#Post-Save Arcadia Bay Ending

[agentark]

I genuinely feel shocked when I see how many people pick chloe over arcadia bay ngl

[whatsjulietslastname]

« I swore to never use my powers again » so if we are in a post bay ending context, that means Max did keep her powers after saving Arcadia Bay. And I’m really wondering how that works out because I get that letting Chloe die was a way for her to make sure she never used her powers in the timeline she ended up in after the week was over, but I always assumed her powers were gone after that (though they wouldn’t be if the game followed its own logic but it’s not like the end of episode 5 makes a lot of sense anyway). But if she gets to keep them, that means she actively refrained herself from using them for literal years and that would be realistically incredibly hard especially after spending a week rewinding everytime something went wrong. Which means that Max most likely grew to be very paranoid just to make sure she saw shit coming beforehand so she wouldn’t mess up and rewind. Which is mentally challenging and I hope the future game gives us a bit of the trauma reactions she HAS to have developed over the years because if it doesn’t I’ll go insane.

[dalekofchaos]

Life Is Strange. Where are they now scenarios

It's officially been 10 years since the events of LIS1. So this is my scenarios for what could happen in both of the endings for each of the characters.

Save Chloe ending

Max and Chloe are wanderers. Until they decide to settle down in New York. Or in Seattle. I'd like it to be Seattle since Max's parents are there and Victoria too. But regardless of where they choose, Max settle down. Max gets a job as a photojournalist and Chloe becomes a mechanic/tattoo artist and opens up a garage that offers both of her expertise. At some point Max meets a man named Brody. Brody tells the story of two boys he met and asks Max to help prove their innocence. Max eventually does. She goes back in time to witness the Seattle Incident. Max witnessed everything and uses her eyewitness testimony plus photographic evidence to help prove Sean and Daniel's innocence. Eventually Max and Chloe are haunted by the storm. The memories of what they lost and decide that the only way to deal with these emotions and thoughts is to go to the Arcadia Bay Memorial. When they get there. Max passes out and is brought to a nightmare. She's brought back to the week, she has to go through it several times and notices several variables she missed(Nathan knowing about the storm, Sean Prescott as the mastermind, saving Nathan and ending in the hospital) but it keeps going until Rachel appears. For a more in depth look, see this post. But bottom line is Max eventually saves Rachel and by saving Rachel she saves Arcadia Bay AND Chloe. As Max, Chloe and Rachel prepare to leave Arcadia Bay, everyone is there to see them off. Joyce hugs them, Chloe and David shake hands, Warren and Kate hug Max goodbye and it closes on Max, Chloe and Rachel driving off into the rainbow and heading towards Los Angeles.

Victoria sees a therapist and leads her family's gallery until she overcomes her trauma and does not let what Jeffershit does harms her love of photography. Max and Victoria occasionally get together and share their work since Arcadia Bay.

Kate survives in the hospital since Michel confirmed she survived on threads. She writes a book for children and does podcasts about surviving Arcadia Bay and about surviving a serial killer and bullying. This is how Max, Chloe and Victoria find her. At some point Kate and Victoria go through a slow burn of dealing with their trauma in therapy, going through the bullying and learning to forgive each other. It begins as friendship and blossoms into a relationship and what started as a victim and a bully ends as girlfriends.

Steph is with Alex. Steph and Alex start off as a traveling band and even Izzy joins them. Eventually they visit Haven and catch up with RYan, but Ryan asks to join them as he can't stay knowing what his father did and losing Gabe and his mother, there's nothing for him there. So Ryan leaves with Alex and Steph and joins the band. At some point Steph and Alex meets up with Max and Chloe. Steph and Chloe reconnect and Max befriends Alex. They bond over their powers and what they've been through. However Alex notices Max's guilt after hearing Steph's story about surviving Arcadia Bay. Alex convinces Max to tell Steph the truth. Max eventually tells Steph about how saving Chloe caused the storm that wiped the town. Steph is mad for a while, but eventually forgives Max and Chloe. Every year or so Alex, Steph, Mikey, Max and Chloe get together to play D&D. Alex and Steph eventually settles down in Salem.

David would remain in Away. He would be visited by Max and Chloe, Sean and Daniel and to his shock and relief, Kate. While David mourns for Joyce, he found peace in Away and has a better relationship with his step-daughter and made peace with someone he really hurt, even if he doesn't deserve it.

Save Arcadia Bay

Max grieves for a long time until she decides to live her life. She realizes that Chloe would want her to live. She has the memories of Chloe and holds her in her heart. She has Warren, Kate and all her friends in Arcadia Bay. She graduates with Warren by her side. Max goes on to be a successful photojournalist. At some point Max meets a man named Brody. Brody tells the story of two boys he met and asks Max to help prove their innocence. Max eventually does. She goes back in time to witness the Seattle Incident. Max witnessed everything and uses her eyewitness testimony plus photographic evidence to help prove Sean and Daniel's innocence.

Warren would be a positive presence for Max, always there for her and a good influence during her grieving period. They’d watch movies together in their dorm rooms and just hangout. In a sense, Warren becomes what Rachel was for Chloe, her angel. Warren’s presence soothes Max’s broken heart and this is why Max slowly falls in love with him. They graduate together, go to college, Warren becomes a chemistry professor in the UO while Max becomes a photojournalist. When they are older, they get married and have children. Warren becomes the Maes Hughes of his university showing off Max and their kids lol

Like in the Save Chloe ending, Kate goes on to become a author for children's book and goes on to talk about her experiences with Jefferson and bullying in the hopes it could help so many people struggling with bullying. While maintaining a close friendship with Max.

Victoria would be horrified of what Nathan and Jefferson did. Max and Victoria would make peace and Victoria would help her through her grief, which would result in Max and Victoria finally becoming friends. Victoria, Taylor and Courtney would take Max out for shopping, dress Max up and Victoria would help reignite Max’s love for photography and would not let Jefferson ruin her passion. Max and Victoria together would take some killer shots. Victoria would tell Max “when you are a famous photographer, you can put your pictures in my gallery” and it was a deal, Max would focus on becoming a photographer and Victoria would become heir to the Chase Space. Max and Victoria embrace in a hug.

Joyce and David would divorce. Joyce just had enough and realizes she held responsibility for failing Chloe and for allowing David to be a toxic and abusive influence in her life, but she just didn't want to see it. In a way she still loves him, but she can't have him in her life anymore, while David knows he failed Joyce and Chloe and leaves to atone.

Nathan does time in a prison for a brief period before he goes to a mental institution. He gets visits from Victoria and his sister Kristen. Max would confront Nathan in a mental institution. Upon being visited by Max, Nathan would break down in tears and tell her he did not mean to kill Chloe, hurt Kate or hurt Rachel. He didn’t want to hurt anyone and profusely apologize, but he knows he has to live with what he’s done and Max takes it upon herself to forgive Nathan. This results in a monthly visit where Max and Victoria would visit Nathan, think of this like the fanfic The Sense Of Me for Max and Nathan’s friendship.

