wanhohenheim

[wanhohenheim]

Chloe’s fatal flaw and greatest strength is that she loves too much too quickly and too passionately. The reason PriceField is so sacred is because in Max she finds someone who feels the same way.

Having a breakup occur is admitting you don’t understand this and that you fundamentally don’t understand the characters.

Some relationships break.

PriceField doesn’t.

[wanhohenheim]

Okay. I can't just let this rest...

So. We have a clip from Max's journal that is out now that shows lackluster art, dialogue from Max and Chloe, and is basically Chloe teasing Max that they should have a threesome with some rando guy. And on the surface it's idiotic and stupid (and part of Deck Nine's efforts to demonize Chloe and break up Pricefield so people will ship Max with Safi). But if you know anything about LiS...

Let's get this straight. (Because neither Max nor Chloe are straight.) Chloe Price, the young woman who freaked out because her mom started flirting with an in-your-face ex-military type within two months of her father's death and married said asshole probably within a year of William's death (and definitely in canon married Joyce before Chloe's 16th birthday), who threw a huge fit upon hearing her not-quite-girlfriend Rachel Amber was sleeping with their drug dealer (and not just a one-and-done deal), and who Rachel Amber herself describes in a note to Chloe in giving the "stink-eye" when Rachel flirted with guys, this Chloe Price... suggested having a threesome with some random guy.

Chloe Price is not fucking Rachel Amber. She has abandonment issues, she is possessive as fuck, and she is fucking loyal. Even after learning about Rachel cheating on her, Chloe still wanted to find Rachel rather than just write her off. This girl can give dogs lessons in loyalty to those she loves.

I said this in previous posts. It is clear that Deck Nine is doing to Chloe in the Bae setting what they did to Max in BtS by making her into someone she is not and setting up a reason to hate Chloe so they can push their new ship. It is shoddy and sophomoric writing that fails to capture the character as she was previously established. It is the worse aspects of fanfic writing. And in fact, the majority of fanfic writers are better writers than these hacks.

[wanhohenheim]

Chloe’s development in the Life Is Strange nothing short of incredibly and feels really rewarding as someone who loves the first game.

She goes from being brash and immature and treating Max’s powers as a toy to becoming the main voice of reason in their relationship to the point that she actively discourages Max from using her powers out of her concern for her well-being. I understand that not everyone will read or even be aware of the comics but they address most of the common criticisms towards Chloe’s character and build upon where she was in her development during the Bae ending.

[wanhohenheim]

(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"

[wanhohenheim]

All the people out here acting like it makes sense that Max and Chloe would break up truly have no clue about characters, and surely Deck Nine doesn't either. The most apt comparison to be made here would be something along the lines of this in theory:

The X-Files returns for another season, exciting fans. But we find out only David Duchovny will be returning. People are apprehensive because, at its core, The X-Files is about both Mulder AND Scully. When you lose one of them, it feels incomplete regardless of whether you view their relationship as romantic or platonic. Then the new season releases and we sit wondering how they will explain Scully's absence from the show. And instead of offering up some good reason, like her simply being away for some work related thing or weave it into the narrative... Uh. Mulder and Scully had an argument off screen, they now hate each other so much that they never speak, and after years of the core of the show being about these two idiots solving weird mysteries, it's done and these two beloved characters known for being a duo canonically hate one another for no reason. The show never offers any resolution to this plotline. We later find out the new writers, who have no connection to the original creators or writers, hated Scully's character and purposefully wrote her out in the most OOC moment ever.

So there you go. If you were a long time fan of the X-Files you would be pissed off that this beloved duo died for no reason except spite. Well, that is what Pricefield is. It is intrinsically linked to Life is Strange and the mere idea that "Chloe and Max WOULD drift apart" is a straw man argument to deflect criticism of what ultimately is shitty writing. If this were any straight beloved duo, there would be people angry about it.

Honestly, just keeping the bay ending for this game would have been better than this. At least we could all just pretend that the comics were the bae ending post-series and DE was post-bay.

