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Let’s get the word out. I love this series, both the novels and the manga, and the show has been great so far. A bit worried about the reaction to the next episode, since CW: there is a scene involving SA, although reducing it to just that I think does the scene and characters a disservice. It’s an important scene, for both characters, their relationship, and the plot going forward, so there’s no way around it. Now while a lot of people will have a lot of understandably strong feelings about that one scene, the rest of the series has a lot of great character moments, different relationships, interesting commentary about what it means to be friends or lovers, and a protagonist whose just trying her best to make the most of her high school life.

So watch it while you can. And if anyone knows of a more long term alternative to watch this series, please share it around because there are a lot of people who want to know, myself included.

🔔 good yuri anime free on youtube while supplies last

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It's already May 15th here so long live the Ice Queen

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Hey hey, look what I found on my phone xD

I remember there were more of those gifs that GG made - anyone have them on hand? 🥰

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well 🧍‍♀️ as a reminder this blog is NOT a safe space for trump supporters but it IS a safe place for women, queers, trans ppl, people of color, undocumented people, and any marginalized group.

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posting this here too because Tumblr was where I was at when i was consumeD by Life is Strange. Now 10 years on here we are.

also I dont care what ppl say but IMMA PUSH THIS BOAT WITH MY 2 BARE HANDS IF I HAVE TO. I just think about Amanda's soff "and i like yoU" all the time gaH

someone pleaseee tell me what is their ship name even.

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Okay, wild theory time for Double Exoosure. I want to get this out before the full game releases so let’s go with the “short” version. Plus I’m mostly doing this on the off-chance I’m somehow right, if even for just parts of this so I can claim credit later.

1. I’ve previously made the prediction that a Max from one of the two timelines is dead, and that it was during her death that her powers unintentionally created a parallel timeline where she lives.

2. Signs point to someone, most likely Safi, having the power of shapeshifting or some similar ability. However if it is Safi that wouldn’t explain why she is dead and there’s a photo of Max pointing a gun at her camera.

3. Most people with powers that we know of have more than one ability. And those powers behave differently and have their own limits. Let’s say our doppelgänger culprit could mimic anyone’s appearance for a short while, but for something semi-permanent, they could completely swap bodies with someone else.

4. So what if the Max in the photo is Safi, who swapped bodies with Max and then killed her. I did say before that DE’s Max would be an ideal candidate for someone with such an ability to steal her identity for the long term.

5. But wait, I went even crazier. *puts on tinfoil hat* What if the Safi we know was never the real Safi? What if it was Maya Okada, the friend of Safi that everyone believes took her own life? Shit happened between them and that left real Safi dead in Maya’s body, while Maya was forced to play the role of Safi indefinitely.

6. Two years later, in comes Max that Maya feels an unspoken kinship with. Maybe it’s their powers, maybe it’s their similarly fucked up pasts they refused to speak to anyone about.

7. Then that night, the book deal falls through thanks to Gwen, who maybe suspected “Safi” of plagiarising Maya or something (imagine the irony). Maya feels the weight of this mask she’s been forced to wear for so long, and in stumbles Max who no longer has any ties to anybody and who’ll probably return to wandering the world aimlessly when her year as artist in residence is up. The perfect opportunity to start over.

8. Maybe it wasn’t intentional, but once the swap is done, that potentially exposes Maya to discovery so she kills Max in Safi’s body, planning to make it look like a suicide like what supposedly happens to “Maya”, then in stumbles another Max whom I presume unknowingly shifted from Living World.

9. Since Max didn’t show up at the overlook in Living World, Maya eventually calmed down, kind of. Instead of looking to escape from being Safi, she decides to go on a revenge spree.

10. Oh, and Vinh might know about “Safi’s” powers since in Dead World, he texted “Safi” on Max’s number. Maybe he didn’t know for sure if “Safi” was actually dead, and texted Max to test her reaction. Then again, if “Safi” is in Max’s body, she has her own copy of her phone so it might not be surprising if he was a little confused, especially if he was already drinking by then.

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Quick disclaimer that I will not tolerate personal attacks or leakers. I’d prefer not to add more people to my block list, so let’s keep things friendly.

After a few playthroughs and some time to process everything, I think I’m now ready to talk more about Double Exposure.

