hellerton

[hellerton]

life is strange : dust opinions, featuring issue three only .

note : the notes from issue one apply here still, and you can expect some brief warren and rachel discussion in here as well.

messages at 12:15 am.

opening issue three up with pixie and the band is certainly a choice! when it comes to the comic-only characters, i have a hard time parsing through my feelings about them … on one hand, i don’t find most of them unbearable. the ensemble is alright ; not particularly deep, but not boring either. on the other hand, my gripe with them remains strong due to how they’re utilized in the narrative at hand. pixie’s inclusion here is fine -- i enjoy her feelings on max and chloe, how invested she is in them, and the sly implication that she’s more than interested in being their third sometime. pixie’s fun in that way! and the band does have a purpose, in the sense that they represent a clear future forward for both max and chloe. there is no baggage with them and the bonds flow easily when there’s not much of a deep emotional connection there, but rather the illusions of one. they’re the sort of people max and chloe would dig, and i understand why they’d be inclined to help them out, what with their band being full of queer minorities and having a strong pirate theme. here we have the band talking about how going back to arcadia bay must feel like a ‘new life’, and it’s almost polarizing how different it all is : their future with the band versus their past with the bay. i like what they represent, i think they’re okay, although their later inclusions stop serving something useful for max and chloe and it starts becoming it’s own thing. which i don’t like! i’ll stop raving about it for now, as i’ll have plenty to say when those scenes pop up in later volumes, however i want it to be made clear that these characters aren’t inherently bad. i just think they weren’t used properly. it’s complicated. i want to like the comic characters more than i do, but. i don’t think i really ever will outside of the idea of them.

max calling out to chloe the second she wakes up before instinctively checking her face for blood smears due to the nosebleed is a good detail. a.) the codependency stays winning and b.) max once spent so many hours of her day wiping at her nose, swiftly erasing the evidence of blood and every powerful implication of it … how often does she do that now? even when she isn’t using her powers? if you try rewinding at the beginning of double exposure, max mentions ‘old habits die hard’, so i think little tics like that linger for years to come. wiping at her face, beneath her nostrils, always inspecting the fingers after just to see -- the muscles in her arm flexing with a need to raise her hand and undo whatever she pleases. muscle memory and how that affects everything is a big aspect i consider for people with powers in the lis universe, and max is no different. i truly enjoy studying her motions like a bug.

messages at 12:26 am.

it is nice to see chloe’s room again. the image of her propped up on her bed while max is dozing off next to her all laid out is so reminiscent of what life was like before, but the twist of how much older they look makes it hard to truly appreciate the call back in a good way. they carry themselves differently now, there is no happiness or teasing …the room is now a growing pain that still aches in it’s stunted figure. you can feel the sombering air even before chloe brings up how weird this all is for her. seeing the emptiness and the wreckage of what was her home for nineteen years ( the only home she’s ever known ) is finally helping some repressed feelings sink in, like how gone joyce and william really are. forever. chloe mentions that maybe she needed this and that maybe it’s a good thing … also shows some light off-screen development by her acknowledging that she knows her parents didn’t choose to leave, which is nice. i think joyce’s death and her own almost death ( where chloe did, indeed, for a moment choose to leave everyone behind ) really helped her see that for william. or maybe the destruction of everything and her hand in it ( max’s hand ) really made william’s passing seem so trivial and small. both can coexist i suppose!

max : i’m glad. i wish i could bring them back for you, chloe. i wish that could work.

chloe : your super max days are past, okay? i’d like regular, normal, healthy max back -- please?

i can only assume chloe means physically because in no way is max normal or healthy. a state that also isn’t at all regular for her either, even if she was capable of it ( which she isn’t )

chloe’s house attracting birds who need to be saved via open windows or else they’ll die is either something deeply serious and metaphorical, or is absolutely nothing at all and is just a fun quirky thing. i’d lean more towards it meaning something given lis:1 having such intense animal symbolism, but for the comics it is clearly just a quick and cheap reference. my realistic explanation is that everything is overrun by wildlife now so it’s just common to find birds or squirrels or deer in your abandoned house … it is no big deal, really. don’t read into it too hard, the workers say.

messages at 12:36 am.

‘i remember being here and talking about losing rachel. i remember feeling so angry. at her, at you, at mom, at david … at fucking everybody. and now we’ve lost everybody, and i just can’t make myself feel angry at all.’

a piece of dialogue i like because chloe’s anger being extinguished underneath a grief so large she cannot even function beneath it is rather spot on, i think. and yet. chloe is rather angry in this comic? repeatedly so? so it falls a little flat, the sentiment.

but yes, i do think so much of chloe’s anger in lis:1 was very much about her immaturity as a person. when forced to grow, i do believe a lot of that anger would be shed, or at least wouldn’t be shown in such an obvious, petty way. she will always be angry, and resentful, every human is … but chloe would get better at controlling it and perhaps hiding it. can more accurately pick her battles now, probably, rather than just flying off the handle and being a slave to the hot noose of impulse : a trait of hers that caused so much pain and avoidable death in the first game.

