#lis discourse

It worked reasonably well in the second game and Wavelengths because Max and Chloe were not directly involved in the story, so that final choice was the only thing they needed to account for.

It doesn't quite work as neatly when you bring Max back and make her the main character again. If you're treating both endings as canon, then you need to explain what happened to Chloe in the event that players chose to save her over Arcadia Bay.

And quite understandably, having them split up during the timeskip has not gone over well with a good chunk of the fanbase. Whether it makes sense for them to drift apart or not isn't relevant, breaking up a couple offscreen is inevitably going to make fans of that couple feel shitty.

No matter what, it's impossible to have Double Exposure respect both endings equally, because having Chloe and Max break up offscreen inherently disrespects everything they had to go through to be together in the first place.

This may or may not end up being an unpopular take, but in my opinion, Double Exposure should have only taken place in the Sacrifice Chloe timeline. It makes sense for the Max of that timeline to end up where she does in DE, not so much for the Max of the Sacrifice Arcadia Bay timeline.

I’ve realized something about myself lately: I keep using Life is Strange as a lens to talk about real life. Not because I’m obsessed with the game (though I am), but because narrative games have a way of accidentally revealing the cultural waters we’re all swimming in. And this morning, something clicked for me, something I hadn’t consciously noticed before.

The character models in Life is Strange reflect the body image trends of the era they were created in.

Yes. Body trends. Because beauty standards aren’t timeless truths; they’re trends that shift every decade, dictated by industries that profit from our insecurities. And when Life is Strange was being developed, the dominant trend for girls and women was still thinness, the lingering shadow of the early 2000s.

I’m not even accounting for the exact release date. I’m talking about the cultural climate that shaped the design choices. Moving into the mid‑2010s, society was just beginning to accept more diverse body shapes for women. Men weren’t getting that same treatment, and honestly, I’m focusing on girls because the fashion, beauty, and wellness industries have always targeted and exploited girls more aggressively.

If you need proof, look at the cultural artifacts of the time:

America’s Next Top Model debuted in 2003, teaching girls that thinness was the price of worth.

The Biggest Loser turned weight loss into a televised spectacle, harming contestants for entertainment. Some nearly died. And the fitness/wellness industry hasn’t magically healed since then; it’s still toxic at its core.

Now, with social media, it’s even more dangerous.

Body‑based content performs well.

Fitness and wellness content performs even better.

And anything tied to money or “self‑improvement” performs best of all.

So people create content not to help, but to gain influence, because influence equals income, and income equals autonomy. Some creators speak with authority, eloquence, and confidence, but they’re pushing misinformation because it’s profitable. They’re building cult‑like followings under the guise of “helping people,” when really, they’re chasing power.

Not everyone is like that. I learned math on the YouTube platform and tested out of multiple classes because of it. But the creators who genuinely help rarely have a million followers or high‑retention editing. They’re not optimizing their humanity for the algorithm.

And this is why trends are dangerous:

They’re not organic.

They’re engineered.

How Life Is Strange Reflects These Trends

Look at the girls in the first Life is Strange:

Max, Chloe, Victoria, Rachel, Brooke — all thin.

All designed within the same narrow body ideal.

Alyssa is the only girl with a larger body mass, and she’s the one constantly bullied. Max spends half the game rewinding time to save her from humiliation or harm. Daniel, one of the few boys who doesn’t fit the “ideal,” is physically assaulted by football players in the hallway. Let’s call it what it is: assault. With video evidence, those boys would face charges.

But schools rarely protect kids. They protect reputations. They protect parents with influence. And parents who encourage their sons to “whoop someone’s ass” rarely consider the reality: if that same son accidentally kills someone, that’s manslaughter. Violence has consequences. Always.

The body designs in LIS1 weren’t neutral. They were a reflection of the beauty standards of the time: thinness as the default and as the ideal.

But look at the newer games:

True Colors. Double Exposure. Reunion.  

The characters have actual bodily distinctions. They look healthier, more realistic, more human. The shift is intentional. It mirrors the cultural shift toward body diversity, a shift that took far too long.

I’ve met so many adult women who used to look like Max or Chloe. Thin because of stress, pressure, or survival. And as their lives improved, as they found stability, love, better jobs, more meaningful days, they naturally got thicker. They look healthier. They look happier. Because they are.

Beauty Is Subjective — And Always Has Been

People act like there’s one universal ideal, but that’s projection. Attraction is personal. Some people love tall women, thick women, muscular women, feminine women, masc women. Some people fall for personality first. Some fall for how someone carries themselves.

I’ve always been drawn to thicker women, but I’ve also been fascinated by tall women and muscular women. Ultimately, I’m someone who falls for personality and conversation. And compatibility matters. Gym‑focused women spend hours at the gym, and that’s not my lifestyle. I like walking and mobility exercises that are 30‑minute sessions at home, and the rest of the day, I try to remain active in different ways. My life is built around solitude, creativity, and work that requires long stretches of being alone.