First, some backstory. I played the original Life is Strange from Day 1. I had a feeling the game might be special and even then it blew my expectations away several times over. I found Max very relatable, so after months of replaying episodes again and again, I felt I could put myself in her shoes, and rationalise my choices the same way she did.

When the final choice came, I did hesitate, but not from indecision or uncertainty like I did so many times before (and since). I knew immediately what my choice would be, it was the why of it that took time for me to figure out. I’ve played a lot of choice based games where I made sacrifices that hurt, but being in Max’s shoes in that moment, I realised I had a limit. Was it the best choice? Objectively, no. Was it what Chloe wanted? It wasn’t. Would it lead Max to a “happily ever after”? Definitely not. Nine years later, and after playing the first parts of DE, would I still make the same choice again? Heck yes!

With that out of the way, let’s get into the DE spoilers below:

My impression of this Max is that she is constantly trying to run from her trauma but is evidently always carrying it around with her. For most of the past 10 years, she’s been on the move, never finding a place she can truly settle in, photographing places that are abandoned, ruined, and lonely. And Max starts this game very much alone through her own choices and inaction. She distanced herself from her parents, hasn’t been in touch with any of her former classmates, and her relationship with living Chloe falls apart. There isn’t much about the break up that gives a clear indicator on how exactly it happened, but it was clear there was no bad blood from either side, just regrets that they couldn’t get it to work. I wouldn’t be surprised if Chloe also follows Max on social media without actually contacting her. And naturally, Max hasn’t truly opened up with any of her new friends, colleagues or students, not even Safi. If nothing changes, I’d say her potential romantic relationship with Amanda is also doomed before it even begins.

In this story, this self-imposed isolation leaves her vulnerable in a number of ways. The person who is most secretive is the one others trust the least, which is not ideal in the middle of a murder mystery. Now Max has found evidence that incriminates her, and if it gets out, how many people would be willing to give a relative stranger a chance? Gwen is better known on campus and even she doesn’t think she can fight video evidence on someone who looks exactly like her. There is another danger to Max to consider. If we are dealing with someone with the ability to assume anyone’s identity, if they were looking to permanently adopt a new one, Max would be the perfect candidate. If an imposter disposed of Max and assumed her identity, who is left in her life who’d be able to tell the difference?

So, not only do we have to deal with two different versions of all of our persons of interest and try not to mix them up, sometimes they might not even be either version, but an imposter! Like the LW Vinh who claimed to be too hungover to remember his own passcode despite not showing any symptoms while a completely wasted DW Vinh immediately and enthusiastically recalled the name of the supposed “dead magician scientist”. Didn’t think much of it my first two playthroughs, but on the third I started to note his odd behaviour. Oh, and sometimes even our evidence and testimony might not be reliable, it could be incriminating someone who is actually innocent. Max is already victim to an incriminating photo she can’t explain, and both Lucas and Gwen have similar stories.

So, is it more important to acquire evidence, or is it more important for Max to build her relationships with the people around her? Although it didn’t matter much in the end, in True Colors, Alex could gain or lose the support of members of the local council depending on her choices and relationships with each member. She still uses her powers to get a confession either way, but I’m wondering if this time around, the outcome might change depending on who or how many people actually get to know and trust the real Max. And maybe this is an opportunity to face herself, kind of. Maybe if she can start working through some of her issues and letting people in again, she can start over for real this time.

One thing that is interesting though, and I did call this, we have a missing Max. Max disappeared from Living World around the same time as Safi’s death. The only person to notice was Amanda. Now Max is juggling her time between both worlds but even she can’t be in two places at once, so people might start to notice how she constantly disappears and reappears suddenly. Then comes the question of what happens when Max is done and she stops shifting. Which world does she stay in, and which one does she leave behind? One world is grieving Safi, the other is riddled with scandals, and Max’s relationships in both worlds are already starting to diverge. It’ll probably hurt either way, not unlike the original game’s choice, and it probably also depends on how the mystery wraps up. I’m currently leaning towards Dead World, because Max seems to be getting closer with Amanda and Moses, but then she has spent more time with them so we’ll see how things play out.