[arcadiabaytornado]

I want to talk about Rachel’s junkyard letter to Chloe because it contextualizes her relationship with Frank and Mark. (Note: She is more than likely talking about Mark here. Frank doesn’t seem wise, and he is scary, but in a pretty conventional way. Mark will even say that Frank was Rachel’s bad boy phase in Episode 5. Plus, “We hooked up near campus,” also points to Mark.)

This note has a lot of substance regarding the nature of Rachel and Chloe’s ambiguous relationship, but that’s not really what I want to talk about...for today at least. Instead, I want to talk about how this is so clearly a note written by a young woman who’s way over her head. She acknowledges that Chloe would find her relationship with Mark gross, and she then says that if Chloe freaked, “she wouldn’t blame her.” She then elaborates on this point by saying she has to keep her relationship with her teacher a secret because she knows that Chloe would be right to react with disgust. Max even says that Rachel sounded confused and ashamed about this relationship. 

But what's somehow even more alarming is Rachel referring to Mark as scary, and honestly, that just breaks my heart. We don't know what Mark did, but we know that Rachel had already been in a scary situation with an older man. In Frank's RV, we can find a letter where Rachel says that Frank went ballistic and frightened her. She was an eighteen-year-old girl, at the oldest, and in an RV with a drug dealer who was losing his shit. Then she meets Mark. Another older man who has power over her grades and future. She hooks up with him, but...she finds him scary too. We don't know what he said to make her this way. Or what he did. Or if Rachel just got a weird vibe...but she was in her second relationship in her young life with a man who scared her...and she was right to fear them both. Especially Mark. 

More Undercut

Rachel Amber was not a seductress. She was not a harlot sent to lead the men of Arcadia Bay astray. Rachel Amber was a victim. She was eighteen years old and dated men who had power over her, not just in their age, but in drugs and grades. She feared each of them, and no one could save her in time. She died in the darkroom. Overdosed on Frank's drugs while Mark took photos of her body. And yet...such a tragedy so often boiled down to "She hurt Chloe's feelings!"

As much as I love Chloe, that's not the worst thing to happen in this situation. The worst thing to happen is the grooming and subsequent murder. I know that’s kind of harsh phrasing, and I really hope I'm not coming off as overly critical, but I’ve noticed that Rachel’s relationship with Frank and Mark is often talked about in terms of how it affected Chloe instead of how it affected Rachel.

And while, yes, Chloe’s feelings were hurt, and that shouldn't be minimized, Rachel's relationships with these men affected Rachel more than anyone. That's not to say I'm opposed to talking about how Rachel's relationships hurt Chloe!!!! Because they did!!! I'm just saying that it makes me uneasy how Chloe is sometimes treated like the biggest victim of Rachel's relationships when Rachel is dead at the hands of the men who groomed her.

Sorry that I went off on a tangent at the end there, but I’ve never liked it when characters are boiled down to their romantic relationships, and I tend to think that what happened with Frank and Mark should be looked outside the lens of Amberprice a little. Just like I think Chloe deserves an analysis of who she is as a person outside the lens of Amberprice and/or Pricefield.

OKAY I have got to end this post because that was another tangent but quick thoughts: A: Rachel was a victim and it seeps through every letter of this note. B: Rachel deserved better. C: I wish the Mark/Frank situation wasn’t often boiled down to how it made Chloe feel. I feel like Rachel’s character is sometimes not given the analysis it deserves because of it. 

[chloepleasestopdying]

Ideas for an "After The Storm" game with the save bae ending?

If I had control to make ‘After the Storm’ it would probably be pretty damn close to The Girls Who Broke the World by GeneralIrritation over on AO3. It’s one of my favorite LiS fics and my favorite fic for exploring the cause of Max’s powers. I’ll expand on my reasons under the cut but if you haven’t read it and don’t want to be spoiled go read it! It’s great !!

it’s full sequel the setting HAS to be Arcadia Bay. The OG game is just too connected to the town itself to not be set there. Pulling Max and Chloe completely out of there just feels… wrong. One of the best things about LiS is that they knew how to set the vibes of all the areas so well.

‘Ah but I asked for After the Storm with Save the Bae’ yes you did anon- the game should NOT be set in the same exact timeline that the player been able to play in. This 1) keeps the game from making a single choice canon (which they’ve been trying to keep from doing) and 2) keeps the players on their toes.

In keeping with the idea of being in the same setting- the vibe has to be similar. A lot of post canon fics tend to go mores the sci-fi part because of Max’s powers (which can be pretty cool) but LiS is a mystery with some horror. Rachel’s disappearance lingers over the entire game as does Kate’s attempted suicide and Chloe’s repeated brushs with death. Just because there is a lot of cute moments and kinda cringe dialogue doesn’t mean we should forget that vibe.

I brought up The Girls Who Broke the World for a lot of reasons and one of the biggest is because it takes a very similar vibe- if not one that’s a bit more … I wouldn’t quite say mature but perhaps more adult. It’s a straight up murder mystery instead of Chloe and Max’s flat refusal of treating Rachel’s disappearance as such. There’s more death and drugs - though never anything too outrageous for the setting.

And keeping the bay also keeps the characters. LiS has GREAT characters. All the minor characters are just great. Any sequel has to at least try and bring back as many as possible and keeping the setting helps with that.

Max can’t have her powers. I love Max’s powers and I’m a HUGE fan of her keeping them post canon but her powers are op as all fuck if the game actually let you use them to the extent they should be able to.

But if I know I would want to explore the cause of her powers. Later LiS games clearly go with the theme of the characters getting them just because but that never worked with me with Max. Alex’s powers felt like a part of her, they’re something she’s been dealing with and have been growing stronger while Max’s just kinda appeared ?

So basically in TGWBTW (such a long title lol) Max doesn’t have her powers. The fic is from Chloe’s point of view and set a few years post canon with them having spilt up at some point after ‘canon’. Chloe has become something like a fixer with minor drug dealers in Arcadia Bay and gets mixed in with a murder mystery. It takes awhile for the reader to start putting together the pieces on what happened: Max used the picture to travel to the bathroom and instead of letting Chloe died Max jumped in front of the gun. Max’s powers end up not really being ‘hers’ and the last fic expands on some of the dropped hints like the Prescotts.

I think something like that- where you play as Chloe who has no memory of Hell week while Max does is really cool.



[redvellz]

Lis bay ending

One of the things I love about this game is that there isn’t really a good ending and that’s what makes both endings perfect I mean if you choose the bay ending you save everyone in Arcadia bay but then that means Chloe is dead and never got to figure out what happened to Rachel I see some people say that it’s kinda good thing because Chloe is with Rachel but about max? She literally now has nobody to understand her now she was drugged, kidnapped, watched her friend die so many times and literally killed that friend that she cared deeply for she has to live with that guilt for the rest of her life and most likely she probably never dated anyone after that whole thing which is really sad I honestly think that max just needs someone heck it doesn’t even have to be Chloe it could be anyone and I wouldn’t care I just want her to find someone bruh😭

I will probably make a post about the bae ending at some point

[tobiasdrake]

Okay I ranted about Mass Effect and "I reject your killing of that/those characters" in hashtags on that one post and now I'm going to rant about Life is Strange because that one too.