messages at 12:51 am.

chloe saying ‘you couldn’t have won, max. there was no right or wrong choice’ feels like the writers’ words more than chloe’s … it’s been a year since the storm and chloe has just been forced to realize, at the same time as max, that her death would’ve indeed saved her mother and all of arcadia bay. for her to then give max these vague, comforting words of ‘i’m through feeling like i wasn’t worthy of your decision’ and ‘i’m sorry if i made it harder on you’ is … too sweet and too easy for me. when it comes down to debates about bay vs bae, bae truthers consistently weaponize the ‘there was no right or wrong choice’ phrase like it explains all. like it’s an absolving statement. and while i, frankly, believe that no, the player should never feel bad for a choice they made in a video game, i also still think there is definitely a right and wrong choice. mainly because saving the bay or saving chloe is so overtly a selflessness vs selfishness decision. nobody likes the trolley problem, and i will never call max evil for letting hundreds of people die to save chloe … max is human, she was eighteen, and the easiest choice ( to passively stand there and not lift a finger, to let life play out without interference ) would tempt anybody of any age. however, it is still undeniable that letting hundreds of people die to save one person is selfish. and it is undeniably cruel in many ways. i think it’s fine to acknowledge there being a morally ‘right’ and a morally ‘wrong’ choice and to stick to your guns regardless … but to pretend that there isn’t a bad choice feels so disingenuous and, like always, a way to water down max’s choice at the end of the game. i do agree that there was no winning for max, because both options present her with miserable futures, yet i disagree with the notion that she didn’t make the wrong choice, that there wasn’t a bad one to make. there was. and she made that choice. and isn’t that so interesting to explore? why can’t we explore the harsh truths and the moral corruption of it all? why is max and chloe and the post save bae ending constantly dumbed down, excused, and robbed of any meaningfulness? it saddens me how little the writers of these comics ( and save bae truthers overall ) shy away from any real, permanent consequences or the uglier sides of chloe and max … you are sitting on a goldmine of opportunity, a way to show off max and chloe in a way we haven’t seen before, and yet nobody does anything with it. that’s easily my biggest gripe with how pricefield is written in these works as well as my issue with the fandom at large. i would love this ending so much more if people cared for everything it meant outside of max and chloe kissing or whatever.

i vividly remember seeing warren in these comics for the first time and thoroughly enjoying it with a sort of interest i hadn’t felt at all up until his brief appearance. hi, warren! lol

cute ... a touch of grahamfield intimacy. i know max misses him dearly! but seriously, her immediately touching his face to make sure he’s actually there? the fact her thumb finds the corner of his mouth without effort or clear thought? i’m insane.

messages at 1:03 am.

max : you’re here … but i saw the diner after the explosion, and …

warren : max. there was no explosion … we stopped the fire. remember? it’s the only reason i’m here when everyone else is --

i wish we explored this warren’s timeline, because the details of it are so mismatched that it makes my head spin with both confusion and interest. what we know is this : the storm still hit and killed a lot of people, warren and max stopped the fire together which saved warren ( but what about joyce? or frank and pompidou? ), they’ve both returned to arcadia bay also a year later, chloe died before this storm ‘even’ … ( he trails off, but does he mean before it even hit? before it even formed? ), warren and max are likely together in this timelime, warren’s max has been experiencing a similar surge in powers, and … that’s it. so fascinating … did warren replace chloe here? did max sacrifice arcadia bay for warren? when did chloe die? i want to figure out that timeline of events someday, but i’ll hush about it for now. just something worth noting to look back on later?

chloe is experiencing physical pain ( specifically in her head? ) when she grabs onto max’s hand during her talk with warren. odd! also her nose starts bleeding along with max’s when max returns to their reality … max mentions it feeling fine in the moment, but afterwards she gets all physically ill. hm!

messages at 1:11 am.

‘warren, i’m sorry! you died! you died, and it’s all my -- it’s all my fault!’ + ‘for just a moment i thought he was real. he seemed real.’

max’s and warren’s bond is so overlooked but they’re very, very important to me. whether you romance him or not, warren was max’s best friend before chloe came back into her life … and no, max was never as close to warren as she was with chloe, but she did care deeply for him and knew that she did. that’s not even touching upon how often he tried to protect her during that hellish, time-bending week ; how he believed her without a doubt when max told him about her powers … and then he told her that he knew she’d do the right thing and max killed him. i enjoy seeing even a glimpse of max mourning warren, because i think he’d be one of the hardest deaths for her along with kate, joyce, and nathan. i have many thoughts on grahamfield ( be it their platonic or romantic bond ) and i do hope to make my meta on it soon. they devestate me …

okay so i am noticing a color difference between certain reality hops. some are colored normally, and others have a change in coloring : making the colors more bold, bright, almost highlighter-y. you see it rather obviously in the contrast between warren’s reality vs rachel’s without my psd :

messages at 1:18 am.

