#life is strange double exposure spoilers

[tarraxahum]

(SPOILERS FOR LIFE IS STRANGE COMICS which are old at this point what are you doing AND SOME DOUBLE EXPOSURE SPOILERS)

Got that warning out of the way. Yeah. So. If you know The Spoiler then you know.

With FULL disclaimer that I know the comics are officially "only one possible version of reality", and are in no way binding canon. Nevertheless, they are official still.

Here's Chloe freelancing as a designer for a rock band. She also travels with them later.

Here's Chloe taking an internship at an auto repairs shop, 'cause she's good with cars.

Here's Chloe some years later taking an active part in rebuilding Arcadia Bay and her mother's diner. Taking a responsible leader role and shit.

Here's Chloe opening her own auto repairs shop she's now the boss of. And evidently designing it herself. Y'know. 'Cause she's good at stuff

Here's Chloe also buying an apartment for Max and her. Together. On her initiative.

Here's Chloe being willing to wait for her superpowered ass girlfriend for the aforementioned years because plot happened to Max, as it does, and she's her "partner in time".

Here they both are after another timeskip, fully consistent with LiS 2 photo

Y'know. This one.

In a recovering town. Where Chloe rebuilt a diner and established her own auto shop with her own hard work and skill. And bought them an apartment. TO SETTLE DOWN TOGETHER.

Note: Full disclosure, they had an apartment in Seattle together before "plot happened" and also traveled around with a rock band for years so it's not like Chloe ultimately ends up confined to Arcadia Bay again. Don't worry.

BONUS: Them being normal with Victoria:

So yeah. "Chloe is a free spirit who didn't wanna be tied down or take life seriously and fucked off to flirt with Victoria Chase" MY ASS.

Granted, both this and DE are about equal in being "canon" but. In terms of Chloe's characterization and what we know from previous games. I can see her do all this. Even if you take the relationship out of the equation, fine, the rest of it. I do NOT see her doing ALL THAT.

Bite me, for all their faults the comics understood Chloe's character much better than whatever DE has got so far.

Anyway this is not a "GOTCHA" post, this is a "If you're pissed like me take this and run"

[invested-in-your-future]

"but it's realistic that they would breakup"

Not the point.

"But they had a lot of trauma the re-"

Also not the point.

"But at least she's a-"

Absolutely not the point.

Y'all trying to justify a narrative choice from within the narrative constraints.

That's a mistake.

Just like how many people never understood why so many would pick Bae ending, so many people just don't seem to get what the pairing meant overall.

Y'all realise what this pairing meant to people when it came out?

Despite the issues with the ending, the adoration and love the pairing has to this day has been earned by the game - it's inseparable from the franchise and it's reception.

It wasn't just another pairing. It wasn't just something that existed as bait or something within fanon or something developers never committed to.

Through the years plenty of ships get baited disingenuously while throwing the audience nothing but breadcrumbs - for example the disaster of Sherlock fandom, the mess with Supernatural, Teen Wolf, Voltron and so on. Or the way Blake/Yang in RWBY were the most blatant baiting that got no on-screen development(despite all the setup that show ignored for years) till the moment the show literally was getting axed and they wanted to milk LGBTQ+ community for money one last chance.

And some shows would stumble into something important but fail to realise it and thus end up squashing it - ask Buffy fans about Tara and Willow or The 100 fans about clexa.

There were LGBTQ+ pairings in video games too but rarely they would be so front and center and very often would be playersexual.

This wasn't what Life is Strange ended up being.

Life Is Strange, at the very core is about queer experience - about fitting in, about making connections in the world that rejects you, about finding beauty in the life that hates and hurts you - Max and Chloe's relationship is the key to the entire game.

For some that meant letting go but for others? It gave the chance to fight a trope no matter what and to get an ending, albeit flawed, where a WLW pairing they liked can be happy and face the future together.

People lived through those two characters and their experiences finding something genuine to relate to.

Max and Chloe were that generation's Korra/Asami, Willow/Tara, etc.

Even DONTNOD recognised that in the end and treated it with respect.

Double Exposure might not pull a BYG outright but it sure does everything to kill the happy memories a fandom made about the pairing - to go back through every single ray of sunshine one ending got and subvert it, taint it, reject it.

Picking the Bae choice when playing Double Exposure is the Narrative constantly telling you how wrong you were to expect happiness when you picked the ending where the pairing is intact and how acshually it isn't intact!

It doesn't kill the characters but it sure goes an extra mile to kill what those characters MEAN to the audience.

Realism, plausibility and so on come after - it's what a writer does when they decide on a path. A writer doesn't just do something because it makes sense and is out of their control - they decide to do it and then make it make sense. Whether they succeed or not depends on how good a writer is.

Double Exposure isn't the story about a breakup. It isn't the story about two women dealing with their trauma.

Double Exposure treats an iconic pairing people cared about as a backstory element - nothing more.

Deck Nine expects the audience to accept what happened and move on to shiny new cast and possible new LIs.

The writers of Double Exposure are telling you - "look, this doesn't matter. Now here's a new mystery you can solve and new cast and look Max is back and you liked using her powers right? Use powers to do stuff."

To this developer team the core element of what made the franchise so important to its audience is nothing more than a leftover plot thread to "write around".

Because to these writers queer experience apparently starts and stops with searching for a relationship - someone being in a relationship that's not part of the story or someone being comfortable NOT being in a relationship at all just don't exist.

What Deck Nine writers seem to be doing is treating it as disposable or interchangeable/replaceable, while also inadvertently tainting whatever comes after with fandom rage.

The worst thing that can happen to a new character is being "the next love interest" - because people channel their frustrations towards the character (or in some worst cases, please don't do this, the actor).

Where there was an iconic part of the franchise Double Exposure, intentionally or not, sets up a toxic battle ground.

