RE: BIRTH, CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENSE, LIFE IS STRANGE: BEFORE THE STORM, MENTAL HEALTH, ETC.
NOTE: As of 06/2026, I’ve ditched canon material and so everything we, as players, learn about Rachel from Life Is Strange: Before The Storm is null and void, as I’ve rewritten her backstory from the ground up. Aside from finding inspiration in Michel Koch’s tweets (x, x) and other sources, Rachel’s backstory is my own creation. Do not under any circumstances steal.
RE: BIRTH, CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENSE.
TRIGGER WARNING(S): Mentions of physical and verbal abuse and implications of sexual abuse.
A positive pregnancy test turned Sera Reynolds life upside down – but wasn’t unwelcome in spite of the fact Sera was eighteen going on nineteen and in the last stretch of her senior year of high school. Sera’s parents, Claire and Stephen Reynolds, didn’t take the news well. Their first thoughts were neither on their daughter, nor on their grandchild, but on their reputation with their church and their inner circle. The day Claire and Stephen learned of Sera’s pregnancy, is the day they disowned and ousted her.
Counting on a different response from the father of her child, James, Sera turned to him for comfort and shelter, just to be turned away by him, too, after disowning his and Sera’s unborn child and ending his and Sera’s relationship. James – a man in his late twenties – was on the path to becoming a district attorney, and unbeknownst to Sera, was engaged and set to be married in mere weeks at the time Sera shocked him with the news of her pregnancy. Heartbroken and shell shocked, Sera stopped showing up to classes and didn’t make it to graduation, and with no one and nowhere to turn to, she got through pregnancy on her own and gave birth on her own – and thus, Rachel Amber was brought into the world.
‘Stable’ isn’t a word Rachel would use to describe herself, or her mother, or their life together. Rachel’s elementary school days consisted of planting roots just to pull them out, most times because of eviction, sometimes because of her mother’s appetite for spontaneity. Through everything, through the good and the bad and the pretty and the ugly, Rachel and her mother remained as thick as thieves, having only one another to lean on – speaking of which, that’s typical, isn’t it? For a mother to lean and rely on her daughter? No matter, Rachel was whatever her mother needed her to be at any given moment; best friend, confidant, daughter, sister, therapist, etc. Everything shifted, however, when Damon Merrick intruded upon their lives.
Damon, a dealer who owns a bar-slash-club in Arcadia Bay, preyed upon single, struggling mother Sera, earned her favor and trust, and within months, found himself married to her, to Rachel’s dismay, and the ‘family’ of three settled in a trailer park on the derelict side of Arcadia Bay. Ask Rachel and she’ll tell you Damon changed her mother thoroughly and nowadays, Sera is someone she doesn’t recognize, and therefore their relationship isn’t what it was when Rachel was a child.
Though Damon and Sera’s relationship is volatile, Sera begins and doesn’t hesitate to prioritize him over her daughter, and insists Damon’s abuse – physical and verbal – and mistreatment of her and Rachel translates to care and love. Mostly because she loves him. Partially because he keeps her supplied with alcohol, and drawn syringes, and pills.
The ‘last straw’ comes when, after Rachel dared to stand up to Damon and whilst her mother is away at work, Damon touches her in a way he shouldn’t have, not then and not ever. In a way which makes Rachel want to burn, and claw, and rip off her skin. In a way which changed Rachel from then on. She doesn’t tell her mother. She knows her mother, and knows if Sera doesn’t turn a blind eye, she’ll blame shift and point a finger at Rachel.
Hurting and traumatized and feeling a great and terrible need for some semblance of control, Rachel sets the trailer in which she, her mother and Damon live aflame, intent on burning only their trailer to ash, but the fire grows out of Rachel’s control and spreads quickly throughout the trailer park.
RE: LIFE IS STRANGE: BEFORE THE STORM.
As I’ve said, I’ve re-written Rachel’s backstory (birth, childhood and adolescence) from the ground up, and thus I’ve written Life Is Strange: Before The Storm out of the picture entirely, so –
In place of Chloe and Rachel crossing each other’s path at a Firewalk concert, where Rachel saves Chloe's life, perhaps they cross each other’s path someplace else, or perhaps they've met previously and are familiar and fond of each other already at that point. If anybody who writes Chloe wants to plot how and where they meet, I’m happy and more than willing to. ♡
Regardless of how and when Chloe and Rachel meet, days after the trailer park in which she, her mother and Damon reside burns down, Rachel approaches Chloe and persuades her into a road trip to California which she makes out to be 'for the spontaneity'... but unbeknownst to Chloe until halfway through their trip, Rachel's intention in traveling to California is to find her birth father, James Amber.
Again, I’m happy and more than willing to plot out what happens on Chloe and Rachel’s road trip to California with those who write Chloe. ♡ However, regardless of what happens and what Chloe and Rachel’s relationship looks like, the following happens toward the end of the road trip, when they’re so close, but still so far to reaching Rachel’s birth father:
At a rest stop, as she’s coming out of the convenience store with a bag chock full with food and drinks, Rachel sees a man – a man who’s too old to be in the vicinity of teenagers – inserting himself in Chloe’s space. Rachel, seeing this, gets triggered; the man’s aggression and predatory behavior reminds her of her step-father and what he did to her, and she doesn’t want what happened to her to happen to Chloe, so Rachel slides herself between Chloe and the man and shortly thereafter, gets into a verbal then physical altercation with him, during which the man stabs her.
Chloe, as surprised as she was panicked, rushes Rachel to a close-by hospital, where she finds herself immediately taken in and undergoing emergency surgery. Doctors tell Chloe Rachel’s one of the lucky ones; although on intake, Rachel was clinging to life, she pulled through.
Upon waking up, Rachel finds her birth father, James, in her room, and she can’t help being elated. Any hope Rachel had of forming a relationship with her father, and living with him, dies quickly, squandered by James himself. He tells Rachel he has a career and a reputation to go with it, a wife and kids, a life and he hoped and prayed this day — the day he and her met — would never come, and therefore, he had no interest in being a part of her life or having her in his.
Brokenhearted, Rachel contacts her mother who, with Damon, rushes to California, and Rachel’s forced to detail what happened, and Sera – and her step-father – exerts more energy criticizing her daughter for her actions than showing concern and care for her.
As soon as she’s given the green light to go home, Rachel returns to Arcadia Bay with Chloe at her side and her tail tucked between her legs, and there her mother and step-father’s mistreatment of her grows worse over the years. Her relationship with both of them becomes volatile then non-existent by the time she finds herself in the dormitories at Blackwell Academy.
Rachel has Borderline Personality Disorder, and this is where her fear of abandonment and rejection, impulsivity, intense, ever — changing emotions, and unstable self — image stems from. Rachel hasn't been diagnosed 'officially', however, so her BPD remains unknown and unmanaged.
Expectedly, Rachel's upbringing and trauma combined with her Borderline Personality Disorder shapes who she is and how she interacts with the world and others in it, meaning as charming and magnetic as she is, she's very guarded, and can and will switch up on anyone, regardless of closeness. Especially if or when your muse triggers her, intentionally or not. In a similar vein, relationships, whether they're platonic or romantic, will not be instant for this same reason. It can and will take Rachel a while to warm up to your muse and be able to trust them.
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