After moving to Seattle, Max's parents take her camping to cheer her up only for everything to get worse.
Max gets bit by a werewolf and her parents shut her away from the world afraid of what Max will do and what others will think. Cue the five years of ghosting Chloe.
But now Max is back in Arcadia Bay attending Blackwell and hoping to get a second chance with Chloe. Which she gets while helping Chloe hunt down Rachel Amber, making deals with vampires, and being assigned pack leader to the wolves who live in Arcadia Bay.
And honestly, Max couldn't have it any other way.
Fur And Photography is a Life Is Strange fanfic by MininSnow
, and can be read on Archive of Our Own here
This fanfic provides examples of:
- Adaptation Personality Change: Max was very introverted in the game. Here, being an alpha werewolf with her own support group and a history of leadership to a pack in Seattle have given her a much needed confidence boost, slapping around Nathan whenever he gets out of line and intimidating Victoria whenever she tries starting something.
- Adaptation Species Change: Max and Frank are both werewolves.
- Jefferson and Nathan are vampires.
- Rachel was a fire-elemental.
- Kate is part-angel.
- Alyssa is a bridge troll.
- Juliet is a harpy.
- Adaptational Badass: While canon!Max was lauded as a hero for her Chronic Hero Syndrome (made easier with her time powers), here she has advanced strength caused by her lycanthropic condition and her experiences being an alpha giving her more confidence, meaning she is more willing to get physical when she sees someone innocent being harassed or assaulted.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: While Nathan is still an unstable Jerkass, here he seems to be more self-aware and is genuinely looking for help. He even apologizes to Kate when he finds out that she knew he was a vampire and didn't begrudge him for it.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In the game, Frank has it against Chloe for ranking so much debt for his drugs while secretly being in a relationship with Rachel. Here, the debt is nonexistent and Rachel is in an open relationship with both of them.
- Adaptational Sexuality: In the game, Max was bisexual, having a history of being attracted to Warren and "skater bros" while also developing something with Chloe. Here she is more into women, turning down Warren because she "doesn't swing that way" and is more open about her attraction to Chloe.
- Adaptational Superpower Change: There are no time-powers to be seen anywhere. Instead, supernatural creatures are commonplace and public-knowledge, Max being an alpha werewolf.
- Always Lawful Good: There are some species of supernaturals that are framed as "holy", including Angels, golems and holy spirits.
Word of God subverts the idea by claiming that it is just Cultural Posturing.MininSnow: The way supernaturals are labeled as "good" and "evil" is very, very relative. - Benevolent Monsters: While supernaturals like werewolves and vampires can be dangerous, practice and community can help them curb their more animalistic instincts and they can be as pleasant as anyone else. Max in particular can be as docile as a puppy and will only attack someone who endangers innocent people, like when she partially transforms to save Chloe from Nathan and later smacks Nathan around when she discovers that Nathan has been feeding off of Kate.
- Berserk Button: With the advanced senses and short-fuse her lycanthropism gives her, Max has a low tolerance for flashes of light in her face. This is ironic for a photography student, though she doesn't mind it if she is the one behind the camera.
- Mr. Jefferson apparently has a distaste for mirrors and other reflective surfaces.
- Bullying the Dragon: Victoria believes that because she's a witch she can push Max around in her werewolf form using magic. Unfortunately for her, Max can shrug off her spells.
- Dead All Along: Max finds out that Rachel is dead when Victoria channels her spirit by accident.
- Entertainingly Wrong: While Max did agree to mentor Nathan in exchange for a favor, it was a strictly professional transaction and not the Teacher/Student Romance Victoria seems to think it is. Not that Victoria believes otherwise.
- Fantastic Racism: While supernaturals like werewolves, vampires and demons are commonplace and have institutional support, there is a lot of bigotry from humans. There are religious fanatics who think they are unholy abominations and there are even werewolf hunters. Max even presumes that many of her fellow dorm-mates are supernaturals, but would rather keep quiet about it for fear of what would happen.
- I Gave My Word: Vampires are known for being good with deals, Max having agreed to help mentor Nathan for Jefferson for this reason.
