Rachel Sandell

I'm a writer and copy editor with 6+ years of experience working with a wide variety of material, from newsletters and social media copy to scientific journals and technical reports.

Copywriting: Entertainment Articles

My Latest Work

The Daily Fandom •

Sokka: The Most Underrated Character In 'Avatar: The Last Airbender' • The Daily Fandom

It’s no secret that Avatar: The Last Airbender is a well-respected and much-loved cartoon that has only gotten more popular during the fifteen years since its pilot. Aang, the fun-loving protagonist and talented airbender, launches the story into the hearts of its audience. Prince Zuko exemplifies talented firebending and provides a template for the perfect redemption arc. Katara and Toph, masters of water and earth, respectively, serve as stellar representations of powerful women in media — eac...
The Daily Fandom •

An Unsolicited Band Recommendation: NEEDTOBREATHE • The Daily Fandom

What started as a lesser-known Christian rock band with a calm, folksy style, the band NEEDTOBREATHE is now on the rise with the recent release of their newest album, Into the Mystery, having worked with popular artists, such as Carrie Underwood and Gavin DeGraw. Though they continue to release rock/pop music, NEEDTOBREATHE’s music career boasts many hidden gems. While some might assume that Christian rock bands can be boring and preachy, NEEDTOBREATHE broke free from that stereotype by creating...
The Daily Fandom •

Zuko: The Greatest Redemption In 'Avatar : The Last Airbender' • The Daily Fandom

Few cartoons have received as much praise and love as Avatar: The Last Airbender, both in past years and in recent ones. With the new Netflix adaptation in the works, as well as the newly-developed Avatar Studios announcing more content to come, the Nickelodeon cult classic has become even more widely beloved. And rightfully so. The plot is simple yet compact. The themes are strong and inspiring. And — one of the most widely-discussed topics — the characters are active and lovable. They each hav...
The Daily Fandom •

How 'The Cursed Princess Club' Promotes Positive Self-Image • The Daily Fandom

In these difficult times, many people, young and old, struggle with a negative self-image. It’s an unfortunate but true fact that we don’t always measure up to the image of who we want to be. The Cursed Princess Club is a WEBTOON comic that approaches the subject with care, humor, and a healthy dose of relatability.


Set in the fairy tale land of the Pastel Kingdom, The Cursed Princess Club introduces us to Princess Gwendolyn, a young woman with a big heart. She is, however, not conventionall...
The Daily Fandom •

The Beauty Of Fate And Choice In Weathering With You • The Daily Fandom

Fate. Choice. Change. How do these concepts intersect? It can be easy to get lost in the push and pull of a force outside our control. For a constantly changing world, it can certainly feel like the paths we all follow only lead to one place, whether we like it or not. Director Makoto Shinkai’s Weathering with You addresses this issue with a certain gentleness and grace.


The two main characters in Weathering with You make many decisions throughout the film that affect their lives. On the othe...
The Daily Fandom •

How RWBY Uses Friendship To Combat Loss • The Daily Fandom

In the world of Remnant, superpowered hunters and huntresses train to fight terrifying monsters known as the Grimm. Spunky and fun-loving Ruby Rose, the leader of Team RWBY, has been accepted a full year early into the greatest training school in Vale, Beacon Academy, where she builds strong friendships and learns how to protect herself and others from the Grimm. But, as the first volume’s opening suggests, “Beware that the light is fading / Beware, as the dark returns” (( RWBY Vol. 1 opening...
The Daily Fandom •

Is Love Really War In Kaguya-sama: Love Is War? • The Daily Fandom

Relationships are rarely simple. When a special someone is close by, that flutter in the chest is an uncomplicated feeling. But what comes next can take a lot of forethought and overthinking: the confession of love. In a world where even confessing can give one member of the couple power over the other, love is war. And no show now streaming explores this concept as deeply or hilariously as Kaguya-sama: Love Is War.