but it happens in other flashes too. i’ll have to add that to my list of things to go back and take extensive notes over, just in case i want to meta about it sometime … finding out every detail of max’s powers ( what they are, how they’re used, how it effects her body, etc ) is important to me and something i take very seriously. so. it’s worth going back and combing things over for! surely there’s a reason for such a difference. and i already have a theory or two about it.

rachel amber, oh how i love her and cannot help how happy i get whenever she appears in these comics, and yet she also doesn’t … feel like rachel to me.

messages at 1:47 am.

so, the thing with rachel that feels off to me is how clean she now feels, especially in this specific instance. it’s like all of her troubled nature and intense, emotional problems have been erased to replace her with a girl who wears her face, has aspects of her personality, but is now a squeaky clean version of who she once was. i understand that this could be an act? rachel doesn’t enjoy being emotional around others or showing off her true feelings at all, but if we’re to assume her and chloe are still super close, and that she has replicated a similar bond with max, where is any of her actual personality? it also just feels rather on the nose for rachel of all people to condemn jefferson for sleeping with a student of his, and to call him a slimeball, and mention how good her creep radar is. don’t get me wrong, i want this for her! i’d love for rachel to be like this one day … but i do not think she is that kind of girl, especially not when trapped in arcadia bay and blackwell. why is she now so against the idea of jefferson being with a student? why does that now creep her out? why was this rachel unnerved by jefferson instead of infatuated? what changed to make her improve in this way? it feels like a happy au for the sake of it, without any payoff or care. while i don’t mind rachel having her happy endings ( she deserves it! really! ) i do find it strange that she is forced to lose all her flaws and edge in order to achieve such happiness, unlike chloe. why can’t a very flawed rachel be happy? is it impossible for a rachel who is so desperate to leave and so self destructive and in pain to find even a semblance of happiness? i don’t know. i love rachel for her messiness and complexity, so to find myself almost bored with her character kills me. also, it feels rather odd that this version of rachel is so against a teacher sleeping with a student, yet breezily mentions meeting frank, in a way that could imply an entanglement. i’m no frank hater, but his and rachel’s relationship is … ‘creepy’, is it not? *waves hand dismissively* i guess it’s just happiness for the sake of it, as i said before. there is no thought put forward into rachel here or the realities of the world they’re visiting.

anyway. chloe’s simpering ‘i’m sorry, rachel’ is nice … while i wish she had more of a reaction, i do understand why she wouldn’t. being face to face with rachel like that? alive and beaming and happy? as chloe used to remember her? it’s reasonable that all she could do was stare. only able to speak when rachel started leaving, which finally triggered the right buttons for chloe. only for it not to matter whatsoever because it’s gone in a flash … while i don’t talk about them often, amberprice is easily my favorite chloe ship. i think they were good for each other, and were the soulmates of each other’s lives ( hence my parallel involving safi/maya )

‘that one really did a number on me. that one hurt.’

interesting quote from max about the rachel timeline.

messages at 1:55 am.

‘it’s not in my control, chloe. i swear, i’m not doing any of this. it’s like … it’s traveling through me.’

another fascinating quote from max about these new powers.

also max saying that she deserves it, these powers and how much it’s ruining her physical body … how defeated and resigned she looks when she says it … she does not care that it’s happening to her, which is why she hid it to begin with and didn’t bother looking for a reason why. it’s whatever, it’s cosmic punishment … yet max resolves to figure out how to make it stop so she doesn’t hurt chloe anymore. i feel like people think i’m crazy when i imply that max has a habit of setting aside everything for chloe’s sake, be it her own health or the lives and time of others, or her own morals, but this line makes that clear. as does all of the first game, honestly! while the comics aren’t exactly canon to me, i do enjoy feeling validated by canon material.

warren placing his hand on max as she ‘wakes up’ only to retract it immediately when it becomes obvious it’s not his max is sweet.

messages at 2:03 am.

‘string theory. parallel worlds.’

once again, double exposure drew a lot of inspiration from the comic because max’s new powers are literally that. accessing two parallel timelines that exist rather close together, meaning the veil between them was thin enough for max to break. obviously there are differences but it is more or less the exact same power!

messages at 2:12 am.

max : and what happened to him? what happened at the end of quantum leap?

warren : well, you know … he … doctor sam beckett, he …

warren, no longer looking at max : … he jumped home.

without any knowledge of the tv series, this has no impact. but a quick google search will tell you that warren is lying here, because the show ends with a title card unceremoniously announcing that doctor sam beckett did not, actually, return home. in fact he ‘never did’.

warren lying here is so absolutely delicious actually. he doesn’t seem like a liar, so the fact that he would tell such a huge one … in order to protect max from the harsh possible reality of what might happen to her, perhaps even not wanting to acknowledge it himself, is … phew. what a precarious position he is in, as someone who can understand these things more than max or chloe … it’s a good thing and a curse, to have to know so confidently that max is playing with forces that could take her away forever, if science and fiction is to be believed. him disappearing after as the maxes likely switch out is also a nice touch. hands down my favorite ending of an issue so far, due to the impact it leaves me with.