The ending to Life is Strange is complete unbridled bullshit. They set you up with the Trolley Problem by way of the famous Bay vs. Bae choice. Here's the thing? The choices don't make any fucking sense. Like. From a writing perspective, the choices on offer are wrong.

The premise they set up is that the tornado is caused by time travel. Every time Max time travels, it makes the tornado worse. No matter what the timeline, no matter how things change, the tornado gets worse and worse and worse. It's there if Chloe lives through her shooting, it's there if she dies in the shooting, it's there if Jefferson got arrested at the start of the game and Max never discovered her powers. It's. Always. THERE.

The tornado is immutable, the tornado is a consequence of Max's time fuckery, the tornado can never be stopped.

Okay. Gotcha.

So at the end of the game, they say, "Hey, do you want to use time travel again to stop the tornado?"

What the fuck are you on about? You've firmly established the tornado as the immutable product of time travel; How the fuck is more time travel the solution to a quantum mechanical phenomenon caused by time travel? Are you high?

They did this to force the player into a choice that's literally the Trolley Problem. Do you let Chloe die or do you let the entire city die? But it makes absolutely no goddamn sense.

Here's the other thing: For like half of the chapter leading up to this point, you go around helping people find shelter and using time travel to save them from the tornado. Choices in this chapter center on whether or not people find shelter so they can survive the storm.

And. Like. If the options are "It never happened" or "Everyone dies in the storm" then that entire section of the game is just a waste, right?

Which is, itself, a microcosm of the problems surrounding this ending choice. Because on the whole, both options render the entire game pointless.

If you choose to let Chloe die, then none of it ever happened. The entire game up to this point is completely unwritten. It never happened. In fact, the ending says it never should have happened. Jefferson gets caught immediately after Chloe dies so actually Max was making things worse this whole time.

The message they're trying to go for here is, like, you can't save everyone. Sometimes you just have to accept that there was nothing you could have done. But the way they sell it is absolute gibberish.

The actual moral of the "Save Arcadia Bay" ending is that Max was wrong to have ever come out of her shell and tried to help anyone. She should never have had a coming of age story. She should have kept her head down, made no efforts, and just let everything happen the way it should. It would all have been fine if she'd just fucked the hell off from the start. She was the problem all along.

Which is. Y'know. A pretty shitty ending, despite being the one the developer put the most effort into.

Conversely, if you save Chloe, then the whole town dies. Every single person, allegedly. This also means that everything you did was a waste of time because most of the choices are about personal relationships between characters who are all dead now. So, it all still happened but it's still all wiped out now.

So. Like. I reject both of these endings.

For me, the ending to Life is Strange is this: "Save Arcadia Bay" wasn't an option at all. It's metaphysically self-contradictory and thematically self-defeating. It's just there to give a "Correct Answer" to the Intro to Ethics 101 Trolley Problem. I reject its existence entirely.

For me, the ending to Life is Strange is an edited version of "Save Chloe" remixed with the "Let go of the things you can't control" theme. Max has to realize that nothing she can do will stop the tornado, that a problem created by time travel and exacerbated by time travel cannot be thwarted by further time travel. And instead, everyone just has to bunker down and weather the storm.

And they do. The people Max spent all that time saving, at least, make it out the other side alive. If you helped someone find shelter, they're alive after the storm. A lot of people probably still died in the tornado but the choices you made for the lives Max touched still count.

The game's got a direct sequel coming up that's going to use "There's two time dimensions!" as a way of milking Max and Chloe for further content while avoiding undermining the ending choice, but I don't even care. I have my version of the ending that's canon to me and I'm happy with it.

[zynart]

humanity is worth loving, humans are worth saving

(yes we are. we absolutely are. and cynicism and nihilism is lame)

i was dwelling a lot on that idea a lot this afternoon about my views of humanity and my conviction in us, inspired by the central theme of the show and movies, which is that maybe loneliness and yearning for connection is the most human possible feeling, and that most human beings are to some level closed off from human connection that there's a hedgehog's dilemma among humanity — that fear of connection, fear of being seen as a mirror of what you most fear about yourself/fear of hurt from both vulnerability placed in others and the inevitability of change/the inherent inability to ever be truly known when human minds are fundamentally separated from each other — is inherent to humans

so to contextualize the rest of this post i’ll describe things i’d been thinking about today. evangelion rebuild 2.0 and the ending of that movie, the choice that the characters make there. the ending of life is strange and the choice that you make there (i said fuck arcadia bay). and then the mirror examples, that one episode of angel where angel becomes human, or the ending of final fantasy x. every piece of fiction where people face a choice between saving someone they love and saving the world and they say fuck the world. even when it makes no sense and even if it means they and you both will die soon enough in a destroyed world anyway, even when it’s morally indefensible and unquestionably selfish. every time that question comes up, it’s so obvious what the right answer *should* be, but how human is it to just choose wrong anyway? that’s what i did when i had to choose and i said fuck arcadia bay. at that moment i felt such a sense of connection with what it meant to be human

in the original neon genesis evangelion it’s an argument between a worldview that it’s the inherent flaw of human nature, which would mean that the ideal vision of heaven is all-as-one where all humans exist together in kind of a hivemind free-flowing soup of minds (or with how little we know ourselves, that maybe even worldview is just being so afraid of connection that you’re afraid to reach out and try unless it’s with the safety of it being complete and universal and inescapable)… or whether what is special about humans and the most human thing possible is humans choosing, with full knowledge of the fear and hurt and inability to ever be known and the inevitability of change with passage of time and death, to put fear aside and connect with others

that latter view has long been the frame of thought where i feel most tender and optimistic toward humanity and individual human beings as creatures of grace. what takes away times where i feel jaded or cynical or fatalistic or disgusted or hopeless, which it is easy to be. often when people talk about being proud of humanity is pride at collective humanity and amazed at what the human race could achieve working together, but that’s barely part of the equation for me. it’s just that one single core aspect of the human soul, that every day humans choose to put aside all that fear about things that are right to fear and just choose human connection anyway. better to have loved and lost than never loved at all isn’t a platitude or an expression, it’s a summation of the most fundamental element to being human — its just that it’s not only about romance, it’s about all love — for friends, family, children, pets, characters in fiction, music made by others, art created by others, memories with others

