#lis

[apollo-1111]

OH MY GYATT OH MY GYATT IM OVERJOYED

Ahm, hello Life is Strange fandom- I got an announcement

I have been working on my own LiS fan visual novel

This is VortexVN,

You play as Victoria waking up from a hangover with no memory of the week prior, you are tasked with piecing together what happened between her and one of the 4 love interests.

And of course the love interests are:

-Chloe (Chaseprice)

-Max (Chasefield)

-Kate (Chasemarsh)

-Rachel (Amberchase)

The game starts with a quiz; you unlock a route by picking answers related to the character you wanna romance (they are very obvious)

It takes place in an AU where the events of LiS1 and BtS didn't really happen and there are no special powers, Victoria's still a bi tch- I guess that's her special powers.

Think of this game as a spiritual successor to Love is Strange by Team Rumblebee rather than Life is Strange 1

Gameplay so far is your typical point and click visual novel affair, you will be given options to explore rooms, examine objects and talk to other characters- the interactions will play a crucial part in how the game ends,

You can win the girl or get rejected or worse... It will depend on how Victoria carried herself throughout the game,

Mistreating certain characters may prove to be a dealbreaker for the love interest,

Each girl has two close friends in the dorm that you should not upset (I'll reveal who in the guide pdf)

This game is also perfect for Victoria haters as you can ruin her life

The game has its own journal system that will be different depending on who you're romancing, it also comes with a read button (I blurred most of the text so you can get curious and play the game)

Read button will display the journal content in Open Dyslexic font

In the demo you'll only get to explore Victoria's room and the dorm hallways and you'll get two encounters from Juliet (Showers) and Alyssa (Hallway)

VortexVN is still in development, I have finished part.1 of the project and will start polishing it soon- the initial build of part.1 will be available to play as a demo!

The cutscenes lack color and proper shading at the moment and you will find placeholders as well, the art style is all over the place- this will change after the polishing phase

Download links:

Mac and Windows

Web browser ver (I don't recommend that you play it on mobile, also the web version lacks animation and takes forever to load graphics)

programs used:

-Renpy (visual novel engine)

-Photoshop CS5 (Drawing/rendering/animating/designing)

-Clips studio (Texturing)

-tablet: XP-Pen Artist 13

Note: I'm not monetizing this project nor do I claim ownership of the Life is Strange ip, all materials and assets presented in this visual novel were either created by me or are royalty free- I did not lift anything from the games via data mining or by leaks

This game is not a response to or a gotcha at Life is Strange Double Exposure or Deck Nine, I didn't really dislike the game

Besides, I've had the idea of a Victoria centric fan game since the first LiS back in 2015

I'm open for feedbacks! You can DM me or reblog this with a review or something- maybe write a comment.

[fieldoffae]

Arcadia Bay

[krillonthegrill]

[izzymissii]

IDC about DE it never happened. they are married and very happy and very gay

Chloe talked Max into getting piercings and a tattoo while they where on the road

[throughthelookingmax]

I wanted to reblog this because I love Tangent’s take on Max being a lesbian (I found this because I was trying to find the game quotes on Max being romantically disinterested in Warren). I kept reading and I loved everyone else’s input on why Max is actually a lesbian!

As someone who has had this headcanon for years but could never understand why (and was too scared to say anything about it because I’d get shunned for it), seeing so many people present all of the evidence that I always believed in but could never figure out how to explain, it makes me so happy!!

And then OOP MY GF AND I JUMPSCARE 😂 Man, I feel so honoured that people are using me and Chloe’s cosplay (and the original art that we recreated) to further point out confirmation that Max is lesbian! I feel like I’m serving my community 🫡

But holy shit! Max was forced a male love interest in DE by Square Enix! That makes so much more sense! I mean, DE isn’t canon to me, because of how much they obliterated Chloe’s character and turned her into someone she’s the exact opposite of (I also believe that they ruined Max’s character, although not as bad as Chloe’s). But it makes sense as to why Vinh is such a scummy character, in the hopes that no one will WANT Max to be with him, to get around the forced male love interest.

Thanks, SE! You destroyed what Max Caulfield meant to all of us!!!

Unpopular Opinion Time

I’m going to say something that I know some folk are going to disagree on… but I honestly feel that Max Caulfield is a closeted lesbian instead of being bisexual. And I think there is sufficient information in the game and with Max’s journals to verify this viewpoint.