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You know, the first game was special to me, but I could not get into a story about two brothers. So you know what I did when LiS2 came out? I struggled through the first two episodes and then just never touched it again. Saw the image of Max and Chloe online. Then when TC released, I jumped right in like I never left the franchise. That it! Just one game I can’t bring myself to play and I just accepted it was not for me. I didn’t attack the people who put their heart and soul into making it, or the people who enjoyed it when I couldn’t, because the world is under no obligation to cater to my preferences every time and I would never ask it to.

I’m thrilled to have the comics, and a Chloe prequel sans Max, and a Max sequel even sans Chloe. There are parts I dislike about all of them, but there is also plenty I enjoy about them, too. Which is great because with age and coming out, my taste in media I can actually consume has gotten very particular, so I’m grateful this franchise has given me so much, even if it never does so again.

Michel Koch, the creator of the original Life is Strange, has spoken up about the harassment Deck Nine developers have experienced from fans on social media.

Koch also clarified that no game is free from criticism. As long as the criticism remains civil and doesn't become toxic.

And he also reminded fans that DontNod previously suffered a similar backlash when they decided to move away from Max & Chloe, when they released Life is Strange 2.

Koch also admitted that they would've written the story and characters differently, not just in Double Exposure, but also how they were portrayed in Before the Storm and even the comic books. He basically said that different writers will always produce a different story.

Michel also debunked the claim by a so-called "Deck Nine dev" who said on reddit that Max had always been designed to be a lesbian character. Until Square Enix force the team to give her a male romance option (Warren). Koch set the record straight with this tweet:

Michael also explained what was happening at the time Max and Chloe took this photo, which was seen in Life is Strange 2:

The photo was taken at the "Away". Which was a desert community where David Madsen was staying at.

Anyway, Koch spoke about the photo when explaining that Max & Chloe's relationship was likely strained by trauma. However, he believed that they were still trying to make it work. Since they had nobody else at the time.

Koch also gave us a clue as to how he would've written Max and Chloe, years after they visited "Away".

So there you have it.

Will fans stop being toxic? As Mr. Koch pointed it out, they sure didn't learn their lesson when Life is Strange 2 came out.

But we can hope.

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This post is spoiler-free, just my initial impressions on the game. With my limited free time, I have finally finished my first run of the first two chapters of Double Exposure. As I’ve mentioned before, this was my “Chloe Faithful” playthrough, although I must confess I was tempted.

Let me state something first about the mindset I had going into this game as it might be helpful to some people. I do not view Double Exposure as a direct or definitive sequel, but one of many possibilities that exist in the Life is Strange universe. DE is one possibility, the comic that I adore is another. I don’t think both can exist in the same timeline/s, but they don’t have to for both to be valid. In fact, both support the existence of multiple Max’s in multiple timelines, following multiple paths, either alone or with different people by her side. I think of it this way precisely because I didn’t want to get to hung up on the way I think things should have been.

All told, other than torturing myself by friendzoning Amanda, I enjoyed these two chapters for the most part. I’ve always enjoyed exploring new places at my own pace, talking to new (or familiar) characters and sniffing out all the little secrets hidden away. I wonder if this time around I can figure out who the killer is. Anyway, I’ll leave it here. We have two weeks to go over everything after all and I want to try some things out.

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She’s so Cheeky for a Commoner Volume 3 Thoughts

This is the last volume from Claire’s perspective, ending with Part One of the original.

First off, can we talk about the fact that for a brief moment after Rod’s proposal when she was thinking about what married life with Rae would be like, she actually considered allowing Lilly to be Rae’s mistress? Don’t do that! Lilly always gets the short end of the stick. First, she fell in love with a girl so devoted to another, she wouldn’t even consider looking another girl’s way. Then the stuff with Alter, and Lilly feeling a need to atone for the actions of another person her own father created in her head. Then there’s who knows how many times her own god used her as her personal meat puppet. And the series ended with her being teased with the life with Rae she always wanted, but it was all TAIM trying to erase Claire from history. Give this girl a break already, don’t just tease us!

I’m surprised Kristoff chose to turn, but then again we didn’t really know much about him. I just condemned him when I learned he was directly involved in the human trafficking.