That's the point - treating LGBTQ+ audience as sales numbers, manipulating us, treating something that has been a formative experience to so many lives as disposable, or worse yet - malleable.

(And yes there's also a wider issue with Deck Nine and the working conditions there, misogyny, the nazi imagery and the rest but I don't think this is that disconnected from that? How they treat their audience and subject matter is a reflection of culture inside.)

[blacknwhitebutterfly]

wow… deck nine ruined pricefield.. who would’ve guessed…….. totally.. crazy….. can’t believe they did this in a *cough,cough,cashgrab* WHO SAID THAT..

[warrenthealien]

As a Chloe Price kinnie I believe her leaving Max is entirely in character

[werewolf-cuddles]

It was bad enough that Deck Nine broke up Pricefield (in a particularly shitty and vindictive way, might I add), but they had to go and throw Chaseprice into the crossfire too with that ship teasing.

I seriously hope this doesn't spark a ship war, because I doubt anybody on either side wanted this.

[whatsjulietslastname]

DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ LIFE IS STRANGE DOUBLE EXPOSURE SPOILERS STOP READING THIS JUST SCROLL DO NOT READ THIS CMON YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO PLAY THE GAME AND FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS ON YOUR OWN SCROLL RIGHT NOW

so um. i am NOT buying this game. from the little i saw i can already tell how much of an out-of-character cash grab it is. also, pricefield broke up. i am SO done with this shit. they really should’ve left Max and Chloe’s story (because it’s THEIR story dude this whole thing is so dumb) alone. this is not respecting both endings. r.i.p. Chloe Price you would’ve hated this

[ozzzzzzma]

HOLY FUCKING SHIT THIS IS PETTTTTY.

Like if you want to have max and chloe break up realistically due to trauma/PTSD, I may not agree due to narrative stand point but fine, game gotta unite the narrative of the two timelines I understand.

But shitting all over the preestablished lore in lis2(which isnt even made by deck nine fuck off) , changing the context from ambiguity to the 'last happy memory' between those two just to make the story fit your own vision? Fuck right off.

[arcadiabaytornado]

TBH I need Max and Chloe to be together in Double Exposure or else I'll never recover.

Because between LIS where Max ghosts Chloe for five years, the comics where Max leaves Chloe for years again, and now maybe Double Exposure insinuating they are separated again, their relationship is really starting to become a "We will always leave each, but our love will remain," trope, and that tears my heart out.

[themostfinalofpams]

DeckNine deciding that “honoring both endings” means that either Chloe dies or she and Max breakup 🤦🏻‍♀️🙄🥲🫠

[tiffanyvalntine]

"max, i will always be with you"

"my powers might not last chloe" "that's okay, we will. forever"

deck (we respect both endings) nine:

[yuraimi-lee-bunny]

Looking at everything that's happened within the LiS fandom, EVERYTHING that most Pricefield and Chloe fans have done, I've come to the same conclusion as always:

I'm so happy to be a Grahamfield and a Warren Graham fan. I'm so happy to be me with complete integrity. It's good to be me.

[werewolf-cuddles]

Please check on your local Pricefield fan. They're not doing good right now.

[hitmewithlghtning]

splitting up pricefield after almost 10 years since the og lis game feels as if some stranger took a shit in my yard. don't nod would never do that stuff. they left continuation to max's story (and chloe's) to our imagination as it should've been. we never needed a sequel to the og game in the first place.

[gonkaccino]

very happy to see my pathetic loser girlfailure max caulfield develop Confidence and Upper Body Strength

[arcadiabaytornado]

I have frankly TOO MANY opinions on the new game, but by far my biggest greivance is how it seems at least contextually that Max and Chloe did break up OFFSCREEN. In the version of events where Chloe is alive, of course.

It's so unsatisfying. It just stinks of the writers simply not wanting to bother accounting for Chloe being in the game or not. Which I know is hard to do, but I think they should've just put their foot down and decided a true ending for this game's universe. Either decide it's sacrifice bay or sacrifice bae. I don't want Chloe to be dead, but it just feels cheap to me the way they did handle such an important character. Hell, I'd even take them just not using Max at all, either. It just feels like nostalgia bait with minimal thought put in. As much as I adore Max.

Same here! Every choice based sequel that I've seen ends up unsatisfying on some level because it's way easier for the developers to just pretend the final end choice only vaguely exists. Which means all the endings end up kind of being "written out" so the new story can go on without any hiccups, and that's likely why Double Exposure is going to be a Max story instead of an optional Max and Chloe story, because if it was an optional Max and Chloe story then they'd have to make practically two different games.

And then there's the trouble of choosing a "canon" ending. That's going to make half the fanbase pissed off no matter what you do, and for a company means less money if someone doesn't want a game that doesn't follow their choices. So it's a safter bet to just canonize both choices in the easiest way possible...by making references to the choice or having a few flashbacks about the choice, but not actually exploring the choice in full.

I'm going to hold off my full judgement about how the ending is handled until Double Exposure comes out. Maybe I'll be wrong and it will be handled as well as it can be considering how majorly different the two choices to the first game are, but I am having a lot of opinions already just based off how choice based squeals have historically handled previous game choices. (TWDG season 3, TWDG season 4, Batman The Enemy Within, Before The Storm it's in own weird I could elaborate on, BG3, etc.) Though hopefully we'll both be wrong and both routes will be explored in a satisfying way that makes everyone happy...but ngl I'm scared about that aspect.

[embercub]

My new max ship.

This shot is so cute! And ngl I also low key ship Amanda and max as well, they both are cute together as well! And hey, anyone can ship Max with whoever, whether it be Chloe, Warren, Amanda, or Vinh. Please no hate to others on who they ship Max with.