(this made me google that phrase, to learn more about this phrase that puts the deepest truth about being human into 13 words, and turns out it’s by tennyson writing about the sudden death from a cerebral haemorrhage of his friend— or maybe more, we don’t know, but it’s besides the point that it was someone that he loved dearly — arthur henry hallam, who died aged 22 when tennyson was 23. and it’s a line from a 2,916-line, 133-canto poem titled “in memoriam a.h.h.” that he spent 16 years writing. 16 years where the pain didn’t stop. they met each other as teenagers, knew each other for about 3 years, and that was it. when he finished that poem after 16 years, he’d lived almost half of his life with that pain. he’d lived with that loss for almost five times longer than the time he’d had with him. and he still felt it was all worth it. it was better to have had the honour and privilege to feel that love, even at the price of decades of pain, than it would’ve been if he’d never gotten to feel that love at all)

caring about anyone is opening yourself up to a world of hurt in so many ways outside your control and humans are the only beings we know of that actually has that knowledge but we choose to care anyway. we have children, we attach to family, we form friendships, we fall in love, we even get emotionally attached to pets with short lifespans and emotionally invested in fictional characters

animals don’t have that knowledge. it’s easy for me to imagine many rational beings or sentience that could have that knowledge and optimize toward the pain-minimizing path of closing off completely and dying off in a generation. if pain is the price we pay for the ability to live and feel things and love things, is the price of entry worth it at all? i think most versions of a fully realized consciousness that wasn’t human would think that it wasn’t worth it at all. nonexistence over pain feels rational. but we don’t make that choice. human beings choose over and over and over to love things. and when i think about it, it makes me feel proud and giddy even for inherent human nature, it makes me feel in love with the concept of people with the same butterflies, and it makes me a firm believer that we should exist and humanity deserves to exist

one could say that it’s very stupid to love. it's very stupid to make an active commitment to inevitable future pain. it’s suboptimal for an entity that optimizes to avoid debilitating, all-consuming pain in a world where the passage of time can never stop and loss is inevitable, where there is literally no possible ending in which there isn’t an ending. and it’s kind of a miracle that we choose to do so, billions of people, every day

if you liked this, feel free to check out my other 'essays' on internet/pop culture stuff on my homepage. here's a selection:

· “book lovers” don’t love anything about books and it’s weird (or, defending classic novels)

· there are things we owe to each other

· i trained a neural net on 10,000 irony-poisoned tweets and it just gave me cringe?

· what makes someone good, bad, cancelled, or redeemed? i don't know either!

· please tell me if you have a definitive answer on what makes someone a bad person

· ok, fine, my social justice politics feel a bit like religion sometimes and that’s ok

· after the deluge (short story) (dispatch from an island state post climate apocalypse)

[celinou]

A Walk in Chiaroscuro - Chapter 38

Home.

HAPPY LIFE IS STRANGE WEEK!

I was so hoping to have something to post this week and I did it! I finished another chapter! I'm so happy. Enjoy the read.

Previously… Max woke up inside a new reality. Her memories caught up to the last six months she had missed since her last jump. Nathan had saved Rachel from the dark room. Mr. Jefferson had been arrested, trialed and found guilty. He is now held in prison for good. Nathan had also been arrested but, upon trial, was sentenced to spend the next two years in a mental health facility. Sean Prescott’s name was brought up during the trial but the man wasn’t investigated further. His reputation however took a nosedive. Same for the market value of his real estate project. In this new reality, Max never went to Blackwell Academy and instead went to Oregon State University. She gained a new roommate and continued being friends with Kate Marsh who is studying there as well. Kate is doing better than ever in her new life. Max lost her other friends. Upon coming to in this new reality, Max received a note slid under her door, saying a surprise was waiting for her outside. As soon as she arrived outside, she was jumped but Rachel Amber - in the flesh - accompanied by Chloe. The girls came to take Max back to Arcadia Bay to meet with Nathan. As it turned out, the boy will be authorized to go out of the hospital for the weekend. The girls quickly took the road back. On their way, they stopped at a gas station and discussed their new situation. Rachel was able to remember Max from her visit inside the ‘in-between’. Chloe, on the other hand, didn’t have any memories of previous timelines. However, Nathan, through Rachel, told them a lot about what happened for them to end up in this particular reality. Max learned that Rachel is now living with the Price family and asked for emancipation from her parents, her judgment is still pending. As a result of her moving in, Chloe and her step father are in better terms, same goes for her relationship with Joyce. Chloe is finally on the path to heal. They arrived at Arcadia Bay. Max asked to see the lighthouse. Standing over the cliff, she wanted to make sure the storm was a thing of the past for good. The certainty settled in her heart and she could finally shed all the tears she held for so long. Her fight was over. To celebrate, the girls went into town for cake. After that, the trio returned to Chloe’s place to spend the night.

[tangent101]

Sacrifice Chloe vs. Sacrifice Arcadia Bay

Originally I was going to post this in response to someone else's comments on which endings they enjoyed for LiS. I decided that honestly, the person doesn't need to have me ranting on about this topic as it's long been talked about... but I didn't want to let it just go to waste. So... it's become its own unique post.

It's undoubtedly not a surprise to folk who've seen my LiS post that I always Sacrifice Arcadia Bay. In fact, I've only ever watched the Sacrifice Chloe ending on YouTube. A huge part of that is I play from Max's point of view and I honestly cannot see Max accepting Chloe's death after everything she went through. The only reason she would go back in time is to sacrifice herself so that Chloe and everyone else could live. And from a thematic aspect, if Max's time travel abilities caused the Storm then only with Max's death will there not be a Storm. But I know some folk feel otherwise.

No doubt a big part of my "issues" with the ending come from the... sense of moral superiority the Sacrifice Chloe folk swing about, as if deliberately allowing a girl to die is a noble thing. Oddly enough, the Sacrifice Chloe folk kind of shut up after LiS2 Chapter 5, when it was discovered that three years after being arrested for Chloe's death, Nathan was likely to be getting out of jail (which means he's winning an appeal, and also that anything involving Rachel was hidden or considered contaminated evidence and thus justice doesn't happen).

I have a suspicion that if Nathan and Jefferson had not been shown being arrested or we saw a newspaper headline about Nathan being "vindicated for defending his life against Chloe" then this sense of "superiority" for Sacrifice Chloe would never have come about. But that's just me.

However, there is also another aspect to this and how often I come to the defense of saving Chloe... and that's the misogyny voiced toward both Chloe and Max. I have had arguments from folks who just... went to town attacking my saving Chloe and insisting that I was a horrible person. Inevitably it would come out that they hated Chloe. One person actually admitted that they hated Max, and deliberately made choices to make Max suffer. And to a man, they were all for killing off Chloe, having Max be with Warren, and fuck everything else under the guise of moral superiority. After all, they didn't kill an entire town of people! Hahaha, so much more superior than those Chloe lovers who are mass murderers!

They defended David and got offended when people called Joyce on abuse as they liked their little enabler and said Chloe was bad and deserved to die. And then? They moved on. They had other targets to hate on, rather than some girl who they killed in one playthrough and fuck the other content.

Ah well. I saw clips on the game, and then my spouse (before we even moved in together) urged me to play the game rather than just watch it... and I fell in love. I'm just weird that way, I guess. And I look at the game through Max's eyes. I choose things I think she'd do. Just because it's fun being Max.

[whimsicalcotton]

Hey, I’m the anon who sent that ask a while ago about sharing the polluted marrow (tm) brainrot, and I’m currently doing my reread. I’ll share my thoughts on each chapter here since I’ve been meaning to post a review on my ao3 account anyways. Sorry if this gets a bit too long-winded/rambly or has typos!

For chapter 1, the opening line hits SO hard. Max is next to Chloe before she’s falling, this isn’t a case of her fingertips barely grazing and falling short. This is Max desperately grabbing a hold of her entire world and not being strong enough to keep her there. Which is WOW, what an analogy. Then, with her photographer’s eye, a snapshot of the moment is etched into her brain, the newest of a long list of failures. The line, “Max glares down at the waves, and prays that Chloe washes up somewhere far, far away from here” is so evocative. Even though she’ll reverse it in a few seconds, even though she won’t get to see it, even though it’ll mean less than nothing, Max still wishes Chloe gets out of Arcadia Bay in at least one timeline. 

