#spoilers and opinions below the cut! sorry for any errors i did not edit this. sorry

[caulfect]

life is strange : dust opinions, featuring issue one only .

note : i’ve read through all the max and chloe centric comics before, and this is mostly a reread. i was sick when i first comsumed the material and rushed it in many ways, so i wanted to give it a second shot. it should be said that my max is not comic max, as their paths are completely different due to how much the comics and double exposure contradict each other. if you like the comics or abide by them, you’re valid! they are canon! but i follow a different universe and a different possibility, so they’re not ‘canon’ to my max, if that makes sense. still, i have many opinions due to my love for the series and max herself.

messages at 3:23 pm.

‘and in a multiverse of infinite possibilities, this is one version of what happened next …’

it will never not kill me that the comics give this disclaimer in every issue, every volume, etc. and yet people still cry about double exposure just existing lol

messages at 3:31 pm.

‘i used to wonder as a kid ; if the butterfly knew what it was doing, the damage it was causing … would it keep on flying?’

this is a nice thought and all, but i’m pretty sure the game made it clear that max never really dwelled on the butterfly effect ( which they say is also chaos theory ) and needed chloe to explain it to her. this first page seems so heavy handed and edgy but i’m going to try and suspend my disbelief a little bit

‘i wasn’t the butterfly. i never was.’ well yes. chloe’s the butterfly.

messages at 3:45 pm.

so. long winded thought time given the consensus the comic is trying to give in the first page! i think i’ve offhandedly mentioned before, when discussing vinh’s blackwell au with you, that max’s choice in saving chloe wasn’t just about chloe herself. chloe was a huge part of it, as was selfishness, but there was another thing i wasn’t commenting on which has been echoed by save bae truthers for years. i do think that in that moment, when presented with two impossible realities ( as max says in de ), that a strong drive was the unfairness of it all … i do not think max saw this choice as fair, nor did she view what fate / the storm wanted as fair. i do agree that for a couple of seconds max is gripped with this addicting spiral of : no, this isn’t my fault, this wasn’t me, and it wasn’t chloe, and why do we have to pay for it? it is a sense of injustice as well as a desperate dodge of responsibility : max is nothing but horrified at the idea this is her fault, can even refuse to say it herself until warren implies it for her … she does not want to believe she’s caused this with her power, which is her initial thought before chloe realizes it’s her being alive that’s causing everything. max is distraught on the cliff, at the beach, tortures herself about it until chloe snaps her out of it … it is weighing on her significantly, and then chloe says it’s both of their faults, essentially, and that max has to fix their mistake.

max, notoriously, puts herself down and puts chloe up. not even in a particularly resentful way, just in general. this is how she functions and works … so then this new idea, that chloe’s at fault just as much as max is, and that the price is chloe’s life, well. it changes things. it isn’t fair. it’s too severe of a consequence for it to be fair. the universe gave max powers to save chloe, and then punished them both for daring to play the game? for doing what it wanted? i do think it’s telling that max’s reaction, if you save chloe, is initially full of an almost frustrated anger as she impulsively rips the photo and says ‘not anymore’ to chloe’s ‘it’s time.’ i think ripping the photo is max not wanting to bend to the will of forces unseen to her, forces who don’t care for her or chloe or anyone else. i’m not explaining it well, but this wounded ‘i wasn’t the butterfly, i was just dust caught up in it’s wings like everything else’ is a sentiment i do think max had at some point. an excuse, a reasonable feeling of betrayal and hurt at the world, etc. but i do not think max carries this opinion for long given her devestation at seeing the storm eat arcadia bay

so this like. feeling now? it feels very weird to me. i think it was easy to justify in the moment ( i’m not playing your games ) when her emotions were so high and extreme, and the pain outweighed all else … but this isn’t an opinion that would last.

