#james amber

[werewolfcave]

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt // Sold my soul, and yeah, the truth hurt

[kaitiebee]

James is a hypocrite piece of shit that has done much more measurable, material harm to more people than Sera ever could. Including to Rachel.

[dalekofchaos]

I find it comically tone deaf that the villains of Life Is Strange are misogynistic sex offenders.....and chuds still hate on Chloe and Rachel. Who btw

Chloe

Never got over the loss of her father

A victim of her step-father's abuse(who these morons coincidentally love btw)

Her mother chose Chloe's abusive step-father instead of listening and healing with her daughter properly

Labelled as a problem child by every adult in her life(except Ms Grant and Samuel cause they're cool)

Rachel, the person who made her feel love after everyone left her, disappears

Abandonment issues, depression and possible BPD

Was date raped by Nathan and murdered by Jefferson...also by Nathan. Time travel is weird.

Rachel

Is constantly made to be the golden child of Arcadia Bay

Mocked, bullied and slutshamed by the Vortex Club(see the graffiti all over Blackhell)

Father lied and gaslit her all her life, appeared to be cheating, refused to let her birth mother see Rachel or let Rachel read her letters and tried to have said birth mother killed

Groomed by Frank and Jefferson. One was obsessed with Rachel, the other was a psychopath that drugged and raped her and called it love and then killed her and blamed it on Nathan

Stalked and harassed by David

Lusted by Nathan and probable murder by Nathan...in Jefferson's lying words.

Possible depression, anxiety and perfectionism

But grifters make videos on why Chloe and Rachel are toxic...

Hating on abusive predators? No. Hating on traumatized girls abused and groomed by vile men? For some fucking reason yes...Make it make sense

P.S. I recognize I was guilty of hating on Chloe a few years ago(not to the extent these stupid video essays come up with), but I was going through a phase after being disappointed/traumatized by toxic friendships and now I love Chloe

[arcadiabaytornado]

Forever thinking about how both William and James call their daughters "Kiddo."

No wonder Chloe feels so torn about whether to take Rachel's prospection of her Father away.

[amber-jinx]

Hey, love. Hope all is well with you ❤️

How do you feel about people who have more sympathy for characters like Nathan, but not for Rachel?

Hi dear! So nice to hear from you again.

Man, it's a shame, honestly to feel that way. Maybe they really related to Nathan's vulnerable & anxious sides and sympathised with how he's always manipulated and unloved, but failed to see how Rachel isn't all that different.

Maybe it's because they're also boys and could relate to Nathan's pain more easily but lack the empathy of the turmoils Rachel faced as a teenage girl? Not to mention the misconception of Rachel being the manipulator doesn't help in the hate and lack of sympathy she gets.

I just wish that people were able to view both of these characters in a more objective light and take their circumstances and flaws as they are instead of downplaying or amplifying them. Nathan did a lot of horrible and gruesome things, that's undeniable. He had a choice to leave Jeffershit, but couldn't bring himself to do it and had to pay the price (no pun intended).

Watched a bit of Nathan's Story as a concept DLC to the Rachel's Story series on YouTube, really brought out the inner-mess Nathan had.

Also a digress but recently I realised I missed out on the part of Before the Storm where Chloe was exploring James Amber's room! I heard that if Chloe chooses Frank as the snitch and tell Damon that it'd affect the plot later but I read online that it doesn't matter as Damon just tells Chloe that it's impossible for Frank to be the snitch?? would be nice if anyone could clarify on that, I know it's really old 😂

(also due to that fact, in your last ask I missed out on details like James hiding a bottle of Sherry in his office drawer.. might be a hidden alcoholic no one takes him to be except Chloe)

[trashcapableofsentience]

James Amber seeing parallels between his old relationship and his daughter's new one... thinking Chloe is like Sera, leading her astray, destructive, a drug addict... Chloe writing in her diary that Sera reminds her more of Rachel... But both Chloe and Rachel die because of Nathan's mistakes, not because of each other... ough.

[tangent101]

Missed Opportunity with LiS:BtS

Many of the LiS community here on Tumblr know of my... troubled feelings toward Before the Storm. Between the continuity errors and mischaracterization of several characters... well, I think it makes sense I (who truly love the first game) might have issues with D9's first foray into the LiS franchise (and in fact the only LiS game they put out that I enjoyed at all is True Colors, which was only a pale reflection of LiS itself). But there is one area where D9 truly failed to shine, and that was with the character of Sera, Rachel's mother.