When she starts limping back through Blackwell’s campus, the fact that no one truly reaches out to help her is really telling. This was the same school that (nearly) drove Kate to suicide and it shows. She’s bleeding from her face, is visibly injured, and no one takes action. It really speaks to how deteriorated Max’s mental state is that she acknowledges how messed up her everything is but all she focuses on is saving Rachel and everyone else. "Uhm, no the fuck you don't," from Rachel got a startled huff of amusement from me ngl because that’s such a genuine retort of equal parts confusion and rebuke. Max is so Focused on making a plan she forgets Rachel’s closest friend is Chloe and their reunion is pretty much the polar opposite of how either wanted it to go.

And the nightmare transition OH BOY. It’s small, but “You're almost more trouble than you're worth” “Almost” captures Jefferson’s sliminess perfectly. Even without knowing she has powers, Chloe still calls her Super Max, which must be a huge wake-up slap to the face. When Rachel intervenes during their hug, it gave me huge “You, Me, and Steve” vibes even though that was probably unintentional lol. Max keeping Chloe in a death grip (oof) as she pulls away is just D:. Chloe, taking in her childhood best friend, now bedraggled to an extreme degree, questioning how she ended up in such a state, barely holding it together. If she knew what Max thought, that “I hurt me. I brought this on myself. I deserve this”, I’m sure she would go on a rampage. The period between Chloe leaving the room and Joyce coming must’ve been around a few minutes, and Max manages to say two words, when in combination, paint a terrifying scene. Max agreeing to rest for the first time in subjective months only so she can “get back in fighting shape” makes me want to wring her neck like a rubber chicken because PLEASE let her sleep she deserves it :(((

POV switch to Rachel! The girl, the myth, the legend. Describing Chloe as “her big tough badass” is <3333. Y’know, I never thought about it, but hare is an appropriate animal for Max. I looked up the wiki article because I didn’t really know the difference between it and a rabbit, fun fact: “their young are able to fend for themselves shortly after birth”. If you use Max gaining powers as her metaphorical birth then yeah that tracks. Rachel only realizes how strange the whole situation is after she’s out of Max’s immense sobering gravity and back at the scene of the crime, so to speak. When she talks to Victoria and Kate, the line “She wouldn't stand a chance” about the latter leaves the unsaid as “against Jefferson/another predator looking to take advantage”. The various strangers accosting Rachel about Max’s appearance is another strike against Blackwell’s populace. Her recontextualization of her entire relationship with Jefferson as she leaves asap with rage stirring was great.

Chloe, oh Chloe. Her dream conversation with her father coming to the exact same conclusion as Rachel, that Max is a hare running away from something, is very interesting. Visuals of the storm peppered throughout are making me very Concerned. And Max writing letters filled with remorse for being a lackluster best friend is what Chloe wants! Or rather, what she wanted, but not at the cost of Max’s well being. Even after all those years apart, she still refers to Max as her best friend which ueueueueueue. The juxtaposition of Max witnessing Chloe dying and saving her while Chloe watches Max nearly bleed out and not being able to do very much is striking. Chloe coming to the misguided realization just as she was without Max, Max was without her, hurts. In contrast, her familiarity with Rachel allows her to step in when she’s doing something self-destructive. “If she tries hard enough, Chloe can almost pretend that everything is fine” which is such a mood honestly. The ending of the first chapter was such a doozy when I first read it, because I was really up at 3 am, squinting at my dim screen, bundled under a thick blanket on my bed, reenacting Zuko as he inspected a scroll wondering where the rest of the text was. Was an experience, loved it.

I’m sorry if this was way more summary than analysis, everything was awesome and makes me feel emotions in a way hard to articulate through text. I’ll try to send the ask for the next chapter faster if you want!! Thanks for writing :D

hello anon!! first off don't worry about being rambly bc i when i opened my inbox and saw this i turned into this gif of kermit

and also don't worry about being articulate bc after like twenty minutes of trying to come up with a nice proper response to this all i have is: !!!! sdfksjfhsksdfkhjk :0c ohhh my god thank you thank you <3 <3

[naturepointstheway]

So I was thinking about the...less than stellar way that Dontnod handled the "reveal" of alternate Chloe being in a wheelchair (not a good look for them the way they showed the wheelchair in the first few shots of the reveal) and being completely paralysed, and wondered if there were better ways to have the alternate timeline be unpalatable enough to Max without necessarily needing to have Chloe being totally quadriplegic and dying on top of that. So here are some scenarios I thought up and whether Max would go back again in different scenarios where either Chloe did die in the car crash, someone else is killed/paralysed, or other. It became a long post so more under the read more tag, because apparently I can write hundreds of words on overthinking a scenario, but my own research for my Masters? I'm lucky if I get 100 words in there without re-re-re-editing them over and over.

Chloe died in a car crash instantly--A bit obvious and on the nose, but Max would definitely go back to her original timeline, especially as even she wouldn't want to put William and Joyce through the pain of losing their only child. (Heck, when you refuse alt!Chloe's request, this is one of the reasons she points out why she doesn't want to accept Chloe's request!) What could make this even better is show the same signs of the storm approaching too like the beached whales and so on, which would be a good way to solidify that Chloe's death doesn't stop the storm. So this would be super easy, though it might give us a chance to see how alt!Max reacted to her friend's death. Also, it would be interesting to see if William and Joyce's marriage survives this scenario.

Chloe is quadriplegic (or even paraplegic) but healthy and living a full life--The huge bills aside, I like the idea of alt!Chloe still maintaining something of a healthy life with hobbies and stuff, and has at least a decade or so of life ahead of her. Maybe she finds a forum online where people with paralysis can get together and talk about their lives, support each other, and vent about how there are literally no ramps in Arcadia Bay and pretty much...everywhere else. However, the storm is still coming for Arcadia Bay, which means even there, her days are numbered. Here, I probably would have to say that you'd have to find a good reason for Max going back to her original timeline outside of the storm, because here, we still have William as well, and that was whom Max was trying to save. Otherwise, Max going back to her original timeline on the basis of Chloe being severely disabled (but living a full life) in this timeline would only help make her look like an ableist asshole (and give more fuel to people who really hate Max.) Unless, William still dies and Joyce ends up marrying step-douche instead, but that sounds like something that could still happen in the OG timeline as well, and you know Chloe would run over step-prick's feet with her motorised wheelchair every chance she can. Or, you know, alt!Max is absolutely and unironically dating Nathan Prescott. Y'know, something that would give Prime Max a good reason to go back to her own timeline that won't make her look like a total dick.

William is paralysed rather than Chloe -- This could go so many ways, with at least one certainty: Chloe would still have her dad, even if he's now in a wheelchair. "Our" Chloe is healthy and on her way to kicking everyone's ass at academia in Blackwell Academy and beyond, so on that note it's fine. But what if William was also dying (kinda similar to original alt!Chloe)? That would make an even harder choice I think: should Max stay in THIS timeline where Chloe is watching her dad slowly dying, or in the original one where it was just instant death in a car crash (from what we can assume)? I can see Max not wanting to put Chloe through that, but on the other hand, William is at least alive--and when he does die, Chloe would be in a much better mental space to be able to more readily handle his death (and we can assume Max would be there for her too.) It'll still be tragic, but on the other hand, we know William had lived a long and full life, unlike with original alt!Chloe who was dying and not even 20.

