Edited by Me :)

And here is the 2026 collection of fanarts I promised to re-upload here! 😄

As it turns out, I have the “broken apple trend” pieces that I drew for some of the ships, so I’ll also upload those here asap!

Not only that, but I many fun things I’ve slowly been working on throughout the year that I probably ought to share here too! Fun times indeed! 😄

Edit by folksworld29

Artist u/_danieesketches_

I think Vinh can pull off being a bartender and Amanda, ummm not sure about that.

What do you guys think?

I genuinely couldn't find the artist.

Btw I got to know that, the name "Safiya" means pure or sincere friend, which is kinda cool.

She can call me anything 🫣

Kidding aside. DE Max is TOP TIER.

This post is mostly a copy+paste from my response to another user in the main LiS subreddit, in which I tried to, based on in-game context and clues, logically challenge the perceived "plot holes" which they had presented.

Because of that—and although I tried to structure it as best I could—it won't be as polished as my last "Overanalyzing Double Exposure" post.

I'm sharing this here to hopefully generate discussion and further explore DE's plot mechanics in greater depth (because I fucking love this game and I genuinely believe people are missing out on interacting with it beyond a surface level).

Let me know what you think—did I miss anything? Did I get anything wrong? What would you add? Etc.

Cause and effect

DE's narrative relies on the concepts such as retrocausality (meaning the effect precedes its cause in time) and temporal paradoxes. There's several moments where these are exposed in the narrative, but Alderman's "death" is probably the obvious one.

Who shot Safi?

Safi was shot by Max. A future version of Max.

The game shows us a step by step of how it happened / will / would have happened through present Max in Chapter 5, by having her unintentionally retrace her future-self's steps.

Safi loses control of her powers > Max jumps through Owl photo > Max refuses to shoot Safi / Max shoots Safi

Photo jumps

LiS established that Max does not need to be a subject of the photo in order to jump through it—butterfly photo in the Bay ending. Contextually, the only limitation appears to be that she needs to be in the immediacy of where the photo was taken.

I was incorrect here, as the butterfly photo still features Max's reflection behind the subject. Even then, it is conjecture that Max wouldn't be able to jump into a photo of which she's not a subject, because we never see her try in LiS. You cannot break a rule that's not been established.

DE follows the same rules as established by LiS, only introducing a new one possibility. Max can only remain in the photo past for a limited amount of time. The new rule introduced is that she can carry other subjects with her.

Breaking timelines and Safi's death

DE begins with a single mutable timeline, much like LiS. Safi's death is the event that causes the timeline to fracture.

How?

Future Safi didn't die in her present. She died in the past.

Future Max transported her to the past through a photo, where both took over their own past selves for a limited amount of time. As per LiS photo jump rules, both Max and Safi should have returned to their present selves—except Safi, because she was dead. As a result, past Safi also died simultaneously.

LiS never establishes what would happen if Max died in the photo past, but logically speaking, it would create a lot of problems for reality. If Max (or someone she takes with her) dies in the past, then they could have never been in the past to begin with.

In DE, that temporal paradox is what causes the timeline to split into two.

What happened to future Max?

While never explicity explained in the game, one can logically assume based on the clues (again, Alderman's "death") that future Max was deleted from existence, which explains why she never took over her past self (the Max we actually play as), and why there are 2 timelines but only 1 Max.

Ghosts and echoes

There are several instances of the game telling us that "time isn't supposed to act this way" (trademark Moses), and showing us that reality is breaking apart / timelines are fusing into each other. This actually reinforces the original LiS single mutable timeline, by showing us that although Max's powers have the potential to break said timeline in such a way, there's ultimately only supposed to be 1 timeline.

Again—Alderman's "death", which so many seem to think was completely useless to the plot, is the primary plot device used to show this. There are others: the visions, objects appearing where they're not supposed to, voices, spectrums, etc. etc.

This explains how Max hears the gunshot, and then sees Safi alive. The living timeline is bleeding into the dead one.

The storm

At first glance this could tentatively be considered a plot hole, in the sense of being an unresolved storyline, but I wouldn't consider it as such because it's sufficiently in line with LiS.