So for once Pepi saves the day with the siren abilities she picked up from Misha, and her magical instrument that she managed to sneak in. Thane also got one more chance to look cool before he lost all his relevancy. And Loretta has our condolences for having a crush who is so completely dense, even Rae feels the need to apologise to her rival in love.

So Catherine was an assassin all along, going back to when she would have been barely more than a toddler! I don’t even think she was old enough to safely start learning basic magic, much less doing something as advanced as erasing specific parts of someone’s memory in real time while fighting. That’s even more monstrous than what I originally thought but reinforces what I already thought about Clèment. He’s far more arrogant than clever. He didn’t have the brains to plan out and cover his crimes properly like Dole and Salas could. If it weren’t for his status and Catherine’s magic (which isn’t all powerful), he might not have lasted as long as he did. And he’s such an asshole, of course his own children readily betrayed him.

Speaking of Catherine’s magic, not invisibility, but erasing memories?! Memories are an integral part of what makes us who we are, for better and worse. And Catherine tried to erase herself from Claire’s and everyone else’s memories as part of some misguided attempt at atonement. But it didn’t work, and I’m sure Claire gave her an earful later when they reunited.

I’m also not on board with doing that to Clèment. It permanently removes him as a threat, but he got off easy. He deserved to have everything taken from him, from his title to his freedom, knowing what it is that he lost, and that he’ll never get any of it back. Ideally, he should also know that it was his own fault he went from apparently the third most powerful noble to a nobody with nothing, but that would definitely be expecting too much of someone with his ego.

You know if Emma was actually described as being a much older woman, I would have suspected she was the mother of Dorothea. She’s the only character we know who is fully immune to magic.

So even though Catherine went through all the trouble of making everyone think it was an accident, Clèment was such an arrogant buffoon he couldn’t help giving up the game for a cheap jab at Dole. It’s a wonder he lasted as long as he did.

The second half of Dole’s segment mostly pertains to his belief about the afterlife, though I wonder how much of that would even apply in a world where people are artificially reincarnated over and over again.

I’m somewhat disappointed we don’t really get Claire’s reaction to the knowledge Rae (allegedly) reincarnated from another world, although I suppose I can understand why she was more focused on all the scheming to place her as the hero of the revolution to avoid her execution. In a way, I can understand why her pride wouldn’t allow her to go along with that original plan, but going along with that farce of an execution is where pride turns to just pure stupidity.

The most relevant part of Claire’s misguided decision was her false belief that Rae would be just fine without her. The reality is in Rae’s previous life she wasn’t really living, she was just existing, going through the motions without any hope of achieving anything resembling happiness or even contentment. Then she met Claire and devoted her second chance to ensuring Claire had that future, even opened up her heart to the idea she would be part of that happiness. Rae finally had hope for her own future again, and Claire unwittingly almost denied her that. If Rae were that capable of moving on with someone else, the Demon Queen wouldn’t have existed.

Good for Pepi that she’s finally started making moves on Loretta and actually getting somewhere. Since they showed up for Rae and Claire’s wedding, I didn’t have to worry about their survival, at least.

Once again, we have to talk about the double standards. Forget what happened with the Aurouseau’s, Pepi was not only innocent, but she also helped apprehend Clèment and effectively saved the King’s life, and she still lost her noble status. But Kristoff was a confirmed participant in his father’s crimes, and he still gets to be a viscount? The whole “sins of the father” thing is BS enough, but the kingdom can’t even be consistent with it.

And through the power of basic human decency, Pepi and Loretta won the battle for the rear gate, but still lost the civil war. You tried your best, girls, but unfortunately no matter how much more interesting you’ve become, you’re still just minor background characters.

So even without the masked man “disguise”, Alter is still referred to by male pronouns? Is this an indication of Alter’s actual gender? I’m cool with it if it is, but I feel like it might need to be clarified, especially since the original series didn’t identify Lilly’s alter ego differently to her since their reveal.

In between shaking my head about Claire’s cluelessness about how hopeless Rae actually is without her, I did find it amusing how much Rae made Salas and his men shit themselves with her one-woman raid (with a minor assist from Ralaire as I recall).

It was interesting to hear a bit more about what other characters were up to during the time since they went off to do their own things.

Manaria once again proves she is too powerful and too smart to be a main character of this series.

