#and I'm even more pissed that they just wrote off Ray and Sloane with no resolution

[valkerymillenia]

TUA s04

I watched the whole season except for the last episode.

I didn't hate it so far but mostly because TUA tens to give interesting plot twists at the last second and I was trying to keep an open mind... That being said, I am quite disappointed in a lot of things this season.

And now I'm genuinely afraid of watching that last episode, there's too much to unpack so far and I'm afraid of the implications of some of the storylines being built up, I'm also very afraid that they're going to do the lazy writing thing and kill a bunch of characters off without any resolution or catharsis just to wrap up the story.

Plus I've been trying to avoid spoilers but I already caught a few glimpses that scared me.

This was my favorite show ever, I don't want it to end on a bad note, a rushed and lazily written bad note.

[amber-jinx]

Omg exactly. Really glad to see people on the same page. So many people fail to understand Rachel Amber, just like people in the games. I'm also sick of people throwing the word "manipulative" around. Having high Emotional Intelligence & superb people skills does NOT equal to manipulation (which is deliberately using people to your advantage)!!! Of course when you have the talent to get on peoples good side you do it, because she's an amazing, caring person! This is said in the comics as well by Chloe, like she was a ray of sunshine.

Ultimately Chloe is the one who remained in Rachel's heart. She cared about Frank as she has the ability to see humanity/beauty even in darkness, but was with him likely cuz of drug addiction / making money to leave town. She didn't cheat because 1st, Chloe & Rachel were never officially together, plus she left Frank immediately when he got violent. Contrast this with "Chloe could never piss her off, she and Rachel were almost joint in the head" as said by Joyce herself. The amount of difference in these 2 relationships are so clear.

As for Jefferson, she was infatuated and when she realised it wasn't healthy, it was too late. Wasn't love, wasn't cheating. She got preyed on. So why didn't she tell Chloe? Well, would you find it easy to elaborate in detail, to someone you really care about, about your ugly side? This is why we lie to our mother, sometimes. We don't want them to hate us (exactly what Rach wrote in that note to Chloe-- "I don't want you to hate me"). She clearly isn't proud of what she got herself into and didn't know how to tell Chloe. But she tried. She wrote that note. Whether she actually gave Chloe is left for our interpretation, as with so many things in Life is Strange.

It's so sad. If she just waited to get a degree she could have left town with Chlo for good. Rach holds a piece of my heart & I hope to travel around with her feather earring.

Rachel Amber deserves more love, respect and sympathy.

Also people should learn to see the Ying AND Yang of a character. Not just overly focused on either sides. Maturing is realising Rachel is toxic? no. That's not maturing. Maturing is recognizing both sides and still believing in someone's humanity because we need to have a little faith.

2nd image by AI.

Before playing Before the Storm, I honestly didn’t think I would have so many feelings about Rachel Amber but oh boy, here we are.

I just want to start off by saying that I am a Rachel defender through and through. I will die on this hill. Call me Chloe Price because I am president of the Rachel Amber fan club. 

The belief that Rachel had no care or compassion for Chloe and was only using her is insane to me. We are talking about a 15 year old girl who feels like she has to be everything for everyone all the time while still maintaining perfect grades and a perfect reputation. She has a broken family with a father who is a master manipulator so of COURSE Rachel knows how to manipulate, it’s all she’s ever learned and she thinks that’s how you have to move through life. Chloe is the first person she’s ever met that she could maybe be real with and she doesn’t know how to handle that emotionally. She does love Chloe, she just doesn’t know how to show it very well because it’s never been demonstrated to her.

When talking about Rachel, I think we need to remember that she is a victim, right up until she was buried, and even during her burial, she was victimized. Even her body could not get the peace it deserved. 

Firstly, she was 100% a victim of her family. The mother who was sick and couldn’t recover for her until it was too late, the mother who lived a lie Rachel’s entire life and didn’t have the heart to say anything, the father who demonized a hurt woman and refused to get her help, who kept a part of his daughter away from herself, and who would rather hire a hitman to kill her real mother than actually allow them to meet. Say what you want about him doing what he believed was best, he was still wrong.

She was a victim of Frank. I have a lot of mixed feelings regarding Frank in general, however I do believe that this is another case of Rachel being victimized. I’ve seen a lot of “Why would she cheat on Chloe with Frank?” online and it’s baffling. Are we forgetting that Frank is a fully grown adult who is 13 years her senior? Regardless if they started dating after she turned 18 (which we do not know for sure is the case), he still met AND liked her when she was 15 years old (considering in BtS, if you tell Frank over the phone that you’re helping a friend, he asks if it was your friend from the other night at the mill, and agrees to help only because of her). In the diner during the storm, he does acknowledge that she was too young for him, but that he did genuinely care about her, which I don’t doubt, but the relationship is inappropriate regardless. The relationship also likely started because she was a user and running drugs for him as a means to make money to leave town with Chloe, who he believed was “trying to take her away from him,” a sentiment that is common within grooming.

She was a victim of Jefferson, having been coerced into whatever their relationship was, her feelings for him being self-described as “obsessed”. She never truly loved him, only being manipulated into it because she was young and desperately needed a father figure-esque man to make her feel worth something. All he really was was an adult who wanted to do disgusting things to a child.

And lastly, she was a victim of Nathan, who she gave years of friendship to, but he was so broken and so blinded by pleasing his so-called mentor that he allowed her to die and left her in a junkyard like she was garbage.

Rachel was a just baby who was crying for help ever since she moved to Arcadia Bay, and the only one who could hear her was Chloe. Unfortunately, despite doing everything she could, Chloe was also a child who was dealing with her own trauma. She couldn’t always be at Rachel’s side to protect her, and Rachel was scared to tell her the truth in fear of losing her. No one was able to step in to give Rachel what she needed, and she continued to escalate, lash out, and put herself in more and more danger until it led to her death.