"It does freak us out," she says. Her brow is creased, knuckles jutting out where her fingers are curled tight around her cup. "It freaks me out a lot. And I think it freaks Rachel out the most, even if she never says. But seeing death is new, Chloe. Our visions aren't all like that. We need to know how it's all connected." She meets Chloe's eyes again, solemn and sincere. "The only thing we know for sure is that we aren't dead. And it could be thanks to her that we aren't."
no grave can hold my body down
is a Life Is Strange fanfic by OpheliaMarina. It takes place post-game.
The cult begins with dreams. Shared, ominous dreams, filled with storms and deer and other mystical shit Chloe Price really doesn't want to get into. Unfortunately her best friend, Rachel Amber, does. And soon half of Arcadia Bay is following in Rachel's wake.
It's during this surge of religious fervor that Chloe meets Max for the first time.
This fic includes the following tropes:
- Aesop Amnesia: Even after dying because of her desire to "fix" events in time, Max still periodically uses her powers to help people and/or personal reasons. This has quite a destructive effect on the timeline.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: After Max died, she became a sort of incorporeal being ("a sentient time distortion") who could protect reality from the paradox storm. Opinions vary in-universe as to whether this makes her a true goddess or simply a very powerful human being.
- Barrier Maiden: The "goddess" is a normal person patching a hole in spacetime with her own body, which means she can only physically exist intermittently. One of the reasons she stays there is that it allowed her to reform the timeline into a Golden Path where everyone (but her) was able to live relatively happy lives.
- Cassandra Truth: Several men (including Warren and David) have visions of the goddess, but the cult's misandry demands that all males be excluded from it.
- Does Not Like Men: With many of the so-called visions that men have are shallow jokes (one example being "the goddess gives me a blowjob") and the majority of accurate recurring visions come from women, the cult have come to the conclusion that the goddess doesn't like men as much and have barred them membership.
- Eldritch Location: Max implies that there has always been a lapse in the space-time continuum in the general area of Arcadia Bay, this being the source of Max's unexplained time-powers and only exacerbated by the use of them in the game's time-line.
- Genius Loci: Because she exists outside of time, Max has total knowledge of everything that ever has or will happen in Arcadia Bay, and can teleport herself and others anywhere within it."I'm Arcadia Bay," Max says simply. Chloe looks back at her for one second, and she's still staring at the ground. Her lips are pressed tightly together when she's not speaking, like she's trying to hold herself back. "I'm all of it now. Holding it all together, filling all the cracks. All of it, from the beginning to the end, the trees and the ocean and every living thing, everything and everyone that's ever existed and will ever exist here- I can see all of it. I'm all of it." She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath through her nose, a still sort of calmness on her face as she senses something Chloe can't. "There's so much, Chloe, there's so much emotion and age and knowledge here. It's so huge, I can't even begin to explain it. It's overwhelming."
- God's Hands Are Tied: Max gave up her human life with the intent of preventing the calamitous storm and fix the cracks in the space-time continuum prevalent in Arcadia Bay. Whenever she tries interacting with it like a normal human, this causes ripple-effects, the various visions people have of her and the storm being memories of other timelines.
- I'm Crying, but I Don't Know Why: Several of Chloe's emotions from the previous timeline bleed over into her present, most notably her sorrow over Max leaving and Rachel's death.
- In Spite of a Nail: Chloe still feels unhappy in the present timeline- though both she and her father are alive and well- because she intuitively senses that she was "supposed to have" someone in her life who isn't there.
- It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: For one thing, it causes debilitating nosebleeds so bad they make the recipient vomit. For another, it draws a fuckton of attention that Chloe was trying to avoid down on her.Cultist: So is she- is Chloe- she can’t be-
- Loving a Shadow: Several characters: a recurring theme in the fic is blind worship.
- Rachel loves the goddess of Arcadia Bay, but only as a goddess- not as a real flawed human whose power doesn't define her. Upon seeing the 'real' Max for the first time, Rachel has no idea what to do or say.
- Out of loneliness, Chloe projects her romantic feelings for Max onto Rachel."When I touched your face to kiss you, you tilted your head down," Rachel says, and she takes her hands away. She doesn't look mad, and Chloe wishes she did. She just looks perplexed. "I'm an inch taller than you. It's not me. There's someone else."
- Madonna Archetype: Through implications from their visions, the cult surmises that the goddess has a "mortal beloved", To the surprise of everyone In-Universe and to none of the readers, that person is Chloe, Max still pining for Chloe even though they cannot be together.
- Mythology Gag: Much of the "encounters" and "visions" people have are all based around Max's interactions with them in the game's timeline. Dana's visions of the deer prevent her unwanted pregnancy, it acts as a comforting figure to Kate, it prevents Alyssa from being hit by incoming projectiles, etc.
- Only Sane Man: Chloe and Victoria are the only people to think that maybe the goddess causing visions of death and destruction is bad news. A few cultists fear the goddess... but not enough to actually stop worshiping her.
- Psychic Nosebleed: Chloe gets these increasingly often as the timeline becomes more unstable.
- Ret-Gone: Having Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence and become a living time-distortion, the new timeline Max created is one where she was never born. Her absence is felt however, the more she directly interacts with it in physical form, the more memories of her original timeline bleed over to the people she knew in the form of visions.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Many characters have vague memories of the canon timeline, which is the first sign that it was imperfectly fixed. Even before Max manifests physically into Arcadia Bay, motifs such as butterflies and storms recur in people's dreams, becoming clearer as time goes on. Chloe can remember actual sensations and snippets of conversation...however hard she tries to repress them.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: Because Max must stay outside reality to shield it from the paradox storm she frequently disappears from the former, sometimes in the middle of conversations. The finale involves Max teleporting into the middle of a crowd.