i also think the comic leaning into this angle inherently robs max of any responsibility or guilt over her choice. it’s a sort of shrug, a sort of ‘i made the right call’ which i do not think is true. i think it’s okay to acknowledge that saving chloe is the selfish choice and the ‘wrong’ one, just as much as it’s okay to stick by it without regret. i don’t even think max would regret saving chloe, which is why her guilt about her hand in the deaths of all her friends and classmates and chloe’s family is important. if she doesn’t regret sacrificing arcadia bay, if she doesn’t feel guilty about her choice … then what’s left? the comics never answer this outside of a vague ‘grief’ max feels for the people and town she loved. a grief that isn’t explored, a grief that centers around chloe, etc. this is the same girl who took kate’s death as a personal failing, the girl who said she’d trade away her powers forever if it meant kate would still be here … for someone who feels so inherently responsible and is brutalized by the death of a girl she didn’t help kill, then you’d imagine max would be almost comatose and numb after causing the deaths of hundreds all because she used her powers poorly and couldn’t part with one soul to save many.

gestures. i don’t know. i think these comics in particular irritate me because they really cater to bae truthers’ dreams of pricefield healing without the actual steps to do so. but i digress

messages at 3:53 pm.

pixie : it’s like you have magic powers.

max, suddenly uncomfortable : they’re … they’re just photos.

i do enjoy this scene. and i do like max taking photos as a side hustle while staying with her parents if i remember correctly. baffles me that people were so mad about max taking up photography again in double exposure because of the jefferson trauma, yet said nothing about the comics doing the same thing. this is a running theme i’ve noticed, which i’ll keep pointing out

chloe’s ‘time is a construct’ graffiti and subsequent tortured expression is a nice touch. it sure is, chloe.

messages at 4:25 pm.

ah, yes. the arcadia bay rebuild project. perhaps i’m too cruel but i still highly doubt that blackwell wasn’t completely demolished in the storm … when max recieves her first vision about it, at the very start of the game, there is an orange blackwell banner draped across the lighthouse’s information board. the storm is also referred to as rachel’s, her revenge, and i find it hard to believe that she wouldn’t level blackwell for all the good it did her … if you’re to view the storm as rachel’s rather than max’s. i think blackwell in particular being nothing but rubble is a bit more poetic? it’s the setting we spend the most in, it’s max’s home in arcadia bay, it’s where rachel and chloe and nathan and kate and victoria were. a majority of our relationships and major players hail from blackwell and i think such a profound place in max’s adolescence no longer existing or being salvageable is important in many ways. i do not like that the comics show a picture of blackwell and it’s recognizable? and barely damaged? it feels like a cop out to me … just like how much of this plot really takes away from the totality of sacrificing arcadia bay. for example, the prescotts live. even though the storm came out of nowhere and there was barely any time to make it to a bunker. i suppose i can forgive sean’s and caroline’s lives, if it weren’t for the fact they’re rebuilding arcadia bay … i know it’s disrespectful on purpose, but the idea of any rebuilding ( again ) really takes away from the choice in my eyes. it makes it easier to swallow, destroying the town for the girl, because hey, the town can be rebuilt but chloe can’t! forget how warren can’t be rebuilt, or joyce, or how everything they remake will never be what it was, now devoid of the rich history behind it and the people who lived there for years. i also don’t see why sean would be interested in this? yes, he wanted to give the town a do-over, but given the death of his heir and the impractical debris of everything, would it not be easier to go somewhere else? start anew? there is also no town to control anymore either. almost everyone sead had under his thumb is dead. he’d have to build a town and put new people in it and restart from scratch without any promise of a prescott continuation once he’s gone … again, i just don’t like it. there’s stuff to be done with the prescotts after destroying the bay, but i just don’t know if this angle is it.

i’d be more interested learning more about about kristine prescott and how she’s holding up after everything than sean or caroline.

like, the prescotts seem like another scapegoat here in the sense that they are the villains again. for rebuilding the town. for dedicating it to nathan, whom they believed to die in the storm. there is nothing to be said about how max gave sean prescott exactly what he needed to turn the bay into his vision, nothing that compares the two … it is just so simple.

messages at 4:34 pm.