[hellerton]

life is strange : dust opinions, featuring issue two only .

note : the notes from before apply here still, but i’ll admit that these opinions lean more towards analysis and general positivity than negative this time around.

messages at 12:14 am.

while i am very staunchly not impressed with most of the comic, i do appreciate certain aspects of max’s characterization … her being so against smoking is cute and very her. she would never smoke. it hasn’t ever appealed to her -- and while vortex club maxine certainly does more than just smoking, that’s mostly due to nathan’s and victoria’s heavy influence than much else. max, at her core, isn’t fond of it. i’m sure vortex max isn’t really into it either and has merely convinced herself it was a necessary evil to keep her new friends around, before steadily falling into it like a crutch. max also being rather handsy is something i’ve always admired and noticed, since it’s an effect of her nosey nature. it’s like her hands move on their own accord and pick up whatever she eyes, or moves it, so she can observe and see … like when she picks up dana’s pregnancy test out of the trash or grabs vinh’s booze without asking. it’s all very instinctive for her and i do think on long roadtrips she’d be a nuisance if she wasn’t driving, which she never is when her company is chloe. someone who is this close to killing her over her repeated handsy behavior. max is indeed the type to repeatedly pull up the door lock and then push it back down, for a long time, until it stops appeasing her. draws on the window if it’s foggy. etc. it’s best for everyone if she sleeps, puts in her earphones, or is able to talk, which is also common of her … i do think she outgrows many of these behaviors as she ages due to her alone time on the road + how much she starts to drive, but it’d be nice to see aspects remain.

chloe tells max to take a picture, and she says she can’t, bringing up how wrong it feels to holding up her camera the closer they get to arcadia bay. she mentions the removed nature their friends in seattle had, how it was a relief and ( to max ) the biggest pro to being friends with them … i don’t know if i’d necessarily agree with the earlier statement on principle. i do think max wouldn’t enjoy the painful hit of nostalgia that her camera would bring when snapping shots in arcadia bay, but she wouldn’t exactly. be against this? nor traumatized i don’t think. if max can pick up a camera and start taking photos again, i’d assume her trauma with cameras would be mostly managed by her without much issue. i do understand this is only one year after the events of the storm so … perhaps that self assured attitude about it will come in due time? ( ha ha )

messages at 12:27 am.

max : why is that so hard to imagine right now?

chloe : going back to seattle, you mean?

max : we’re not even at arcadia bay yet … and i feel like we won’t ever leave it again.

on some level i do like this feeling max has. as i’ve mentioned before, going back to the bay will never be easy on her … especially not in a world where she sacrificed it! there is a sense of dread and horror, all these mixed feelings of grief and loss : so much of max was left behind there, so much of her remains buried deep in those buildings and beaches and waves. i do think max would feel tempted to stay, post save bay, if she were to return. it’s not what she’d really want, but she’d feel almost beholden … except this is a post save bae max and i find it hard to understand why she’d feel this way, about a town that barely even exists outside of the people who are trying to rebuild it. max never felt trapped in arcadia bay like chloe and rachel did, and has always known how easily she can leave it … in fact, she never wanted to leave. arcadia bay is her home, more than seattle was, and yes a large part of that was chloe’s presence, but i don’t think max would ever feel trapped there regardless. her positivity and love for arcadia bay is so prominent in all her thoughts and in her insistence to do something good with her powers, for her hometown and blackwell specifically. she loved it there and that’s the tragedy of her allowing it to be destroyed … would she be reluctant to go back to it’s ruins? to see the extent of everything she’s done all over again? obviously! but these feelings she’s expressing makes more sense for chloe in my opinion. who was only allowed to escape by allowing max to kill everyone else. by smashing her cage wide open. if anyone were to feel like going to arcadia bay would trap them again, it’d be chloe … where’s her fear of that, or her fear that this time she won’t be allowed to leave with her life, that this place will want to kill her again, to fix max’s mistake? chloe’s actual attitude is rather standard for her character ( raw and rough ) and not really unique in terms of trauma. she just talks about how much they haven’t confronted their actions and how they’ve killed all their friends and replaced them, which is … dialogue that works for her, but isn’t entirely accurate i think.

who knows. maybe she’s keeping her real feelings under wraps? i’d like that, but i don’t think the comic is doing that on purpose given statements that max makes later. anyway. car breakdown time!

