i don't even know where to start. on a basic level this game, while it is quite buggy, tells such a beautiful story with some gorgeous music and art direction, and the story it tells strengthens the original game so much. as a prequel this is everything you could possibly hope for. it meaningfully adds to the mythos of what came before it, vastly improves characterization for almost everybody, and explains away nagging issues that may have been in your head during the original story.

but what's more important to me is that while life is strange is a story about loss and living in the face of it, before the storm... isn't. it's a story about love. it's a story about so many different kinds of love. the good, and the bad, and the really bad. love doesn't just make your heart flutter and make your body lighter, love can also poison you and make you sick. love can make you hurt the ones you love under the foolish notion you're protecting them. love can drive you crazy, and you either inflict that craziness on yourself, or you inflict it on other people.

love can make you take hits you didn't think you could take, it could make you mature when you thought you were childish, it could make you do some really, really stupid shit just to make someone else happy. but more importantly, love can make you happy. love can free you, it can change you, it can save your life, it can save other lives.

the core of before the storm's love lies in rachel amber, a girl with so, so much love to give the world, in a world that refuses to see her love as anything but aloof recklessness. but chloe is isolated from this world, too. love has been violently ripped away from her more times than she can count, and the only love in her life is a love she views as wrong and evil. she has emptied her heart of love, until she meets rachel. then suddenly, without warning, all of this love comes flooding back into her life, the color returns to her face, the days seem a little brighter, she's just suddenly surrounded by it, and like a lost puppy, she falls hopelessly in love with the source

and it's reciprocated by rachel, who finally feels seen. she finally feels like somebody understands her and doesn't think she acts without reason or thought. finally somebody gets it, gets what it's like, and with chloe her love for the world deepens because she's experiencing a rage and fury like she's never felt before. a fire in her soul awoken turns to a fire inflicted on the world around her, a fire that lashes out and burns those who try to tame it, but a fire all her own, which is what she truly hopes for. a fire that chloe allows to envelop her in it's warm embrace, and one she intends to stoke for as long as she can.

finally, after this love is explored to it's breaking point, you are introduced to "farewell", the bonus episode that details the last time max and chloe spend together before the main game, and in a beautiful decision, "farewell" shows us this raging, unconditional love that max holds in her heart for chloe, the same love that rachel held, and the entire episode, every word out of max's mouth is in dedication to how chloe would feel, and this fear that she could hurt her. max isn't perfect and as we see she does fail as a friend, but that love is so real. and suddenly, all at once, that love is ripped away and replaced with loss. the theme of the prequel fades as the theme of the original story returns. it's genuinely perfect storytelling. it's beautiful. i just fucking, god i really love these characters. i love this game. all of this love in my heart.

and i am in such grief knowing these characters are about to exit my life. just as with the games, my love turns to loss. but exactly like the games, my loss will blossom back to love. i am super normal. i am sooo normal.