I suppose Misha is right that Rae is a little too used to failure. She was once a corporate drone with all the cynicism and pessimism that comes with that existence, to say nothing of her messy love life. But that is a side of herself Rae doesn’t show much.

One particular peeve of mine, we know Rod loses an arm but we never got it clarified which arm he lost! Left or right, that’s all I needed to know to adjust my mental image of him, but I was denied that tiny bit of information. I was worried I’d have to wait for the manga to get to that point. FYI, it was his right.

So Claire and Rae kept diaries. I was wondering about that, Catherine’s magic can affect memories, but surely it couldn’t affect written records, so something as simple as a diary could easily thwart her plan to ghost everyone. That and Manaria’s frankly broken magic. Claire is absolutely right though, her memories, good and bad belong to her and make her who she is, and Catherine has no right to take them, even if it was just to punish herself.

I do hope that Loretta and Pepi get to play their instruments again, and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t. The arts are an important part of freedom of expression for any society. We know that Thane goes on to perform concerts, so perhaps he’ll have a hand in helping them get back into music. Oh, and they definitely had their wedding sometime after Rae and Claire’s.

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MagiRevo Volume 7 Thoughts

Our favourite royal lesbian couple is back! Now that the vampire threat is dealt with, it’s time to return their focus to their magical revolution, and their plans have certainly gotten more ambitious. We got a new arc starting, with a new face, and a lot of returning ones, plus some of our supporting characters are starting to step up so that our girls, Anis and Euphie don’t have to do everything themselves for a change.

Spoilers below!

Can I just start with this image. It is everything to me!

It’s been four months of waiting for me, and a whole year in universe since that incident, now we finally get to know what’s the deal with Dragon-Anis and the answer is… rather anti-climatic. She can grow her nails and fangs like Lainie can, and she now partially sustains herself on her magicite super-drug, but otherwise no dramatic changes… for now, at least. If the whole “become a dragon” didn’t stop with the impressed seal, I doubt it will stop here. Time will tell, and who knows what could happen.

So instead of building a magicology institute in the capital, they are going to build a whole new city from the ground up? That’s… ambitious.

It also means that Anis will be off on location while Euphie is stuck in the capital doing queen things. Naturally Euphie didn’t take it too well when she almost lost Anis so I’m surprised anyone was able to convince her to go along with this idea so soon after what happened.

Wise of Anis to consider developing other technologies that don’t rely on magic or spirit stones. It’s generally a bad idea to rely on one form of energy generation, especially one that depends on a finite resource that could become scarce in the future.

There was a noble dumb enough to not only suggest Euphie take on a consort, but to disrespect her relationship with Anis? Did he not attend the coronation or was he not paying attention? Euphie made her intentions quite clear that day. Bigots really live in their own world.

So Anis is not only the future director of the new magicology institute, she’s also Knight Commander of her own knightly order. Personally, I think she is perfectly qualified. She may not have had formal knight training, but it’s not like she’ll be on the front lines or instructing new recruits. She does have experience fighting monsters with magical tools, and she has more than enough prestige as both a princess and the kingdom’s only dragon slayer. Plus, the Kingdom can’t always rely on her to save the day.

Makes sense Anis mostly avoided making magical weapons up until now. They are indeed powerful, especially considering they can allow a girl with no magic to slay a dragon almost single-handedly. Still, it goes back to what I was saying, there are powerful threats out there and they can’t rely on the princess to always be the one to step up. It’s time they built their knights into a force that can actually face these threats themselves. That these weapons will one day inevitably be abused is an unfortunate but unavoidable trade off.

I was not expecting Tilty to go from questioning Anis about her intention to build weapons and the risk involved, to threatening everyone else in the room to not let Anis’ dreams be ruined by anyone. How can a woman be so endearing and intimidating at the same time, and more importantly, why is she still single?

Some interesting stuff about demi-humans passing on their magicite to those they trust. It makes me wonder what Anis will do with hers once her time comes.

Gark was the most insecure about what he should be doing, and like a chapter or two later, there he is weilding the most powerful weapon we’ve seen that only he can use. If Anis is hesitant to go up against him with that weapon, it says something. Give him time to get accustomed to it, he’ll join the OP ranks before long.

