officialgaryoak

[dostimesnoah]

as i move my feet towards your body,

i can hear this beat.

it fills my head up,

and gets louder and louder.

[bulletbilltime]

Take me home, to the place where I'm from

Here's a coloured doodle of the Stay in Haven ending from Life is Strange True Colors, except with Alex's friends being there with her! Because she always seemed a bit lonely in that ending for my liking.

This is my first time drawing best boy Ryan! He deserves more love for sure! Though I loved the idea of him being purely platonic best buds with Alex, I'm starting to like the Chenwich more and more. Whether you think they're holding hands on the dock or not is up to you :)

[brettthesimmer]

maybe I'm the only one that thinks this but I don't feel like alex was hospitalized after being shot down the mine. yes I can hear you screaming "ok but that's not possible!!" that is the point.

think about it, everyone else but Alex in her immediate family has died from something tragic, wendy from cancer, her dad from a mining accident, and gabe from being hit by a boulder. almost like a chen family curse.

alex almost had the same fate when she was shot down the mine, but she survived. but how?

well honestly, I see alex having invincibility to an extent. not immortality, she'll die when the time comes but she's able to endure a lot more physical trauma than the average human can.

alex is the only one in her immediate family invincible to the chen family curse.

but of course, this is just my headcanon. and you're free to disagree!

[pandalikeelf]

playing lis: true colors and all i want to say is ryan is a walking green flag and we love him for that

[bruhmityblight]

OH FUCK OFF I HATE LIFE IS STRANGE GABE BETTER NOT BE DEAD

[beeskneesntrees]

I finished this game last week and I'm still thinking about this scene, absolutely broke me

[bricreative]

🚨Last issue of Forget Me Not is out!! 🚨

The story wraps up in such a sweet way, lotta cute moments with Steph and Alex, and we get to see some familiar faces

[littlelostmoth]

The Final Double Exposure Post

Okay, the game is out now and just wanted to share some final thoughts about Double Exposure and the big problems with it. All spoilers below the cut.

Ultimately, even outside of the brutal murder of Pricefield, gaming's most classic wlw couple, the game is just very poorly written. This post will acknowledge that breaking up Pricefield is terrible writing and they do not do it in a way that makes any remote sense whatsoever. While everyone can sit and say "It makes sense they broke up," it didn't. These characters are characters, ones designed to tell a story. Characters who exist as a bright spot for sapphic and queer people playing video games in 2015.

It's the same thinking as everyone used to say "Well if Nathan just had therapy, he'd be better." And to which it would be answered, "No shit, maybe he would have been better with therapy, but it's a story and he rejected going so no he didn't get better and won't get better because that's not the point of the story." Point being, you can self-justify the Pricefield break up with real world logic all you want, but the fact that even Dontnod is sad about the state of it should be telling. That in addition to the leaks about Square hating Chloe and the D9 narrative team hating her, and it was not done as a good faith way to tell a story. Ultimately, the game encourages you to choose the "Kill Chloe" ending of the original game so that Max can retain her memories of her in a pure way, while also removing her from story. If you choose what the D9 devs believe is the morally evil choice, you get horrible Chloe.

There is SOME good stuff in here, but it's not enough to justify the game's existence. Here are the short amount of pros we compiled for the game: the music is well done, the environments are very nice, and the side characters are fine for the most part.

That's it. Everything else is a con: the story, the handling of Max and Safi as characters, the entire mystery of the game basically being shafted in favor of... making the most important thing about Life is Strange the superpowers. It just seems like this game misunderstands what Life is Strange is or was at any point.

Max is so horribly out of character in this game. Why? Why does she do the things she does? Sometimes she feels like a natural adult version of the original game's Max, while other times she's overly horny to the Nth degree. Max has the ability to cheat on her two love interests, and both love interests reject her in the appropriate timelines of pursuance. Within the text of the game, she uses her powers to circumvent the fact that they've rejected her.