Streaming, gaming, and writing are solo pursuits. Even when people are in the room with me, I’m still in my own world. I’ve had friends watch me play horror games, screaming and clinging to me during Resident Evil 7. It’s fun, but it’s still my space.

The Real Point: Mental Sovereignty

I know I’ve wandered across topics, but here’s the truth I keep circling:

There is more to life than body image, beauty standards, fashion trends, and insecurity.

At some point, none of it matters.

The tighter you cling to society’s script, the more limited your life becomes.

And “living life” is subjective, too. Everyone wants something different.

But trends are man‑made.

Trends are tools of control.

Trends are designed to make you feel bad about yourself so someone else can profit.

When you realize that, you gain something priceless:

mental sovereignty.

And some people don’t want you to have that.

Because the moment you do, you’re no longer controllable.

not to start this tired discourse again but max is a lesbian and all her “”””attraction”””” to men is literally just “warren’s nice and sweet maybe i should kiss him” and “this one (1) dude in skater fashion is kinda cute” which is like, pretty fucking weak compared to how she calls victoria gorgeous, says she’d have liked rachel to fall in love with her, and literally her entire relationship with chloe.

plus bts just rendered the warren argument null and void since chloe/eliot is clearly meant to be a max/warren parallel and since eliot is Compulsory Heterosexuality In Human Form it can also be extrapolated that while max genuinely likes and values warren as a friend all her supposed attraction to him is nothing more than comphet and performative expectations of how a relationship between a teenage girl and boy should be.

There is only one reasonable response to your decision to put early access to the first two episodes of a story-driven narrative adventure game behind the most expensive purchase tier.

You're essentially telling everyone that if they don't want to have a sizeable chunk of the story spoiled for them 2 weeks in advance, they need to pay more for a game that's already being released at full price to begin with.

Y'know, as if the economy hasn't been stuck in a downward spiral for the past few years.

The Oxford dictionary defines genocide as "the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group"

For starters, Max didn't deliberately kill anyone. She can potentially choose not to save Arcadia Bay from the storm, but she never intended for all those people to die.

And her aim was to save Chloe, not to kill the citizens of Arcadia Bay. The latter was an unfortunate consequence of the former, the result of Max being forced into a cruel, impossible choice.

[P2] we’ve all done some not so great things we aren’t proud of, were not perfect, only human. All you talk about are Warren’s problems while ignoring Chloe’s. Chloe is just as problematic as Warren but for different reasons. Chloe has made Max uncomterable with the guns and the weed. Chloe has manipulated Max in so many ways. Chloe is accepted by the fandom even after all the terrible things she’s done, why not Warren too? Max has called Warren her “best friend” in her journal more than once.

[P3] Warren and Max had been friends ever since she got to Blackwell in August. That’s over 2 months! Warren and Max are best friends you can’t deny that. Any ways that’s not the point. Best friends or not based on the events of the game I think Max and Warren would make a decent couple. Pricefield and grahamfield are both built on trust, mutual respect, and love. Warren’s sexuality does not erase that. It is stupid to hate grahamfield just because it is a relationship between a girl and boy.

[P4] And I’m not sure if grahamfield would be a heterosexual relationship considering Max is bisexual. But just because a relationship is between a boy and a girl does not make it a bad relationship. I personally I don’t believe in “fan service”. The term “fan service” needs to be erased from existence. It’s the worst excuse! Literally any ship could be argued as “fan service”. You say you aren’t disrespecting anyone, but I felt disrespected by majority of your posts about grahamfield and its

[P5] And disrespecting Warren’s character isn’t right either. Also, the first thing you said to me in your reply was disrespectful and immature.

ok, so this is the last thing i’m going to say on the matter. for a while at least, because my seething hate for grahamfield is never ending. and the fact that this whole thing got you worked up enough to send me a 5 part message, the fact that you’re taking this so seriously amazes me. anyway, on to The Discourse™

i’m not even sure where i want to begin. i’m sorry that my posts disgust you. grahamfield disgusts me. because it’s a ship shoving heteronormativity down our throats. (i’ll explain why this is in a later paragraph)

as for warren being interchangeable w/women: if max turns him down, he immediately asks brooke out instead, who we know was very into warren. (for what reason, i’ll never be able to understand.) let me explain to you how this is damaging: it shows that he had her as his “backup plan,” that brooke didn’t mean anything to him as a person unless max declined. (we never see any interaction between the two on-screen, though it seemed that he knew brooke liked him and ignored all of her advances beforehand.) and yes, most teenage boys do shit like this. does it make it ok? no. not at all. it is not an excuse to act like a dick, those actions of his enforce toxic masculinity and make it look like it’s ok to be an asshat because ‘he’s a teenage boy.’

