#apologies for my probably disjointed answering i am just. v happy and excited lolol. also i just woke up so i'm probably missing braincells

[whimsicalcotton]

Howdy, it’s been a hot minute since my last review! Life happens, as it does. Hope you’re doing alright, sending my support and care. Always a pleasure seeing you on my dash. I’m back after rereading Chapter 2 (finally lol). Here’s my live commentary on it :]. The song you picked the chapter title from is also a certified banger btw, TIL what disinter means. Also I couldn’t help myself and read Chapter 5 as soon as you posted it, let me just say I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS, all of them are the good kind of excruciating. But Chapter 2 time first!! Sorry not sorry(?), this review’s even longer.

Nightmare sequence opening let’s gooooo. Max talking to Victoria during the Vortex Club party each repeat, always reassuring yet blaming herself for that single mistake she made once (which was the smart option given her limited information at the time) and always prevented afterwards hits a certain way. And you just know Victoria’s becoming less abrasive mostly due to the increasing levels of car crash fucked up Max is looking and acting like. But hey, at least she gets to wake up in a cuddle pile. Describing sleeping amberprice as a pair of koalas is so big brained of you honestly. “Her joints are sort of creaky, sort of crunchy, and very unwilling to listen to her.” Same Max, same. Her standards for what makes an injury worth worrying over is so funny because it only applies to herself and I know she’d start freaking out the second Chloe gets a paper cut. She’d be all: “Is he bothering you, queen?” (he being an innocent, inanimate roll of film). Nothing, not even anxiety over the impending and looming future, is worse than looking at one’s reflection. Again, same Max, same. Out of the way popular fanon fursona backed up by canon evidence (deer), Max’s true inner self represented by an animal is a raccoon with hypothermia and rabies <333. The similarities are astonishing. A) Bags under her eyes so big they’re banned from airplanes as carry ons, B) Legitimately keeping the option of running into the woods as a not so distant backup plan, and C) Feral. 

Newton’s law of inertia, Sisyphus, and Orpheus walk into a bar, and Max Caulfield walks out. She’s completely right to be worried about Chloe tripping down the stairs, considering that’s what almost happened at the end of the previous chapter lol. Rachel sums up how everyone is feeling about Max rn: “You’re fucking nuts”. I’m so normal about her mentally comparing them to Chloe’s parents and having an instance of genuine, unadulterated happiness from it. Rachel and Chloe both getting embarrassed is so cute. The way you describe Max here, “Liquid sunlight shot straight through her veins, strawberry lightning fizzling through each strained, twitching muscle of her heart.” SO GOOD BRO THE IMAGERY. Also the line right afterwards, “Happiness is foreign to her at this point, and therefore just as likely to cloud her judgement as carnal anxiety or blind anguish.” Emotions come preinstalled when you’re born and are a vital component of the human condition Max plsss. But her rewinding anyway to savor the ephemeral moment until her nose bleeds is perfect. While Max cares more about Rachel’s sweater getting blood on it than where the blood is coming from, at least Chloe has a good retort when she points out the sweater isn’t what’s bleeding. Max confirming her nosebleeds have been happening for a while now must have fired off every one of Chloe’s concern receptors since it certainly wasn’t a childhood phenomenon. “Max has to be careful, or she'll be tempted to stop and stare forever.” Her resolution to stop, not for herself, but to simply take in Chloe and Rachel, just for a little while, has got me shaking my fists in the air. And right after Rachel says she never left too RAHHHHH, APF SAVE ME!! *proceeds to get hit by the emotional equivalent of an eighteen-wheeler, flattened via steamroller, and then scraped up by a rusty snow plow*.