find it so fascinating that people complain about double exposure retconning chloe due to her being uncomfortable over max’s powers, yet you can tell where the writers got their inspiration for this : these comics, right here. chloe is very strongly anti-powers and makes it clear that’s a hard line for her, the idea of max using them ever again, and max agrees with this … but it’s still a problem. chloe brings it up often, especially as max’s new powers begin awakening against her will -- you see how much it angers chloe and hurts her to see, and even other!chloe later will bring this up too, lashing out at max and her power usage. double exposure’s version of chloe has similar issues and asks max upfront about it, lashes out over it, etc, yet fans hate this? chloe obviously didn’t break up with max purely because of that and her letter, as well as max’s vague statements about their breakup, makes that clear … but again. double exposure’s writers most definitely read these comics and probably took a lot of their chloe inspiration from it, honestly. so for fans to abide by this chloe’s portrayal and use it as a gotcha! to de’s chloe is odd when they do indeed overlap.

messages at 12:37 am.

i love max to death and she can never do no wrong in my eyes, but her trying to tell chloe to prioritize her dead mom is like. audacious as all hell. obviously, chloe doesn’t take kindly to that. you kinda killed her mom, max. maybe leave that pulsating wound alone ( she won’t, she thinks about it as much as chloe -- joyce was like a second mother to her )

‘max, i don’t need you to psychoanalyze me, okay?’

the chloe and nathan parallels stay strong. what was it nathan said? ‘do not analyze me, i pay people for that’ lol. on the other hand, what is up with chloe calling her mom joyce? is that a way for her to distance herself from her grief? she didn’t exactly do that for william, someone she also brings up, and someone she refers to as dad. might be an oversight but hm.

messages at 12:45 am.

‘i don’t know what we’d expected to see there. maybe deseted desolation would have been easier to react to. instead, we were looking at the efforts to restore what had been destroyed. rather than being faced with the unadulterated horror of what we’d abandoned, we were confronted with empathy and normality. clean, clinical, functioninh. numb’

ah, so many things here. i do appreciate this process being described as being clinical and rather impersonal to gawk at, the empathy palpable but almost completely unfelt by both max and chloe. i do think that them seeing their big mistake be covered up with the equivalent of a flimsy bandaid on a gutted stomach would be a rather numbing thing … but i doubt it would be easier to react to the actual destruction rather than this? that seems like a stretch to me, and repeats the flaw of almost dismissing their ‘unadulterated’ and horrific act as some lesser thing compared to … a rebuild project. both things would warrant different feelings, but the evidence of what they’ve done will always hit worse, i think. the utter honesty of it all may be more comforting than this, yet it’d still be impossible to stomach. the visual representation of the unfathomable amount they lost, that they willingly let die … to see it, to feel it, to touch it … it’d be worse and it’d be overwhelming in my opinion.

chloe chasing off the deer while acknowledging that yes, it’s cute, but they attract predators who are very much not so is endearing. as is max’s rather nervous reaction and apprehensive remarks. nice call back to her connection with ghost deer, and i do appreciate the continuation of the deer motif that so heavily haunted lis:1 as well as max viewing them differently now. almost in a scared, revered way. in my mind, the bay should be overrun by deer if you choose to sacrifice it, given the fact they are rachel’s primary animal.

messages at 1:18 am.

max using the ‘we don’t know if we actually caused the storm’ excuse to chloe right after arcadia bay, and then chloe using it on max in the present when she breaks down at the sight of the two whale diner ( where she knows, and has let, warren, joyce, and potentially pompidou and frank be killed in a fire, an explosion ) is so fascinating and shows how little they believe it. they know their ‘shitty personal lives’ caused the storm, they both feel that guilt and personal responsibility, but lie through their teeth to comfort each other with cold fantasies. and it never really helps, but it’s a conversation dropper. i don’t think either of them actually believe it. i think they want to pretend, sometimes ( lots of pretending ), but they can never convince themselves for too long. they just … know better.

hi, dana! i do adore her brief inclusion lol. i really like her, and i enjoy her going through with the pregnancy in some universe. while i’m proud of her getting an abortion ( as she should! ) i always ache at seeing her book on maternity during lis:1. i do think she wanted so desperately to keep the baby, that she did plan to be a mother someday, but ultimately decided her schooling was more important. i don’t think it was an easy choice. so to know she either a.) kept the baby or b.) finally started her family when she graduated is so, so nice haha.

max's look here is so fond and full of longing. she wanted this sort of reality so bad, where arcadia bay and chloe could coexist. this would’ve been her future, if she was allowed to choose it.

messages at 1:25 am.

will have to return to this at some later date for a later meta, but chloe being able to experience max’s power when they touch is also shown in double exposure : where max is able to drag safi through the photo with her while holding onto safi. consistency! i like it! and this potentially gives me a way to implement max’s powers with characters in an interesting way.

