well, i guess the replay is finally done. (not kidding when i said i filmed my reaction to the final scene, i wanted to see how sad i look. i played the video just now after waking up, yo, i look like i was dying 😭) pressing that button determining chloe's ultimate fate 5 years later did not feel easier as i had expected. so many choices i made along the way i believe i have made differently, but sacrificing her? i stared at the controller for a solid 5 minutes and still decided to go with it. (fucking morals am i right 💀) growing up is realizing that all of them contributed to the mess that the reality had turned out to be. there was never a specific antagonist in the game (though we can all agree on the fact that jefferson was genuinely the most fucked up one and the prescotts are a reflection of what monopoly is like in society), the mess was a product of the tragedies that were everyone's lives. chloe's childhood and teenagehood which we got to know of in the game, shaped her into who she is. someone who is insecure, not entirely in control of her emotions, reckless, and kind of selfish. but behind this facade, she is still that kind, fun, and energetic girl who longed for connection and deeply misses and loves her dad and best friend. even her mom whom she grew to rebel against and "step-douche". a few entries back when i was playing a chapter of the alternate reality that max got to experience, i talked about how chloe never had proper guidance growing up. her father died, max walked out of her life, and she was left to grieve alongside her mother who was also coping with the loss of her husband and had to provide for the family at the same time. she eventually met david whom obviously, to teenage chloe, was a threat. she saw him as someone who was trying to replace her father and as a result, did not belong in the family. as a war veteran, david has seen so much cruelty in his life and to be quite frank, bro might have war ptsd, that the way he approach life is a bit... too much. he is headstrong, tough, and very insecure as well, ironically, him and chloe has somewhat of a resemblance, one of the sole reasons why whenever they are conversing, they just clash. (trust me i know this because though i hate to admit it, this is the situation between me and my dad 🤡) in a way, everything that chloe did was to try to get her mom's attention, and a coping mechanism of the things she's been through. she needed someone, and that someone, never appeared in her life. rachel was the closest she ever got to someone being there for her and understanding her, but she eventually walked out as well. everything combined was enough to crush an adult into pieces, let alone a teenager. nathan prescott, was the byproduct of a fucked up family. very much like chloe, he never had a figure in his life to guide him. he had a father, but that mf never viewed him as a son, a child that he needed to care for and love, he viewed him as a pawn in his schemes to achieve what he needed and the heir to the "throne" of the empire he had built. jefferson who he thought was that one beacon he needed in the darkness that was his life, turned out to be just like his dad, if not worse. he was someone that manipulated him and completed used him to fulfill his twisted desires of torturing young girls and photographing them and calling that process necessary for the sake of art. what the actual fuck. i could go on and on about this game for hours, honing in on every single detail and analyzing it, possibly writing a research paper about it 😂 but i'll cut it short this game that i discovered almost ten years ago literally altered my teenage brain, and almost ten years later, i am still able to learn from it and enjoy it. truly a timeless masterpiece ❤️