ଓ༉‧.⭒ֶָ֢⋆.
(this action will have consequences . . .)
ribs by lorde // adampvrrish on tumblr // ocean vuong // notes on grief by chimamanda ngozi adichie // finelythreadedsky on tumblr // giovanni's room by james baldwin // ryebreadgf on tumblr
━━━ final considerations ━━━
I'm well aware I promised you (and myself) the next books I'd write wouldn't be borderline heartbreaking/in the sad girl fiction vein I've been stuck in ever since I started working on Gaslighter (for context, I had just started working on my masters' thesis at the time. Time flies. Ha. Time pun in the time travel novella), but this idea has always been in the back of my mind, and ONC felt like the perfect opportunity to let it out.
It's also been almost a year since I got my Life is Strange tattoo (I have the rewind spiral tattooed on my wrist, if you must know), and I love it like it's the first day. Life is Strange is something that is incredibly personal, incredibly important to me, even though I've only played through the OG and Before The Storm (Rachel Amber bb girl ilysm), and I sincerely hope I've done it justice with this little novella. I didn't want to take too much from the original material, otherwise I'd just be writing fanfiction, and, modesty aside, I think the work speaks for itself and is strong enough to stand on its own while having a few references sprinkled here and there if you know where to look. I won't spoil my final choice for either of those games, don't worry.
Chloe Price is a character that has grown on me throughout the years. Before the Storm was vital to flesh out her character a bit better (and also Rachel's, because in the OG you're told all about her and how you need to care about her because Chloe does, and you care about Chloe because you see her through Max's eyes, but you never get to actually form your own opinion on her). It helped humanize her a bit, as I can name a lot of people who complained about her being whiny and annoying in the OG only to play BTS afterward and have a change of heart because her actions and behaviors are contextualized.
Chloe Price is a grieving teenage girl. She's grieving her father, then grieves Rachel, then grieves the life she won't get to live even though Max does everything she can to give her opportunity after opportunity with her time rewinding powers. It culminates in the final decision of the game, where you have to weigh your options and choose which consequences of your actions you want to face.
With Iris, the grief was mostly focused on her relationship with Lyra and how she had lost her long before she died. There's a reason why I never went into much detail about why they stopped being friends and what happened exactly; it wasn't one isolated incident, one final conversation. It was drop after drop until the bucket overflowed, crack after crack until the mirror shattered, and there's only so much a girl can hold inside of her before she, too, explodes.
I've mentioned this before, but Lyra was never meant to be unlikable. I know she comes across that way, which is the first time this has happened to me—my characters taking my book out of my hands and making it their story to tell instead. I had to drive the point home about fate versus free will and how predetermined your future actually is, how much your choices affect the outcomes of your actions, and how these things don't exist in a vacuum. The butterfly effect is all about how one thing, no matter how insignificant, can affect so many others, and, with every choice Iris made (even the original one to rewind time all the way back to the first moment she and Lyra met), she traced her own path.
Was this the right choice? Was Lyra actually Damned By The Narrative™ or was I just being cheeky and giving this book a sad ending because I wanted to? That's up to you to decide. This book is yours now, too, and I'm leaving it open for interpretation.
In my eyes, with how things were going and how I was writing the development and subsequent destruction of their relationship, they would just end up breaking things off again, and there's something to be said about self-fulfilling prophecies and the irony of repetition (yes, this was a reference to my book Triangle. I'll finish it writing it one day, I promise). We see what we want to see, but we can only run so far before we start running in a circle, Ouroboros style.
With Iris and Lyra, to me, there was no other way things could have ended, regardless of whether Lyra physically survived or not. The relationship wouldn't and, at the end of the day, Iris would never be able to let her go completely if she'd stayed alive and not speaking to her. Ghosts would follow her around, only, this time, they'd be corporeal. I hate the Bury Your Gays trope as much as the next girl, but this one was a given from the start. We knew how it would inevitably end.
With that being said, I truly, truly hope you enjoyed this novella. Working on it was painful, as there's a lot of complicated stuff going on in my personal life at the moment (mental health? In the gutter. Internship? Kicked me out because of my mental health. Hotel? Trivago) and there were some less than pleasant experiences unfolding throughout the writing and developing process of this little thing. However, we made it through in one piece.
I won't get into detail, but all I ask for is a little bit of respect. It's not fun to feel disrespected or like your boundaries are being invaded. I mean this in the nicest way possible — please respect authors, their artistic and intelectual property and creativity, and their boundaries. This applies to them as people as well, not just as authors. I don't take plagiarism, stealing without credit, and disrespect lightly, and I like my boundaries. I like my peace. Let's create safe spaces.
Dear reader, I appreciate you oh so very much. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey. I promise I'll stop breaking all our hearts.
(No, I don't.)
With love, always,
Cate
━━━ dedication ━━━
to my grandma. i will never, ever, ever stop missing you. i've moved houses twice since you've been gone, and i still see you in every wall, in every hallway. i swear i can still hear your voice sometimes.
to the part of me i left in new york. i mourn losing you still to this day, but you taught me not to make homes out of temporary people. i will learn to love this city again and, one day, when we meet again, you and i will both forever be changed by the same person.
to you, reader. this is your story now. you have the freedom to take this with you in your heart, or leave it on a shelf.
I wish I could stay in this moment forever. I guess I actually can now, but then it wouldn't be a moment.
— max caulfield, life is strange
ଓ༉‧.⭒ֶָ֢⋆.