‘call me, max’

as dana does the call symbol with her hand … oh dana i’m so glad you’re into women

chloe calling desperately for joyce :( i love those two so bad. doomed mother and daughter dynamic of all time i’m afraid, because they both loved each other so much but it never quite worked out for them, alas.

note : go back through to check for max’s nosebleeds and when they appear. for science.

messages at 1:33 am.

chloe going ‘give me a moment, max, okay?’ while dwindling into a similar posture as rachel did at the end of episode one in before the storm. those two are so similar and chloe has only emulated her more after rachel’s passing … when upset, she needs time alone, to breathe, even if just for a second, and she’s usually able to get over it when by herself. max, meanwhile, is like how chloe was with rachel : she cannot help but push, and cling, and assume wrongdoing that chloe has to tell her about immediately. though chloe’s harsh ‘it’s not always about you, max!’ while true and understandable in this situation, is a quote that bothers me … if i remember correctly? i think it’s because it’s a theme of these comics, rather than a specific instance. max is repeatedly told nothing is about her, that she’s narcissistic for thinking so, and i have mixed feelings on that. on one hand, yes! on the other hand, no? when it comes up again, i’ll probably remember all my thoughts and comment on it more efficiently.

despite my many complaints and firm belief in toxic pricefield, i do enjoy their casual and supportive intimacy. they have chemistry and their dynamic is good, so the little scenes where they're not being torn about by their guilt and flaws are heartbreaking. they do love each other. things are just ... hard.

‘can posters have ghosts’ well. yes! just ask rachel amber.

messages at 1:42 am.

‘where? is she here? i can’t see her!’ + ‘who are you talking to max? is it her? why can’t i hear her?’ + ‘i don’t see her! i don’t see her at all, godamnit!’ + ‘why can’t i see her? why can’t i hear her? FUCK!’

chloe being so overwhelming because she so desperately wants to see her mom is actively making me tear up lmao. she is a record playing over and over as her desperation bleeds into pure rage and devestation. her mom is literally over here grieving chloe’s death ( which is why she can’t see chloe, unlike dana, where in that universe chloe was alive ) and it’s just … phew. the defeated way chloe sits on the ground afterwards when max breaks their link, god!

‘max, you know i love you like a daughter.’

every mention of joyce and william being like parents to max and them viewing her as a second daughter will never not be a hit. sorry. that aspect is always so important to me!

ah. the brutal confirmation that has shattered all hope that the storm wasn’t their fault. i appreciate that immensely, even if max and chloe always sort of knew, it’s important to get that closure even if it stings. there is no denying that arcadia bay could’ve been saved by chloe’s death, and they will have to stomach that and completely forego their fantasy of a world that’s much kinder than theirs.

chloe not being able to hug or say goodbye to her own mother herself and knowing max can, meanwhile max is able to, but instead uses herself as a vessel for chloe rather than saying anything herself … woof. the illustration here says it all, honestly.

messages at 1:54 am.

max passing out due to exerting herself past her body’s capable limit in an attempt to do as chloe wishes is a tale as old as time. she so truly loves her.

[hellerton]

life is strange : dust opinions, featuring issue one only .

note : i’ve read through all the max and chloe centric comics before, and this is mostly a reread. i was sick when i first comsumed the material and rushed it in many ways, so i wanted to give it a second shot. it should be said that my max is not comic max, as their paths are completely different due to how much the comics and double exposure contradict each other. if you like the comics or abide by them, you’re valid! they are canon! but i follow a different universe and a different possibility, so they’re not ‘canon’ to my max, if that makes sense. still, i have many opinions due to my love for the series and max herself.

messages at 3:23 pm.

‘and in a multiverse of infinite possibilities, this is one version of what happened next …’

it will never not kill me that the comics give this disclaimer in every issue, every volume, etc. and yet people still cry about double exposure just existing lol

messages at 3:31 pm.

‘i used to wonder as a kid ; if the butterfly knew what it was doing, the damage it was causing … would it keep on flying?’

this is a nice thought and all, but i’m pretty sure the game made it clear that max never really dwelled on the butterfly effect ( which they say is also chaos theory ) and needed chloe to explain it to her. this first page seems so heavy handed and edgy but i’m going to try and suspend my disbelief a little bit

‘i wasn’t the butterfly. i never was.’ well yes. chloe’s the butterfly.

messages at 3:45 pm.

so. long winded thought time given the consensus the comic is trying to give in the first page! i think i’ve offhandedly mentioned before, when discussing vinh’s blackwell au with you, that max’s choice in saving chloe wasn’t just about chloe herself. chloe was a huge part of it, as was selfishness, but there was another thing i wasn’t commenting on which has been echoed by save bae truthers for years. i do think that in that moment, when presented with two impossible realities ( as max says in de ), that a strong drive was the unfairness of it all … i do not think max saw this choice as fair, nor did she view what fate / the storm wanted as fair. i do agree that for a couple of seconds max is gripped with this addicting spiral of : no, this isn’t my fault, this wasn’t me, and it wasn’t chloe, and why do we have to pay for it? it is a sense of injustice as well as a desperate dodge of responsibility : max is nothing but horrified at the idea this is her fault, can even refuse to say it herself until warren implies it for her … she does not want to believe she’s caused this with her power, which is her initial thought before chloe realizes it’s her being alive that’s causing everything. max is distraught on the cliff, at the beach, tortures herself about it until chloe snaps her out of it … it is weighing on her significantly, and then chloe says it’s both of their faults, essentially, and that max has to fix their mistake.