Joyce dies in the car crash/is paralysed instead -- We all know Chloe was much closer to William than Joyce, and while it would be hard at first, I feel like Chloe (and Max) would not be as deeply affected and would be more easily able to accept her death (or oncoming death in the paralysis scenario). While Max would definitely feel guilty for creating a timeline that meant Joyce died/got paralysed instead, she'd likely stay here (so...end of episode 4, roll credits?) Alt!Max would still likely have kept in touch as well, since here William is still alive and Chloe is healthy and fully mobile. The storm is still happening, but I get the feeling Max would still be able to convince Chloe somehow about the rewind powers, just as she had with Prime Timeline Chloe.

[dalekofchaos]

Okay, I watched the DE livestream and even with my justified complaints before, I am most definitely not playing this game.

it feels like they killed any chance of Chloe, Warren or anyone from Arcadia Bay of appearing.

There was a dialogue option of Din- I mean Safi asking about "the girl with the blue hair"

And a dialogue choice appears between "We were just friends" "We were high school sweethearts"

"WERE" Are you fucking kidding? They said they'd respect both endings, but How the fuck is it "were" when they said they will respect both endings.

Sacrificing an entire town, killing nearly all of your friends and your love's mother is not "high school sweetheart" WHO FUCKING WROTE THIS SHIT?

Now this could've just been someone who chose the "save the Bay ending" in the livestream, but Max would not leave Chloe if that were the case...

Looks to me like they wanna split Max and Chloe even in the timeline where Chloe is alive. There probably will be just short mention of her or at best short cameo but that's it.

Like if they are no longer together/friends what would be even the point of Bae ending.

The idea that she'd leave her behind after destroying an entire town to save her doesn't really validate the ending. It just seems like a cop-out for a story that originally went with the Bay ending as canon.

As for the Bay ending. I doubt Warren will get a mention. Maybe a "There was this boy I liked, but it didn't work out because I just couldn't get over the loss of my friend and my own trauma, I didn't want to burden him, so I left. He deserved better than me." or worse, they'll demonize him and paint him how the fandom perceives him. I doubt Kate will get a mention. Maybe Max and Kate do stay in touch but they don't show Kate anymore, because god fucking forbid we get people we actually wanna see.

A lot of what made the first game so likeable is completely lost here, the art style, the ability to rewind freely, Max and Chloe's relationship/friendship. This feels more like a fanfic with a bunch of mediocre OCs shoved in than an actual sequel.

The majority of people who wanted Max back are those who also wanted Chloe back. It's going to be very surprising if they attempt to make it seem like Max and Chloe just lost touch or were just casual crushes in school. That isn't how the original game is at all.

Between this and the devs saying Max wants to forget and leave her past behind I’m taking this as confirmation that Chloe, Warren or anyone else from AB isn’t appearing at all which is pretty upsetting.

Zero interest in the game if they go this route. They should have just made a new character instead of completely shitting on Max' original story while using her for name recognition only…

Just remember. Deck Nine was outed for protecting a bigoted groomer and did nothing as a fucking Nazi put white supremacist imagery in their games and they so happen to release a game with "Max" in it. A Max without Chloe, Warren or Kate. A Max who learned nothing and fucked over reality over someone she just met. They got caught with their pants down and they slapped Max's name and voice on a completely new character because they panicked.

Anyways, I choose to believe MY Post LIS 1 headcanons or my Save Rachel game pitch, because that's how DONTNOD wanted it to be, a story we could choose after the game was complete.

I don't know who DONTNOD thinks this is, because that's not Max Caulfield #notmymax

[arcadiabaytornado]

Life Is Strange Ending Idea’s

Life Is Strange is one of my favorite games of all time, but I have mixed feelings about the ending. The choices you make don’t matter, and they don’t play into how the game ends. You can disagree with Chloe 100% of the time and still save her, or you can agree with her 100% of the time and still sacrifice her. That’s not how I think the game should end, so instead I’ve come up with ending idea’s that tie into the choice system.  

Sacrifice Chloe:

You can get this ending by disagreeing with Chloe for most of the game, and then choosing to make a sacrifice to save Arcadia Bay. Depending on if you kissed Chloe earlier, you either get a hug or a kiss before traveling back in time. This ending plays out like it would if you sacrificed Chloe in the game.

Long Post Undercut:

Sacrifice Max:

You can get this ending by agreeing with Chloe for most of the game, and choosing to make a sacrifice to save Arcadia Bay. Max won’t admit her plans to Chloe, but she will tell her that she’s the strongest person Max knows. She says that it’s going to be okay, and apologizes once again for abandoning her best friend with the butterfly blue hair. 

With this said, Max kisses/hugs Chloe and goes back in time. She yells out to Nathan when he pulls out the gun, getting herself killed in Chloe’s place. 

The timestream changes with this event. We see a picture of Chloe getting shot being burnt away and replaced with a picture of Chloe holding her childhood friend’s body. You see Nathan being interrogated by police, and Chloe watching Mark getting arrested for indirectly killing both loves of her life. Joyce then holds her as she cries on her bed, and David watches from the doorway realizing that he’s been a major asshole to her. Those pictures then fade to show Chloe wearing Max’s grey hoodie and meeting with Warren and Kate to celebrate Max’s life. The final two pictures are of Chloe taking a selfie with Max’s camera and Chloe standing near the cliffside in funeral attire. 

During the funeral, Chloe glances up to see two transparent does in the forest. They stare at her as she smiles their way, thinking about her doe-like former best friend as the screen fades to black. 

For the final scene, you get a time skip to Chloe graduating with a degree on an ambiguous subject. She’s shown acting friendly/flirty with a girl her age, showing she once again has caring people in her life. Despite everything she’s gone through, Chloe will be okay. 

Sacrifice Arcadia Bay:

This ending could stay the same as it does in the game. If Max agrees with Chloe most of the time, she’ll unlock with option and sacrifice the town to be with her. The only thing I’d change from the original game is a small cutscene after they drive off from Arcadia Bay. 

Max and Chloe can be seen sitting in her truck under the night sky. They either share a kiss or hold hands depending on if you kissed Chloe in Episode 3. 

Rachel And Chloe:

This is an ending where Rachel and Chloe survive, but it’s not without major consequence. This would be defying Rachel’s fate after all, and since the other endings aren’t completely happy neither is this one. Also I feel like this would be the hardest to achieve ending. 

To get this ending, you need to make certain dialogue choices through the game. EVERYTIME Max has the option to bring up Rachel she needs to take it, until the point it’s clear that she’s just as invested in Rachel as Chloe. If you pick all the dialogue correctly, you can bring Rachel back, but at the cost of the town and Max. 

I don't know exactly how exactly Rachel would be brought back. This is just throwing around fun idea’s. However, Max somehow is able to go back in time to the day Rachel vanished. She’s quick to find her, and warn the popular girl that Nathan is dangerous. Rachel isn’t totally on board with this idea, but she recognizes Max from Chloe talking about her. Because of this, she goes off to find Chloe and tell her that her former best friend is back in town. Thus setting off a timeline where Rachel survives. 