‘bathroom break?’ / ‘bathroom break.’

i think chloe and max should have a secret third love language which is commonly accompanying each other to the bathroom under lieu of dump taking but it’s actually just them talking privately. and also because chloe going to the bathroom alone makes max nervous due to trauma

‘why do we hold memorial events to remember awful things?’

‘so that we’re never allowed to forget.’

again, the comic does such heavy lifting to imply max’s choice was not a choice she willingly made, knowing the consequences of it. they have new characters complain about the one year arcadia bay storm anniversary and imply it’s to torment the survivors of it, when in fact it’s to honor the lives and town lost because of such tragic circumstances. it’s max and chloe who are rendered inconsolable due to guilt because not only are they survivors, but they’re the ones who let this happen to begin with. they should feel bad about it. it’s good that they do, and that these are feelings they can’t run away from and have to sit with. to just never think about arcadia bay would be cruel. idk. i just think this exchange here perfectly encapsulates a lot of my issues with the comics in general in terms of storytelling and themes … they do not want to approach heavy topics too deeply and they never want the reader to feel ‘bad’ for the choices they made to get this universe. i find it rather cowardly to suck all the nuance and moral grayness out of the final choices of the game, but perhaps that’s just me.

messages at 4:41 pm.

‘you’d think i’d never want to find solace in a bathroom again. why the hell do they still feel so safe?’ / ‘because i saved you in one?’

chloe has a complex about bathrooms too confirmed. i think she should believe this is true and forget the very important max elememt of it all, then go into a bathroom alone and have a breakdown in fear. and she also gets mad about this because what the hell, max, she wants to take dumps all by herself.

to preface : i do not mind chloe still hating nathan. she has every right to. but the fact she’s more mad about nathan’s ‘storm caused death’ story seems rather heartless because yeah, that’s a lie. what really happened to nathan was that he gave up and was murdered by that ‘piece of shit’ jefferson who then hid his body where no one could find it. it just seems so odd she’s mad about nathan’s dark room involvement being covered up, when their choice ensured that it would be … while also condemning nathan prescott to death. he is dead. he likely died scared. there is nothing more you could do to punish him so the insistence of people knowing about what he did is strange … nathan wasn’t even liked at blackwell anyway. so.

‘they’re all gone now. however they went, they’re gone. none of that matters anymore.’

max speaking the truth as always

messages at 4:51 pm.

max telling chloe how much she missed her while away, how happy she was to come back and see her is very, very adorable. but max devaluing her genuine giddiness to go to blackwell ( ‘you’re why i’m so happy in that photo’ ) once again ties back into everything i keep saying lol.

i do agree with chloe’s sentiment that everyone they lost deserves to be remembered outside of their choice, and the storm related tragedy they birthed. obviously, so much horror happened leading up to it … the tornado was almost a accumulation of everything else, of all the pain and hurt and suffering. just because it was the final nail in many people’s coffins, it wasn’t all there was and that is important to remember. max and chloe have many issues to work through on their own time without the storm : max’s dark room trauma, chloe’s multiple deaths, rachel’s death, kate’s attempted or successful suicide, etc. i think the inherent extreme trauma of the storm can coexist with their other traumas, and that every aspect of those wounds deserves individual exploration.

chloe’s concern and anger over max possibly using her powers is very valid ... and then her saying, ‘you were walking away,’ is nice foreshadowing to the rest of the comic. how max is the one running away. how she’s the one really unable to handle everything, not chloe. which does align vaguely with my views on pricefield post save bae.

on that note, max’s total meltdown when chloe isn’t in her line of sight for a second / chloe didn’t let her know where she was going deserves a special callout. chloe is all she has. chloe is her number one priority. chloe is what she chose, what she let everything else die for … it always ties back to max’s codependency i think. and there is a trauma response inherent in it too, this fear that chloe could crawl away just to go die somewhere max can’t save her. idk! there’s a lot there.