First, it’s important to explain something: you can be lesbian and still have had sex with men. There are lesbians who were married to men for years before finally accepting the truth about themselves… just as there are gay men who were suppressing the truth about themselves and then after a decade or more and having had kids, divorcing their wives because they were gay all along. You can be lesbian and not know it… all you know is that something is wrong. You know that you should be happy with a guy and can even have the most decent boyfriend or husband in the world… and yet it doesn’t work because you are not wired that way. It happens.

These women (and men) were raised to believe they were straight. They were raised to believe they should be dating someone of the opposite gender. They can end up having families and yet have that niggling sense of something being wrong in the back of their heads. This is because of a concept called heteronormativity or the view that heterosexuality is the default sexual orientation. You can be raised believing you’re straight (or cisgender for that matter) and never quite understand why things feel off. 

Now let’s look at Max Caulfield. Folk like to claim she’s bisexual because of the pseudo-romance angle with Warren Graham and with Max’s claims of being attracted to “skater dudes” but that the attraction isn’t mutual. Yet when you see Max interacting with the skaters of Blackwell, she knows pretty much nothing about them and outside of the whole “I’m into them” never seems to show any actual attraction toward them. It’s a line that falls flat. It’s like the writers decided to check the box “likes guys who ride on skateboards” and never went anywhere with it… or at least it might seem that way until you find out that Chloe Price was into skateboarding… Max’s best friend who she is increasingly crushing on as the game continues. It’s reasonable to ask how much of Max’s attraction to “skater dudes” is because she is into Chloe skating but doesn’t realize for a while that she could be into Chloe. 

Max’s relationship with Warren is more complicated. There has been claims that Warren’s romance angle (which never was that strong a path in the game, especially when compared to that of Chloe) was added in because of a strong positive fan reaction to Warren. Even then, there are enough actions that Warren takes that honestly are disturbing that honestly, Warren is not a good match for Max. The boy photoshops a picture of Max with him and keeps it in his gym locker - a place that Max is unlikely to ever see it, but also a place where other guys will see it and thus give Warren “bragging rights” about Max. He also has a date lined up with Brooke but asks out Max and then if the player has Max accept Warren’s date invite will call Brooke while Max is still around and cancel the date with Brooke and state he’s going with Max instead. He even instigates fights with Nathan Prescott, likely in an attempt to “show off” to Max and to be her “knight in shining armor.” 

A much larger factor as to why I just don’t get a sense of Max being into Warren is her journal. I half-suspect some fans don’t bother reading it which is a shame as it gives a lot of important details about Max and her thoughts and views. Most important to this is her early comments about Warren in which outside of considering him “dark and witty” she shows no attraction to him. In fact, on the first day of the game, her journal has this specifically to say:

We talked about Warren and Dana implied he likes me. Ew.

Damning words. Seriously, she went “ew” over a “dark and witty” guy “liking” her. Another torpedo in the water has this comment in Max’s journal if she accepted the date with Warren: 

Hope he doesn’t make a lame move on me… (Not that he would, egomaniac.) Warren and I do have a lot in common, but he’s like a supercool geek brother…

First, she doesn’t think Warren is into her. In fact, even entertaining that thought has Max calling herself an egomaniac. But what’s especially damning is the fact she considers Warren a “supercool geek brother.” I’m sorry, but Max went beyond Friendzoning Warren. She brotherzoned him.

The closest her journal has to suggesting Max is at all attracted to Warren is her journal entry if you didn’t kiss Chloe and do kiss Warren: 

Considering how insane my life has been this week, kissing Warren in the middle of a deadly storm didn’t seem to be that strange. It felt like we were flipping off the cruel universe… and if I was going to die, I wanted one kiss from a boy I cared about.

Honestly it’s not much different if you also have Max kiss Chloe (though the line changes to “I wanted one kiss from two people I truly cared about”), and honestly if she thinks about Warren as a brother then obviously she’d still care for him. So the whole bit of Max being into Warren really starts to fall apart when you take a long look at the facts and Max’s journal.

Another interesting bit can be found in Max’s journal if the player has Max not kiss Chloe… and it’s this line: 

I would have, but I didn’t like being dared like it was some big deal. Maybe I am scared. Of what? I think I’m too young for marriage.

Later, again if Max hadn’t kissed Chloe, when she returns from her first timeline alteration trip she writes this in her journal: 

I’ve never been so glad to see Chloe in my life. The second I saw her blue hair and that beautiful pissed off face, I kind of regretted not kissing her when she double dared me. Maybe if she had double dog dared me…

And Max’s final entry in the “didn’t kiss Chloe” setting is thus:

Maybe that’s why I hated watching Chloe being so cruel in the nightmare, calling me names and trying to hurt me… I was surprised that it was like a physical pain in my heart. Is that the power of love… or friendship?