- I Hate You, Vampire Dad: Jefferson and Nathan seem to have a rocky relationship as sire and sired, Jefferson having tried to find someone to help Nathan get the hang of his new vampiric state only for them to be driven off by Nathan's personality. It's implied that Jefferson is a hard traditionalist and constantly judges him like a disapproving father would, spending a full moon with Max being a refreshing change to it.
- Inept Mage: It is implied that Victoria is insecure about her subpar abilities as a necromancer.
- The Insomniac: Because werewolves are nocturnal by nature, Max has a hard time sleeping for her day schedule, routinely taking jogs during the night to try and get to sleep.
- Karmic Jackpot: Nathan sticks up for Max and makes Victoria promise not to out her as an alpha werewolf to the Vortex Club because unlike their other friends, Max doesn't judge them or fear them.
- Lunacy: Supernaturals are all effected by the full moon, making them more feral and enslaved by their passions. Werewolves have it the worse, but they are still able to control themselves with practice.
- Magic A Is Magic A: Some forms of witchcraft are radically different from another. It is stated that many witches harness their power through rituals and prayers with different gods, Victoria practicing Necromancy under a goddess named Noctural. This does not seem to apply to all magic however, Max claiming that her mother practices witchcraft and "never bothered" with drawing power from a patron or matron god or goddess.
- Mundane Fantastic: It is never stated if the world was unmasqued or if it ever was masqued to begin with, but supernatural beings like werewolves, vampires, demons, elementals and witches are public knowledge.
- My Suit Is Also Super: Since some supernaturals end up going through clothes when they transform, there are specialized clothing made for them, Max having boxers that don't get destroyed whenever she transforms.
- Not Quite Human: Kate's family is full of "holy" supernaturals, her dad and sisters being angels, technically making her part-supernatural.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Vampires are a species of supernatural capable of blending into society just like every other. To werewolves, they are described as smelling like dirt and corpses. They require blood once every two weeks and can become ferocious during the full moon. They don't burn in the sun, and even the older generations (this case being vampires that are thousands of years old) sparkle in the sunlight.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: Lycanthropy is contagious through bites like in legends, but they are sentient even when they change. They are able to change whenever they want, but the full moon compels them to change anyway. They operate with their own customs and instincts they call "the Beast", this compelling them to hunt, fuck and seek companionship with other werewolves in the form of packs. There are such things as alpha-breeds that lead these packs.
- Pro-Human Transhuman: Werewolves are naturally protective of those who they consider to be a part of their pack. For Max this applies to her many human friends, nearly ripping Nathan in half when she finds out that he fed on Kate.
- Signature Scent: Since werewolves possess a powerful sense of smell, Max is able to sense other people by their scent and can even tell if they are supernatural.
- Vampire smell like dirt and rotting corpses, Jefferson wreaking of this being what clued Max in on her first day that he was a vampire.
- Bridge trolls smell of cattails and freshly cut wood.
- Smells Sexy: Max really likes Chloe's scent to the point where she is practically climbing over her after she transforms.
- Spin-Off: There are two non-canon spinoff fics that share the same premise as Fur and Photography; A Bat's Wingless Angel focuses on Nathan's complicated relationship with Kate, and Maxiwolf's Adventures In Mating, a Lemon about Max's sexual exploits.
- Super Supremacist: The Alpha-werewolf that turned Max was apparently trying to build an army before Max took him down, having sniffed her out for her potential as an alpha.
- Supernatural Elite: Victoria - one of the leading members of the Vortex Club and Alpha Bitch to Blackwell - is a witch and practicing necromancer.
- Supernaturally-Validated Trans Person: Inverted. Max isn't trans, but most alpha werewolves tend to identify as masculine whenever they change into their wolf forms.
- Token Human: Chloe seems to be the only member of Max's age-group and "pack" who is in no way supernatural, with Max herself being a werewolf, Victoria a witch, Nathan a vampire, Rachel an elemental, Kate being part-angel, etc.
- Your Normal Is Our Taboo: With their animalistic instincts and the tendency to ruin their clothes when they transform, the taboo of nudity isn't as strong in werewolves as it is with humans and other supernaturals. Max is only ever modest around the likes of Chloe and Nathan (being a teen human and a teen vampire respectively) because they do not see it that way.