But Max doesn’t. The strain from time traveling so far is to much for her body, and it gives out as soon as Rachel walks away. She dies in the middle of campus, but it’s not enough to expose Nathan and Mark for their crimes. They don’t get legal punishment in this ending, but they do die in the storm. 

The timestream changes from Chloe being shot, to Rachel comforting her by the lighthouse. Then a picture is shown of the girls playing with David’s gun in the junkyard, before the next picture shows them train hopping. You see Rachel and Chloe playing in ocean, before you see Chloe taking pictures of a posing Rachel with Max’s camera. Then you see Chloe attending Max’s funeral, only for that picture to be burned away and replaced by one with Chloe and Rachel standing in the storm. 

The storm destroys Arcadia Bay, leaving Rachel and Chloe as the only one’s standing. In a parallel to the bae ending, Chloe and Rachel drive away from Arcadia Bay and finally escape the town they hated. 

Stuck Between Realties:

You get this ending if you’re a terrible investigator. If you didn’t touch Dana’s pregnancy test, didn’t find David’s files, didn’t hear the phone message from the cops, didn’t find Nathan’s pin code, and didn’t find David’s locker code, you’ll get this ending. Max will refuse to make a sacrifice. She doesn’t understand anything that’s happening and feels left without answers. Max will yell she needs more time to think and rewind. Except she keeps rewinding farther than she’s ever gone before. Only when she stops does Max realize she’s trapped in a blank space in between realties, never to go home.  

New World:

You can only get this ending if you're a fantastic investigator. If you touch Dana's test, find David's files, heard the phone message from the cops, found Nathan's pin code, and found David's locket code, this is the ending you get. Max won't be willing to make a sacrifice. She's lost so much this week and found out so many dark secrets. She can't lose Chloe and her childhood home too.

Max will either hug or kiss Chloe, depending on your relationship with her, before going through the butterfly picture. But instead of letting Nathan shoot someone, Max is resolved to fix everything no matter what it takes. She makes a different choice this time, confronting Nathan before he pulls out the gun, therefore setting off a new timeline.

It's implied that Max will stay in a time loop of the week we've had in-game until she finds a way to fix everything using all the pictures she's taken. It's left up to the player's imagination if Max can succeed in her goal of saving Chloe, the town, and possibly Rachel, or if she's forever trapped in a time loop trying to change things out of her control.

[tarraxahum-ish]

can we hear your interp of max👀

Oh-ho-ho, anon, sure, I will try! Beware, my trying always entails A LOT of text. (EDIT: and I touched a lot on the ending and Chloe 'cause can we really talk about Max in this game without mentioning those points?)

So, as I mentioned in the tags of the post that inspired this ask, Max is a weird character when it comes to interpretations. As in, almost all people in my friend group alone have a different take on what her personality is supposed to be (apart from the obvious baseline) and which choices "make more sense" for her. Most of it comes down to her being a protagonist of a choice-based game, of course. She can snoop or she can not snoop. She can try to make cautious choices or she can just be reckless. She can save Kate or totally fail to do that. She can kiss Chloe, she can kiss Warren. Etc etc etc.

Because of that, I think, in a lot of ways she reflects the player. For example: when my friend and I, both "straight" at the time, played LiS for the first time, she adamantly went for the "Chloe and Max are just good friends" route and favored Warren as a romance, refused to let the alt Chloe die and then sacrificed 'our' Chloe to save the town, all the while lamenting that it would make much more sense for Max to sacrifice herself to stop everything. Meanwhile I was all THEY'RE LESBIANS HAROLD (well Max is bi but you get the meme), let the alt Chloe die (at the time) and didn't hesitate A SECOND before dooming Arcadia Bay to save Chloe. Those are two VERY different Maxes here. (We later discovered that my friend was a bisexual in denial and I was a closeted lesbian who didn't lock the door very well. So, you know. Reflection.)

HOWEVER. I feel like despite the choice trees, certain decisions fit into the story more snugly. It's especially evident in BtS, where you COULD make a choice to reconcile Chloe and David, but the consequences if she DOESN'T fit what we see in LiS much more. Granted, there are many disconnections and retcons between the games, but most of them are in the plot itself (see: Rachel, Chloe reacting to Frank's place and Wells' cabinet like she's never been there, etc), not in the player's direct choices, as is the case with David.

The question of which choices are more "fitting", however, is where that bias comes in. And my personal interpretation of Max. Finally.

Another friend of mine recently mentioned that she does not believe in the "sacrifice AB" ending because, to her, "Max doesn't seem like the kind of a person who cares about Chloe to THAT extent, what with the five years of silence and all".

And that's what got me thinking…I see Max as a complete opposite of that. The in-game Max of that one week in particular.

The five years of silence? Yeah, that was shit. Without a doubt, that hurt Chloe a lot and that's on Max.

But I also get it. I don't excuse it, I get it. Every time I move (even when I jump fandoms, truly) I lose contact with a lot of good friends very quickly. When I started my first couple of jobs, I stopped talking to some of my friends for THREE YEARS STRAIGHT. I was overwhelmed. The people that were right there in front of me took my attention and my energy, the need to assimilate and exist in a new environment took all my focus. And the more I stayed quiet, the more awkward it seemed to suddenly reach out. The more we weren't talking, the less common topics for a possible conversation we were likely to have. And if on top of THAT I'd have the whole "What do you say to a person whose beloved dad died right before I left?" kind of an anxiety? Those five years don't seem far-fetched to me. Once again, I'm not excusing the hurt that Chloe experienced because of this, but I understand how things like that happen and what levels of social awkwardness and limited energy resources go into a mistake like that.

Which brings me to the point of: Max's care for Chloe is much more characterized by what she does when she's THERE than by what she failed to do when she was a teenager settling in in a new city hell knows where.

And what does Max do, if not repeatedly puts Chloe first with rapidly growing degree of recklessness? Okay, the first time she saves her, in the bathroom, she doesn't even know it's her (which, btw, speaks volumes that she still goes back there, alone, not telling anyone, knowing that Nathan will have a gun and potentially putting herself in danger, all for an unfamiliar girl. It's already reckless as fuck, and therefore genuine - say what you want about Max sucking up to everyone by saying the things they wanted to hear, her biggest feats of bravery were never even known by most.)

((I don't know where to put it, but I'll also point out that the game itself generally encourages 'reckless' choices. Get into David's face about Kate instead of being cautious, lie for Chloe instead of being cautious, tell Kate to go to the police instead of playing it safe. Max saying 'ah, fuck it' generally ends up being the right choice more often than it's not, so that's the way of playing her that I'm mostly taking into consideration.))

Times at the junkyard and the train tracks are arguably spoof of the moment things (any sane person wouldn't just, like, NOT rewind to stop their best friend from shooting herself or getting smeared by a train, right?), sure.

But the last episodes, though. That's where the plot goes batshit and so, kind of, does Max. It's not just about simply rewinding right then and there on the spot if something goes wrong.

It's about repeatedly going out of her way, BIG time, all for Chloe.