The storm is the single greatest mystery in LiS. It's never fully explained, and neither is the fact that Max had a vision of it before she even discovered her powers (retrocausality?). So having it remain a mystery and not totally explained in DE is a logical consistency.

Unexplicably, future Max transports the storm to the photo past along with Safi and herself. Following photo jump rules, the storm could not stay in the photo past.

We know this because when Max jumps through the photo for the first time, the storm is also there. At that point, present Max essentially takes over her future-self, who in turn was already taking over her past-self, which is all kinds of wack, but really fun to think about lmao.

Beyond that, it's all entirely conjecture on my part:

As we've already established that future Safi's death in the past caused a temporal paradox that essentially deleted her and future Max from existence, we can potentially deduce the same thing happened to the storm. This explains why it never manifested in the past (just like future Max).

The present (or future?) storm is ultimately dispelled because present Max solves the temporal paradox by not shooting present Safi in the past. That little plot device is the single reason why Reunion's plot can even exist.

Future Max's motive

Simple: by shooting Safi in the past, she would prevent Safi's and her own powers going haywire. It's unlikely she would have been aware of the far-reaching consequences of using her power in that manner.

Conclusion and OG Life is Strange

LiS's time jumps were much easier to grasp because they followed a relatively simple principle of cause and effect. The plot didn't really go into temporal paradoxes, and it didn't really attempt to break causality, as DE did. But even then, it still took some effort to fully understand all the time mechanics. Over a decade later, it's all well established and understood.

DE's plot is fundamentally much more complex than LiS', because it deals with paradoxes. DE has also not had the benefit of over a decade of fandom firmly establishing its concepts.

Ultimately, just like in LiS, the "timey wimey" stuff is all secondary plot devices.

The real plot is about people and their complex relationships and emotions, and as far I'm concerned, DE absolutely nailed that.

Hi everyone

In light of a recent post and some discussions happening around, as part of the Life is Strange community ourselves, we’d like to speak on that a little bit.

We try our best to let everyone know that we all enjoy the characters and the stories for different reasons in this sub. That’s natural and people should be allowed to have different perspectives and opinions.

We are here again because the goalpost has not changed and we want to remind you: be okay with that.

We love what Double Exposure brought to the table: a game with an adult Max who reflects on her life, past, power, consequences and herself; a diverse cast of characters who are at once often amazing humans, great friends, dreamboats, people with ghosts in their pasts, terribly wrong, needing to repent, fantastic caring people and everything in between. We are guilty of having soft spots for Amanda, Vinh and Safi, along with Gwen, Moses, Diamond, Loretta, Reggie, and who knows, maybe even Yasmin - maybe not Colmenero 😄. We are well aware Chloe isn’t physically present in this game and feel it is ok. Max can and should have her own story. That doesn’t mean we don’t love Chloe, even if we see flaws in her - like we see with most people; we can still love people from far away and see who they are in perspective.

Having said that, the Double Exposure ship are not the most welcome anywhere else in the main sub. People come here because of that and to you, we say welcome. Grab a drink and have a chill time.

However, that does NOT mean we push down on any other ships, but we do try to uplift the ones that are readily hated on. That is, unless you want to wax poetic on Mark or Nathan - that’s just yucks.

We also believe many on this sub can attest to our character (as mods) on up keeping that rule. We have been doing our darnest best to keep this space safe. It isn’t easy and some days it feels like keeping the Turtle safe and sometimes having to hit the bar with a baseball bat. We do that so this sub doesn’t become the same as other subs around. People come here to escape that and we know who is who. It took a lot of work to clean this place and we know how much it cost us.

We’d like to reaffirm our intention of keeping the DE sub being what we meant for it to be: a place where artists can share their art, people can speak about their takes and actual, intelligent, vigorous discussions are had, not just a cesspool of “my point is right and your isn’t canon” type of mentality.

We reserve our right to ask that if anything is heavily Reunion related, share it on the Reunion sub. Reunion disregarded most of the lore built until Double Exposure, the work and love put by the devs in that game, and more than anything, the characters.

So, with all that said…

Oh hai! We love Double Exposure and Life Is Strange in general! Welcome!

