#life is strange double exposure spoilers

[whatsjulietslastname]

HEY GUYS REMEMBER WHEN CHLOE WANTED MAX TO BE THE LAST THING SHE EVER SAW BEFORE DYING. BTW GUYS. REMEMBER WHEN CHLOE SAID “i’m never leaving you” AND “that’s okay we will, forever” AND “Max, i’ll always be with you”. GUYS GUYS GUYS HOLD ON REMEMBER WHEN CHLOE SPENT YEARS TALKING TO MAX IN HER DIARY BECAUSE SHE COULDN’T LET HER GO GUYS. AND WHEN SHE TOOK MAX BACK IN A HEARTBEAT BECAUSE SHE MISSED HER TOO MUCH. OH AND BTW REMEMBER HOW THEY WERE CHILDHOOD BEST FRIENDS AND GREW UP TOGETHER AND FELL IN LOVE AND ARE NOT LINKED ONLY BY A ‘trauma bond’. DO WE REMEMBER THAT. COLLECTIVELY.

[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, skipping all the development to characterization characters deserve and attempting to bribe LGBTQ+ community with breadcrumbs at the last possible second.

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.)

[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"

[arcadiabaytornado]

This was NOT casual.

[localclownbaby]

Moses, seeing the photo: sis is this you right here in this alley?? 😦

Max: sister if you see a bitch in the alley with a Bad Bob that is not me. Go the other way!

Moses: Who's thiiis 😨

[ozma821]

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.

[gonkaccino]

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

[werewolf-cuddles]

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

[yuraimi-lee-bunny]

And all of this wouldn't be happening if everyone had understood the message from the original LiS team of "Max and Chloe's story ends here. Life is Strange is an anthology and the next installment will be a new story."

But here we are: as they kept insisting on "we want to see Max and Chloe", ANNOYED social media SO MUCH when promoting Life is Strange 2, SO MUCH, ALWAYS asking "Where are Max and Chloe?" and it went on like this for YEARS! They gave the comics and it wasn't enough. They gave Farewell and it wasn't enough. They fed a beast that is Square Enix, who has long been known not to care about their fan base, and well, here you have it: Life is Strange Double Exposure...

If they constructed EVERYTHING Before the Storm, Farewell and True Colors, it was noticeable how the stories were poorly narrated and that they did not care about their characters. Did they really have faith in good writing for this new game?

I always felt so bad for the original LiS team because as an illustrator and art director, I can put myself in their shoes of how much it must have hurt them. It was their project, they made it grow, they put SO much love and effort into it, they basically had to part ways with their "baby" for the sake of integrity and not pursue a story they didn't want.

And when I learned that and then looked at the fandom, I asked myself "why do they keep insisting that a company that was not the original one continue a story that was VERY OBVIOUSLY already finished?

That's their level of loyalty they have to the team that delivered a game that, despite its many flaws, is artistically and empathetically well done?" But well, I think we all know the answer: they never cared. They only cared about their overflowing gluttony of Pricefield. And to get it, they fed the Square Enix crows so much that they've now gouged out the eyes of a majority of the fandom.

Moral: learn to consume, and know when enough is enough. Dontnod had said that it was not going to continue Max and Chloe story, and you didn't respect them. Remember that in ANY FIELD: NO means NO.

Good day.

[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..

[iwishiwasyourgirll]

alright I'm in my life is strange era so

[whatsjulietslastname]

“Comics Chloe Price is a better characterization of Chloe post-bae ending than what we have so far of Double Exposure Chloe Price” I say in the mic. The crowd boos. I begin to walk off stage, defeated. “She’s right,” a voice says. I look up and it’s her. 2014 Chloe Price.

[invested-in-your-future]

"but Bay ending was always the good ending and Bae ending the bad ending because it doesn't fit the theme of the game, why don't you understand?"

Maybe, just, maybe, people aren't actually okay with glorifying the ending that is so deeply rooted in a homophobic trope and that lowkey says that "you should accept the world needs you dead" to every single LGTBQ+ player playing the game?

Maybe going against fate no matter the price is an attractive idea to people who have been told by extremely heteronormative environments all their lives that they should just "give up and accept it and become the heteronormative definition of normal"?

And maybe punishing your players for rejecting BYG is a glaringly short-sighted move, reflective of said heteronormative worldview?

Also, just a thought, but maybe ending your game on such an "intended" message that a gay woman dealing with traumatic experiences deserves suicide by gunshot goes against every single thing the game had to say about mental wellness?

At least there was a choice to reject it - that is, until a different developer team came, decided to make a fanfic cash-grab of a sequel, and tut-tut at you how only one ending deserves "happiness".

[verloutte]

i have so much regret for how warren is literally erased in double exposure. the second we were shown max's interest in weird niche horror movies and shit i immediately knew its something she got from warren. it was him who used to bug her about it back in arcadia bay, who gave her a pendrive loaded with all these movies with stupid ass titles. i really thought we would get at least a single line about it. how despite not talking to him if he survived/his death so many years ago she still carries tiny bits of him with her. how she's a mosaic of people she no longer talks to or who are not here anymore.

[arcadiabaytornado]

Decknine: Wait. I can explain -

Pricefield Shippers: You took my favorite ship and made it haunt the narrative?!

Amberprice Shippers: Haunt the narrative? I only got one line in a journal!

Grahmfield Shippers: Wait, you guys are getting content?

[punkasspricefield]

OH the shit show

Hi Hello! It's been a while since I posted anything on here, but I said hey let me go back to my roots.

You might have guessed it, I played Double Exposure and news flash I hated it.

OKay Herę they come, the spoilers

WTH did I just play, who am I and what the fuckery is that.

I went in two days ago pretty optimistic that I was going to get a mid game, I tried my best to stay away from spoilers and asked my friends and partner not to share too much with me. My initial reaction- when is Chloe going to appear. IS this decision I am making going to impact any sort of relationship with her etc..

It in fact did not matter what I did, who I talked to and the bridges I burned. The plot, the sub plot, the arc - none of that made sense.

Let's start off with how Chloe and Max's relationship crumbled into dust. You want an explanation? Well there is none.. I think. Now let me explain. We start off knowing that Chloe and Max are no longer together, the why is unknown at the beginning. We later know that they broke up thanks to the conversation with Safi. We then get a shitty post card from Chloe making some shit ass excuse ( I do not blame Chloe) I blame the writer for it being so shitty. The whole excuse of the break up never did make sense to even the amount of times I tried to justify it. lets move past- you have this decent build up to a story that has potential. Your friend is dead and you're able to jump universes, sounds normal. Midway though episode 3 is when I got lost, the writing just plummeted, the focus was on the powers and not the reasoning. Nothing mattered, not why Safi is dead, not why she was causing havoc on campus. Nothing about her was justified to fuck up so many lives. That's not even a good antagonist. The story took a hit and it was all because this was a filler game to make money, to get you invested and pull you for another vision that they have for the franchise. This hurt, I have been here since 2015 and it feels worse than when we had bae vs bay. How can you be so cruel with the characters that we love. They passed the torch to someone who doesn't know Chloe or Max. They tarnished their story as a business decision.