Bae Over Bay

The spoiler tags I'll be using are:

Double Exposure Spoilers

Life Is Strange Spoilers

LIS Spoilers

I feel you anon! I actually struggle to romance Steph because I'm the opposite, I want my Alex to stay in Haven, and I just feel like romancing Steph is holding her back.

And narratively I KNOW the point of the romances is that Alex becomes Steph's adventure, while Alex becomes Ryan's home. So the game is saying that Steph can be happy in Haven, and Ryan can be happy not in Haven.

But personally, I just struggle with it because I think I'm seeing it too realistically instead of from a video game perspective where these are characters instead of people. Because the game says "Steph will be happy wherever Alex is," but I as a person who knows how other people usually work think to myself "Giving up your dreams for another person is a lot."

And to be fair, sometimes dreams do change! Sometimes you think you want something, then something happens and things change, but you're happy with how they changed! That does happen, but also with Steph and Ryan's characters are so wrapped up around travel for Steph and Haven for a Ryan, a part of me is like: How long until a on the road Ryan starts wanting to settle down, and starts suggesting that maybe they could find a permanent home somewhere? How long until a stay in Haven Steph starts wanting way more than a small town can give her, and starts getting an urge to leave? In these two routes, is it inevitable that Ryan and Steph will be less happy than if they just stayed the path of what they wanted originally?

And like I said, maybe I'm just being to cynically realistic about a video game. But I JUST replayed Steph's side story, and when she was struggling during pride month because of the lack of community in Haven, I did think to myself "I'm glad I picked Ryan to stay in Haven with, because I don't know if Alex will give Steph that community feeling forever. Steph seems to want a large community, and parades, and plenty of queer connections, and that's a TOTALLY valid thing to want, but I don't know if she's ever going to get that full experience in Haven, even with Alex with her. Small mostly straight towns are still small and mostly straight even if you have a girlfriend.

Like. In the game Steph is 100% the more narratively compelling option considering since she has a whole side story about her, is a returning character, loves music the same way Alex does, and only completes her character arc if Alex romances her.

But the version of Alex and Ryan that exists in my head where the cutting rope moment and Jed being Ryan's Father matters more than it does in canon is SO good and compelling. Especially when I think of a Ryan who leaves Haven to be with Alex.

This is very cute and I love it. I love ally Kate Marsh headcanons so much, so thank you for scratching that itch!

Arcadia Bay could have pride though! I live in a small town, and we don't have like a big pride parade, but a few of the local LGBT members went out and had a small party with rainbow streamers, rainbow flags, and meet together to get lunch. I didn't go because I was busy when it was happening, but it was open invitation!

The phrasing of this is so good.

Ryan leaves Haven to be with Alex, or they stay together in Haven Springs.

Step stays in Haven to be with Alex, or they leave Haven together.

The game explicitly spells it out that if Ryan leaves it's so he can be with Alex, while if Step stays it's also so she can with Alex.

But I don't think Gabe would ever be able forgive Jed what he did to Alex.

I love that the game lets Alex wear her rainbow outfit in the end screen, even when she romances Ryan.

I don't think Step is being a super good girlfriend/friend in the True Colors finale where Alex stumbles in to confront Jed.

Instead I think she's the only one who has a normal human reaction to someone stumbling into a room 3/4's dead, which makes her a stand out, but honestly she shouldn't be a stand out because it's really bizarre that she's the only one able to stay consistently concerned about Alex's wellbeing.

Everyone else is more into getting to the bottom of things and having the vote. That makes Step going "Hey. Uh. Maybe we should bring the severely bleeding women to the hospital?" look like something extraordinary when that should a basic sense.

And I also think this why Ryan gets flack for this scene. Because I do think him possibly not siding with Alex makes sense. That's his Dad, and to Steph, Jed is just some guy. They don't have the same horse in the race so I'm not going to blame Ryan for possibly having more faith in his Father. However, he is also a victim of "The writing trying to a force a confrontation scene that doesn't work perfectly in context," so the guy who is nonstop worried about Alex all game, just suddenly.... acts like he doesn't care if she gets medical care or not???? Which I think is poor writing even though I can see him siding with Jed and that's the actual thing I have the issue with.

The one reason I am glad Double Exposure was made:

That's why I love the game so much!

Imagine being 13. You live in small, leaning more conversative, town. You do not know that women can date women yet because that has never been presented to you as an option and you do not know any out and loud queer people.

Despite this, you're 13. You think boys are super gross, and are actually kind of irritated that your friends are getting into boys, but you're struggling to place what these feelings are or why they exist.

Then you play this cool little game called LIS, and out of nowhere an option to kiss Chloe pops up, and you witness the first queer kiss in media that you remember. It's the first time you ever think to yourself..."Was that an option this whole time, and why am I intrigued by the option?"