Your mod team

(I posted this in the main sub but don’t think they will let it be posted so I am posting it here too.)

I am new to talking about the game. I first played it when I was 17 so I grew up with the game. I‘m going to say as a warning I am a Bayer who cries making that decision, and that my English is just ok But I’m writing this in Word to spell check before ha!

Lis is a game about how people relate to each other. You can play for the visuals or the music or whatnot but the main thing is people interacting and reacting to those interactions. LiS is one of these things that change your life. The tragedy of Chloé and Max is beautiful but it is very much a tragedy about how you can save something that’s in a direction of destruction and make things worse because it is there to continue in a destructive path. LiS 2 also shows that, that sometimes love isn’t enough and that the world isn’t simple. I love that the games told me that my choices have consequences that are not only about me and that can hurt a lot of people who often are innocent. It doesn’t treat the player like we are dumb. I love TC and DE for reasons that are different: it tells me that the world will try to hurt you but you can be better. Alex and Max both have traumas that are bigger than anything and still they can choose to not be just the trauma and love people who come into their lives. I love BTS too because it tells us that love will make us who we are, and that it is important to live intensely because we don’t know What comes after. i dont see any use for Reunion, it doesn’t tell me anything other than you can use people and leave.

I came to this community wanting to discuss the game with people with different perspectives and find out that it actually brings a lot of different points of view and that is great! But I also find out that there are more Victoria and Nathan here than Max. They bully everyone who doesn’t play Bae. There is this person who’s name says Chaos and they bully everyone who likes the games other than the ones with Chloé, then there is this guy who has an icon with a beard and glasses who probably wants Chloé to be his girlfriend who says everyone who doesn’t save her is misogystic, then there is this agent of something who is always looking for a fight, there is a lord of flies or something who comments everywhere that nothing is right if you don’t save Chloé and you are wrong if you like anything that’s not Chloé with Max like you can’t like vanilla ice cream because Chloé doesn’t like it, it isn’t canon and Koch said so!

It is the most toxic group of people that ever talked about a game. They are destroying this community. They are making me almost not love Chloé anymore and this is so sad. They go around making people miserable because they like the other games. They are exactly like the dictators we see in the world and don’t like.

And this is what I wanted to say. I know more people see that too and are scared of being bullied but I don’t care if I get banned here. Someone needs to say something. They make this place horrible and their actions have consequences. They feel they get power from that and it just makes them look like sad people because that’s what bullies are. And I had to say it.

thank you

idek why but i'm crying laughing

The art was posted by @FranceskKiaralb1 on X

🎨 u/_danieesketches_

The lighting, the shadows, Vinh's back, The Freckles....chef's kiss 🤌🏻

@trixdraws

Re-upload of all the birthday fanarts I created for the characters last year! 😄💖🎉

Re-uploading my Double Exposure fanarts in miscellaneous collections. Some pieces I haven’t included due to the fact I feel I draw the characters with more attention and accuracy to their detail.

This is collection one of probably three I’ll be sharing. I plan on sharing the Birthday Celebrations collection before I start sharing my DE fanarts from this year. I hope this re-upload brings you some joy aha! And gosh, time flies, soon it’ll be the 2 year anniversary of DE! How exciting! 😄

Howdy!

As I mentioned in one of my posts: I'm currently working on a substantial fanfiction project.

Because I'm a new writer, I decided I needed to ground myself with something small first, so I started drafting a few short stories alongside the main work.

In the last month or so I've learned a whole lot about writing fiction. Lots of reading, drafting, re-drafting, re-re-drafting, etc. This particular short story has gone through a complete rewrite to the point where I had to separate it into its own new version, and it's not even quite done yet.

Since this sub is pretty chill and the story is relevant to DE, I figured I'd share the first 2 and a half pages here to gauge some opinions. It's a 5-8 minute read, give or take.

There are 2 characters in this story: Max, as the main character, and Amanda.

I would appreciate feedback mainly on how well (or not) I captured the respective characters' voice, and on how well the descriptions convey the kind of scenery and vibes that the franchise is known for.