On the surface, Kaguya Shinomiya and Miyuki Shirogane are made to be together...
The Daily Fandom •

How Isabella's Lullaby Transforms The Promised Neverland • The Daily Fandom

Music can change a lot about a story. The Promised Neverland, a dark fantasy anime series streaming on Netflix, makes especially effective use of its most prominent piece of music: “Isabella’s Lullaby.”


The Promised Neverland is a suspenseful thriller that follows Emma and her best friends, Norman and Ray, the three smartest orphans in Grace Field House. They have a loving family in the other young orphans and their caretaker, Mama Isabella. But nothing is as it seems: during an innocent att...
The Daily Fandom •

3 Illuminating Citizen-Featured Episodes In Batman: The Animated Series • The Daily Fandom

Batman: The Animated Series (BTAS) is widely revered as a goldmine of rich Batman moments, ranging from heartfelt episodes to truly tragic circumstances. Because Batman is such a popular pop culture icon, the focus on Batman as a character can be truly overwhelming. It is, however, fascinating to note that Batman: The Animated Series doesn’t just focus on Batman/Bruce Wayne but on several citizens of Gotham City.


In each of these characters’ stories, the episode opens and ends with the focus...
The Daily Fandom •

Time Travel And Development In Anime "Fireworks" Film Hanabi

It is an ambitious feat for an anime, or any medium, to explore deeply emotional thematic elements by combining character journeys with time travel. Hanabi (2017) attempts to create a beautiful science fiction story that is sure to stick in the mind of viewers. While Hanabi does utilize science fiction to highlight the romantic aspect of the plot, in the end, the anime film lacks the all-important emotional weight due to underdevelopment.


Directed by Akiyuki Shinbô and Nobukyuki Takeuchi, Han...
Collider •

Rachel Sandell | Collider

Rachel Sandell is an experienced editor and proofreader with a love for language and storytelling. A graduate of the creative writing MFA program, The Rainier Writing Workshop, she is the author of five short stories and analyzes the different facets of fiction her spare time. She's also a huge nerd, with a particular fondness for superheroes (the MCU will always be a personal favorite), anime (and their live-action adaptations), sitcoms (especially the witty wild ride that is Community), and an...
Collider •

Evan Peters Starred in One of the Most Disturbing 'Criminal Minds' Episodes

Criminal Minds is a police procedural that’s full of upsetting episodes. In its 15 seasons (plus the revival), the show has had some truly messed-up moments, considering that the BAU specializes in understanding the mind of psychologically disturbed unsubs, some more sadistic than others. One of the most hopeful and heartbreaking episodes, “Mosley Lane” (Season 5, Episode 16), starred Evan Peters as that episode’s focal character, along with his mother Sarah Hillridge (Ann Cusack) — and arguably...
Collider •

'Avatar: The Last Airbender's Best Change Is the First 20 Minutes

Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender. As with any adaptation of a beloved story, there’s a tricky balance between making changes that are necessary for the story to be told in a new medium and making too many changes without reason. Every story beat is an opportunity for something new to be explored—or to fumble the change. Besides that, making too many needless changes can lead to the story and characters no longer resembling the originals a...
Collider •

This Is the ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ Storyline We Need To See in Live-Action

Avatar: The Last Airbender follows a protagonist that’s extremely strong, not just in terms of physicality, but in terms of morality as well. Aang’s (Zach Tylor Eisen) pacifist nature is one of his strongest qualities, a value of his that is just about unbendable. He makes a point to never hurt anyone intentionally, and his fighting style is to avoid and evade rather than throw a direct punch. Having grown up among the Air Nomads, he has taken their spirituality to heart and made it a defining q...
Collider •

What Do Aang's Tattoos Mean in 'Avatar: The Last Airbender'?