So after all the lectures about being mindful of her positions, and trusting others to get the job done, we have Baron Cyan, now Lieutenant Commander Dragus, telling Anis, “by the way, you can be selfish and do what you want because any excuse you make up will automatically sound official thanks to your position”. And of course, we see both Euphie, and Navre’s father doing the exact same thing in the epilogue. Thinking about it, it’s not the first time Euphie pulled this trick. She used a royal inspection tour as an excuse to reunite Anis with Algard, while Anis turned it into a “honeymoon” in her own head.

The name for the new city makes perfect sense. Plus, I always thought the full name was pretty, though we rarely see it used.

According the afterword, we should be focusing on Euphie next, and I’m eager to see it. Anis has hogged most of the spotlight for a while now, and we haven’t gotten much from Euphie since volume 3. It feels more important now to check in with her, now that she and Anis aren’t attached at the hip anymore.

Plus, a lot of the characters we know and love are still at the capital. I want more Lainie and Tilty, in particular. Heck, let’s give Tilty a girlfriend already!

Plus, it could be interesting to see them handle a crisis without Anis for a change.

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I'm just saying, if there's a curse that runs along your family line and you don't tell your kids about it, how the hell are they supposed to go on a quest to stop it?

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True Colors: Typhon’s Money

Episode 2: Lanterns is where the story really starts. Gabe is dead, killed in a rock slide caused by explosives that Typhon Mining set off. It should not have happened. Gabe called their emergency line himself and he was assured they’d postpone the blast. Considering that it was himself, his sister, his best friend, and his almost-step-son in the danger zone, we know he made damn sure to get the message through. Which means either someone at the company screwed up, or they ignored him and set off the charges anyway. But Typhon isn’t even accepting responsibility for what they did, accident or not. Instead they are denying the call was made, essentially calling the dead man a liar and blaming him for his own death. And now they are trying to pay off his girlfriend Charlotte so she doesn’t sue them for killing her boyfriend and endangering her son.

Now, I don’t blame Charlotte for being conflicted. The way that Typhon is handling this scandal is sus, but she’s a single mother and small business owner who is struggling with the loss of someone dear to her. Money would make things easier, especially for providing for a son who just lost a father figure, and Typhon is apparently offering a lot. But it means letting them off from taking responsibility for their fuck up. Personally, I think it is very arrogant of this company to think they can get away with killing someone by simply throwing enough money around. Considering Alex’s plan is to expose them anyway, I don’t see a reason to relax my principles or tie Charlotte’s hands.

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Just in case - All RT content on this site - This link goes to the RWBY content... Please reblog this so everyone knows about it...

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True Colors: Overdue Sibling Bonding

Alex’s rather eventful first day continues but it’s almost over. Since Alex lost control, pummelled a guy in front of her brother, and hit him in the process, they can’t not talk about it. So, after some time passes and everyone has a chance to cool their heads, it’s up to the roof for a much needed chat. Gabe has deduced that Alex has been in fights before, and there was likely a lot that happened in those eight or so years they were apart that made life very difficult for her. Not the most shocking revelation in the world, but if you’re looking to start over your life, it’s not healthy to try and bury the past when it still affects you so much. However, while all Gabe is expecting is some tragic backstory, there’s something else about Alex that is perhaps more relevant to her recent outburst and her future in Haven Springs, her empathic powers. So Alex could talk about her past while avoiding mentioning her powers, or take a risk and tell Gabe something that no one else has ever believed before.

I always go with the powers, so I don’t really know how the conversation about her past goes, or what specifically Alex even talks about. I don’t consider there to be a right or wrong choice since it’s all important ground to cover eventually, and if they had more time, maybe Alex would have told Gabe everything. There’s something about this scene that gets me, and I think I know why. Gabe kind of reminds me of one of my older brothers, just a little, specifically when I last spoke with him in person. I’m not close with any of my family, I don’t make any effort to keep in touch, and I don’t even live in the same country as most of them. Even so, when I started coming out as trans, I wanted to do so in person for whoever I could. Both him and Gabe are cool, thoughtful, compassionate, and more than a little dorky. He was the only person in my family who even thought to ask me what name I was going with, but rather than ask, he did this cheesy introduction like we’d just met for the first time. So, not for the first time, I found myself heavily relating to Life is Strange characters, though I wouldn’t have expected them to be siblings. It might be why, despite knowing it’s coming, Gabe’s death still hits me every time.