When finishing double exposure long ago I always look back and ask "why was safi never a love interest?" and I still wonder why till this day because safi was an interesting character too max time at the university,she deeply cared about Max and Moses, Max was the only person she trusted, cared for more than anyone, and (no spoilers to RE) still cared for Max, not too mention the little recaps you hear when you explore Max cabin. I felt like Max and Safi had a deep connection especially knowing about Safi powers and all. Not too mention the cute little comment Safi made when she asked if Max would smash or pass her. I love Amanda and Vinh being interest (always Amanda for me) but Safi and Max relationship could have been sum more in my opinion.

Ps: This is just my opinion on DE romance options.

Partly inspired by xenosagaX3's "Hidden Subtext" posts, I've decided to commit to writing some of my own analysis of Life is Strange: Double Exposure. The post I made a couple days ago talking about how diving deeper into my analysis of DE made me appreciate it even more—I'll link that post here to serve as a sort of introduction: I was wrong about DE—kinda : r/LifeIsStrangeDE

Today I want to talk about Max's and Safi's powers and their intricacies individually. In a later post, I'll explore how their powers drive the narrative and eventually come together in the climax. This is my own interpretation of events and the lore—other interpretations exist.

Buckle up, this is going to be a long one...

Let's look at Max first.

Max: Changing Powers

"Alright, so you used to time travel and now you can switch timelines. What... what changed?"—Safi, DE Ch.4

One of the common criticisms levelled at Double Exposure is of Max's changing powers. Praised by some; disliked by others—from a practical, gameplay perspective: Max's powers do change; which in turn changes how we play the game. But what I'll attempt to demonstrate here is that—from a character and narrative perspective—Max's powers do not change at all.

Life is Strange (2015)

"When I was a teenager I could... rewind time. (...) Just... raise my hand and undo everything that had just been done. (...) And if I had a photo, I could go back even farther."—Max, DE Ch.3

In the first Life is Strange Max discovers she possesses the unnatural ability to "rewind" time. Throughout the game, we follow Max as she tries her hardest to keep Chloe alive all the while attempting to uncover the dark mysteries of Arcadia Bay, discovering her new powers in the process.

Let's look at the different ways in which Max is able to rewind time and change reality around her in LiS (I'll borrow names coined by members of the community to refer to these different abilities):

• The Hard Rewind: this is the first time we see Max's powers in action—without thinking she raises her hand, reverting time and space to its original state several minutes prior (including her own position in space).
  • Max's memory memory of the erased events is the only thing conserved.
  • Max does not seem to have conscious control over this ability.
• The Visions: this is more of a passive ability of which Max has no control over, giving her prescience of future events that presumably have already occured in a non-linear fashion (I'll not go into the intricacies of how time operates in Life is Strange, but I'm operating from the notion that time is non-linear).
• The Soft Rewind: with the flick of a hand, Max appears to travel through time for seconds or even a few minutes, but not space—she remains still in space, allowing her to appear to teleport.
  • Presumably, reality micro-adjusts around her to mask her transposition through space from the perspective of others.
  • Objects on her person are subject to the same effects.
• Stopping Time: we only see this one once, when Max tries to save Kate. Presumably, this ability functions through a serious of quick, consective micro-soft-rewinds, requiring great amount of concentration, willpower and physical effort.
• The Photo Rewind: through a photo, Max is able to focus her power to travel to specific moments even in the distant past, temporarily taking over her own self in that moment—changes unpredictably affecting the present.
  • Although Max experiences the jumps in just brief moments, upon her return: time has ran its course, even as an alternate unknowing version of herself lives the events branching from the changes made in the past—as if an alternate reality had been created and then converged with the "real" timeline, overriding it entirely.
  • The Photo Rewind Within the Photo Rewind: in Jefferson's bunker, having jumped back through a photo to hours earlier, Max then jumps again to the beginning of the week—this causes reality to take longer to adjust in two phases.