[wanhohenheim]

I bet you do.

All the inconsistencies with the writing

The character assassination

Being too cowardly to say Max is a lesbian despite "writing her as one" (tbf this could be a Squeenix issue)

This tweet just reads as patronizing a side of the fanbase that is reasonably upset with their favorite characters getting assassinated

I'm aware the full game isn't out yet, so who knows maybe the game is good, but no matter how good it is

It can't avoid the stain it has on it

Especially with some.of the potential leaks I've seen

Anyway fuck decknine

Buy Dontnods new game 🙏

[wanhohenheim]

Last thing we'll say about this whole Pricefield thing.

People really are taking for granted how important Pricefield and Life is Strange were back in 2015 for queer representation in video games. Like now there are tons of games that feature queer protagonists, but back then? No. At that point the gayest game that had public attention was Gone Home, in which the story is about a lesbian but you do not play AS her. And even then it was considered groundbreaking.

Life is Strange and Pricefield, whether you like it or not, are intrinsically linked. Literally, the entire game is hinged on the player's involvement with the relationship between Chloe and Max. That is the emotional heart of the game.

Also Max and Chloe are not people. They are characters. Two characters on which a story is told to players about love and regret. When people talk about how it's "realistic" that the two broke up, no one is talking about how this is a fucking game that includes:

Time traveling lesbians

A magic storm that destroys a town because of said time travel

A child with telekinesis and his brother fleeing from the federal authorities

Child manages to pull down a part of the border wall

Woman has empathy powers she can use to feel or take other people's emotions

A crying fifteen year old girl causes one of the most destructive forest fires in history

Woman can travel between dimensions to solve a murder and also see through to the other dimension and hear it without being there

And obviously LiS is rooted in some sort of reality, but that is not the point. The point is, this is a fucking video game with a narrative. Max and Chloe only don't work as a couple if a bunch of angry scum fuckery writers who don't like them are the ones writing it. Look at the original team on Life is Strange, Michel specifically. They love Pricefield. They knew the importance of that pairing and that these two had a bond forged in fire that wouldn't break because...

*Looks at notes* Chloe is a free spirit and didn't want Max anymore because Max carried some trauma about the town and also she was broken and didn't want to move in together and settle down.

The comics are proof enough you can do a story where the town's destruction weighs on Max, while simultaneously keeping that core relationship intact. And no, the comics are not perfect by any means, but JFC in comparison they are a masterpiece in terms of how it handles Max and Chloe. Both characters are in-character and they talk things through instead of Chloe offering a shitty Dear John letter and breaking up via that.

Chloe isn't like that. Because that's not what her character is or was. It was a purposefully OOC writing decision by Deck Nine production staff who did not like Chloe Price and think Amanda, a side character, is perfect for Max.

[wanhohenheim]

"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.)

[wanhohenheim]

What they did to Pricefield is inexcusable, but what they did to their friendship is even more inexcusable and here's why

Okay, I can understand if Max and Chloe's romance didn't work out. It happens even to best friends. But...

...but D9 did something much worse. They ruined their friendship. A friendship that had been the foundation of their relationship since they were kids.

The thing that made them love each other.

The thing that made them some of the most important people in each other's lives.

The friendship that made them so quickly renew their relationship in LIS 1.

They killed even that. It was when they were friends in the first place that Chloe wanted to be with Max.

It was when they were friends that Chloe missed the hell out of Max and was very upset that she broke contact with her.

It was when they were friends that Chloe took her back and forgave her.

Now there isn't even that, they have turned Chloe who never wanted to leave Max AS A FRIEND, into someone who destroyed what had bonded them since childhood.

And that note to Max at the end-- “Fuck you, Chloe, i want to be on my own too.” That's from the friendship route

Max would never say that. She didn't even say it when Chloe was mad at her in the first game.

