Rachel is a sassy, foul-mouthed, and lacks any sort of filter. She loves helping others in the village but is more than fine with not knowing many of them on a deeper basis. She isn't particularly asocial, but she prefers being left alone. Rachel holds a very high importance in autonomy and freedom, believing that everybody should be able to live their life the way that they want.
Whenever she gets stressed, a frequent occurence when thinking about her childhood, she leaves to go meditate in the Fungal Plains. This method of removing herself from everything wasn't somethnig she used to be able to do, but after years of dedication and support, has managed.
She came to develop a severe phobia of others touching her neck after One Week in Stem City. Due to this, she got good with scizzors and began cutting and styling her own hair. This skillful tool use with her hands became the basis for her interest in weaving down the line.
Rachel lives in Core now with Cass, sewing and stitching for her fellow villagers.
Rachel was born to two Stem City immigrants living in the southern sector. They cherished their daughter, showering her with love and praise constantly. She grew up surprisingly spoiled for a poor girl, all of the family's spare cash going towards her. Unfortunately, she was also sheltered by them due to the city's awful nature, so she didn't have any friends growing up.
When she was 16, an electrical malfunction happened with their apartment complex's lights. A fire filled their stone walled apartment. Rachel, thrown out of the door before the fire engulfed the home further, cried as her mother and father were nothing more than charred and bloody corpses.
Rachel became homeless in a city she didn't know. The teenager spent years exploring the streets, scavenging for food in trash cans. Her mind was overcome with an overwhelming amount of paranoia and trauma. The zombified girl saw how the deranged and immoral off-worlders looked at her. Desperate, she chose to sleep around, doing anything needed to stay at people's places. Yet, after they used her body and gave her the payment of a sheltered night's rest, they threw her back out on the street.
All idea of a family had been seared out from her memory; she existed only as a doll for others to play with.
All she wanted was a home, yet that hope was quick to burn away.
Right after turning 19, she met an incredibly influential noble as she clawed through the trash cans lining Buck Street. Seeing her state, he offered her a deal; In exchange for sexual favors, he'd give her Felgoods that would ease her pain. With nothing left to lose, she took the deal and her frantic mind shortly ended up peacefully buzzing as the world became blissful nonsense around her.
Felgoods were her safety net; As long as she could feel the familial comfort of a bed in some random pervert's house, high as a kite to wash away memories of the past, then she was happy. One day, she'd find a home to replace her old one; One day, she'd be able to stop doing this.
Hooked onto the addiction of feeling nothing, the ram kept using her. When Rachel turned 21 and still struggled to hold a job longer than a week, the man used his connections to get her hired at Von Voldark's casino. There, Rachel was objectified even more than she had been on the street by opportunistic creeps. She slept in the casino breakroom frequently and, for the first time in her life, made friends with some coworkers.
Having friends made her shortly snap out of survival mode. She had to fight a constant mental battle between living as a thoughtless husk and trying to remain conscious enough to work normally. Whenever her boss kicked her out onto the street and she had to sleep around again, or when the patrons of the casino got uncomfortably close, a sober Rachel now perceived it as an actual problem. It made her deeply uncomfortable in her own skin.
She dated a gym crazy Stem Ram who promised her the world; he turned out to be a zealous stalker who tried to control every little thing she did. After her experience with him, her outlook on nobles soured even further than it had after being constantly objectified by them at the casino.
The events of One Week in Stem City take place.
Rachel was offered a spot at Jak'ee's family workshop by the elder. Most of the family saw her stereotypically whorish attitude and stockpile of Felgoods as sinful, but Jak'ee saw promise in the broken girl. Rachel didn't see it, but he knew that there was an unstoppable determination inside of her. Her and the naive child, Cass, were tutored by Jak'ee on how to work in the family company. The three became a small group within the wider family, a close bond formed.
Rachel's quit her casino job and worked as a member of the family business. Her old Felgood supplier grew hungry and tracked her down eventually via the use of PIs, asking her to come with him to the noble neighborhood so they could live a life of luxury together. Rachel froze up, built up sense of self shattering as she was treated like an object for the first time in a long, long time.
Jak'ee stood up and chastised the man for viewing her as a mere object to be bought, the corrupt nobleman disappearing into the night. Rachel, at that moment, realized she found her new home.
In XX796, Jak'ee passed away. Rachel was distraught, but her adoptive family held her close.
As the GNU squeezed the life out of the city during the Era of The Squeeze, the now more confident Rachel asked Cass to move out with her to the rumored prosperous Outlands. The 18 year old Cass agreed, the two of them finding themselves ending up in the Outlands' Core in XX803. In the small village, they established a new sense of family and community there.
Rachel finally moved on from Stem City and the trauma tied to it, living a peaceful life with Cass. She took up knitting, sewing, and weaving with fabrics or twine.
Cass - Rachel cares about Cass deeply. Taking on the role of her cooler older sister back when she was living with Jak'ee, Rachel seeks to protect Cass from any and all horrors of the world... Even if Cass is now in her 30s and doesn't really need it anymore.
Jak'ee - Rachel loved Jak'ee as if he was her own father; His family filled in her desire for belonging. Rachel barely stayed clean of Felgoods when he passed. Yet, because of the rest of his family's support, she had been given the strength to carry on by needing to take care of the preteen Cass.
Romeo J. Spearheadx - Rachel looks back on Romeo fondly. She knows she did wrong back when she was broken and immature, wishing that one day they could meet again so she could apologize
Insurgence "Peachy" V9 - Her weird ex-employer from when she worked at Von Voldark's casino.
Once bitter rivals within Core, the two have grown to respect each other's strong senses of self over time. -