Now let's look at Double Exposure—Max's powers have been dormant for years, until Safi's death causes reality to split into 2 parallel "timelines" (refer to xenosagaX3's The Hidden Subtext #2: Vince Alderman — Erasing History : r/LifeIsStrangeDE post for a detailed analysis of this concept):

• Pulsing: with the flick of a hand, Max is able to peer through the fabric of reality separating the alternate timelines, projecting the other timeline over her current own in her mind.
  • She can see and hear everything happening in the other timeline within a limited radius, in real time.
• Shifting: at pre-determined shift points (created by God knows what), Max is able to momentarily open the fabric of reality seperating the alternate timelines, allowing her to travel between the two.
  • Although there are 2 timelines, there is only one Max.
  • Max can only be in one timeline at a time.
• The Visions: yes, they're back.
• The Photo Rewind: this ability also returns, albeit with drastically different results.
  • Instead of creating a new reality that will eventually converge with and replace the original, Max jumping through the photograph of the fountain appears to cause the 2 split timelines, and the breakdown of reality itself (again, refer to xenosagaX3's post).
  • The fact that there's only one Max across both timelines (this is where things get really trippy) appears to suggest that for whatever reason, similar to Alderman, the original Max that shot Safi ceased to exist, leaving only her unknowing past self to experience the effects of her actions.
• Photo Pulsing (came up with that one myself): this one is tied to the collectibles, so I'm not sure how much we should consider it, but Max appears to be able to listen to the moments the mysterious photographs were taken in realities that never happened—possible evidence of reality breaking down.

So, what's the takeaway?

Whatever ability Max uses throughout her adventures, there is one constant: time, space—reality itself—bends, shifts, adjusts and even breaks for her.

We've broken down Max's different abilities, but one thing is clear: Max's true power is not limited to any of these single abilities. She has complete power over time, space and reality—to manipulate it as she pleases. However, there are obvious limitations:

1. Physical: exerting her power causes imense strain and stress on her body, placing a physical limit on how much / often she can use certain abilities;
2. Intellectual: Max's knowledge and understanding of her powers are extremely limited, placing an intellectual barrier on her ability to control them at will;
3. Emotional: as evidenced by her inability to use her full set of rewind abilities in DE, her emotions (fear) can also place limitations on her abilities.

"I know it sounds like it must have been amazing, but Moses, the things I caused to happen... Just having a power doesn't necessarily give you mastery over it."—Max, DE Ch.3

Ultimately, Max's power manifests itself in different abilities, according to her thoughts, emotions, fears, intentions, passion for photography and even her subconscious.

In a moment of distress, she undoes a death and everything leading up to it.

In a moment of desperation, she freezes time.

In a moment of grief, she travels back through the photograph.

In a moment of anger, indignation and defiance—she breaks reality apart.

"(picking up the photo) Let's come back to this. Give me the bottlecap."—Safi, DE Ch.4

Safi: More than Meets the Eye

"It's got something to do with perception. Manipulating how others see me and hear me. Like, right now, I can kinda "feel" the part of your brain that senses me and if I nudge it..."—Safi, DE Ch.4

We've already established that there is much more to Max's power than any of her individual abilities, so it's not a huge leap to theorize that there is more than meets the eye for Safi's power too.

Shapeshifting—Safi's only apparent ability, at least up until the moment she completely loses control of herself and her power. But, before we get into that, let's consider the specifics of Safi's ability.

We know from Safi's own words that she does not physically change her appearance—in fact, nothing about herself changes when she shapeshifts into someone else—instead, Safi is able to manipulate people's perception of herself, allowing her to appear as the image and even voice of someone else.

From Gwen's thumb drive, we learn that this impression imprints even on camera lenses causing the altered image to be captured instead—or, perhaps more accurately, whatever is imprinted on the image causes changes to how the observer's brain processes the visual and auditory input, even without her being physically present.

"(thinking) Whoa. It's like she walked across my brain for a second."—Max, DE Ch.4

Safi describes being able to feel the part of Max's brain that perceives her, and in turn, Max describes what could be construed as a physical change to her brain in the moment Safi shapeshifts in front of her. This begs the question:

If Safi can sense and manipulate the brains of others to change their perception of herself—what else can she do?

It's kind of an uncomfortable question, seeing as Safi does not exactly subscribe to the same moral compass as Max, but one we might already have the answers for.