Fucking up space and time. Technically changing her own life (it's hard to say why William living led to Max being the popular girl but sure, let's roll with what we're given, butterfly effect and all) just to make sure Chloe is happy. Immediately rolling it all back, also solely for Chloe (at no point does Max think about how HER life changed beyond the initial surprise). Tbh I think that's what they actually got right in the comics - how readily Max screws her own life just to find somewhere where Chloe is happy, even if in the end that's not the answer.

Then it gets worse. Max gets a future she technically dreamt of, one of being an acknowledged photographer, her career secure in the palm of her hand.

Throws it all away without a second thought as soon as it implies losing Chloe (sure, at the moment she does kinda think about the town as a whole, but Chloe calling and Max not being with her when she's in danger is still the catalyst of that - the point of the photo retcon is not to stop the tornado, it's to be near Chloe when it hits).

Gets drugged and tortured REPEATEDLY (all timeline jumping and rewinding considered), forces herself through multiple timelines to the point of active nosebleeds (that previously made her faint).

Still only thinks about saving Chloe AS SOON as she's out of that chair.

Is technically safe in an underground bunker (as evident by David surviving), goes out INTO the storm (tortured and drugged and having jumped and lived multiple realities on no food or sleep!) and drives TOWARDS it JUST to save CHLOE. (Does she even HAVE a driver's license or is she just winging it, btw?)

Also worth of note, if you as a player participate in all the prompts and puzzles on the way to the diner (which I'd say is logically the 'canon' Max, since that's how you're meant to play the game), then she does her best to help everyone around her, too. It's not even about the "time to be the everyday hero" anymore - she's tired, she's angry, she most likely feels like shit and she's marching through a literal tornado just doing her best at any opportunity she sees. I doubt any 'heroic' thinking went into those actions at that point. She just walks on water towards her goal and yanks out every drowning person who outstretches their hand towards her. ALL THE WHILE knowing that she's about to rewind this timeline and won't be present at this exact location to help in the next, so technically it's meaningless. But she does. She cares for people, not just their opinions on her.

But at that point the mantra isn't "stop the tornado". She'd like to, yes. But the focus is very much "Chloe". Tornado comes second. It's in her way, even.

Which brings us to the final choice. Skipping the whole nightmare sequence because I honestly think it's self-explanatory on the topic of Max's insecurities and the weight of the town and her power on her shoulders, and on how much Chloe means to her.

The final choice. On which I could say a lot more narration-wise, but we're talking about Max, and I've started with my friend's comment on which choice is more "realistic" to Max's character.

Now, I won't tell anyone how to play their game, which morals take into account and what to make of their Max.

The way I see it, however:

Yes, Max (if you took all the prompts and paid attention, etc etc) always stopped and tried to help in any way she could (be it the wrong way or the right one, re: Kate), and she's obviously freaked out by the threat to the town from the very beginning.

But that's the thing, however. Beginning.

The town was always this "Oh no, I don't want this to happen, can I stop it?!", which, you know. A pretty fucking normal human reaction, I think.

But Max specifically went through Hell, arguably multiple times over, threw away multiple great versions of her own life without a second glance, almost died, spedran her character development losing shyness, fear, self-consciousness and basic human self-preservation instincts in less than a week, didn't allow herself a second of breathing room while going through experiences that would break most people (look at Victoria in the Dark Room), and ALL of that was 99% of the time verbally (or, well, internally) justified by her with saving Chloe.

With the town and the rest of the characters, Max tried her human best. With Chloe, she all but ran herself and the whole time and space continuum into the ground.

And you're telling me, that this Max, the one still reeling from everything she went through, the one who dug her way back to Chloe through metaphorical stone with bloody fingers, the one who just jumped through multiple realities in half (if not most) of which she suffered or was in danger in some way, all without having any buffer time to process any of that shit, all with "ChloeChloeChloe" on her tongue and Chloe's necklace on her neck, THIS Max, is NOT likely to just snap and rip the goddamn photo and unequivocally say RIGHT HERE AND NOW I STILL FUCKING CHOSE YOU"?

Like, if someone wants to see it as her breaking point, her stopping to run point, her giving up point, her seeing 'common sense' point, her respecting Chloe's wishes point, well, that's their choice.

But UNLIKELY to choose Chloe? Yeah, I don't think so.

To reel it back a little from the final choice and back to Max as a character. At the beginning of the game, I see her precisely the "shy cliche geek" more or less. Not unlike me. Anxious, bad at keeping in touch, bad at fitting in with anyone but with those who are also bad at fitting in, and even then not always. Dreaming of more but not believing in herself. Wanting people to like her, 'cause really, wouldn't it just make life so much easier if we'd never had to go through the embarrassment of saying the wrong thing to anyone ever again?

She's unsure of her powers, she chastises herself for small mistakes, she doubts most of her choices regardless of which one you made.

By the second half of the game though? She grows powerful. She grows bold. She tricks people for information, she all but bullies Frank to get his keys 'cause she knows he won't be able to touch her, she starts toying with big changes in the timeline (William).

And by the end? By the end she's sneering in Mark Jefferson's face despite being scared shitless - not unlike with Nathan in the parking lot back in the episode 1 if you choose to tell him to take a step back, btw, so she always had it in her, but by ep5 she has nothing left to lose and nothing to hold her back. By the end she's smashing, forcing, gnawing her way though time and space like an unstoppable force, all caution and doubts abandoned. By the end she's standing in the middle of the storm she was terrified of in ep1 and she's ANGRY and DETERMINED instead because she has no mental capacity to even freak out again until she and Chloe are together and safe by the lighthouse.

By the end, for a brief moment before the storm finally hits, she's basically god, a kind, empathic one, but also an incredibly selfish one, who does it all for one singular person first, everyone else second. And whatever choice she makes at the end, that fact is still a fact. In my book, anyway.

For me, for how I saw her after having, what, seven years to process the story and replay it a few times, how I feel and play my Max now?

With shaky hands, she pulled the trigger at Frank back at the junkyard, and at the lighthouse, tortured and exhausted and selfish to the end, she took all her choices in stride, let her power be there for a reason, and let the tornado take its due.

(And Chloe, who has long forgotten what it felt like to genuinely be WORTH something to someone who explicitly chooses HER, deserved that tenfold in my opinion, but that's a whole other essay).

But then again, I was always a fan of 'selfish' love and 'selfish' stories. So, reflection of the player, after all? Perhaps.

But narratively, the way I personally see it, it just fits the most.

And even if for one reason or another she makes another choice, I still struggle to see how up until that point she's any less than that.

[sourrind]

Rating: Mature

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Category: F/F

Fandom: Life is Strange (Video Game)

Relationship: Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Victoria Chase

Characters: Maxine "Max" Caulfield, Victoria Chase (Life is Strange), Kate Marsh, Taylor Christensen, Courtney Wagner, Warren Graham

Additional Tags: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Slow Build, Eventual Smut, Eventual Romance, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Fluff, Post-Canon, Post-Save Arcadia Bay Ending

Ch. 06 - Guarded

If Victoria didn’t push her away, then, Max would try to fix her.

Then she would fail.

Then there would be two broken girls.