max, notoriously, puts herself down and puts chloe up. not even in a particularly resentful way, just in general. this is how she functions and works … so then this new idea, that chloe’s at fault just as much as max is, and that the price is chloe’s life, well. it changes things. it isn’t fair. it’s too severe of a consequence for it to be fair. the universe gave max powers to save chloe, and then punished them both for daring to play the game? for doing what it wanted? i do think it’s telling that max’s reaction, if you save chloe, is initially full of an almost frustrated anger as she impulsively rips the photo and says ‘not anymore’ to chloe’s ‘it’s time.’ i think ripping the photo is max not wanting to bend to the will of forces unseen to her, forces who don’t care for her or chloe or anyone else. i’m not explaining it well, but this wounded ‘i wasn’t the butterfly, i was just dust caught up in it’s wings like everything else’ is a sentiment i do think max had at some point. an excuse, a reasonable feeling of betrayal and hurt at the world, etc. but i do not think max carries this opinion for long given her devestation at seeing the storm eat arcadia bay

so this like. feeling now? it feels very weird to me. i think it was easy to justify in the moment ( i’m not playing your games ) when her emotions were so high and extreme, and the pain outweighed all else … but this isn’t an opinion that would last.

i also think the comic leaning into this angle inherently robs max of any responsibility or guilt over her choice. it’s a sort of shrug, a sort of ‘i made the right call’ which i do not think is true. i think it’s okay to acknowledge that saving chloe is the selfish choice and the ‘wrong’ one, just as much as it’s okay to stick by it without regret. i don’t even think max would regret saving chloe, which is why her guilt about her hand in the deaths of all her friends and classmates and chloe’s family is important. if she doesn’t regret sacrificing arcadia bay, if she doesn’t feel guilty about her choice … then what’s left? the comics never answer this outside of a vague ‘grief’ max feels for the people and town she loved. a grief that isn’t explored, a grief that centers around chloe, etc. this is the same girl who took kate’s death as a personal failing, the girl who said she’d trade away her powers forever if it meant kate would still be here … for someone who feels so inherently responsible and is brutalized by the death of a girl she didn’t help kill, then you’d imagine max would be almost comatose and numb after causing the deaths of hundreds all because she used her powers poorly and couldn’t part with one soul to save many.

gestures. i don’t know. i think these comics in particular irritate me because they really cater to bae truthers’ dreams of pricefield healing without the actual steps to do so. but i digress

messages at 3:53 pm.

pixie : it’s like you have magic powers.

max, suddenly uncomfortable : they’re … they’re just photos.

i do enjoy this scene. and i do like max taking photos as a side hustle while staying with her parents if i remember correctly. baffles me that people were so mad about max taking up photography again in double exposure because of the jefferson trauma, yet said nothing about the comics doing the same thing. this is a running theme i’ve noticed, which i’ll keep pointing out

chloe’s ‘time is a construct’ graffiti and subsequent tortured expression is a nice touch. it sure is, chloe.

messages at 4:25 pm.

ah, yes. the arcadia bay rebuild project. perhaps i’m too cruel but i still highly doubt that blackwell wasn’t completely demolished in the storm … when max recieves her first vision about it, at the very start of the game, there is an orange blackwell banner draped across the lighthouse’s information board. the storm is also referred to as rachel’s, her revenge, and i find it hard to believe that she wouldn’t level blackwell for all the good it did her … if you’re to view the storm as rachel’s rather than max’s. i think blackwell in particular being nothing but rubble is a bit more poetic? it’s the setting we spend the most in, it’s max’s home in arcadia bay, it’s where rachel and chloe and nathan and kate and victoria were. a majority of our relationships and major players hail from blackwell and i think such a profound place in max’s adolescence no longer existing or being salvageable is important in many ways. i do not like that the comics show a picture of blackwell and it’s recognizable? and barely damaged? it feels like a cop out to me … just like how much of this plot really takes away from the totality of sacrificing arcadia bay. for example, the prescotts live. even though the storm came out of nowhere and there was barely any time to make it to a bunker. i suppose i can forgive sean’s and caroline’s lives, if it weren’t for the fact they’re rebuilding arcadia bay … i know it’s disrespectful on purpose, but the idea of any rebuilding ( again ) really takes away from the choice in my eyes. it makes it easier to swallow, destroying the town for the girl, because hey, the town can be rebuilt but chloe can’t! forget how warren can’t be rebuilt, or joyce, or how everything they remake will never be what it was, now devoid of the rich history behind it and the people who lived there for years. i also don’t see why sean would be interested in this? yes, he wanted to give the town a do-over, but given the death of his heir and the impractical debris of everything, would it not be easier to go somewhere else? start anew? there is also no town to control anymore either. almost everyone sead had under his thumb is dead. he’d have to build a town and put new people in it and restart from scratch without any promise of a prescott continuation once he’s gone … again, i just don’t like it. there’s stuff to be done with the prescotts after destroying the bay, but i just don’t know if this angle is it.

i’d be more interested learning more about about kristine prescott and how she’s holding up after everything than sean or caroline.

like, the prescotts seem like another scapegoat here in the sense that they are the villains again. for rebuilding the town. for dedicating it to nathan, whom they believed to die in the storm. there is nothing to be said about how max gave sean prescott exactly what he needed to turn the bay into his vision, nothing that compares the two … it is just so simple.

messages at 4:34 pm.