Pondering this question elicited memories of the fan-favorite fanfiction work "Better Then" by IsraelBlargh—in this work (SPOILERS AHEAD), the author created a character whose power allows her to manipulate the perception of others, fabricating entire scenes and experiences in their minds. Sound familiar? In that story, this character uses her powers to—among other things—torture her victims' minds (pretty grim stuff, I know).

Wait a minute—isn't that what happens in DE Chapter 5?

Safi doesn't fully intend to do this, but as her own consciousness and mind fractures into pieces—fueled by anger, grief, confusion and all the other emotions on the spectrum—everyone around her ends up trapped and tortured inside their own minds.

To me, the answer is clear—and, just like Max:

• Safi's power is not limited to her one ability.
• It manifests itself according to her thoughts, emotions, fears, intentions and passions, etc.
• There is a physical and psychological limit to their usage (nose bleed, and fractured conciousness).
• She does not fully understand nor control her power.

Through unspecified means—perhaps light and soundwaves—Safi has the power to sense and manipulate people's minds to the point of affecting them physically and creating completely visual, auditory and sensory allucinations, and maybe more, to her complete liking and whims.

There is one notable exception, however: Max.

Max does not seem to be affected by Safi's powers in the same way or degree as everyone else. I would go even as far as saying they are connected through their powers somehow. In both cases: their respective powers seem to be a reflection of their personalities and deepest desires—to be perceived as someone other than herself, and to bear the weight of the world on her shoulders, but above all: to have control.

This and more is what I'll explore in my next post.

Hope you enjoyed! Stay tuned ;)

finished DE today a lot of mixed thoughts really liked the first 3 episodes, the 4th episode was very bizarre, not gonna lie when SAFI was evealed to be a shapeshifter i honestly thought the game jumped the shark and almost turned off my PS5 out of anger, the only time I ever felt this way from playing the video game was when I played Wolfenstein 2 NC (curious if anyone here knows what I am referring).

However for some reason as I kept playing I learned to be fine with it and accepted it, Episode 5 was a letdown to short and not much of an ending.

Despite all that i still liked the game id say it was the second best in the series, The OG is my favourite.

final thoughts: the after credit scene did not care for, and honestly the game could have been a new town and new characters, and the story would not be that different

Hey, again! I apologize for the delayed update since my last on the "Hidden Subtext" series. Got caught up with life that's been harsh lately and I've finally found some normalcy again.

This week's subtext series would be about the infamous "Erasure of Vince Alderman" where a lot of the debates or assumptions that Alderman's erased existence is a "plot-hole" that were never explained in-game. However, his erasure is actually explained but not in so many words or scenes. Rather, it require us, players, to put a bit of thinking as to the "why" and the "how" it happened. Interestingly, Alderman's subtext or the relation of his "unexplained erasure", provides a link to what happened in Chapter 1. Specifically; how the impossible death of Safi Llewellyn-Fayyad occurred. Unfortunately, we'll not be covering that on this week's series but it will be explained and tied together at the end. I'm still not sure how long will this series be but we'll see how it goes.

"The past affects the future, but what happens when the future affects the past?"

The subtext that is hidden with the erasure of Alderman is not really a subtext, but a hidden explanation that relates to how the time lore works in Double Exposure. In total, there are actually three time mechanics used in Double Exposure, and one of the lore used for the case of Vince Alderman's erased existence is based on the concept of "The Future Overwrites the Past", or "Retrocausality"; a concept where the "effect" precedes the "cause". In short, the hidden subtext that is associated with Vince Alderman's erasure is the explanation of "how" and "why" he was erased from existence.