Is that the power of love… or friendship? Max asks that in both settings, in which she kissed Chloe and where she didn’t. It’s much more obvious when Max is busy kissing Chloe on that third day (and seriously, Dontnod should have included an option for Max to say “then don’t back away this time!” if you have Max Rewind for another kiss three or more times).

The argument for Max being into guys is at its heart as flimsy as that of Chloe being into guys because she has condoms in her wallet. Yet the condoms can be explained away as used to keep sex toys sanitary (yes, women can get STDs from other women if they’re not careful!), and Max’s “interest” in guys can easily be seen as “expected” of her. Given that Max can literally step out of Chloe’s closet to protect Chloe… Life is Strange can easily be seen as Max’s coming to terms with her own lesbianism and stepping away from an easy and expected life to embrace the unknown with the woman she loves by her side.

[chasemarsh]

"CHASE MARSH !" by straw.page anon

[whatsjulietslastname]

hot take Glee would be Max and Chloe’s comfort show post bae ending send post

[justgracedrawsart]

Doodled Rachel Amber today in class to experiment. I’m also posting this in class because I’ve already finished my plant 3d model and I’m bored. I kinda like how this one turned out:]

[izzymissii]

we love our bi queen

A: I feel like the LIS fandom doesn’t talk about this flyer enough.

B: I feel like the LIS fandom doesn’t talk about the possibility that Dana made it enough. As we see in her room, she’s putting in a lot of planning to the Blackwell Halloween party. None of the other girls seem that interested, so it’s not a stretch of the imagination to say it was Dana who likely put up the “bi-friendly” posters.

So, I’m not saying that I’m taking this as confirmation that Dana is bi….but, actually, no I’m absolutely claiming that. We may never know who put the flyers up in canon, but that will not stop my assumptions.

[phelpscott]

i luv them so much

[this-box-is-empty]

the only warmth left

[door-insurance]

Not to be dramatic or anything, but thank you for your great chasemarsh art and for drawing the girls. Sometimes I genuinely worry that Victoria and Kate would be forgotten by this fandom, when they shouldn't bc they're also very important female characters to the story. people tend to treat Max and Chloe as if they're the only female characters so thank u for doing Kate and Vic justice!

Heya!

Thank you for the kind words, both Kate and Victoria are hella important characters and I'm glad to see them still get love. One of the things that motivated me to start making fanart was seeing how barren the other character tags were compared to Chloe, Max and Rachel

At some point Chasefield was the 2nd most popular ship in the fandom but as time went on I feel like the new batch of fans we're getting didn't really explore the game's world as well as the older generation did or got into the franchise through watching speedruns or even worse, they saw tik tok edits of only the max/chloe scenes and nothing else

It's actually painful lol we used to have ask blogs for characters like Brooke, people would do shitposts and scenarios that involved all the other blackwell kids- now whenever i feature them somewhere id get questions on who's who

I'm hoping that my project at least has that old fandom spirit of appreciating Arcadia Bay and the world building

---

speaking of VortexVN, I'm gonna start doing monthly updates. So far in January I managed to do the following;

-Added in an achievement system

It's gonna be list/text only, adding in pictures and stuff is just beyond my basic programming knowledge but I will include funny references specific to each route

-created a character sheet for Victoria:

i actually don't like how her sprites turned out i'm gonna revamp them next week

-Polished the waking up cutscene:

won't show the whole thing but this is the third frame

also just wanted to say that the demo launch was a success!

As of January we reached 59 downloads for the PC version and 80 browser plays for the web version, so in total 139 people played the demo... Holy shit amazeballs

Now going into this I knew it will never reach Love is Strange numbers and level of hype cause it's been almost 10 years but oh my god I didn't expect this many people playing lol

It’s kind of a gamble making a fan game featuring a divisive/antagonistic side character

my goal was around 50 downloads and browser plays for the FINAL RELEASE of the game, we hit that shit on day one with the goddamn demo- ya'll are amazing for that

I'm gonna try my best to get this project done as soons as May or June of this year, game deving isn't easy but I will try to update yall on a monthly basis.

Next week's tasks are the new journal entry and revamping Victoria's sprites

[sunatixd]

I'm currently playing LiS for the second time and I know I'll cry again

[lgbtvideogames]

LGBTVG SURVEY - Favourite LGBT character - Max Caulfield.

Max, you are not crazy. You are not dreaming. It's time to be an everyday hero.

[vhsghostricks]

Some Pricefield to cheer myself up <- playing LIS again