‘bathroom break?’ / ‘bathroom break.’

i think chloe and max should have a secret third love language which is commonly accompanying each other to the bathroom under lieu of dump taking but it’s actually just them talking privately. and also because chloe going to the bathroom alone makes max nervous due to trauma.

‘why do we hold memorial events to remember awful things?’

‘so that we’re never allowed to forget.’

again, the comic does such heavy lifting to imply max’s choice was not a choice she willingly made, knowing the consequences of it. they have new characters complain about the one year arcadia bay storm anniversary and imply it’s to torment the survivors of it, when in fact it’s to honor the lives and town lost because of such tragic circumstances. it’s max and chloe who are rendered inconsolable due to guilt because not only are they survivors, but they’re the ones who let this happen to begin with. they should feel bad about it. it’s good that they do, and that these are feelings they can’t run away from and have to sit with. to just never think about arcadia bay would be cruel. idk. i just think this exchange here perfectly encapsulates a lot of my issues with the comics in general in terms of storytelling and themes … they do not want to approach heavy topics too deeply and they never want the reader to feel ‘bad’ for the choices they made to get this universe. i find it rather cowardly to suck all the nuance and moral grayness out of the final choices of the game, but perhaps that’s just me.

messages at 4:41 pm.

‘you’d think i’d never want to find solace in a bathroom again. why the hell do they still feel so safe?’ / ‘because i saved you in one?’

chloe has a complex about bathrooms too confirmed. i think she should believe this is true and forget the very important max elememt of it all, then go into a bathroom alone and have a breakdown in fear. and she also gets mad about this because what the hell, max, she wants to take dumps all by herself.

to preface : i do not mind chloe still hating nathan. she has every right to. but the fact she’s more mad about nathan’s ‘storm caused death’ story seems rather heartless because yeah, that’s a lie. what really happened to nathan was that he gave up and was murdered by that ‘piece of shit’ jefferson who then hid his body where no one could find it. it just seems so odd she’s mad about nathan’s dark room involvement being covered up, when their choice ensured that it would be … while also condemning nathan prescott to death. he is dead. he likely died scared. there is nothing more you could do to punish him so the insistence of people knowing about what he did is strange … nathan wasn’t even liked at blackwell anyway. so.

‘they’re all gone now. however they went, they’re gone. none of that matters anymore.’

max speaking the truth as always

messages at 4:51 pm.

max telling chloe how much she missed her while away, how happy she was to come back and see her is very, very adorable. but max devaluing her genuine giddiness to go to blackwell ( ‘you’re why i’m so happy in that photo’ ) once again ties back into everything i keep saying lol.

i do agree with chloe’s sentiment that everyone they lost deserves to be remembered outside of their choice, and the storm related tragedy they birthed. obviously, so much horror happened leading up to it … the tornado was almost a accumulation of everything else, of all the pain and hurt and suffering. just because it was the final nail in many people’s coffins, it wasn’t all there was and that is important to remember. max and chloe have many issues to work through on their own time without the storm : max’s dark room trauma, chloe’s multiple deaths, rachel’s death, kate’s attempted or successful suicide, etc. i think the inherent extreme trauma of the storm can coexist with their other traumas, and that every aspect of those wounds deserves individual exploration.

chloe’s concern and anger over max possibly using her powers is very valid ... and then her saying, ‘you were walking away,’ is nice foreshadowing to the rest of the comic. how max is the one running away. how she’s the one really unable to handle everything, not chloe. which does align vaguely with my views on pricefield post save bae.

on that note, max’s total meltdown when chloe isn’t in her line of sight for a second / chloe didn’t let her know where she was going deserves a special callout. chloe is all she has. chloe is her number one priority. chloe is what she chose, what she let everything else die for … it always ties back to max’s codependency i think. and there is a trauma response inherent in it too, this fear that chloe could crawl away just to go die somewhere max can’t save her. idk! there’s a lot there.

[hellerton]

#hellerton , a side blog for inspo, musings, general thoughts, and occasionally metas for @recaul. currently featuring : a thorough reaction / review of the life is strange comic series!

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Caitlyn Siehl, from What We Buried; “Pick a card”

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i hope my unwashed hair and deer in headlights type stare has captivated you

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lake mungo (2008) / sharp objects (2018)