You become a lesbian.

It probably would have happened anyways but LIS did show you it was possible and give you really specific rep that you still don't see a ton of, queer people in a small town who want to escape yet still care about the town because it's your home and you know all the people and places that DON'T suck because you've always been seeking out welcoming spaces, even before you really knew why.

Probably Arcadia Bay! I'd love the lighthouse and the diner, and I live in a small town already so I've already gotten the Velvet Cove experience.

Because on the surface Charlette is fine. She's kind to Alex, happily plays along in the LARP with Etan, and is clearly mourning Gabe and struggling with his death. On the surface she's putting all the "right" emotions and trying to her best to heal.

But because Alex has powers that are....honestly, very invasive, she's able to see all the feelings Charlotte's trying to emotionally regulate and keep private. She see's all her anger and how her brain is trying to assign guilt to anyone to make what happened make sense.

And yes, Charlotte's feelings aren't very nice, but they're also just feelings. Other than the sculpting scene she isn't actually lashing out at people, the worse she does is tell Mac and Ryan to stop fighting at Gabe's wake, which is 100% fair on her part. It's totally reasonable that she wants to remember her boyfriend in peace without two grown adults screaming in each others faces.

Other than that though, her feelings are kept private before Alex pushes her on them. That's why I don't like people demonizing her for her anger.

At the end of the day, she's not storming around as a ball of rage. She's just working through her complicated grief and trying to find something to blame, which is psychology very common! She's not actually doing anything wrong. Alex just has the powers to dig through the worst of her emotions, and does so, despite the fact that objectively you could make the argument that Alex's powers can be invasive, in the same way Max's power can be invasive depending on how she uses it.

Imagine the most hateful thought you've ever had about someone you genuinely love. Maybe that thought was valid, maybe it wasn't and you were just angry, maybe it was true to a degree but your anger intensified it. Now imagine someone reading that emotion without your consent and being like "Wow! That was an AWFUL thing for you to feel. You should feel bad, even though you probably already to a degree." That's basically what the fandom is doing to Charlotte when they give her grief for the worst things she feels. Everyone is prone to bad, angry thoughts here and there. And I would imagine in a situation like a freak accident those thoughts could be easy to feel since it's hard to know where to put all your feelings since there's not an easy person or event or illness to blame.

I know the "good" route is keeping it a secret from Riley, but that just makes me feel bad.

It would be one thing if Eleanor was super controlling and trying to force Riley to stop her future to assist her, but that's just not at all what's happening.

Riley's an adult, and her Mother figure who spent her whole life caring for her has Alzheimer's and will likely only just get worse with time. Once she knows this she makes the choice to drop college and stay with Eleanor instead, which yes is a massive loss of education, but I do 100% understand why she'd make that choice and I honestly don't think it's a terrible one given the circumstances. Especially since we learn in Episode 1 Riley's kind of 50/50 about leaving town in the first place.

I do get Eleanor wanting to brave and not disrupt Riley's future with her own issues, but I also stand by the idea that if the truth is going majorly change someone's opinion on something, then they should get to learn that truth so they can make a decision knowing the complete context, and if Riley knows the complete context, she stays behind.

And I think that's her choice to make. It's not like she can't make something of herself in Haven. She has a job, and friends, and a support system. I don't think Riley's the "She HAS to go to college or she's never going to anything with her life," type. I think she would be okay in town, and just because she's not going now doesn't mean she couldn't go to college later down the line, or even do an online college!

And I think it's kind of weird that in a game about confronting your emotions, the correct choice is to let Eleanor hide behind her strong facade when she's really at a point of needing help, and letting Riley leave blissfully unaware that Eleanor's mind is failing her

What makes him angry:

What makes him scared:

What makes him sad:

I think it's a choice both he and Alex will replay in their head's for the rest of their lives, but realistically, I think that was the only "good" option in a really bad situation.

Because realistically if Ryan didn't cut the rope, Alex either would have been pulled over the cliff because of Gabe's weight, been crushed by falling rock, or Alex AND Ryan would have been crushed trying to save Gabe, and Ethan would be left on the mountain alone. Neither one of them had enough time to pull Gabe to safety and take cover, so there was just no good options.

I think Gabe was unsavable the second he went over the ledge, and all Ryan could realistically do was save Alex.

Because Ryan is holding so much guilt in Episode 2 about cutting the rope that it's heavily implied it's making him feel suicidal, and Jed COULD take some of that blame from him by admitting that he's the one who actually caused the accident, so Ryan would have somewhere to point his feelings other than at himself, but even his sons emotions weren't more important than protecting his ego.