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I recently finished rereading the Life is Strange comics, and although we don’t know whether they’ll be considered canon in Double Exposure, there are a number of interesting points, especially related to Max’s powers, that may be super relevant if they remain true.

In regards to whether the events of the comics will be acknowledged, probably the most obvious tell will be whether Bae ending Max has a butterfly tattoo on her wrist. It’d be easy to hide something like that before we confirm our previous choices with Safi with the long-sleeved winter clothes Max wears. Whether or not these events happened to the Max we play as isn’t what I find most important. I’m more interested in whether certain details about how certain powers in this series work will still apply in this game.

First of all, there’s how different powers interact with each other. There is a strong implication that one of the conditions for Tristan to use his powers is to be in the general vicinity of another superpowered individual. It also seems that Max, Tristan, and Pixie’s powers all become stronger and easier to control when they were in each other’s presence, or with Chloe. Their powers also became stronger in the presence of the unnatural storm that was eerily similar to the one in the first game. In addition, I’m hardly the only person who suspects there were other supernatural forces at work in the first game, besides the restless spirit of Rachel Amber. It’s all part of the ongoing trend in this series that there’s more to these powers than we or the characters will ever be allowed to understand.

The second interesting point relates to how Max and Tristan could jump between different timelines. The conclusion Tristan came to about why he could do what he did was because there weren’t any other versions of himself to bump into. His theory for why they don’t exist is because he believed they all died without a Max Caulfield to save them or activate their powers. As for Max, when she last entered the transect where we could see windows to multiple other timelines, she told Tristan she couldn’t enter most of them because they were lives already being lived, i.e. by other versions of Max. She later tells him in order for her to enter another timeline there had to be space for her to enter. The unspoken implication is that the Max Caulfield in what I call the Amberprice timeline was no longer there, whether because of more supernatural nonsense or because she met an unfortunate end, we’ll likely never know.

So, those are the two main points I wanted to talk about, and you’re probably already seeing where I’m going with this. It’s already been stated that the sudden evolution of Max’s timeline shifting powers are an important part of the new story. Many of us, including myself, have already floated the theory that Max’s power is reacting to another supernatural power. But there was one question I had before about how Max’s shift power worked, and between what we learned about it in the livestream, and what I’ve read in the comics, I come to a conclusion. How Max uses this power only makes sense if she only exists in one timeline at a time.

There are two possibilities I could come up with. Either something happened with Max’s powers around the time of Safi’s murder that caused the timelines to split but left only one version of Max between them. The other possibility is that Max is dead in one timeline. How I think it would work is that the killer murdered Max first, and somehow her powers caused a past version of herself to start freaking out but not really knowing why. This deviation in the timeline saved that Max but led to the killer targeting Safi instead. Meaning we have one timeline where Safi died, and one timeline where Max died but her body was successfully hidden away so no one but the killer knows she’s supposed to be dead. I will say though, at this stage, that’s still a lot of assumptions to be made, but definitely something I’ll keep in mind as I play.

I am still confident that we’re dealing with one Max and two timelines, which leads to a number of other questions and implications. For example, if Max doesn’t make regularly appearances in one timeline or the other, will people start to notice her absence? That could be especially problematic if she is under suspicion for Safi’s murder. Max would have to constantly juggle her time between both realities and make sure she makes an appearance where she should, when she should. Good thing it’s winter break so Max’s work shouldn’t get in the way. That also leaves the possibility that once Max stops being able to shift, she’ll disappear from the other timeline for good.

I can probably keep going but I wanted to end this with my own prediction for how Double Exposure might end. If Max’s new power is somehow linked to the murderer having a power, then once they are confronted, Max may lose her ability to shift for good. However, that means if the killer exists in both timelines while Max only exists in one, then Max can only confront them in one timeline, while potentially having to let them get away with their crimes in the other timeline. To add to this dilemma, the killer may very well be making their next move in both timelines at the same time, and Max can only stop them in one. At the very least, choices like this are what the writers should be aiming for to make a worthy continuation of Max’s story. Choices where no matter what you choose, someone isn’t getting the happy ending they deserve.