Rachel’s being observant enough for all three of them. “'I know what you did last summer' stare” LMAO. Maybe a concussion would fix Max idk. Can’t say it would hurt at this point :p. Describing your emergency surgery situation as a debacle sure is a word choice Rachel. “Seriously, what kind of fucked up serial killer bullshit?” I’m pretty sure some permutation of that sentence left my mouth several times in increasing frequency when I first played LiS even though I knew what was going to happen haha. That moment Rachel realizes Max, illogically as it seems, was the one who saved her was very well done. I’m loving the comparisons to a bloodied hare Max is evoking in everyone, because I think it provides something important. I’m not sure if I’m wording this well, but the symbolism gives a layer of abstraction, in a way? Both Rachel and Chloe are viewing Max’s damage as a result of cruel nature, something occurring to a hapless creature. Even as the former is getting more suspicious. But Max knows it’s due to her deliberate choice of throwing herself repeatedly at her and everyone else’s problems. IDK, the juxtaposition is just really interesting to me!! “The name rolls off her tongue like molten ore, white-hot richness scorching down her jaw and branding her indebted to its owner.” The amberfield of it all… And Max accepting the cigarette afterwards while Chloe is left gawking ARGHHH. “...sotto voce, a sentiment simmering and secretive…” The alliteration, I love alliteration! Rachel’s biggest fear being permanently separated from Chloe, even more so than dying, and never having the chance to see her again *insert Kermit jumping off building superimposed over BtS after credits scene here*. Yeah the astrology girl comparing her gf to celestial bodies, in both brilliance and importance alike, got to me. Max saying she picked up the word hella from a friend I’m literally crawling up my walls.

Chloe my pathetic little meow meow, “...what lanky skeeve of a hipster does Chloe have to punch out for giving the girl her first cigarette?” I have some bad news to break to you. Ofc David spills the beans -_-. All things considered, Chloe is doing an amazing job at keeping calm until Max’s lichtenberg scar jumpscares her. “She just needs to know what the fuck is going on so she can figure out how to help.” But it’s the one thing she can’t possibly help with without sending Max into a spiral of anxiety. Max believing she’s a bigger cause of strife for Chloe than mf Mark “I drug and photograph teenage girls” Jefferson has me losing my mind. Also Chloe acknowledging what she would’ve given for an apology before Max stumbled back into her life, but now that she has there’s nothing she wants less makes me feel some kind of way (heartbroken, I’m feeling heartbroken). Max berating herself out loud with such vitriol is just so :(. “Instead, she falls back on tried and true reassurance from their younger days, familiar words bubbling up from somewhere far brighter than here and now.” Now I’m imagining younger pricefield and my eyes are sweating while I’m writhing on the floor. I understand Max’s mom is in the right here as a concerned parent whose child might as well have gone missing, but woooo you go Max you curse her out for trying to yank you away woooo. “Please stay out of trouble while I'm gone.” It’s the Magic School Bus Theme Song, “With the Price? No way!”

If you couldn’t tell from my absolute monster of a ramble, this chapter is fantastic. I’ve reread it multiple times, and my review is little more than a 1,000 word proofread version of me screaming into a pillow. Thanks for writing, seriously.

!!! hello anon!! always nice to see you too ^^

first off another round of thank you thank you thank yous bc i love your commentary so much and i'm glad you found me on here so i can have the full screaming into a pillow experience bc it's The Best. like seriously i've always wanted to write fic good enough to have ppl rambling and sdjfhgsjd it makes me so happy <3 so thank you anon i appreciate you so much jsyk. i shall be patiently (very very excitedly) awaiting your ch.5 commentary also 👀👀👀

i also learned what disinter means from this song lolol. i have like. at least 3 more TRAILS songs on my playlist for this AU bc i am out of control. here is another one that i think you would also enjoy (read: foam at the mouth over bc oh the pricefield of it all)

"Newton’s law of inertia, Sisyphus, and Orpheus walk into a bar, and Max Caulfield walks out." obsessed w this actually. so true bestie <3 <3 <3 also also now you have me thinking about the inertia/orpheus combo; the tendency of one looking back to keep looking back. ouuughgh

funfact Max's running off into the woods 'plan' is a reference to how i very first wrote/planned this AU waayyyy way back in 2017ish. in that version she didn't let amberprice look after her At All and just fucked off into the woods immediately after the semi-accidental meeting chloe in the parking lot. not sure where the hell i was going w that draft and the doc is lost to the ages so ig we'll never know lol. oh well i'm def more happy with how it is now anyways

''RAHHHHH, APF SAVE ME!! *proceeds to get hit by the emotional equivalent of an eighteen-wheeler, flattened via steamroller, and then scraped up by a rusty snow plow*.'' <<< unironically my favorite emotion to cause via fic. also what i feel while i'm writing shfgshfgj

"Now I’m imagining younger pricefield and my eyes are sweating while I’m writhing on the floor." yessss join me. join me in the baby pricefield headcanons that seem innocent and chill but actually hurt like a bitch <3 i am suffering torments of my own design <3