The fact that they ruined even their friendship convinces me that D9 and SE really hate Chloe and that relationship. P.S And also, “You never went to the cities Rachel wanted to go.” Seriously? Max and Chloe went to New York in LIS2. In BTS, we also find out that Rachel wanted to go to New York. D9 not only disrespect canon from Dontnod, but they forget their own canon too. Yet another reason to consider this game non-canonical

[wanhohenheim]

Rangi is Kyoshi’s greatest motivation   

[wanhohenheim]

Their hair poofs are touching 😳

[wanhohenheim]

The Rise of Rangi, Chapter 18

Rangi startled awake from her head slamming against the ground. She groaned as she looked around, only vaguely ready to fend off whatever woke Kyoshi. With much reluctance, she moved the leg she had thrown over Kyoshi’s body as she looked up to see Kirima squated next to them. She squeezed the back of her neck as she yawned.

“Must have been nice,” Kirima said, smiling widely as she barely contained her amusement. “Sleeping under the stars. Just two friends. Having a close, private moment of friendship.”

Keep Reading

[wanhohenheim]

Kyoshi : Be a lesbian was never an option

Rangi : Be bisexual was never an option

Kyoshi and Rangi: But we are still together!

[wanhohenheim]

Now Rangi can really give Kyoshi everything she wanted

“I wish I could give you your due,” Rangi muttered after some time had passed. “The wisest teachers. Armies to defend you. A palace to live in.” - Rangi, The Rise of Kyoshi, chapter 18.

"The wisest teachers" - herself, her mother, and other members of her clan

"Armies to defend you " - her clan as bodyguards /soldiers.

"A palace to live in " - her own island, where she wanted to take Kyoshi during the events of the second book.

[wanhohenheim]

Can we appreciate the author's decisions regarding Rangi's place in Kyoshi's life?

Instead of making their relationship just a passionate but short love, he makes their relationship strong, and long-term love (Their feelings for each other did not go away even after almost 2 years of separation)

Instead of making Rangi just Kyoshi's first girlfriend, he makes her the most important part of Kyoshi's life, her center, the girl who makes her whole and human

Instead of taking Rangi out of Kyoshi's life (by breaking off their relationship or killing Rangi), in order to correspond to the fact that we did not see her in another part of Kyoshi's life, in his book Rangi stay with Kyoshi and stays with her in the future, and even directly influences the development of Kyoshi Warriors fighting style.

It was nice to see a good, beautiful, strong relationship that was not destroyed to match what was previously show

[wanhohenheim]

F.C.Yee confirms that the fighting style of the Kyoshi Warriors is directly related to Rangi's fighting style.

"...Those events take place once she’s an adult, so the series, as YA books, weren’t going to cover them. What I tried to do was show how she became the kind of adult who would take certain actions in the future, or imply connections between the two time periods. For example, Rangi fights her much bigger lei tai opponent by using his own strength against him. I wanted to set up the image of adult Kyoshi looking at her first Warrior students and thinking, “I can’t teach them to use overwhelming force as I do. Who do I know uses superior technique?” Hopefully, it then becomes plausible that at some point Rangi teaches Kyoshi to fight without being a total bulldozer... " This quote is from an interview published on July 21st.  So, yes, the legacy of these two girls lives on and thrives even centuries after their death.!

[wanhohenheim]

Can we appreciate these foreshadowings?

There are two moments in the book that foreshadow what Kyoshi will do for Rangi in the future :  1) Сhapter three, "Invintation - "She’d made a vow. No matter how limited her knowledge was, or how flawed her technique, she would never again watch someone she cared about slip away in front of her while she did nothing. - And yes, her healing skills really helped save the love of her life from dying, and this time she was not helpless as when she saw how Kelsang and Lek dying.

2) Chapter seven, "Headmistress" - "I know exactly what to do with anyone who would hurt your daughter" - She didn't lie, when Yun hurt Rangi, she decided she would definitely kill him. And she did.

I can't imagine how much guilt she would feel if she could not save her. How would she then look Hei Ran in the eyes when she did not keep the promise to protect her daughter? What would she tell her? How would she look at herself in the mirror, being disgusted with herself? And this is in addition to the fact that she would have lose herself, of course.