#donnnnttttt fuckin read this

[chaseprice]

this kind of depends on whether u as a person believe there are things that you can get over/accept/move on from etc but like: chloe price. the girl hasn’t gotten over anything.

we meet her at a point in her life where a bunch of other shit is going on including dealing with literal superpowers/(super)natural disasters ((but also like, things like having feelings for ur childhood best friend, trying to find ur missing best friend, trying to work out what the fuck’s going on with the drugging and corruption in the local school lol, etc)) so. there are so many focuses. although a massive chunk of the story is largely centered around chloe, and max’s relationship with chloe, and the lengths max would go to for chloe-- chloe doesn’t have a massive character arc? she doesn’t? like, people wanna say things like, oh yeah she was Selfish at the start and then was willing to sacrifice herself for the sake of the town-- girl, she wants to die either way. she’s depressed and suicidal. her saying that she’s okay with max letting her die at the end isn’t some massive Character Development. maybe dontnod wanted it to be? but they suck so much that honestly their whole vision of what they wanted to portray is just messy garbage, unfortunately, so i can’t tell if they did or not. but anyways point is: they failed. regardless. they didn’t portray the message that chloe, as a character, had been fully developed and could be put to the side like ‘yes, this is a Complete character right here, we done good lads, we told her story’. they just Dint!!!! 

yes, chloe is one of the more developed and more consistent characters in the game, i do think they did a good job with a lot of her writing (except her fate, and how they didn’t want to give her a happy ending). but! g o d! one of the reasons why she’s so good is because she’s so rich and multidimensional? they give her this backstory (i don’t care if ppl say it’s clichéd like i just don’t care, i already give dontnod a ton of shit but i won’t give them shit for chloe’s backstory being tropey, her teen/childhood pain is too relatable for me to bash) that’s Painful and Show us this girl with so many issues and problems and... she’s just so wonderful and, playing as max, you’re meant to grow to just Care for her so much and you can SEE how much max cares for her so you. want to see her happy? you want her to be okay, and for issues to be resolved, and so on. but............. y’know... when you reach the ending..... they’re so. ignored. they’re just brushed to the side? and i really doubt dontnod have the capacity for it to just be symbolic of the message “sometimes you just have to push issues to the side and deal with One Big Important thing for the Greater Good”. they’re just....... well, they’re careless. they’re lazy too but like in this situation they literally ran out of money (like, literally) and couldn’t make ep 5 as long/developed as they wanted to. soooo.... all chloe’s shit got pushed to the side. and the only Chloe thing that matters at the end is her willingness to sacrifice herself for the town. which is sad. and just implies that in the sac bay ending, she would have a lot of personal issues to sort through in ADDITION to the fucking issues that arise from letting your girlfriend watch as a tornado destroys the town. ‘for you’. shit’s fucked up dude.

but ALSO. this Also implies. like, in the sort of happy everything’s fine AU that we all like to believe in where ep 5 just didn’t happen-- chloe’d still have a lot of shit to deal with? and i’m not just talking about her mental illness bc i talk about that all the time; i was actually thinking about william in particular before making this post. chloe is Fucked Up about william. and it’s been. 5 years. it’s her dad, of course she’d be fucked up for years, but like. it’s still affecting her A Lot. her breakdown in ep 3 was triggered by rachel cheating shit, fueled by her thinking everyone betrays her, and we’re meant to believe the Root of it is because of william (i know it might’ve seemed like it was just for plot purposes, and i guess it kinda was, but i’ll be nice and lenient for dontnod for once and believe ‘em). aaaand. then of course there’s the arbitrary episode 4 bullshit that’s completely unnecessary and mildly ableist and just for Shock Factor and so on- which. completely uses up a part of the game that could’ve been used for talking through her william stuff or. Anything. something. i don’t know. thing is, we come back from that universe and are thinking like, alright, william’s GOTTA be dead so we’ve accepted that but. chloe hasn’t? the only sort of indication that chloe has even thought about it since is her text that’s her apologizing for freaking out, and still, like. that does NOT imply she’s worked through it in any way, she’s just. calmed down. not breaking down anymore.

also back to main canon and not inc. happy au: we’re meant to get some kind of resolution/acceptance when we find rachel dead, like that’s just another one of chloe’s issues (and the story’s plot points) ‘completed’. chloe doesn’t even get the time to GRIEVE before she’s murdered herself. she’s resurrected in the next episode, then she briefly talks about rachel getting revenge, and max making things right for rachel or w/e, but it’s not enoughhhhhhh. it’s just not enoughhh. we play the whole game with this secondhand desire/mission/motivation to find rachel (for chloe!!!!) and then... nothin! nada! like 1/3 of chloe’s character is rachel-related and we don’t even get to see her Properly react or talk about it except for crying and then wanting to kill who did it (which... wow, yes. that was kinda powerful and telling for characterization, i’ll admit, but STILL probably the rushed-ness of it was unintentional on dontnod’s part and not actually to do with chloe’s quick harsh emotions and reactions. an accidental good thing). there was such a build up to... nothing. and i don’t think it was deliberate

and. she hasn’t gotten over max leaving her either :_) she.... she hasn’t. dont get me wrong i LOVE how she puts it to the side really quickly and forgives her Just Like That and still fucking falls in love with her (bc it’s so THEM, it’s so pricefield) but ... that’s. largely because chloe desperately needs max at this point in her life. and like literally every single fear of abandonment/betrayal chloe harbors has been influenced by max leaving like THE GIRL JUST AINT OVER IT even in the future their relationship is still gonna be a tiny tiny bit insecure for chloe bc she’s worried she’ll be left again or Not Good Enough or anything (like, duh she’ll figure out that max isn’t gonna leave again, and she really does love her, but still. those annoying feelings are real and STILL THERE). that’s Fucked her up good! she’s just a fucked up girl! whom i love.

chloe has soooo many !!!!!! Personal Issues that just aren’t fully explored in lis.... and it’s disappointing but .... not the worst, i guess, because she is the best character in the game and the rest of the stuff To Do With Her can maybe make up for it. and yeah, it would take years to work through some of this stuff so i know it’s impractical to expect it to all be ‘’solved’’ in the game or whatever but like.... some further acknowledgement of underlying issues and insecurities remaining after a while..... would be nice. lmao this post wasn’t even meant to be critical of lis/dontnod at first it was literally me just trying to say “chloe hasn’t gotten over shit” lol. like, she’s just Coped Unhealthily for years and years. ignored things, resorted to Bad Shit, gotten in nasty messes, and didn’t give a shit about it bc she didn’t give a shit about herself.lbr this fucked up Lass is more fucked up than she lets on