Dimension.
- Elfangor and later Ax take the place of Giles, but are also Andalites in their true form.
- Mistaken for Pedophile: Rachel and her friends interpret Mr. Fangor's request to meet him in the library alone as him being creepy.
- Mythology Gag:
- Marco's last name is Monroe-Cabrera, the second half coming from his actor in the Animorphs TV series, Boris Cabrera.
- Jake mentions that he assumed Cassie was a K. A. Applegate fan growing up.
- Rachel mentions David Boreanaz was at a party she snuck into.
- Named by the Adaptation: Cassie is given the last name Whistler, Marco the last name Monroe-Cabrera, and Tobias the last name Harris.
- Ordinary High-School Student: In contrast to Buffy's situation, where she already knew about vampires and being the Slayer before coming to Sunnydale, here she has no idea about them until Elfangor and Tobias explain.
- Parents Walk In at the Worst Time: Rachel's mom and sisters walk in on her and Tobias making out on the couch, to her embarrassment.
- Shout-Out:
- Elfangor mentions Dante Alighieri as passing through nine dimensions, which he interpreted as the Circles of Hell.
- Rachel compares the phrase "my principal's a vampire" to a Bruce Coville book, though she doesn't say the title.
- Tobias quotes King Lear: “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.”
- Rachel compares Tobias's curse to Ladyhawke.
- Sara does a Sailor Moon pose.
- Sue Donym:
- Elfangor uses his canon alias of Alan Fangor.
- Ax uses "Maximilian Edgar-Ruth Ishmael".