Avatar: The Last Airbender succeeds in many areas of storytelling, from satisfying character arcs or mature themes handled with care. But one of the most impressive parts of the show is the worldbuilding. Avatar’s magic system is simple and easy to follow, with each specific bending group including many subsets—not to mention the rules of the Spirit World and how spirituality interacts with characters. One prominent example of effective worldbuilding in relation to both the magic system and the...
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The 'Pride and Prejudice' Adaptation That Cut Its Kissing Scenes

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is considered to be one of the romance genre’s classics, sparking numerous film and TV adaptations and remakes over the years. It’s surprising, then, that one of the story’s adaptations cut its kissing scene from the script in a risky but bold move. A romance without a kiss scene sounds like it's missing an important piece of the story, especially when it comes to the chemistry between the two leads. But this adaptation not only makes it work; the absence of the...
Collider •

‘Attack on Titan’s Reiss Family Tree Explained

Attack on Titan is a story filled to the brim with mysteries, and when it comes to keeping secrets, the Reiss family are masters of the art. As the mysteries in the show were unraveled bit by bit until the series’ finale last year, the curtain was slowly pulled back on the most mysterious family in this strange world where giant man-eating monsters are far from the worst of our problems. From the inception of Paradis and the Eldians’ generational trauma to the bitter end of their fight for freed...
Collider •

‘My Hero Academia's Todoroki Family Tree

When it comes to dysfunctional family relationships, nobody in My Hero Academia tops the prestigious but tragic Todoroki family. There isn’t anything wrong with ambition in moderation, but Enji Todoroki (Tetsu Inada/Patrick Seitz), the family patriarch, took his ambition too far into obsession and ended up doing irreparable damage to his own family, the very foundation of which is built on jealousy and a dark side of the desire to go Plus Ultra....
Collider •

The Grinch’s Long Journey From Kids’ Book Character to Christmas Icon

How the Grinch Stole Christmas! is one of the greatest holiday classics, and Dr. Seuss's The Grinch is grumpy green guy is pretty much the word “ba-humbug” in monster form, whether it's the 1966 Grinch, the 2000 Grinch, the 2018 Grinch, or any of the Grinches in between. Whenever the holidays are upon us, the Whos are sure to be causing a ruckus with their annoyingly positive celebrations. This also means it's time to protect your Christmas decorations and gifts by knowing all there is to know a...
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'Psych's Take on 'It's a Wonderful Life' Changed Shawn's Character

When it comes to Christmas episodes of Psych, “The Polarizing Express” (Season 5, Episode 14) is unique in its complexity and chaos. Compared to the previous Christmas specials (“Gus’s Dad May Have Killed an Old Guy” and “Christmas Joy”) and the following movie, this particular wintertime adventure with Shawn (James Roday-Rodriguez) and Gus (Dulé Hill) pulls from several Christmas classics, including It’s a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol, to pay homage, as well as weaving its own life less...
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'Shadow and Bone' Season 2 Was Never About Alina, and That's the Problem

It was an ambitious decision for the showrunners of Shadow and Bone to adapt the stories from two separate series in Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse. Shadow and Bone and Six of Crows are full stories set in a complicated fantasy world, meaning that keeping a tight focus when adapting the storylines of two sets of protagonists would require care and a lot of work. Season 1 of the Netflix series blended the two storylines together effectively, depicting the Crows as a solid group of side characters an...
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Hear Me Out, 'Paul Blart: Mall Cop' Is the Best Thanksgiving Movie

Due to its unfortunate place set snugly between the powerhouses that are Halloween and Christmas, Thanksgiving sometimes gets lost in the holiday movie shuffle. Though is doesn’t have nearly as many popular hits when it comes to movies as its festive counterparts do, there are still plenty of quality Thanksgiving films to watch during the holiday —the best of which involves Kevin James, a group of parkour-loving thieves, and a mall that needs saving. Yes, that’s right: the best Thanksgiving movi...
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Why Rue Is the Most Important Character in 'The Hunger Games'

The death of a friend is traumatic for any protagonist no matter the genre or circumstance, but the dystopian saga The Hunger Games makes a true spectacle out of death. With so many young lives taken in the name of brutal tradition, twisted entertainment, and keeping the people of Panem in line, it was only a matter of time before the revolution picked up speed and used a symbol like Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) as its beacon of hope and resistance. Most of The Hunger Games franchise rev...
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