For instance, why was Sera leaving Frank's trailer if she was off of drugs at this point? If she's taking methadone to deal with her heroin addiction, then why visit a drug dealer? We never learned what Sera was doing with Frank... but it teases at a possible story for Sera that would have been far more interesting than what we ended up getting.

What if Sera was "Breaking Bad" and was in fact a drug lord? I don't mean she was sampling the goods or the like... I mean she set up a drug running ring back before Rachel was born and was dating or married to law student James Amber (a stupid choice, seriously having him be a doctor or a dentist with access to drugs would have made more sense, especially as the cops would never have stopped looking for the daughter of even a disgraced D.A.). He cut ties with Sera and got a divorce while she's on trial for dealing drugs, but due to spousal reasons didn't testify against her.

The game starts with Rachel knowing about Sera, she recently learned about her real mom (but not about what Sera was doing). Sera got in touch with her and is going to meet up with Rachel in the park - far enough away that James Amber will hopefully not learn about it and intervene. Rachel is dragging Chloe along for moral support without telling her why - basically like the game, but instead of thinking her dad is having an affair, wanting to meet her mom. James Amber intervenes and he does end up kissing Sera while telling her "I don't want you in my daughter's life" but Rachel doesn't hear what he said - just sees the kiss and flees.

The scene of Sera leaving Frank's RV? Frank is one of Sera's dealers. Maybe she's rebuilding her drug running ring now that she's out of jail or the like? But they are running into trouble with Damon, another drug lord in the area (who may even have ties with Frank, having been friends with him in the past).

Damon recognizes Rachel because she looks similar to Sera - he might not realize she's Sera's daughter but he might think they are cousins or the like. He manages to capture Sera and is torturing her when Chloe intervenes and is gloating about how after he's done "making an example" of Sera he's going to rape and kill her daughter. Frank still ends up fighting Damon, but have Sera deal the killing blow to kill Damon. In fact, have Chloe free Sera using the knife on the ground and then Sera takes that knife and stabs Damon in the back with it. Chloe basically gets to see Rachel's mom shank a guy.

It gets Sera thinking. She realizes she doesn't want Rachel involved in this life. James Amber was in fact right to keep Sera out of her daughter's life... and tells Chloe to apologize to her daughter for her and that Rachel's dad was right and she's going to keep out of Rachel's life from now on.

This gives us a strong female character in Sera. She's selling drugs, she has minions, hell she stabs a murderous asshole who hospitalized her daughter. She is not a good person... but she chooses to stay out of Rachel's life for her daughter's safety and goes off to live her own life.

The Final Choice? Does Chloe tell Rachel that her mother was a drug dealer who murdered a man in front of her (even if it's in self-defense) or does she allow Rachel to keep her illusions about her bio-mom?

This also puts a strain in the father-daughter relationship. Rachel is upset her father lied to her about Sera's past, or is upset that her father drove her bio-mom out of her life. She doesn't trust her father anymore. It's not because her father is in fact crooked as D9 chose to make him... but because his actions have consequences, even if those actions were to protect Rachel.

(I would also completely remove the Max-ghosts-Chloe elements and instead have Chloe upset that Max hadn't gotten in touch with her at all after moving to Seattle, and that Max's phone was disconnected, to hint at the Caulfield family's financial woes, but that's because I detest how they tossed Max under the bus, much like they tossed Chloe under a bus in DE. That's just D9 all over though, fucking over female protagonists from the original game.)

[whatsjulietslastname]

Do you sometimes think about the fact that Sera only got to know her daughter for three years at best and then Rachel died? Do you sometimes think about everything that it implies? Do you think Chloe was the one who told her? Do you think she relapsed? Do you think about how much she was angry at James, the fact he did so much to protect Rachel, going as far as not letting Sera see her for years, only for Rachel to die at 19? Do you think she thought about how she was getting all this hope back— to see her daughter grow up, see her graduating, become an adult, this hope to be a real mother, only for said hopes to be crushed so early?

But, even worse, if she never reconnect with Rachel, and learn about her death. The way she purposefully kept herself away from her daughter, because she thought it was the right thing to do to protect her, the right thing to do as a mother. The right thing to do so Rachel could be happy. But in the end, all it did was refraining her from ever knowing her own daughter. And now, she has to live with this guilt. Knowing the last time she’s seen Rachel was when she was still a baby, and that she will never get to see her older.

Do you?