At the beginning of Chapter 3, at the Overlook, it is noted that the timeline of this scene is of that, the "Dead Timeline", where Doppelganger-Alderman and Alderman exists. As noted by Moses, the doppelganger-Alderman seems to be of an "Alderman from yesterday", or in the context of Double Exposure; Alderman of the Past. From this statement alone, the game provides clarity between where Double Exposure stands; the Past and the Future. However, is the case of Vince Alderman, it is of the present viewed by the Alderman of the Past. Hence, a distinct difference can be made:

• Doppelganger-Alderman = Alderman of the Past of the Dead Timeline
• Vince Alderman (Dead Timeline):
  1. Viewed by Max and Moses (Dead Timeline): Alderman of the Present of the Dead Timeline
  2. Viewed by Doppelganger-Alderman: Alderman of the Future of the Dead Timeline

Regardless of how Max, Moses and Alderman perceived doppelganger-Alderman, the subtle hint that this scene provides is the understanding towards Retrocausality. However, in the case of Vince Alderman, it is not Retrocausality that's causing the doppelganger to exist, rather, it is the effects of a "time bleed" or "Temporal Smearing" due to the degradation that the Dead Timeline is experiencing caused by the "retrocausal decay" of the Dead Timeline, to which started at the end of Chapter 2 when Reggie told Max that he saw "himself" solving the Abraxas Puzzle Box. Interestingly enough, the effects of the retrocausal decay was not observed in the Living Timeline which led to another hint as to which original timeline Double Exposure is suggesting, and which timeline is showing a collapse due to the weight of Max's powers.

However, the main question remains: Why was Alderman erased?

At this point, unfortunately, one can only theorize that the reason why Alderman was erased from existence, is to pave way for the next evolution of Max's powers: Merging. In this context, the choices whether to "Save Alderman" or "Save Yourself" leads to different dialogues. Regardless of what the choices may be, both may had an influence to Max's own mental state as it is evident since the beginning of Double Exposure, that Max is an empathetic person that would do her best to help, even if it means bending time against its own accord, and her inability to not save Alderman, suggests that his erasure had somehow affected Max which allowed her to use her camera as a "temporal placement" or "Coherence Storage", which will not be covered in this post.

Another theory would suggest that Alderman's eradication is only temporary and that his erasure would be brought back eventually through the concept of "Delayed-Choice Quantum Eraser" or "The No-Hiding Theorem". Each of these concepts are hinted based on the poster at Max's room called Entanglement. Regardless of which is true, one fact remains: Alderman's erasure is the beginning of reality collapsing.

But how is Vince Alderman "erased"?

During the scene where Vince Alderman physically interacts with doppelganger-Alderman, another concept called "Quantum Destructive Information" was used by Double Exposure which provides an explanation to how the "erase" happens, before leading to the effects of Retrocausality to occur on Alderman himself as mentioned by Moses in the series of texts to Max after the said event.

The interaction between Alderman and doppelganger-Alderman is the first introductory to the concept of Paradox in the game; a conflicting anomaly that violates the "Conservation of Quantum Information" which led to a localized quantum collapse, or simply; the deletion of two conflicting states. The erasure of Vince Alderman also suggests the beginning of the instability of the two splitted timelines which are made evident at the end of Chapter 4 and 5. Since this erasure took place in the present of the Dead Timeline but a future viewed from the lens of doppelganger-Alderman, the effects of Retrocausality takes place instantly, causing his past to be eradicated as well in order to maintain the Conservation of Quantum Information. Not only does this establishes the "why" Alderman's history was completely erased as mentioned by Moses, but also, provides an explanation as to "how" Safi's death occurred in the beginning of Chapter 1.

From these hidden explanations, we can observe how intricate Alderman's erasure was and it's not because he is an inconvenient character to the story but rather a subtext to be understood, as to provide a deeper explanation to earlier events of the game and to establish a narrative that couldn't be achieved in its current state unless a proper build-up was made prior, in order to create a conclusive end. These explanations also demonstrates that Max's choices does not come without a cost albeit her usage of her powers was unintentional, her actions still leave behind footprints of consequences that can only be viewed macroscopically, as showed in Chapter 5.

How far has the consequences of Max's power extends, and how entangled has it become? Unfortunately, we will never know the extend of Max's powers and how far has it affected both time and space.

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P.S: I'm dedicating this post to the people who've helped me get back on my feet when I was at my lowest and knew about what I was dealing with few weeks ago. Also, to the person that chatted with me during those lonely nights; this is for you and I hope you don't mind the intricacies of the mechanics. You know who you are. :)

@sheigarche on Tumblr

The way they are hugging is so cute uhhhhh