Remember the original game's ending? Nightmare!Max accuses Max of selfishly using her powers to manipulate others to her own selfish end. Ultimately, we're left with the fact that Max used her powers to help get others to like her because she didn't have many friends and was a target of bullying. It's morally dubious, but she wasn't doing any of it for like selfish personal gain. It was an extension of her anxiety.

This game goes around this and makes Max purposefully use her powers for selfish gain. The entire first game revolved around the concept of whether or not she was using it for selfish gain. She wasn't. Now the game forces Max to go through the same exact arc, but this time she is actively being awful instead. Not only cheating, but using it to get around being actively romantically rejected.

Then there's how the game handles its story. Like what the hell is going on here? How does any of it make sense. Spoilers again, but the mastermind is Safi, and Safi is a shapeshifter. She wants to take over with world with Max and collect her own superhumans to form a what? A Legion of Doom? Why? Why is Safi a villain? Her villain arc literally comes out of nowhere and the game does little to sell how she goes from wanting a book deal in the beginning to "I have godlike powers, let's take over the world together." Like honey, WHAT? WHY? And the fact the final choice is to join or refuse her??? LIKE WHAT? WHERE DOES IT COME FROM? WHY WOULD MAX, WHO EITHER HAD TO MAKE THE CHOICE TO SACRIFICE A TOWN OR HER LOVED ONE AND IS ETERNALLY TORMENTED OVER BOTH... SUDDENLY ONBOARD WITH BECOMING JUST A GENERIC EVIL GIRL?

And that's it??? Nothing else in the game matters. The romances go nowhere, thus making breaking up with Chloe pointless since it's not like the game allows Max to pursue a relationship seriously any further. Or just the mere fact she's shitty for doing so. None of the plot points of this game matter, and the mystery the game is built on doesn't matter.

It's like... Here's a murder mystery! Without the murder or the mystery! And then... the game just ends. It just ceases to exist and stops without any sort of... ending that feels satisfying. We get an AVENGERS LEVEL END SCREEN OF "MAX CAULFIELD WILL RETURN."

We think about the endings to the other game's endings. They all have some sort of conclusion that feels like its own self contained experience. You get this long and depressing ending of Chloe dying and her funeral... You get this wistful drive out of Arcadia Bay as Obstacles plays. You get Sean surrendering himself to the police so Daniel can live to grow old and not suffer for the sins of those older than him, and how Sean comes out after. You get to see how Chloe and Rachel grow as time passes to the first game. You get to see how Alex chooses to live her life on her own terms after so long of feeling like she was trapped. You get all of these different endings for the game and here you get... what amounts to the exact same ending depending on your choice which is to be horribly evil supervillain when the time comes or not, and then sequel bait with Diamond and Safi. Why? Why does she have a bleed from her nose? Since when did that become a common occurrence for superpowers? Or storms when powers are overused along with nightmares?

In the original game, the nosebleeds are a result of Max twists reality around her as the epicenter. It's the physical damage she gets for what her powers are physically doing to existence. The storm? The point is, we don't know why the storm comes.

When did Life is Strange become about superpowers and taking over the world? When did it become all of these things? Like True Colors isn't a perfect game by any means, but for fuck's sake it at least knew the scale of what a Life is Strange game should be. Small town mysteries with a colorful cast we love and hate. To this day, I still think that the Jed stuff is some of the most morally fascinating questions to be raised in the franchise. To have that final choice be to either forgive him or not? It's an incredible final choice that is so intertwined with the game's themes. To leave or to stay afterwards? They're both extremely meaningful, dual choices.

This game does nothing. That's ultimately it. What did we gain from Double Exposure? Nothing. It doesn't continue Max's character in any meaningful way. It does little to build upon the actual lore of the original game. It doesn't actually use any original characters except Chloe and that's solely to drive it in how much they despise her from a writing perspective.

Regardless of how well each game did at telling their stories... They all had something meaningful to say in some way. Even if Before the Storm is not a game that I'd necessarily say is amazing, there is some thought and thematic purpose put to that game. It's still 1000 times the game this will ever be.