i don’t believe warren is evil. i don’t believe he’s malicious. i believe that he’s a teenage boy doing DUMB THINGS. all i’m doing is not brushing it off, i’m not letting that be an excuse. you’re right, the waiting outside of her dorms/looking in the window WAS a bit much. it WAS wrong. he shouldn’t’ve done it. i think we all know that. i don’t think it makes him evil. i think it means he’s practicing dangerous behavior. i think it means he needs to back off. which he ***eventually*** did. after numerous attempts at turning him down.

and chloe. throughout dialogue/objects in game, we’ve been able to discern that chloe and max have known each other for most of their lives, save for the five years that max was in seattle. chloe does dumb shit. max does dumb shit. every single character in this game does dumb shit. i’m not excusing her actions. chloe’s not perfect. the gun was dangerous. the weed was dangerous. (though considerably LESS so.) but think, just for a second, as to why she needs a gun: it’s to PROTECT herself. she doesn’t feel safe around men unless she has a gun on her. she hid a gun under her own bed in her own house with her own dangerous, physically, verbally, emotionally abusive step-father in. THINK. with frank she had a gun. at the party, looking for nathan, she had a gun. she doesn’t feel safe. not an excuse, but a reason. and the weed- max doesn’t really seem to have a problem with it?? she only did when she got in trouble for it. max can either take the blame for it or not, it’s the player’s choice.

manipulative chloe. god, here we go. while i love max, max is the most manipulative character in the game. she can fuck shit up, rewind time, and act like it never happened. she can ‘predict the future,’ know what to do/who and what to avoid, blablabla. but think a little about chloe’s past. her father died. her best friend abandoned her (what i and many others assume was) days later. her mother begins dating a gigantic suck-ass and remarries rather quickly. joyce said “she hasn’t had a steady best friend since you or rachel,” and here’s the thing with that: i’m pretty sure blackwell was a school for just seniors?? i’m honestly not sure bc that was never cleared up. but if it is, at that time, chloe was, what, 17? i’m guessing that was when she met rachel. her dad died at 14. think of what three years of radio silence, betrayal from her own mother, abuse from her step-father, drug and alcohol use, could’ve done to her. all of this took place in her formative teenage years. it’s gonna fuck her up pretty bad. it’s evident that she developed serious trust/insecurity issues. she shows symptoms of bipolar disorder. she didn’t have a solid friend/friend group/anyone she could rely on during those 5 years. she’s going to be angry, she’s going to be upset, she’s going to be impulsive and irrational. wouldn’t you? again, these things are not excuses for her behavior, but reasons.

max isn’t afraid to communicate with chloe when things make her nervous/scared/angry etc., and chloe always eventually apologizes. with warren, he makes her uncomfortable and she just kinda backs down, doesn’t feel brave enough to explain to him how she feels because he KEEPS ON PUSHING HER.

also. max never, not once called warren her best friend. i just looked through all of her journal entries, and all of the entries containing the words ‘best friend’ were in reference to chloe. check it out here if you’d like. as for the time frame that she’s known warren, yeah, i may have gotten that wrong. i was referencing what chloe said in the truck in episode 1: “you’ve been at blackwell for almost a month without letting me know. ‘nuff said.” none of us can be 100% sure as to how long she’s actually been friends w/him tho.

“Pricefield and grahamfield are both built on trust, mutual respect, and love.” if that’s the case, i’d love to see some proof, since i’m dishing out all of mine. pricefield sure is built on those things, yeah! that’s for damn sure. but i’m not sure what game you played, since i don’t see any trust, mutual respect, or love between grahamfield. even after warren beat up nathan, max didn’t trust him to tagalong with them ‘for protection.’ i’m sure she’d trust him with little things, like “hey, bring back those notes i gave you for english class” or “hey, don’t tell this certain person this certain thing.” but the mutual respect aspect is a bit shaky- depends on what your definition of respect is. i’m sure he respects her as a human being, but he has little to no respect for her emotional/personal boundaries or space, not at first. and love? love. do i even NEED to get into that one?

i don’t hate grahamfield because it’s a “relationship” between a girl and a boy. i hate it because it’s poorly written, mega fucking forced, and yes, fan service. warren would’ve been an entirely disposable character, if it weren’t for him taking that picture at the party- which could’ve been anyone. but no, the man has to save the day. we have to have a reason to NEED warren because let’s face it, he would be completely useless without that photo.

lots of people headcanon max as bisexual, i, however, do not. but i’m not gonna argue w/you on that bc that’s your thing and this headcanon is valid. i understand. you do you, anon. in the context that max was bi, i’m not saying that it’d a heterosexual relationship, because it wouldn’t be. i’m not trying to invalidate that. what i’m saying is, it was the dev’s choice to make a girl/boy relationship that could’ve been used (and HAS been used) to label max as het, and throw away the chemistry between max and chloe to pull a “ha ha they’re just gal pals.”