Personal

Name: Lissa
Email: literatilove@gmail.com
AIM: Lily C Humphrey

Character

Name: Rachel Lynn Berry
Fandom: Glee
Desired Age: 16
Desired PB: Lea Michele
Desired Job: Student

Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual
Appearance: Rachel stands at a short five feet and two inches, she had dark brown hair that flows past her shoulders and bright brown eyes. She has a slightly large nose and while she's not fat by any means, she would love to lose weight. Just enough to be as thin and as pretty as Quinn Fabray. That isn't to say she isn't pretty--she is. Her surrogate mother was screened on beauty and IQ and she definitely got her looks from her mother, as to this day they still don't know which of her two fathers is her real one.

Personality:

Rachel is a powerhouse in a small package. She's very opinionated and won't hold back what she thinks, often speaking without thinking of a person's feelings. Despite her short height, she can appear very intimidating when angered. She also has a natural ability to act her way out of just about anything.

When she signs her name, she always puts a gold star after it. It's a metaphor for her being a star.

She typically displays a lot of confidence outwardly, though inwardly she's less confident. She tried her hand at bulimia once, though she discovered she didn't have a gag reflex (which she was told would be a blessing later in life) so it didn't work. After that, she never gave it another thought deciding that it wasn't for her.

All of her attention is focused on being a part of something great, becoming a star. She doesn't give much time for anything that won't serve that purpose, especially boys. They're a waste of time and an unneeded distraction. Even so, she secretly wants to be loved, it's entirely possible that she uses her busy schedule as an excuse rather than a reason she hasn't dated anyone.

History:

It's very hard for gay parents to adopt children and even harder to conceive. Andrew and Liam Berry, however, wanted a child. They decided to screen potential surrogates based on beauty and IQ, then mixed their sperm together and used a turkey baster. This proved to be a success and they became the fathers of Rachel Leigh Berry. They never found out which one was the real father and they never had any desire to. She was their daughter and they were happy that way.

Rachel was raised in the arts, her dads put her through vocal lessons, dance lessons and anything else they could to give her a competitive edge.

She grew up with one goal in mind--to become a star. As she entered William McKinley High School, she joined the Glee Club, which was then run by Sandy Ryerson. Sandy made one huge mistake, however, when it came to running Glee with Rachel in it. He gave Hank Saunders the solo Rachel felt she deserved. Her edge was finding Sandy touching Hank in a way that could be deemed as "caressing" and she went straight to Principal Figgins to complain. Sandy was immediately fired.

Glee Club was then taken over by the Spanish teacher, Mr. Schuester (also known as Mr. Schue). At the time Mr. Ryerson was fired and Mr. Schuester took over, Glee Club was nothing like it had been in his own school days. Now, anyone with dancing talent was a member of the nationally ranked cheerleading squad, the Cheerios. The Glee kids were undermined and tormented. Inwardly, the torment bothered Rachel, but she never let it show, it never let her confidence dwindle. She still knew that one day, she would be a star and she would show them all!

With Mr. Schue in charge, Glee started to look as though it could stand a chance. He actually cared about Glee Club, which made the students care about it. He even pulled in a jock with surprising singing ability, Finn Hudson. He was a male lead that could keep up with Rachel vocally, which was what she had demanded to stay in Glee (after all, she was done with not being vocally challenged, if she was going to be a star, she needed to be tested and to become as good as she could.)

With only six members, things really started looking up for the club, they still had to pull in other students, and with it's bad reputation, that was easier said than done. Mr. Schue decided to have the club perform at the next pep assembly, but there was one problem. The song he had selected for the assembly was a 70's disco song and the students were embarassed to perform it in front of the school--especially since their goal was to bring students in, not to have fruit thrown at them.

To alleviate this situation, and save Finn (who she had begun to develop a rather strong crush on) from total humiliation, Rachel decided to make fliers for the Glee Club and post them around. The copy machine they used to make duplicates of the fliers was paid for by the Cheerios budget and only allowed for use by them. Sue Sylvester, the Cheerios coach caught them and turned them in to the principal, trying yet again to bring down Glee. It was settled that Rachel and Finn would pay the four cents a copy for seventeen copies, though Sue didn't like this arrangement. She wanted Glee disbanded.

They weren't allowed to post the fliers they had made (by Mr. Schue, who was still set on performing at the assembly) so Rachel came up with another plan. Give the students what they want--sex. They learned and performed a new song ("Push It") with sexually provocative choreography behind Mr. Schue's back. This performance got a standing ovation from the student body and as Mr. Figgins put it, he hadn't seen them this excited since "Tiffany performed at the mall." Sue tried yet again to get Glee disbanded for their inappropriate number, but Mr. Figgins had something else in mind. He gave Will a list of "family friendly" songs that Glee could perform.