When I was first exposed to the game's ending... the emotion I felt was pure and raw bafflement. Not anger. Not sadness. Bafflement and bewilderment. I had no idea what the fuck I just played or what I gained from it? What does Max as a character gain from this story? What do any of the characters in this game gain from the story? Nothing. The game starts and then it ends. And we all gained absolutely nothing from the experience. (And in BtS the ending is fine, because it's a prequel that has to have a clearly defined ending to lead into the first game. You can't break Chloe and Rachel's relationship, it always has to be what it is.)

For a long time I really hated the Life is Strange comics. It felt like a kick in the head to the original game's story. But then after it ended and this came out, we can view it as a more honest and genuine follow up to the games as opposed to... whatever we got here.

The comics focus heavily on Max's perceived guilt over what happened to Arcadia Bay. She comes to believe that she, herself, is the problem in reality. That she makes everyone around her unhappy, including Chloe. While Chloe reassures her this is not true... she ends up displaced and removed from reality... and punishes herself by sending her to a world where Chloe is happy with Rachel.

The rest of the story is Max and Chloe apart for years, as Max wrestles with her guilt... while Chloe waits for her. Chloe waits and knows Max is out there still. Max eventually realizes how wrong she was after self-reflection and being around the alt!Chloe and Rachel helps her realize she was wrong.

Chloe builds them a home.

Chloe comes to move past her own grief, just as Max did.

Chloe helps rebuild Arcadia with her own hands. She decides she has a home. This town, with Max. And then they're together... And that's what matters because... like Michel said: "They have each other."

And that is what Life is Strange was about. These two young women, who were best friends... they grew apart through tragedy and life circumstances... And then they found each other again, fell in love, and even in tragedy had one another to rely on.

I am who I am because of Life is Strange.

I met the love of my life because of Life is Strange.

And no matter how bad Double Exposure is... It can't take away Life is Strange, Max, or Chloe from me.

No.

It can't take them away from us. From all of us who cared enough to stick around this funny little 20$ adventure game from a decade ago.

[piedude]

I laughed so fucking hard, this scene is a cinematic masterpiece

[zookacestance]

My First Thoughts on Life is Strange: Double Exposure

(these are my opinions from the 1st Trailer, Reveal Stream, and clips they've posted)

1. The Style Swap:

I personally prefer the original, less realistic, style to the game. I think it sets Life is Strange apart and makes it look more unique than other games. I understand why they’re changing it up, and I don’t necessarily think it’s bad, it’s just that I prefer the original game style and visuals so far.

I'm also not a big fan of the clothing/styles they've given the new characters, especially Max. Each character in the first game had a unique style I felt suited them well, now everyone's clothing seems pretty bland and standard. I especially wish they had kept some of Max's original aesthetic, It feels really boring and plain now. Maybe that's not a popular opion, I'm not sure, but it's a first impression of mine so I'm writting it! (Also I am aware there are going to be outfit packs, but I don't any of them look like anything Max would've originally wore, or really even look good... personally I don't like them).

2. Game Play:

I like the sneak peak they gave us in the Reveal Stream, it looks fun! I think at the very least I’ll enjoy playing through the game even if I don’t enjoy the story. The university they made looks fun to explore and the concept of two parallel universes with two different versions of everyone you meet is extremely interesting!! ALTHOUGH I really dislike that they took away Max's rewind power, that was a big reason why I enjoyed the first game (getting to rewind and see all the diffrent options and dialoge) so I'm defenitly not a fan of that being taken.

3. Life is Strange Comics:

(Spoiler warning for the comics) One thing that confuses me is that the comics are known as non-canonical in the Life is Strange storyline, however will this game change that?? Max seems to have the same (or very similar) powers that she has in the comics in Double Exposure. Dose this mean the comics will be reconized as semi-canon or even fully canon for the first game now? Maybe Double Exposure will even connect the storyline of the comics and first game togther. Although personally, I hope not, while I enjoy the comics I think I'd enjoy them a lot less if they were canon lol.

4. Chloe:

So we know it follows either endings of the 1st game. Dose that mean Chloe is either dead or alive and broken up/no contact with Max (the girl that sacrificed a entire town for her)?? So far I’m confused on how that will work. As much as I've wanted Max and Chloe to get another game, if you’re just going to give Max one why not just have it take place in the bay over bae ending?? I think they can make this “both endings are canon” work, but the question is will they?

5. Can it Really Be a Standalone Game?:

When they revealed Double Exposure to be a standalone game I was honestly really disapointed because why even make a game with Max, and possibly Chloe, just to have it not connect with their original game and story that's already beloved by fans?? To me this is a big mistake when their original story is still so loved, unique, and respected, and I think alot of fans would've liked to see a sequel or continuation of their story. I honestly think this is what's going to make me dislike the game, we'll just have to wait and see, I'm optimistic for now, but I have a feeling the story and characters will seem disconnected from the original game because they want the game to be a standalone and not refer to the original. So I personally predict that this choice alone will really negativly effect what the game has to offer, but we'll just have to wait and see! Hopefully I'm wrong about this.

[dostimesnoah]

my impression of alex chen 40 minutes into my first LiS true colors playthrough and 40 minutes after my first playthrough ended. i clearly did not know what i was getting into.

[bulletbilltime]

What if... Life is Strange meets Hatchetfield / the Lords in Black

In this AU, it would be safe to presume that the Cult of the Starry Children were slightly more prolific, spreading across a few towns all over the US and not just Hatchetfield, and more Black Altars were constructed at many places. This could include Blackwell Academy and maybe the Black Lantern (I swear the names having Black in them is a coincidence 😭)

The Lords in Black could be giving out powers to torment specific humans who have more of an affinity towards the Black & White, perhaps as a ploy to use them as a portal into the real world.

Some specific points regarding Life is Strange 1 under the cut:

Max got her time powers from Tinky, the lord of time and space, knowing full well that her messing with time would cause an anomaly with the Storm and possibly drive her insane. When the time comes to make a choice between Chloe and Arcadia Bay, whatever gets sacrificed winds up trapped in Tinky's Bastard Box. For bonus points, Tinky appears to tell Max just as much in her nightmare sequence, and now she has to make a choice fully well knowing that whatever is sacrificed will wind up being tortured for eternity.

Sean Prescott being part of the The Church of the Starry Children makes too much sense. Nathan could be in a similar place as Hannah from the Hatchetfield series in that he can see into the Black & White, hence him being somewhat aware of the Storm as hinted in the deleted dialogue, due to it being a ploy of the Lords in Black.

Adding to that, Jefferson is definitely part of the Church too. He could definitely be kidnapping victims as sacrifices to the Lords in Black to grant him immortality or smth.

An alternate version of The Choice could be that Max & Chloe end up performing a summoning ritual, and Wiggly asks Max to sacrifice what she cherishes most (Chloe) to stop the Storm that Tinky set in motion. Similar to the choice he gives Steph in Nerdy Prudes Must Die.

The deer that appears several times across the game could be Rachel in the Black & White, trying to guide Max towards figuring out the Lords in Black's involvement in everything that went down.

And some bonus True Colors ideas:

Alex's powers could have been handed out to her from Blinky. It's not a power relating to sight per se, but "seeing into people's minds" makes sense as an ability Blinky could grant to a mortal. To make it even more horrifying, if Alex takes away someone's emotions, it rips a part of their soul to be trapped into the Black & White.

Jed makes a deal with the Lords in Black to take away the guilt he felt from abandoning the miners all those years ago. He ends up choosing to trade his wife's soul in this bargain.

It's all just a messy ramble rn but I love the idea of the Lords in Black having a hand in the supernatural shit going on in Life is Strange sdfhdjks

[nightmanatee]

WHERE'S MY ALEX CHEN/CHENRICH NATION??? WE MIGHT GET SOME CRUMBS IN THIS GAME CMON

[yarnnerdally]

Have any of you played Life Is Strange: True Colors?

Because holy shit I just finished my first playthrough and I'm absolutely astonished.

[honeybunchesobees]

in my fucking feelings....

[blueinkjpeg]

Uh Steph’s story spoilers but uh PIXIE? Like Pixie Pixie????? The comics are canon I’m going to explode and die