Finn asked Rachel if she would help him with his singing, because he wanted to be able to sing as good as she did. She had him meet her in the auditorium that night and prepared a picnic basket for them with a blanket on the stage. After helping him with his singing, he told her he was hungry, so she led him to the indoor picnic setting. That night, they shared a moment that resulted in a long kiss. Finn realized what he was doing and ran off leaving Rachel hurt and confused.

The next day, Quinn Fabray, captain of the Cheerios and Finn's girlfriend, tried out for the Glee Club (to bring it down from within and to keep an eye on her boyfriend) along with two of her cheerleader friends. They made Glee and Mr. Schuester gave Quinn Rachel's solo. Suddenly, Rachel's world was falling apart. Quinn had everything Rachel wanted. Glee, Finn and the solo.

The final straw was when Mr. Schue gave a solo from West Side Story to another of the girls in Glee. She was absolutely convinced that she was destined to play Maria and proof of that fact was that Natalie Wood--who played her in the movie--was a jew and so was Rachel, so it fit. It wasn't enough to convince Mr. Schue that she needed the solo, so when Sandy Ryerson was reinstated at the school--due to Mrs. Sylvester blackmailing Principal Figgins into hiring him as the "Art Director"--and posted auditions for the musical Cabaret, Rachel knew this was her moment to shine. She tried out for the musical, scoring the lead role of Sally Bowles and she quit Glee deciding to focus her attention where it was appreciating--neglecting the fact that she had been the one responsible for Mr. Ryerson's firing in the first place.

Being the lead in the musical wasn't what she thought it would be. Mr. Ryerson was constantly telling her how awful she was and how he should have cast someone more mature than a lowly sophomore as the lead. She spent many days after rehearsal crying in the ladies room while trying to calm herself. In the meantime, Mr. Schue had recruited a former Glee club member to join and fill Rachel's spot. Now not only was she unappreciated by both Mr. Schue and Mr. Ryerson, but she was <i>replaced</i> by an old lady.

She focused more of her time and energy into the musical after this only to be verbally beat on even more by her not-so-loving director. Finn decided the only way he was going to go to college was to get a full ride on a music scholarship and he needed Rachel back in Glee to do that. To achieve this purpose, he used their mutual feelings for one another to get what he wanted despite not wanting to leave his pregnant girlfriend. Rachel returned to Glee only to find out from the other students that Quinn Fabray was pregnant with Finn's baby. Hurt, she ran off and told Finn that his lying hurt any chances of her ever returning to Glee.

The night Glee performed, April, the new older girl showed up drunk--breaking a promise to Will. Will, who was determined to win let her go on but during their first song, he realized he had made a mistake. During the break he told April she couldn't go back out there and she agreed--she realized that her time had come and long gone and now it was the kids turn for the spotlight and she was hogging it. She left and Will was left to tell the Glee Club that they couldn't perform their last song as they were one member short.

Rachel came to the rescue at that point realizing that being a star came at an even bigger cost--her friends. She knew that if she let them down in their time of need she would never forgive herself. So she put her anger at Finn and jealous and dislike toward Quinn aside and rejoined Glee, allowing them to perform their final act. While on stage, she realized that that was truly where she belonged and she wasn't going to let anyone convince her otherwise again.

In-Game History:

For two gay dads, it's hard to have one child let alone two but it's possible. Rachel's parents had wanted children for quite a while before one of their friends offered to help them out by being a surrogate mother. They accepted and mixed their sperm so they wouldn't know which one was the real father. The result was Nyota, Rachel's older sister. It would be nine years before they decided they wanted another.

For their second attempt, they screened the potential surrogates based on beauty and IQ, after they chose one they used the same process to conceive their second child. To this day neither Nyota nor Rachel knows which father is their biological father and they know for sure they don't have the same mother (Rachel doesn't even know who hers is, not that she minds) Nyota and Rachel might not be biologically linked at all, but they don't care they're still close.

Of course the ten year age difference kept them at bay. The older sister would help with Rachel when she was younger and it continued as she grew older. Rachel grew to look up to her sister and she quickly became her most trusted confidant. Ten years might seem like a large age difference and it does keep them from having too much in common or doing too many things together but they can still be counted on whenever one needs the other.

Upon entering Harmony High last year, Rachel tried out for the cheerleading squad, choosing to focus on the dancing talent that had always come naturally to her. She was one of the few freshmen selected to join the squad, gaining her a respect from many of her fellow students including some of the older students. She was one of the elite, which made her a star and it meant she achieved her goal.

Her goal of stardom wasn't something she really understood and she wasn't even sure what it meant. Was it popularity she wanted or was it something else beyond her?

In her free time--and alone time--Rachel likes to sing. She has a rare natural gift for singing that she is unaware of. She puts too much of her focus on dancing for the cheerleading squad to consider any other options and who takes singers seriously anyway?